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It was supposed to be a decentralized digital cash, but we collectively turned it into some weird abomination. Nowadays, if you say "crypto" people will think o

It was supposed to be a decentralized digital cash, but we collectively turned it into some weird abomination. Nowadays, if you say "crypto" people will think of investments, scams, transfers that sidestep various sanctions and regulations, risks - anything but a decent payment method. It's sad, but that's what happened.

AnthonyMouse 1y ago
Crypto was always a stupid name anyway because people confuse it with cryptography. Come up with a different name for the thing where you use it as a digital payments system instead of a speculative bubble machine.
- beeflet 1y ago
  cryptocurrencies involve cryptography
  - AnthonyMouse 1y ago
    To begin with, no they don't. They use hashing and signatures, which are mathematically related to cryptography and often packaged in the same libraries or used together to construct cryptographic protocols, but cryptography (literally "secret writing") is specifically about making information indecipherable, which is the thing cryptocurrency typically doesn't do. More to the point, it's still misleading to call a ship the water.
    - beeflet 1y ago
      This is an absurd definition of cryptography. Are you going to say that zero-knowlege proofs are not cryptography? Are pedersen commitments not cryptography? Are ring signatures not cryptography (they use symmetric cryptography internally)? Asymmetric key cryptography is all the same thing. Digital signatures are cryptography. The "secret" being obscured cryptographicially is the information needed to produce a verifiable message. Your definition of cryptography might make sense to someone more than a century ago, but the state of the art has advanced greatly since then. The reason why you define cryptography like this, is I think political. For example, I am not sure you would extend the same logic to cryptographic voting schemes. Cryptocurrency is just another application of cryptography to solve coordination problems.
      - AnthonyMouse 1y ago
        > The "secret" being obscured cryptographicially is the information needed to produce a verifiable message. That's the key, not the message. > For example, I am not sure you would extend the same logic to cryptographic voting schemes. Isn't the purpose of a cryptographic voting system to keep your vote secret? > The reason why you define cryptography like this, is I think political. Yes, it's because people don't want things like end-to-end encryption associated with scams, and they're not wrong.
    - LtWorf 1y ago
      A "signature" is literally just encrypting a message with your private key.
      - AnthonyMouse 1y ago
        It's signing a message with your private key. The message itself, unless separately encrypted (and which in practice would be under a different key), is still plaintext.
        OneDeuxTriSeiGo 1y ago
        You claim this but signatures in many cases work by encrypting the hash so that it can be decrypted by the public key (and therefore if the decrypted hash matches the plaintext's hash, it's considered a valid signature). There's lots of schemes of course but that's the basic concept. (And of course I don't think anybody would seriously consider ECC signatures (which don't use encryption) as "not cryptography") Signatures are cryptography. Signatures work because of cryptography. And even ignoring that of course your whole "cryptocurrency isn't cryptography" stance completely falls apart for all of the many projects that are built on zero knowledge cryptography.
        AnthonyMouse 1y ago
        > You claim this but signatures in many cases work by encrypting the hash so that it can be decrypted by the public key (and therefore if the decrypted hash matches the plaintext's hash, it's considered a valid signature). Calling that "encrypting the hash" is assuming the conclusion. The mathematics are the same as encryption, but the consequence is different. In particular, the thing allegedly being "encrypted" isn't a secret -- the hash both isn't confidential and isn't required to be. > And even ignoring that of course your whole "cryptocurrency isn't cryptography" stance completely falls apart for all of the many projects that are built on zero knowledge cryptography. No, would imply that Monero is actually cryptocurrency and Bitcoin isn't. But if that's your position then you'd need to get everyone to stop calling Bitcoin cryptocurrency.
        1y ago

AnthonyMouse 1y ago

Crypto was always a stupid name anyway because people confuse it with cryptography. Come up with a different name for the thing where you use it as a digital payments system instead of a speculative bubble machine.

beeflet 1y ago
cryptocurrencies involve cryptography
- AnthonyMouse 1y ago
  To begin with, no they don't. They use hashing and signatures, which are mathematically related to cryptography and often packaged in the same libraries or used together to construct cryptographic protocols, but cryptography (literally "secret writing") is specifically about making information indecipherable, which is the thing cryptocurrency typically doesn't do. More to the point, it's still misleading to call a ship the water.
  - beeflet 1y ago
    This is an absurd definition of cryptography. Are you going to say that zero-knowlege proofs are not cryptography? Are pedersen commitments not cryptography? Are ring signatures not cryptography (they use symmetric cryptography internally)? Asymmetric key cryptography is all the same thing. Digital signatures are cryptography. The "secret" being obscured cryptographicially is the information needed to produce a verifiable message. Your definition of cryptography might make sense to someone more than a century ago, but the state of the art has advanced greatly since then. The reason why you define cryptography like this, is I think political. For example, I am not sure you would extend the same logic to cryptographic voting schemes. Cryptocurrency is just another application of cryptography to solve coordination problems.
    - AnthonyMouse 1y ago
      > The "secret" being obscured cryptographicially is the information needed to produce a verifiable message. That's the key, not the message. > For example, I am not sure you would extend the same logic to cryptographic voting schemes. Isn't the purpose of a cryptographic voting system to keep your vote secret? > The reason why you define cryptography like this, is I think political. Yes, it's because people don't want things like end-to-end encryption associated with scams, and they're not wrong.
  - LtWorf 1y ago
    A "signature" is literally just encrypting a message with your private key.
    - AnthonyMouse 1y ago
      It's signing a message with your private key. The message itself, unless separately encrypted (and which in practice would be under a different key), is still plaintext.
      - OneDeuxTriSeiGo 1y ago
        You claim this but signatures in many cases work by encrypting the hash so that it can be decrypted by the public key (and therefore if the decrypted hash matches the plaintext's hash, it's considered a valid signature). There's lots of schemes of course but that's the basic concept. (And of course I don't think anybody would seriously consider ECC signatures (which don't use encryption) as "not cryptography") Signatures are cryptography. Signatures work because of cryptography. And even ignoring that of course your whole "cryptocurrency isn't cryptography" stance completely falls apart for all of the many projects that are built on zero knowledge cryptography.
        AnthonyMouse 1y ago
        > You claim this but signatures in many cases work by encrypting the hash so that it can be decrypted by the public key (and therefore if the decrypted hash matches the plaintext's hash, it's considered a valid signature). Calling that "encrypting the hash" is assuming the conclusion. The mathematics are the same as encryption, but the consequence is different. In particular, the thing allegedly being "encrypted" isn't a secret -- the hash both isn't confidential and isn't required to be. > And even ignoring that of course your whole "cryptocurrency isn't cryptography" stance completely falls apart for all of the many projects that are built on zero knowledge cryptography. No, would imply that Monero is actually cryptocurrency and Bitcoin isn't. But if that's your position then you'd need to get everyone to stop calling Bitcoin cryptocurrency.
      - 1y ago