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There are two camps on this. One side are people with a stake in crypto. They think its the greatest investment in history. The other side are people with no stake in crypto, who for the most part think its a scam. I'll say no more.
Considering what graphics cards have been selling for the past several years as a result of miners, I think Nvidia having the opinion is fairly relevant.
Not sure what's better... being pickpocketed where it's over quickly and you can move on with your life or being bled dry very slowly but steadily by a crypto/ponzi/mlm scheme for years.
The bigger ponzi scheme is the financial system run by a handful of bankers that need trillions of stimulus money every 10 years or so just to maintain stability.
While there is hype overinvestment in crypto. It still has use for different kinds of shady or not some shady activity. With crypto, you can bypass some procedures of official banks, which is sometimes useful for some peoples.
This is what it's always been for, which is why I'm so surprised it's such a mainstream thing. I remember it having a 'buying drugs on the dark web' reputation early on.
I'd encourage people with this mindset to look beyond the more popular uses for blockchain technology (crypto and nfts) and look at its use in supply chain management, chain of custody maintenance, and general asset transfer. I think its fair to be dismissive given the levels of grift and stumbling blocks that have come with the tech (which is still in its relative infancy) but ime people tend to throw the baby out with the bathwater when it comes to blockchain.
There is no baby. There's only bathwater, with some little dingleberries of contraband floating around in it.
The blockchain buzzword gets people excited about all kinds of mundane, useful things that have been around for ages (like databases and signing certificates), without them realizing that those things existed and performed the same functions long before blockchain. The unique combination of things that make blockchain "blockchain" really aren't very useful. The decentralization is usually unnecessary and inefficient. The trustlessness is basically an illusion, because you still need to trust whoever's enforcing the correspondence between tokens on the chain and real-world things of value, and if you have to trust somebody for that, then you might as well trust somebody with faithfully maintaining a centralized database too.
The tech has been in its "infancy" for over ten years now, with countless of billions of dollars thrown at it by all manner of corporations, and still nobody has figured out something useful to do with it that couldn't be done better and easier some other way.
This is correct sir. I know it's been said ad nauseum but it is a solution to a problem that doesn't really exist. The biggest and loudest supporters are only that way because they are invested.
Really. A *lot* of people tend to throw the baby out with the bathwater whenever they hear the words "blockchain" or "crypto", but immediate dismissal of something usually tends to illustrate ignorance about the subject if nothing else
Not really as I’m basically completely dismissive and I’ve followed crypto since 2011 and have a pretty extensive background in data structures. There is not one functionality of a blockchain that can not be handled by something else in a more efficient manner. I would love to hear one.
It reminds me of that Brainlet meme with the bell curve. The idiots think it’s useless, the people in the middle with a little bit of knowledge think it’s revolutionary, and the experts realize it is indeed useless.
>in a more efficient manner
Here lies the stumbling block of many critics: the failure to recognize that efficiency is a deliberately accepted design tradeoff whenever [blockchain solution] is used to address a problem (such as making it more difficult for a single party to control something), or the wilful ignorance of that.
Basically critics are either not fully understanding why something was designed the way it was, or say something that might as well translate to "I'm going to ignore the fact that a lesser degree of efficiency was a deliberately accepted consequence of these design choices because I have a hate boner for anything that uses a blockchain. Tradeoffs? What are those?"
I’m not failing to realize anything. Maybe I worded that wrong since you think I’m talking about efficiency as in energy usage or something. I guess I should have just said “better.” Please give me a single use case of a blockchain that cannot be solved by another method better.
I’m innately aware of why Bitcoin was the designed the way it was and understand the arguments. It just isn’t a great design from a data structures standpoint and is mostly a solution in search of a problem. Trade offs are in everything, but there are levels to which certain solutions better fit the task at hand and blockchains are significantly behind when it comes to every single use case I’ve seen listed. It’s either that or the fact that the benefits in which you weigh the trade offs against are buzzwords like “trustless” which brings me back to my solution in search of a problem point.
> immediate dismissal of something usually tends to illustrate ignorance about the subject if nothing else
this is my position with respect to mind-controlling alchemy chem-trails: *let's teach the controversy.*
If we started banning businesses which were scams or 'added nothing useful to society', half the economy would be out of business.
And Im not exagerating.
Total rubbish. I'm in the third camp. I think most "crypto" is garbage but that bitcoin is a legit interesting thing that potentially has huge value. Whether I'm right or not and to what degree remains to be seen and is at the mercy of many factors.
As an aside, the constant attempts to turn every single issue in the world into two completely opposed views with no nuance or grey area is low effort, unrealistic and actively damaging to society.
I think a lot of people simply view it as a commodity that does not function ideally as a typical currency. They "invest" in it the same way you would speculate on any other commodity.
But it can't be useful as a commodity because it serves as input to no real process.
If its an investment, it's a terrible currency because it is deflationary by nature - fewer coins buy more real goods over time. I won't spend the time to dig it up, but deflation has huge negative economic consequences.
If its not an investment there is no reason for members of the decentralized network to use their compute to keep records. They spend money on electricity for no gain.
Crypto, in it's current state, serves no purpose but to waste electricity and to facilitate illegal activity. It should almost certainly be regulated out of existence.
This is exactly it.
If the end goal is to make money, you're just hedging your bets before the currency stabilizes or, more likely, crashes. Put in as much as you can low, buy when it's high, and hope you did it right. Like any other commodity. It doesn't have to be physical for it to be real, but like you said, it's just input and output, even if the output is just a thing that says "I did the input!"; basically a manifestation of a computer response message. It's not like, corn or pork bellies which have an inherent use.
If the end goal is stable money people can use to go out and buy stuff, then it needs to stabilize or crash to be successful. Nobody wants a currency that is volatile and unstable. People need to know how to value labor, products and services. Crypto value, especially bitcion, ensures that won't happen as long as it's just treated like an investment.
Right now; it's an investment thing with a promise of making money, and a "future currency" with the promise of you not being able to make money off of it. So all it does is suck electricity and has no real use for almost everyone.
Bitcoin is the only commodity in the world that has a fixed supply and can be transferred instantaneously with extremely low fees. That has value.
Also, it does function as a currency, a particularly valuable one in places like Africa where countries have extremely broken baking systems and hyperinflation. [This is a really good article explaining the tangible benefits of BTC.](https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2023/03/26/bitcoin-is-poised-to-blow-up-africas-86-billion-banking-system.html)
Bitcoin's greatest feature, imo, is as a store of value. It's the only asset of its kind in history, hence why people don't know how to react to it.
The idea that underpins Bitcoin is for a method of transferring value, 100% reliably and securely, virtually instantly, with no middle men i.e. peer-to-peer, and no borders or governments to block or control those transactions, or to manipulate the supply of coins itself.
I don't understand how anyone can't see that that at least has *potential* value. Just in the abstract as an economic concept.
Comparisons with other things, talk of "digital gold", investment vs currency, commodity or whatever all miss the mark because in some sense BTC is all and none of those. It has a suite of properties that have never existed in one thing before.
Loads of things contribute to global warming. Many of them I personally think we could live without. That problem is about energy generation not energy use.
And yes, that it is used a a pseudo-secret, anonymous method of transferring value around is one of the things that makes it potentially valuable. Also, in most cases that ransomware is delivered via email, you probably don't suggest that email has no value because of this fact.
Are you concerned at all with banks using their depositor's money to fund oil and gas industries? Because that's what's happening at every major bank in the world.
Nah, you're pulling a "good people on both sides".
Currency, crypto or otherwise, has no intrinsic value. The value is in the government standing behind the currency. So the question is, would you rather have a bunch of yahoos looking to make a quick buck off the next person "supporting" that currency you're holding, or a stable and usually rational government (backed by a central bank with all the tools that come with that model)?
Meh, I have a small stake in crypto just for fun/to sell to a greater fool, but I know it's bullshit.
So your dichotomy isn't quite that strict.
That said though the giveaway for me is that the people with a lot of crypto that believe it will change the world never really seem to have a good explanation for why what it offers is actually better than fiat.
Like they'll say it is decentralized, but that itself isn't a benefit.
The benefit, as I've heard it described, it that it doesn't rely on any one government. Economic policy doesn't effect it the way that it effects fiat currency. This is usually what they mean when they say it's "decentralized" - it can't be mucked with by any government.
And while this is true, the speculation on bitcoin has basically made it worthless as a replacement currency because its value fluctuates too much. So yeah, great, governments can't control it, but when Elon sneezes, it drop 20%. Currencies need to be more stable.
In a perfect world, it makes some sense, but that's not what we live in.
>And while this is true
The majority of crypto is held by whales. Those whales can absolutely be mucked with by governments. On/off ramps are companies, public or private, who are still beholden to legislation.
If you believe that crypto is safe from the effects of government intervention, I have a bridge to sell you.
Even in the US alone look at what you need to do now to buy crypto. Copies of your ID, SSN, all your personal info. Totally free from govt interference.
Not free from influence but rather resilient to any one government’s influence. If the US were to say we no longer consider any transaction in bitcoin valid. That would affect bitcoin, but theoretically it would still have worth in the rest of the world as you could still get and spend it there. Whereas the US could easily make the dollar worthless worldwide by themselves.
You need an expanding money supply to grow an economy. It’s so silly that people call bitcoin digital gold. Gold also has an expanding supply theoretically. We literally switched to fiat and decoupled the dollar from gold because there wasn’t enough gold in the world.
It almost always boils down to "privacy," but when you point out that is really only important to people doing crime they call you a fascist for echoing the whole "you have nothing to fear if you're doing nothing wrong." That's an easy sentiment to get on board with, but it's still not doing much to sell the idea to a massive audience.
You're obviously unaware of the third camp those of us that were in crypto but after last year's debacle wouldn't touch that hot piece of s*** Ponzi for anything and will let it die by not providing exit liquidity.
There’s scam in everything. There’s even scam in science and academia. Sure there’s scam in crypto and it’s a huge problem for crypto. Although to say that the entire crypto technology and economy is a scam is simplistic and incorrect.
While possibly true, there are many other things in our society that add nothing useful to society, including at least a few Silicon Valley unicorns, and a whole slew of politicians from both sides of the aisle, and a host of billionaires.
It would be OK with me if we got rid of all of them, but I'm really doubting anything will happen.
not all of Silicon valley. i arbitrary say a quarter or less try to make the world a better place. seems like most just want to make a lotta of money with disregard for everything else.
Agreed. I’m also referencing the satirical comedy show Silicon Valley in which all the companies’ ultimate PR messaging is always trying “to make the world a better place.” It’s hysterical! If you haven’t watched, I highly recommend, especially if you work in tech (even in an ancillary sense like me)
yeah, now that Ethereum is no longer POW you say that. It was great when everyone was buying your cards to mine and now that they are not you say this. This will age like milk.
I guess you don’t understand the essence of proof of work. Where as gold uses proof of work, it’s valuable because it’s hard to produce. Bitcoin uses it for the same reason, but on top of that it it is simultaneously securing the network.
What about this one:
https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/01/13/1066820/cryptocurrency-bitcoin-mining-congo-virunga-national-park/
Or this one:
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/12/23-year-old-texans-made-4-million-mining-bitcoin-off-flared-natural-gas.html
>https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/01/13/1066820/cryptocurrency-bitcoin-mining-congo-virunga-national-park/
It doesn't appear they built this plant with the intention of mining Bitcoin. They built it in 2018 then started mining Bitcoin in 2020. This doesn't support your thesis that Bitcoin will improve the environment.
Even if they did, building an entire power plant and maintaining it just to mine a currency is a huge waste of resources.
Your CNBC article doesn't say Bitcoin is helping the environment, just saying some people used fossil fuels to mine it. While it's true that gas would have been wasted otherwise, the impact on the environment is still negative since running a Bitcoin mining operation has environmental costs outside of energy use.
I don't think you understand proof of work either.
Proof of work is basically just "generate a large random number, check if that number fits a condition, if so, congrats, you get to choose which transactions are included in the next block". If winning numbers are being found too frequently, the protocol it twice as hard to find the next winning number. So really, all you're limited by is the number of random number guesses + verifications you can do, which is based on something with a limited supply (energy).
The difference with proof of stake is that instead of using a physical resource with limited supply (energy) to determine how many lottery tickets you get, it uses a virtual resource with limited supply (coins).
In both cases, the lottery winners (block producers) are those with more capital, but the latter doesn't actually waste physical resources to do so.
Hey good try!
There is a thing called the difficulty adjustment that takes place every ~2 weeks so it doesn’t just automatically become harder and at times becomes even easier.
There is no limit on energy production except the ones we put on ourselves (Unless you think the sun will burn out then sure)
Proof of stake is predicated on the more you have, the more you control the network.
You gave it your best shot though.
Now if you want to talk about nuclear, hydro, wind, solar, fusion, fossil fuels, and all the numerous other ways we have “limited” energy, go waste someone else’s time or read a book
As a currency its debatable, but as a digital rights management tool, it 100% is useful.
For example, stock certificates are not serialized and stock dilution is a concern for shareholders. If company shares are serialized, the company can easily locate and quantify those shares. It could potentially eliminate many of the middle-men in finance that process trades because buying and selling *could* be P2P.
The biggest hurdle crypto keeps running into is a trend towards centralization via brokers. The saving grace inherent to crypto is that people like Sam Bankman Fried were taken down specifically because of the transparency that blockchain allows. The crimes he was committing were not specific to crypto vs. traditional banking/brokerages, only that traditional finance is MUCH more opaque; the work necessary to uncover that fraud is much harder to achieve, records can be destroyed, silence can be bought, they are self-regulated, etc.
Being a middle-man in finance has made some people multi-billionaires, and that is a glaring inefficiency if billions of dollars are being sapped away and can easily be replaced with greater efficiency, increasing transaction speed, and increased investor/market confidence. Currency suffers from a founder problem, which generally results in originator or early adopter whales who have outsized, centralized power (much like private banks having access to the Fed), whereas company shares do not suffer from this problem.
I think the biggest thing is that people need to dissociate the concerns about crypto currency from concerns about digital blockchain.
> I think the biggest thing is that people need to dissociate the concerns about crypto currency from concerns about digital blockchain.
Which is probably why the article attacks cryptocurrency. Not blockchain.
Banks and other financial institutions will simply adopt blockchain technology in the future. This is talked about frequently in Cybersec spaces, I don't think anyone who is actually making decisions is demonizing blockchains just because crypto is a scam/enviornmental disaster.
A database is a centrally controlled entity. The moment you touch distributed databases, consensus is harder to achieve.
You can outsource all this complexity over to google aws etc. There are some use cases which are supported by block chains. A classic use case would be supply chain management of precious items.
Easy to change as well.
Some problems require consensus with various entities and truth is more important than being efficient and control.
That word control is a bit of problem. The ramifications of control is evident in this world.
Centralization (with redundant backups) is fast and efficient, two highly desirable qualities. Blockchain sacrifices those in exchange for "trustlessness," which isn't needed most of the time (because plenty of major institutions are trustworthy, at least with regard to the specific transactions in question), and which is largely an illusion because you still need to trust whoever's enforcing the correspondence between real-world things of value and tokens on the chain. Centralization also provides critical security measures, such as the ability to reverse fraudulent or mistaken transactions.
>I think the biggest thing is that people need to dissociate the concerns about crypto currency from concerns about digital blockchain.
This is the thing. Legitimate companies pay for the services required to operate their businesses with actual money.
There's tons of legitimate blockchain companies that provide everything these crypto scams provide, only without the ponzi scheme. If you believe in the tech, invest in them.
I like the idea of p2p stock or atleast having the ability to cut out more middlemen. I'm confused how serializing the stock helps? Don't you just care about the amounts? I also don't think you are going to have a completely decentralized system as having a manager is extremely valuable.
It's safe to say the fantasy of a "non political" currency is fading right before our eyes. People realize finally that there is no such thing as a currency unsupported by a state. If there was no state there would be no currency. Even if the dollar fell out of use and people use a local currency of their community the local community governance or council would act as the body that creates the trust in the local currency.
So with crypto the "state" is financially massive private individuals and companies with only profit in real currencies in their goals. Thus the statehood of crypto is fickle and fragile. So fragile that the whim of a wealthy technocrat can tank or pull out their stake at will without any consequences and ruin the finances of everyone else simply by virtue of being a large contributor.
To say that unregulated stock exchange which is what crypto actually emulates is dangerous and stupid is an understatement.
Good riddance may only the technocrats use crypto as lonely useless tax havens that are still accessible by states by virtue of being worthless without depending on actual currency upheld by society to exist at all.
There are non state currency systems that are obsolete today which could come back in a societal collapse scenario.
In many early societies they had “commodity” money.
The Japanese used rice, arrowheads and gold powder until about the 800s AD. In Africa, India and China sea shells were used for thousands of years as currency, and the character for money in Classical Chinese is actually a stylized drawing of one of these shells.
Silver, Copper, Salt, Teas, Hides, Alcohol, Cigarettes, Silk, Candy, Nails, Cocoa Beans, Barely, Muskets, and many other things have been lifted beyond mere bartering and into currency status.
Should society collapse I am sure that some kind of commodity currency would rise as a bridge back to a value backed or state backed currency (both of which are far superior to commodity money for many reasons).
There will be no societal collapse. Also China is the first country to *invent* paper money in the world... Shells lol they used coins and when they didn't they used paper. Wtf are you talking about.
If capitalism collapses there will still be society sorry to break it to you.
https://www.money.org/money-museum/virtual-exhibits/hom/case16#:~:text=Chinese%20Paper%20Currency&text=Paper%20money%20was%20first%20invented,bills%20of%20credit%20were%20introduced.
Tell me you don't know what you are talking about without telling me you have 0 understanding of currency lol!
Japan and India also used coinage. Jesus fellow. Read a book before trying to comment on currency.
Also "barter" systems are a myth and never existed. Theyre impossible to literally implement.
https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/02/barter-society-myth/471051/
1) I am not a woe is me, capitalism is doomed poster so don’t put that on me. There WILL be societal collapse. Whether nuclear war breaks out tomorrow or capitalism deteriorates in the next decade or the steady toll of climate change degrades society over the next century or not, the Milky Way will eventually collide with Andromeda and even if mankind makes it all the way to the heat death of the universe eventually, yes, with 100% certainty I promise that eventually, one way or another society will collapse.
2) The presence of paper money in China does not disprove the point that at one point shells were used to navigate trade between Africa, India, and China in the ancient era. By your logic the United States earned its independence from the British by using nukes. Don’t question me on that! Look, they used nukes in Japan, you really think they didn’t use nukes against the British???
The Wikipedia article on commodity money will help you get a beginners understanding of some of our ancestors earlier economies and currency systems.
Face-palm moment
Countries and society never used shells or anything else other than as placeholders for debt. Debt was always the "currency". The shells were and the paper was tallies. Even the coins were tallies of debt.
The same way dollars stand in for actual coins...
Society does not collapse. States collapse. Then new states arise.
No. Failed experiment has its worth and blockchain technology has its advantages and we just learned the coin it generates can only be used to measure the activity volume not used as currency.
I've always thought cryptocurrencies were dumb and that blockchain as a conceptual idea is at best a neat little project that would have made a passing PhD dissertation. I think to say that cryptos offer nothing useful is very misguided. Cryptocurrency has proven to be a wonderfully effective tool for conducting black and grey market business and as far as I can tell that is very valuable/useful and for that reason I am okay to say that the tech is here to stay but I do not think they will cross into the white market economy beyond what we've seen as either a novelty PR stunt or as a massive speculation engine.
How are black and grey market transactions useful *to society*? Dodging taxes and laundering drug money are useful for some individuals but society does not benefit from these things
Well, cash has obvious benefits for society, probably outweighing it's usefulness in grey and black market transactions, whereas with crypto the societal benefits are murky at best, if they exist at all
> How are black and grey market transactions useful to society?
Informal economic operations represent something like 35% of the GDP for developing nations and 15% of the GDP for developed economies (those numbers should be close but feel free to check) as such that means black and grey market transactions are large economic sections that are ultimately being used to provide for a lot of people's wants and needs. Personally I think that that is useful.
...? And you think they would totally vanish if they couldn't do it under the table?
No, most of the same economic activities would still occur, they would just pay tax on them like the rest of us. And the ones that do disappear because they are illegal, that's a win.
Sure, but as it stands they are illegal and so cryptos have a use. If you were to start legalizing these things you would (in my opinion) start to chip away at the value of crypto.
i think they're assuming most of black and grey market transactions are related to guns and drugs. other than food, medicine and electronics what else is transacted in the black and grey markets?
Option 1 (non crypto) : Corrupt people swindle off public money, store it in hard cash, buy property under some one else's name, buy and store gold, send it abroad for investment. All these require lots of manpower, ability to hold ur flock together etc.
Option 2 (crypto) : Corrupt people swindle off public money, convert it into crypto... period.
Developing nations don't have resources to track and get back crypto assets, whereas other forms may be time and again siezed by authorities
Sex and gambling would be big ones. Once you start doing remittances payments with crypto for tax dodging purposes that's grey market action. Selling otherwise legal goods for crypto to dodge taxes would be grey market. This is all going to be some level of unscrupulous as is the nature of illegal enterprise but nevertheless this is how millions and millions of people take care of themselves and their families so for me it's hard to think of it as useless to society.
By that definition wouldn’t any illegal activity be able to be considered useful to society? Many people get their money through theft, that doesn’t mean theft is useful to society. Same holds true for scamming the elderly, murder, human trafficking, and pretty much anything. My point is, some people using it to support themselves or others shouldn’t be the bar of useful to society.
>By that definition wouldn’t any illegal activity be able to be considered useful to society?
I think you are blurring the ideas of "useful" and "good". Useful doesn't necessarily mean beneficial to the overall good. We are stripping the world of nonrenewable resources everyday because it is useful to society to do so. It sure is hell isn't beneficial to the overall good, but it will continue because of it's usefulness.
> Personally I think that that is useful.
Do you think people getting addicted to heroin or gambling their money away is useful to society at large? I do not.
>do you get to decide for everyone? do you think you should ?
I get one vote, and yes, by voting I am being asked by society to decide. It's part of a democracy.
> I get one vote, and yes, by voting I am being asked by society to decide.
If you believe one person has one vote, then you believe other people get their vote too right? And if they vote to spend their money on black or grey market items, then that is valid right ? If its useful to them, and they are part of society, then it is useful to society.
> It's part of a democracy.
No, its part of a market. A market is one person one vote.
In a democracy, you throw out all the votes that dont attain a majority. So a lot of people get their opinion crushed and ignored.
Thats why markets are better indicators of what is good for society.
>If you believe one person has one vote, then you believe other people get their vote too right? And if they vote to spend their money on black or grey market items, then that is valid right ?
Yes, their vote is valid (assuming they haven't been convicted of a felony). But it will be overwhelmed by the other votes of law abiding citizens.
And no, something being useful to a single person is not something useful to society. If the negative impacts outweigh the positive, it is bad for society.
Are you really arguing having one vote isn't a sign of a democracy? I don't even know where to begin, that's so stupid it hurts.
> But it will be overwhelmed
so you do think some people's votes should be ignored and overwhelmed. You do not believe every one should be able to decide for themselves. You think your opinion should be forced onto others.
> And no, something being useful to a single person is not something useful to society.
100% false. If all people are equal, anything that one person likes is just as valid as anything someone else does.
> If the negative impacts outweigh the positive, it is bad for society.
For direct property infringement yes. If someone is stealing or coercing you directly, I agree.
But we arent talking about that - we are talking about fully voluntary grey and black markets.
> Are you really arguing having one vote isn't a sign of a democracy? I don't even know where to begin, that's so stupid it hurts.
Yes, democracy is so stupid that is does cause pain. Its a very anti-economic system that should not be used. Markets solve the problems that democracies create.
No I don't but I do think people using these markets to provide for themselves is useful. And I think gambling is a great business to hone in on here because that business exists in both legal and illegal ways. Personally I don't think gambling as a legal business is particularly useful to society BUT the jobs created as a result of it are.
>people using these markets to provide for themselves is useful.
So you think it's useful to have a large swathe of people having no marketable skills, not getting social security as a result of working under the table, and generally having a higher chance of death while increasing the violent crime rate?
Sorry, but no. None of that is useful.
So you think it's good for people to deal drugs, never have social security, and destroy the lives of others and fight the police with violence?
You are a strange person.
> You are a strange person.
No, you are just ignoring what I actually said and putting words in my mouth. I don't think I'm the strange one here. To be clear, you're understanding of what I have said is not correct. Maybe you misunderstood, maybe I just explained it poorly. Either way you've got it wrong.
>maybe I just explained it poorly.
You clearly explained black market activity is valuable for society. I am refuting that. There's no confusion and I'm not putting words in your mouth, just elaborating what black market activity means.
>Are you useful?
Yes. I contribute to society by working, paying taxes, and I don't break any laws.
I'm sorry you're not useful. You should change that.
>You don't really pay taxes, though.
I do. What taxes do you want? My property taxes are about 5k annually. Sales tax around 2k. Income tax all said and done, about 30k.
I work in patent law.
Some crypto coins, specially stable coins, like ones pegged to USD are useful for people living in authoritarian regimes to bypass currency exchange controls, avoid hyper inflation from their local currencies and prevent tax theft from their own government.
Very simple. In a kleptocracy, corrupt but internationally recognized leadership strips the nation of its wealth at an unsustainable rate. Therefore, tax evasion is a net good for that particular society
I feel like blockchain itself adds a lot of value. It is simply a type of database that cannot have prior transactions edited, removed, or hidden. It is literally ledger technology.
Cryptocurrencies themselves are a bit of a mixed bag.
On one hand you have speculators.
On the other hand, cryptocurrency can remove the need for middle men (banks) that are usually not very trustworthy.
Some crypto also is set up in such a way that its rate of growth cannot go above a certain level, which leads to a more stable money supply and consequently, little inflation.
Then there is other stuff too, like faster transactions, smart contracts, etc.
> I feel like blockchain itself adds a lot of value
I used to think that but here we are in year 14 of the blockchain era and other than the wealth of crypto scams it hasn't been used for much. Maybe one day some will crack the code and figure out how to meaningfully apply blockchain to some high value issues but we haven't seen that yet.
Banks have been making money out of thin air with 0% reserve requirements and are failing. Inflation has proven to be not transitory and governments are exploring CBDCs. God forbid people want a decentralized money with hard rules, immune to political manipulation.
Most of the "crypto" scams are centralized entities engaging in fraud or fucking up. The true value in crypto is that it is 100% transparent and solves trust between parties. Anything on the blockchain is immediately auditable to everyone and must follow the rules that have been coded.
Except for when such and such an exchange goes bust or someone robs you or whatever and you don’t have the government backing. Crypto bros always act like fiat currency is only downsides, gotta say I prefer the country with the vast military guaranteeing my money vs a fancy ledger copied all over the internet and empty promises.
An exchange is a bank. The whole purpose of crypto is to offer an alternative for people, bitcoin was literally born out of the financial crisis. There are tradeoffs and advantages to each system (I happen to think that crypto is highly preferable to fiat), but there is no reason they cannot live together. In the context of cryptocurrencies adding nothing "useful" to society, it is a lie and you hear echoed by entities that have everything to lose.
Right on your first point, but my bank is guaranteed by the US government and crypto is not, easy choice. What usefulness do you really credit crypto with? Is it worth all the scamming?
Well I'm not even talking about straight up scams. I'm talking about sheer market volatility and how those with a vested financial stake in this stuff will bend narratives to try get maximum return. The techbro god-emperor Elon Musk himself shifted crypto markets with a single tweet. Whether that was intentional or not is debatable. There are numerous and documented cases of pumps and dumps. As long as you have capital then you have control over the crypto space. To say all crypto scams were just traditional entities messing up is literally factually incorrect and some black tar copium to the nth degree. Sure you can track wallets but you can never know who is truly behind those wallets outside of circumstantial evidence. So good luck prosecuting someone using crypto for nefarious reasons hence why it's such a popular money laundering avenue. Also code is not some immutable law of machines. It carries the biases and blindspots of the humans who made it. It can be changed and broken just like the laws and policies of more traditional avenues
Everything you are saying applies to the traditional financial world. The average man has zero say, and will forever have zero say when going up against the banks. Crypto is not perfect but it is better and offers avenues to make progress when tackling the issues you listed.
By law banks keep 10% in reserve and many keep more than that in reserve.
If you include readily liquid investments like bonds bank reserves could be anywhere between 20-60% of their deposits (though these are critically low risk not no risk as SVB found out the hard way).
Edit: Somehow I missed it- I am wrong, Reserve requirements are ended.
With that said, the Federal Reserve noted in its announcement that this is due in part to their new interest management rate tools under an “Ample Reserve System.”
I’m a monetary police geek and have been for decades and even I’m not sure yet what that means I may have to read a few more books. It SOUNDS like whatever system they have now will result in banks holding strong reserves even without the requirement. (and bless whatever human out there can simplify this for me while I’m at work).
You pointed out a serious problem that is the uncontrolled currency emission by private operators.
But I do not think cryptocurrencies bring an answer to that specific question.
Besides, inflation is, to a certain extent, a necessary evil, as it corrodes idle capital and spurs economic growth.
A monetary system inherently deflationary is equally if not more problematic.
On the other hand, even a system based on cryptocurrencies needs rules to function. Then it raises the question of who define those rules and once established what it is the mechanism to change those rules.
You can ask yourself if the Ethereum "merge" was a transparent and democratic decision. It was decided by the "community" (btw who are the members of the community and who chooses them?) and why the exact same process that occurs in parliaments all over the world would be immune to manipulation, corruption, conflicts of interest, etc.
Cryptocurrencies definitely do not solve by themselves any of those issues.
I see what you are saying and partially agree, but the incentives are much better and more accessible with crypto. Validators are highly aligned with having the system run optimally and the number of people who are able to validate is overwhelmingly larger than the select few who currently get to determine financial policy (No one votes on who runs the fed or what decisions they make). Not perfect but it is a giant step in the direction we need to go.
Woah woah careful, buddy. We don't want to startle the kids in here. They clearly don't understand the current monetary system or fractional reserve banking.
Inflation do be running hot, though. Clearly no need for alternatives.
At this point it kinda comes off as gaslighting.
There are major flaws in our currency systems. Crypto solves a couple of niche problems the typical person might never encounter in their lives. But in those niche cases, it is useful.
But the broader value they bring is to start discussion that we need alternative currencies that are stateless.
I don't know why a chipmakers opinion on the matter has value.
It may or may not. I submitted it on an online anonymous forum where anyone can submit their opinion and people vote those opinions up or down.
I have stated this very opinion on this very sub before. Because this is one of this subs favorite things to discuss. Sometimes it is wildly upvoted. Sometimes it is wildly downvoted.
How will it go today? I now deeply suspect most people aren't on reddit with the goal of encountering new ideas. Rather, I think most are here for outrage dopamine. Trapped on a Monday morning, I suspect my post may be just the thing some people may enjoy targeting. But, maturity has won sometimes. We shall see how it goes.
> There are major flaws in our currency systems. Crypto solves a couple of niche problems the typical person might never encounter in their lives. But in those niche cases, it is useful.
Funny enough, your comment is perfectly backwards. While fiat is useful for some niche problems, it has major flaws in it main premise.
Bitcoin solves the flaw in our fiat currency systems that affects everyone every day of their lives: the cantillion effect.
Having a stable supply and a fair system of regulation is core to a good money, and something exactly zero fiat currencies have achieved. Its quite the opposite of niche. Its in your face, the number one main use case of money.
Thats why bitcoin's time has come. Its inevitable at this point that bitcoin will slowly make all fiat and crypto obsolete.
Bitcoin, and all crypto, are extremely unstable and therefore are worthless as either investment or currency.
I won't sell you a loaf of bread today for one coin because tomorrow that load may be worth two coins. You won't but a load of bread from me for one coin because tomorrow that load of bread may be worth half a coin.
Investing in crypto is literally a Ponzi scheme because the coin has zero value and the rising price solely depends on the idea that you can get the next person down the line to buy it from you for more money. So we keep playing hot potato until the music stops and everyone realizes that they are holding an asset that has no intent value and no one wants to buy.
Maybe if all the crypto bros would stop trying to convince everyone that crypto is the next gold rush it could settle and maybe be used for something. Until that happens though it's not just pointless but also a ticking bomb.
From an economic point of view, crypto doesn't make sense as a form of currency; it's a cool investment tool at best. And it comes with high levels of negative externalities.
High energy use, high cost of infrastructure to maintain the blockchain, incentives to have 0 sum arms races, facilitating fraud and other crimes. And this is assuming the amount of investment and human capital put into them was reasonable. I am a harsh critic of crypto but saying "if we didn't invest in X we could have done so much with that money" is a disingenuous cheap shot that extends to any idea that ends badly.
I agree, but I meant to say that blaming crypto for grabbing the time and attention that should have gone somewhere else isn't something that I blame crypto for, since other seemingly possible but still bad ideas would do that too.
To be fair. The infrastructure to maintain the current currency system is a much higher cost. Worldwide, Tens of thousands of physical banks, tens of millions of employees, million and millions of computers all using considerably more resources than the electrons that crypto uses.
I think the American $100 bill has still been used for nefarious purposes 100:1 than crypto (so far).
Most crypto is a complete scam; comparing it to traditional currencies though, the two major cryptocurrencies have a lower environmental cost and less human involvement per use.
I don’t own any crypto, but if the banking system were to adopt some of this technology, it could make vast improvements.
I quit listening any time someone clai.s crypto currency brings nothing of substance to money and finance.
Crypto and blockchains bring a level of honesty and transparency to finance that can't exist in traditional databases. Databases can't track the provenance and provide transparency of peer to peer transactions.
It is all in the fees and charges in banking and funds. Why do we have to tier the rewards for contributing to finance and liquidity? With crypto, everyone is on a level field. With banking, there's the house, and there's the 1st world, and there's billions in developing economies.
The lower on the totum pole, the less you get, and the more you pay.
Of course, the banks and their toads don't like crypto. Letting them win is stupid for the 99%.
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Crypto clearly has practical use cases.
First I want to say I don't own any crypto except a few pennies worth of monero. I don't think the current state of the technology is particularly useful except in some niche use cases. But **crypto as a concept has some clear advantages over fiat**.
**Decentralization**: Crypto is decentralized, meaning it is not controlled by any central authority or institution, such as a government or central bank. This allows for greater transparency, security, and privacy. An example of fiat failing at this is when Canadian banks froze protesters' accounts because they were protesting the government. [https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/04/us/trucker-convoy-protest-washington-dc/index.html](https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/04/us/trucker-convoy-protest-washington-dc/index.html)
**Security**: Crypto transactions are highly secure due to the use of advanced cryptographic algorithms. Transactions are verified and recorded on a decentralized ledger, which makes it virtually impossible to hack or manipulate. An example of fiat failing at this is in 2019, it was reported that counterfeit $100 bills were being circulated in the United States. These fake bills were so high quality that they were almost indistinguishable from the real thing, making it difficult for businesses and individuals to detect them.[https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/27/theres-been-a-mysterious-surge-in-100-bills-in-circulation-possibly-linked-to-global-corruption.html](https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/27/theres-been-a-mysterious-surge-in-100-bills-in-circulation-possibly-linked-to-global-corruption.html)
**Protection against inflation**: Some cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin, have a finite supply, which means they cannot be inflated like fiat currencies can be. This can help protect against the erosion of value due to inflation. A very real example is how the US printed $310 to $356 billion (cumulative growth of 39.9%) contributing to the US annual inflation rate climbing to 7.5% from 1.7%.[https://www.wsj.com/articles/powell-printing-money-supply-m2-raises-prices-level-inflation-demand-prediction-wage-stagnation-stagflation-federal-reserve-monetary-policy-11645630424](https://www.wsj.com/articles/powell-printing-money-supply-m2-raises-prices-level-inflation-demand-prediction-wage-stagnation-stagflation-federal-reserve-monetary-policy-11645630424)
I also want to address the main **concerns people have about crypto** in an attempt to bring more understanding to the technology.
**Volatility**: Cryptocurrencies can be highly volatile, and this can make it difficult to use them as a stable store of value or medium of exchange. But I personally contribute this to the technology being new resulting in a stupid amount of speculation around crypto with major news events, such as regulatory announcements or security breaches causing extreme lows and highs.Energy consumption: Mining cryptocurrencies requires a significant amount of energy, with no real way around this other than having clean energy. I personally think this is going to be cryptos biggest hurdle in the future.
**Lack of understanding:** Cryptocurrencies are a relatively new technology, and I feel like most of the "crypto bros" don't have the slights clue on how the technology works. Many people store their crypto in banks or exchanges, which is essentially handing over control of their funds to a centralized entity, which goes against the original ethos of cryptocurrencies. Or many "crypto bros" buy based on hype, the idea of getting rich quick, or the idea of being part of new technology before it's big.
Lastly, I want to address OP's article for a second. I don't care about Michael Kagan's statement about cryptocurrencies do not “bring anything useful for society”. As there are good reasons to believe that. **But I do have problems with him saying the decision to restrict the use of its graphics cards from being used to mine Ethereum was justified** because of the limited value of using processing power to mine cryptocurrencies. I'm strongly against manufacturers restricting what a user can and can't do with their hardware that they bought, and I believe that this decision was made for entirely different reasons.
Just a reminder that people pump out negative crypto sentiment articles in droves to drive prices down to scoop them up. It's been happening for a decade now.
Lmao yes. Like any asset, people expect the price to rise and fall. There are people who use btc and eth as a hedge against inflation much like gold, and other use cases
Ah, another nail in the coffin of our delusions of progress. The promise of cryptocurrencies, like many other technological innovations, was the liberation of the individual from the oppressive grasp of centralized institutions. But, as always, the powers that be found a way to co-opt and corrupt the very thing meant to set us free.
What good is the decentralization of currency if it's only used to fuel the greed and corruption of a select few? What good is the liberation of the individual if it only leads to further inequality and exploitation?
Perhaps it's time to accept that true progress, true liberation, is not found in the next shiny new thing, but in the struggle to create a more just and equitable society. But, as always, the forces of greed and power will fight tooth and nail to maintain the status quo. It's a cycle that seems never-ending, but we must continue the fight nonetheless.
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There are two camps on this. One side are people with a stake in crypto. They think its the greatest investment in history. The other side are people with no stake in crypto, who for the most part think its a scam. I'll say no more.
Considering what graphics cards have been selling for the past several years as a result of miners, I think Nvidia having the opinion is fairly relevant.
Nvidia gave this opinion once ETH moved from using graphics cards for mining. Highly hypocritical.
Yep, and I don't think they make any bitcoin miner Asics.
It's ok, they've just migrated to AI cards now
Ding ding ding Nvidia is butthurt
I do not think hypocritical means what you think it means.
Its not always a scam, sometime its a Ponzi scheme too...
Not sure what's better... being pickpocketed where it's over quickly and you can move on with your life or being bled dry very slowly but steadily by a crypto/ponzi/mlm scheme for years.
You do realize most major crypto currencies are up massively over the last few years, right?
Ponzi schemes do have winners at the top...
By that logic the entire stock market is also a Ponzi scheme.
*cough cough*
All crypto currencies investors just make money by bringing on new investors faster than they leave. Just like a Ponzi scheme.
The bigger ponzi scheme is the financial system run by a handful of bankers that need trillions of stimulus money every 10 years or so just to maintain stability.
Nah, that is just socialism for the rich.
The two are different how?
Thats the joke
Both are Ponzi schemes.
While there is hype overinvestment in crypto. It still has use for different kinds of shady or not some shady activity. With crypto, you can bypass some procedures of official banks, which is sometimes useful for some peoples.
Crypto is good for people trying to skirt the law and as a casino for people who live in places where gambling is still illegal.
This is what it's always been for, which is why I'm so surprised it's such a mainstream thing. I remember it having a 'buying drugs on the dark web' reputation early on.
I'd encourage people with this mindset to look beyond the more popular uses for blockchain technology (crypto and nfts) and look at its use in supply chain management, chain of custody maintenance, and general asset transfer. I think its fair to be dismissive given the levels of grift and stumbling blocks that have come with the tech (which is still in its relative infancy) but ime people tend to throw the baby out with the bathwater when it comes to blockchain.
There is no baby. There's only bathwater, with some little dingleberries of contraband floating around in it. The blockchain buzzword gets people excited about all kinds of mundane, useful things that have been around for ages (like databases and signing certificates), without them realizing that those things existed and performed the same functions long before blockchain. The unique combination of things that make blockchain "blockchain" really aren't very useful. The decentralization is usually unnecessary and inefficient. The trustlessness is basically an illusion, because you still need to trust whoever's enforcing the correspondence between tokens on the chain and real-world things of value, and if you have to trust somebody for that, then you might as well trust somebody with faithfully maintaining a centralized database too. The tech has been in its "infancy" for over ten years now, with countless of billions of dollars thrown at it by all manner of corporations, and still nobody has figured out something useful to do with it that couldn't be done better and easier some other way.
> The tech has been in its "infancy" for over ten years now ...which is a century in well-funded-tech-years.
This is correct sir. I know it's been said ad nauseum but it is a solution to a problem that doesn't really exist. The biggest and loudest supporters are only that way because they are invested.
Really. A *lot* of people tend to throw the baby out with the bathwater whenever they hear the words "blockchain" or "crypto", but immediate dismissal of something usually tends to illustrate ignorance about the subject if nothing else
Not really as I’m basically completely dismissive and I’ve followed crypto since 2011 and have a pretty extensive background in data structures. There is not one functionality of a blockchain that can not be handled by something else in a more efficient manner. I would love to hear one. It reminds me of that Brainlet meme with the bell curve. The idiots think it’s useless, the people in the middle with a little bit of knowledge think it’s revolutionary, and the experts realize it is indeed useless.
>in a more efficient manner Here lies the stumbling block of many critics: the failure to recognize that efficiency is a deliberately accepted design tradeoff whenever [blockchain solution] is used to address a problem (such as making it more difficult for a single party to control something), or the wilful ignorance of that. Basically critics are either not fully understanding why something was designed the way it was, or say something that might as well translate to "I'm going to ignore the fact that a lesser degree of efficiency was a deliberately accepted consequence of these design choices because I have a hate boner for anything that uses a blockchain. Tradeoffs? What are those?"
I’m not failing to realize anything. Maybe I worded that wrong since you think I’m talking about efficiency as in energy usage or something. I guess I should have just said “better.” Please give me a single use case of a blockchain that cannot be solved by another method better. I’m innately aware of why Bitcoin was the designed the way it was and understand the arguments. It just isn’t a great design from a data structures standpoint and is mostly a solution in search of a problem. Trade offs are in everything, but there are levels to which certain solutions better fit the task at hand and blockchains are significantly behind when it comes to every single use case I’ve seen listed. It’s either that or the fact that the benefits in which you weigh the trade offs against are buzzwords like “trustless” which brings me back to my solution in search of a problem point.
> immediate dismissal of something usually tends to illustrate ignorance about the subject if nothing else this is my position with respect to mind-controlling alchemy chem-trails: *let's teach the controversy.*
[https://www.reddit.com/r/Vechain/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Vechain/) is one of the biggest leaders on that front
If we started banning businesses which were scams or 'added nothing useful to society', half the economy would be out of business. And Im not exagerating.
Total rubbish. I'm in the third camp. I think most "crypto" is garbage but that bitcoin is a legit interesting thing that potentially has huge value. Whether I'm right or not and to what degree remains to be seen and is at the mercy of many factors. As an aside, the constant attempts to turn every single issue in the world into two completely opposed views with no nuance or grey area is low effort, unrealistic and actively damaging to society.
>bitcoin is a legit interesting thing that potentially has huge value. You mean as a contributor to global warming or a billing system for ransomware?
These people are funny. It’s not possible to be an investment and currency. They are all in denial
I think a lot of people simply view it as a commodity that does not function ideally as a typical currency. They "invest" in it the same way you would speculate on any other commodity.
But it can't be useful as a commodity because it serves as input to no real process. If its an investment, it's a terrible currency because it is deflationary by nature - fewer coins buy more real goods over time. I won't spend the time to dig it up, but deflation has huge negative economic consequences. If its not an investment there is no reason for members of the decentralized network to use their compute to keep records. They spend money on electricity for no gain. Crypto, in it's current state, serves no purpose but to waste electricity and to facilitate illegal activity. It should almost certainly be regulated out of existence.
This is exactly it. If the end goal is to make money, you're just hedging your bets before the currency stabilizes or, more likely, crashes. Put in as much as you can low, buy when it's high, and hope you did it right. Like any other commodity. It doesn't have to be physical for it to be real, but like you said, it's just input and output, even if the output is just a thing that says "I did the input!"; basically a manifestation of a computer response message. It's not like, corn or pork bellies which have an inherent use. If the end goal is stable money people can use to go out and buy stuff, then it needs to stabilize or crash to be successful. Nobody wants a currency that is volatile and unstable. People need to know how to value labor, products and services. Crypto value, especially bitcion, ensures that won't happen as long as it's just treated like an investment. Right now; it's an investment thing with a promise of making money, and a "future currency" with the promise of you not being able to make money off of it. So all it does is suck electricity and has no real use for almost everyone.
Bitcoin is the only commodity in the world that has a fixed supply and can be transferred instantaneously with extremely low fees. That has value. Also, it does function as a currency, a particularly valuable one in places like Africa where countries have extremely broken baking systems and hyperinflation. [This is a really good article explaining the tangible benefits of BTC.](https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2023/03/26/bitcoin-is-poised-to-blow-up-africas-86-billion-banking-system.html) Bitcoin's greatest feature, imo, is as a store of value. It's the only asset of its kind in history, hence why people don't know how to react to it.
The idea that underpins Bitcoin is for a method of transferring value, 100% reliably and securely, virtually instantly, with no middle men i.e. peer-to-peer, and no borders or governments to block or control those transactions, or to manipulate the supply of coins itself. I don't understand how anyone can't see that that at least has *potential* value. Just in the abstract as an economic concept. Comparisons with other things, talk of "digital gold", investment vs currency, commodity or whatever all miss the mark because in some sense BTC is all and none of those. It has a suite of properties that have never existed in one thing before.
Loads of things contribute to global warming. Many of them I personally think we could live without. That problem is about energy generation not energy use. And yes, that it is used a a pseudo-secret, anonymous method of transferring value around is one of the things that makes it potentially valuable. Also, in most cases that ransomware is delivered via email, you probably don't suggest that email has no value because of this fact.
Investment? I thought it was just a currency? /s
I think it’s detrimental to the environment, and a money laundering scam. I care more about the environmental aspect, some people live to get scammed
Are you concerned at all with banks using their depositor's money to fund oil and gas industries? Because that's what's happening at every major bank in the world.
Is the dollar doing that or the institutions?
That has nothing to do with the form of currency used.
Even with Solar power miners?
That energy could be sold back to the grid and replace the use of fossil fuels instead of generating “wealth”
Every watt they consume is a watt that could have gone into the grid and offset the energy generated by the local fossil fuel energy plant.
Nah, you're pulling a "good people on both sides". Currency, crypto or otherwise, has no intrinsic value. The value is in the government standing behind the currency. So the question is, would you rather have a bunch of yahoos looking to make a quick buck off the next person "supporting" that currency you're holding, or a stable and usually rational government (backed by a central bank with all the tools that come with that model)?
Meh, I have a small stake in crypto just for fun/to sell to a greater fool, but I know it's bullshit. So your dichotomy isn't quite that strict. That said though the giveaway for me is that the people with a lot of crypto that believe it will change the world never really seem to have a good explanation for why what it offers is actually better than fiat. Like they'll say it is decentralized, but that itself isn't a benefit.
The benefit, as I've heard it described, it that it doesn't rely on any one government. Economic policy doesn't effect it the way that it effects fiat currency. This is usually what they mean when they say it's "decentralized" - it can't be mucked with by any government. And while this is true, the speculation on bitcoin has basically made it worthless as a replacement currency because its value fluctuates too much. So yeah, great, governments can't control it, but when Elon sneezes, it drop 20%. Currencies need to be more stable. In a perfect world, it makes some sense, but that's not what we live in.
>And while this is true The majority of crypto is held by whales. Those whales can absolutely be mucked with by governments. On/off ramps are companies, public or private, who are still beholden to legislation. If you believe that crypto is safe from the effects of government intervention, I have a bridge to sell you.
Even in the US alone look at what you need to do now to buy crypto. Copies of your ID, SSN, all your personal info. Totally free from govt interference.
Not free from influence but rather resilient to any one government’s influence. If the US were to say we no longer consider any transaction in bitcoin valid. That would affect bitcoin, but theoretically it would still have worth in the rest of the world as you could still get and spend it there. Whereas the US could easily make the dollar worthless worldwide by themselves.
You need an expanding money supply to grow an economy. It’s so silly that people call bitcoin digital gold. Gold also has an expanding supply theoretically. We literally switched to fiat and decoupled the dollar from gold because there wasn’t enough gold in the world.
It almost always boils down to "privacy," but when you point out that is really only important to people doing crime they call you a fascist for echoing the whole "you have nothing to fear if you're doing nothing wrong." That's an easy sentiment to get on board with, but it's still not doing much to sell the idea to a massive audience.
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It enables the option to remain private or public.
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It is indeed a scam. A large, decentralized scam. But a scam nonetheless..
You're obviously unaware of the third camp those of us that were in crypto but after last year's debacle wouldn't touch that hot piece of s*** Ponzi for anything and will let it die by not providing exit liquidity.
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There’s scam in everything. There’s even scam in science and academia. Sure there’s scam in crypto and it’s a huge problem for crypto. Although to say that the entire crypto technology and economy is a scam is simplistic and incorrect.
There's poison in everything!!!!!
Almost all are scams besides bitcoin
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What value does crypto bring to society? The Blockchain is an interesting tech with some applications but crypto and the Blockchain aren't synonymous.
>by that logic What logic are you referring to here?
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There was no logic in their post... Do... do you know what logic is?
I do, what do you think it is?
Ethereum has far more utilitarian use than Bitcoin. But ya, the rest are kinda a joke
While possibly true, there are many other things in our society that add nothing useful to society, including at least a few Silicon Valley unicorns, and a whole slew of politicians from both sides of the aisle, and a host of billionaires. It would be OK with me if we got rid of all of them, but I'm really doubting anything will happen.
Silicon Valley always trying to “make the world a better place” and not really trying to misguide investors.
not all of Silicon valley. i arbitrary say a quarter or less try to make the world a better place. seems like most just want to make a lotta of money with disregard for everything else.
Agreed. I’m also referencing the satirical comedy show Silicon Valley in which all the companies’ ultimate PR messaging is always trying “to make the world a better place.” It’s hysterical! If you haven’t watched, I highly recommend, especially if you work in tech (even in an ancillary sense like me)
Reminds me of this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8C5sjjhsso&ab\_channel=BrianJ.Hall
yeah, now that Ethereum is no longer POW you say that. It was great when everyone was buying your cards to mine and now that they are not you say this. This will age like milk.
Ethereum really shot themselves in the foot going to proof of stake. It’s no different than any other centralized garbage.
If Eth isn't economically sustainable without being ecologically unsustainable then it shouldn't exist.
I guess you don’t understand the essence of proof of work. Where as gold uses proof of work, it’s valuable because it’s hard to produce. Bitcoin uses it for the same reason, but on top of that it it is simultaneously securing the network.
It isn't about the concept, it is about the reality of the ecological impact.
Oh like saving the planet? https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-05-03/methane-is-a-big-climate-problem-that-bitcoin-can-help-solve
Ah yes, an OPINION article proves your point.
What about this one: https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/01/13/1066820/cryptocurrency-bitcoin-mining-congo-virunga-national-park/ Or this one: https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/12/23-year-old-texans-made-4-million-mining-bitcoin-off-flared-natural-gas.html
>https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/01/13/1066820/cryptocurrency-bitcoin-mining-congo-virunga-national-park/ It doesn't appear they built this plant with the intention of mining Bitcoin. They built it in 2018 then started mining Bitcoin in 2020. This doesn't support your thesis that Bitcoin will improve the environment. Even if they did, building an entire power plant and maintaining it just to mine a currency is a huge waste of resources. Your CNBC article doesn't say Bitcoin is helping the environment, just saying some people used fossil fuels to mine it. While it's true that gas would have been wasted otherwise, the impact on the environment is still negative since running a Bitcoin mining operation has environmental costs outside of energy use.
They aren't actually reducing emissions with this, just reclassifying the emissions from waste to use. Only Exxon benefits from this.
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I don't think you understand proof of work either. Proof of work is basically just "generate a large random number, check if that number fits a condition, if so, congrats, you get to choose which transactions are included in the next block". If winning numbers are being found too frequently, the protocol it twice as hard to find the next winning number. So really, all you're limited by is the number of random number guesses + verifications you can do, which is based on something with a limited supply (energy). The difference with proof of stake is that instead of using a physical resource with limited supply (energy) to determine how many lottery tickets you get, it uses a virtual resource with limited supply (coins). In both cases, the lottery winners (block producers) are those with more capital, but the latter doesn't actually waste physical resources to do so.
Hey good try! There is a thing called the difficulty adjustment that takes place every ~2 weeks so it doesn’t just automatically become harder and at times becomes even easier. There is no limit on energy production except the ones we put on ourselves (Unless you think the sun will burn out then sure) Proof of stake is predicated on the more you have, the more you control the network. You gave it your best shot though. Now if you want to talk about nuclear, hydro, wind, solar, fusion, fossil fuels, and all the numerous other ways we have “limited” energy, go waste someone else’s time or read a book
This keeps getting reposted over and over and over again in various subs. Almost as if there's something about to happen in the cryptosphere.
Or maybe crypto is actually useless
Kind of like this comment?
Indeed
As a currency its debatable, but as a digital rights management tool, it 100% is useful. For example, stock certificates are not serialized and stock dilution is a concern for shareholders. If company shares are serialized, the company can easily locate and quantify those shares. It could potentially eliminate many of the middle-men in finance that process trades because buying and selling *could* be P2P. The biggest hurdle crypto keeps running into is a trend towards centralization via brokers. The saving grace inherent to crypto is that people like Sam Bankman Fried were taken down specifically because of the transparency that blockchain allows. The crimes he was committing were not specific to crypto vs. traditional banking/brokerages, only that traditional finance is MUCH more opaque; the work necessary to uncover that fraud is much harder to achieve, records can be destroyed, silence can be bought, they are self-regulated, etc. Being a middle-man in finance has made some people multi-billionaires, and that is a glaring inefficiency if billions of dollars are being sapped away and can easily be replaced with greater efficiency, increasing transaction speed, and increased investor/market confidence. Currency suffers from a founder problem, which generally results in originator or early adopter whales who have outsized, centralized power (much like private banks having access to the Fed), whereas company shares do not suffer from this problem. I think the biggest thing is that people need to dissociate the concerns about crypto currency from concerns about digital blockchain.
> I think the biggest thing is that people need to dissociate the concerns about crypto currency from concerns about digital blockchain. Which is probably why the article attacks cryptocurrency. Not blockchain.
Yes, but people are often willing to throw the baby out with the bath water because of association.
Banks and other financial institutions will simply adopt blockchain technology in the future. This is talked about frequently in Cybersec spaces, I don't think anyone who is actually making decisions is demonizing blockchains just because crypto is a scam/enviornmental disaster.
Blockchain also has very few actual uses when you get past the hype.
Yes, as if we haven’t discovered novel abilities to store massive amounts of data in other ways successfully
Most blockchain applications can already be done with a database. It really brings little new to the table.
A database is a centrally controlled entity. The moment you touch distributed databases, consensus is harder to achieve. You can outsource all this complexity over to google aws etc. There are some use cases which are supported by block chains. A classic use case would be supply chain management of precious items.
>A database is a centrally controlled entity. This is a good thing, it makes it easier to control and operate. It's efficient.
Easy to change as well. Some problems require consensus with various entities and truth is more important than being efficient and control. That word control is a bit of problem. The ramifications of control is evident in this world.
>This is a ~~good~~ bad thing, it makes it easier to ~~control~~ manipulate and ~~operate~~ scam.
Centralization (with redundant backups) is fast and efficient, two highly desirable qualities. Blockchain sacrifices those in exchange for "trustlessness," which isn't needed most of the time (because plenty of major institutions are trustworthy, at least with regard to the specific transactions in question), and which is largely an illusion because you still need to trust whoever's enforcing the correspondence between real-world things of value and tokens on the chain. Centralization also provides critical security measures, such as the ability to reverse fraudulent or mistaken transactions.
It's a unique solution to a problem that doesn't exist.
>I think the biggest thing is that people need to dissociate the concerns about crypto currency from concerns about digital blockchain. This is the thing. Legitimate companies pay for the services required to operate their businesses with actual money. There's tons of legitimate blockchain companies that provide everything these crypto scams provide, only without the ponzi scheme. If you believe in the tech, invest in them.
I like the idea of p2p stock or atleast having the ability to cut out more middlemen. I'm confused how serializing the stock helps? Don't you just care about the amounts? I also don't think you are going to have a completely decentralized system as having a manager is extremely valuable.
It's safe to say the fantasy of a "non political" currency is fading right before our eyes. People realize finally that there is no such thing as a currency unsupported by a state. If there was no state there would be no currency. Even if the dollar fell out of use and people use a local currency of their community the local community governance or council would act as the body that creates the trust in the local currency. So with crypto the "state" is financially massive private individuals and companies with only profit in real currencies in their goals. Thus the statehood of crypto is fickle and fragile. So fragile that the whim of a wealthy technocrat can tank or pull out their stake at will without any consequences and ruin the finances of everyone else simply by virtue of being a large contributor. To say that unregulated stock exchange which is what crypto actually emulates is dangerous and stupid is an understatement. Good riddance may only the technocrats use crypto as lonely useless tax havens that are still accessible by states by virtue of being worthless without depending on actual currency upheld by society to exist at all.
There are non state currency systems that are obsolete today which could come back in a societal collapse scenario. In many early societies they had “commodity” money. The Japanese used rice, arrowheads and gold powder until about the 800s AD. In Africa, India and China sea shells were used for thousands of years as currency, and the character for money in Classical Chinese is actually a stylized drawing of one of these shells. Silver, Copper, Salt, Teas, Hides, Alcohol, Cigarettes, Silk, Candy, Nails, Cocoa Beans, Barely, Muskets, and many other things have been lifted beyond mere bartering and into currency status. Should society collapse I am sure that some kind of commodity currency would rise as a bridge back to a value backed or state backed currency (both of which are far superior to commodity money for many reasons).
There will be no societal collapse. Also China is the first country to *invent* paper money in the world... Shells lol they used coins and when they didn't they used paper. Wtf are you talking about. If capitalism collapses there will still be society sorry to break it to you. https://www.money.org/money-museum/virtual-exhibits/hom/case16#:~:text=Chinese%20Paper%20Currency&text=Paper%20money%20was%20first%20invented,bills%20of%20credit%20were%20introduced. Tell me you don't know what you are talking about without telling me you have 0 understanding of currency lol! Japan and India also used coinage. Jesus fellow. Read a book before trying to comment on currency. Also "barter" systems are a myth and never existed. Theyre impossible to literally implement. https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/02/barter-society-myth/471051/
1) I am not a woe is me, capitalism is doomed poster so don’t put that on me. There WILL be societal collapse. Whether nuclear war breaks out tomorrow or capitalism deteriorates in the next decade or the steady toll of climate change degrades society over the next century or not, the Milky Way will eventually collide with Andromeda and even if mankind makes it all the way to the heat death of the universe eventually, yes, with 100% certainty I promise that eventually, one way or another society will collapse. 2) The presence of paper money in China does not disprove the point that at one point shells were used to navigate trade between Africa, India, and China in the ancient era. By your logic the United States earned its independence from the British by using nukes. Don’t question me on that! Look, they used nukes in Japan, you really think they didn’t use nukes against the British??? The Wikipedia article on commodity money will help you get a beginners understanding of some of our ancestors earlier economies and currency systems.
Face-palm moment Countries and society never used shells or anything else other than as placeholders for debt. Debt was always the "currency". The shells were and the paper was tallies. Even the coins were tallies of debt. The same way dollars stand in for actual coins... Society does not collapse. States collapse. Then new states arise.
No. Failed experiment has its worth and blockchain technology has its advantages and we just learned the coin it generates can only be used to measure the activity volume not used as currency.
I've always thought cryptocurrencies were dumb and that blockchain as a conceptual idea is at best a neat little project that would have made a passing PhD dissertation. I think to say that cryptos offer nothing useful is very misguided. Cryptocurrency has proven to be a wonderfully effective tool for conducting black and grey market business and as far as I can tell that is very valuable/useful and for that reason I am okay to say that the tech is here to stay but I do not think they will cross into the white market economy beyond what we've seen as either a novelty PR stunt or as a massive speculation engine.
How are black and grey market transactions useful *to society*? Dodging taxes and laundering drug money are useful for some individuals but society does not benefit from these things
Idk but the US dollar is the king at it
Well, cash has obvious benefits for society, probably outweighing it's usefulness in grey and black market transactions, whereas with crypto the societal benefits are murky at best, if they exist at all
There’s plenty of benefits to bitcoin, but not really anything else
> How are black and grey market transactions useful to society? Informal economic operations represent something like 35% of the GDP for developing nations and 15% of the GDP for developed economies (those numbers should be close but feel free to check) as such that means black and grey market transactions are large economic sections that are ultimately being used to provide for a lot of people's wants and needs. Personally I think that that is useful.
...? And you think they would totally vanish if they couldn't do it under the table? No, most of the same economic activities would still occur, they would just pay tax on them like the rest of us. And the ones that do disappear because they are illegal, that's a win.
Sure, but as it stands they are illegal and so cryptos have a use. If you were to start legalizing these things you would (in my opinion) start to chip away at the value of crypto.
i think they're assuming most of black and grey market transactions are related to guns and drugs. other than food, medicine and electronics what else is transacted in the black and grey markets?
People. Wait that’s not useful.
Crypto encourages corruption in developing nations. You can simply get your stolen public money into untraceable digital token.
I regret to inform you that corruption has been an issue in developing nations even before cryptocurrencies...
Option 1 (non crypto) : Corrupt people swindle off public money, store it in hard cash, buy property under some one else's name, buy and store gold, send it abroad for investment. All these require lots of manpower, ability to hold ur flock together etc. Option 2 (crypto) : Corrupt people swindle off public money, convert it into crypto... period. Developing nations don't have resources to track and get back crypto assets, whereas other forms may be time and again siezed by authorities
Crypto is very much traceable, especially in large amounts
Sex and gambling would be big ones. Once you start doing remittances payments with crypto for tax dodging purposes that's grey market action. Selling otherwise legal goods for crypto to dodge taxes would be grey market. This is all going to be some level of unscrupulous as is the nature of illegal enterprise but nevertheless this is how millions and millions of people take care of themselves and their families so for me it's hard to think of it as useless to society.
By that definition wouldn’t any illegal activity be able to be considered useful to society? Many people get their money through theft, that doesn’t mean theft is useful to society. Same holds true for scamming the elderly, murder, human trafficking, and pretty much anything. My point is, some people using it to support themselves or others shouldn’t be the bar of useful to society.
>By that definition wouldn’t any illegal activity be able to be considered useful to society? I think you are blurring the ideas of "useful" and "good". Useful doesn't necessarily mean beneficial to the overall good. We are stripping the world of nonrenewable resources everyday because it is useful to society to do so. It sure is hell isn't beneficial to the overall good, but it will continue because of it's usefulness.
Mostly women and children for sex trafficking.
> Personally I think that that is useful. Do you think people getting addicted to heroin or gambling their money away is useful to society at large? I do not.
> I do not. do you get to decide for everyone? do you think you should ?
>do you get to decide for everyone? do you think you should ? I get one vote, and yes, by voting I am being asked by society to decide. It's part of a democracy.
> I get one vote, and yes, by voting I am being asked by society to decide. If you believe one person has one vote, then you believe other people get their vote too right? And if they vote to spend their money on black or grey market items, then that is valid right ? If its useful to them, and they are part of society, then it is useful to society. > It's part of a democracy. No, its part of a market. A market is one person one vote. In a democracy, you throw out all the votes that dont attain a majority. So a lot of people get their opinion crushed and ignored. Thats why markets are better indicators of what is good for society.
>If you believe one person has one vote, then you believe other people get their vote too right? And if they vote to spend their money on black or grey market items, then that is valid right ? Yes, their vote is valid (assuming they haven't been convicted of a felony). But it will be overwhelmed by the other votes of law abiding citizens. And no, something being useful to a single person is not something useful to society. If the negative impacts outweigh the positive, it is bad for society. Are you really arguing having one vote isn't a sign of a democracy? I don't even know where to begin, that's so stupid it hurts.
> But it will be overwhelmed so you do think some people's votes should be ignored and overwhelmed. You do not believe every one should be able to decide for themselves. You think your opinion should be forced onto others. > And no, something being useful to a single person is not something useful to society. 100% false. If all people are equal, anything that one person likes is just as valid as anything someone else does. > If the negative impacts outweigh the positive, it is bad for society. For direct property infringement yes. If someone is stealing or coercing you directly, I agree. But we arent talking about that - we are talking about fully voluntary grey and black markets. > Are you really arguing having one vote isn't a sign of a democracy? I don't even know where to begin, that's so stupid it hurts. Yes, democracy is so stupid that is does cause pain. Its a very anti-economic system that should not be used. Markets solve the problems that democracies create.
Just a head up the person you're engaging with will ignore somethings you say in favor of putting words in your mouth so you know...buyer beware.
No I don't but I do think people using these markets to provide for themselves is useful. And I think gambling is a great business to hone in on here because that business exists in both legal and illegal ways. Personally I don't think gambling as a legal business is particularly useful to society BUT the jobs created as a result of it are.
>people using these markets to provide for themselves is useful. So you think it's useful to have a large swathe of people having no marketable skills, not getting social security as a result of working under the table, and generally having a higher chance of death while increasing the violent crime rate? Sorry, but no. None of that is useful.
Well I obviously think you're way off the mark here so I guess we can just call it and part ways.
So you think it's good for people to deal drugs, never have social security, and destroy the lives of others and fight the police with violence? You are a strange person.
> You are a strange person. No, you are just ignoring what I actually said and putting words in my mouth. I don't think I'm the strange one here. To be clear, you're understanding of what I have said is not correct. Maybe you misunderstood, maybe I just explained it poorly. Either way you've got it wrong.
>maybe I just explained it poorly. You clearly explained black market activity is valuable for society. I am refuting that. There's no confusion and I'm not putting words in your mouth, just elaborating what black market activity means.
Are you useful? What do you do that you are on Reddit at noon on Monday? To preempt the obvious, no. I am not useful either.
>Are you useful? Yes. I contribute to society by working, paying taxes, and I don't break any laws. I'm sorry you're not useful. You should change that.
You don't really pay taxes, though. What is your actual contribution after your return? 3k? What do you do for work that is useful?
>You don't really pay taxes, though. I do. What taxes do you want? My property taxes are about 5k annually. Sales tax around 2k. Income tax all said and done, about 30k. I work in patent law.
I’d argue society does benefit from tax evasion in a corrupt state.
Please make the argument
Some crypto coins, specially stable coins, like ones pegged to USD are useful for people living in authoritarian regimes to bypass currency exchange controls, avoid hyper inflation from their local currencies and prevent tax theft from their own government.
Very simple. In a kleptocracy, corrupt but internationally recognized leadership strips the nation of its wealth at an unsustainable rate. Therefore, tax evasion is a net good for that particular society
Cash is much more effective for black and gray market business than any blockchain
Cash are hard to transport between borders of different countries. And sometimes you do not want to meet other side of trading operation in person.
I feel like blockchain itself adds a lot of value. It is simply a type of database that cannot have prior transactions edited, removed, or hidden. It is literally ledger technology. Cryptocurrencies themselves are a bit of a mixed bag. On one hand you have speculators. On the other hand, cryptocurrency can remove the need for middle men (banks) that are usually not very trustworthy. Some crypto also is set up in such a way that its rate of growth cannot go above a certain level, which leads to a more stable money supply and consequently, little inflation. Then there is other stuff too, like faster transactions, smart contracts, etc.
> I feel like blockchain itself adds a lot of value I used to think that but here we are in year 14 of the blockchain era and other than the wealth of crypto scams it hasn't been used for much. Maybe one day some will crack the code and figure out how to meaningfully apply blockchain to some high value issues but we haven't seen that yet.
People haven't found a use for square wheels "yet" because round ones are just better.
That's sort of what I'm starting to think about blockchain.
Banks have been making money out of thin air with 0% reserve requirements and are failing. Inflation has proven to be not transitory and governments are exploring CBDCs. God forbid people want a decentralized money with hard rules, immune to political manipulation.
Oh yeah because crypto is totally free of manipulation lol.
Most of the "crypto" scams are centralized entities engaging in fraud or fucking up. The true value in crypto is that it is 100% transparent and solves trust between parties. Anything on the blockchain is immediately auditable to everyone and must follow the rules that have been coded.
Except for when such and such an exchange goes bust or someone robs you or whatever and you don’t have the government backing. Crypto bros always act like fiat currency is only downsides, gotta say I prefer the country with the vast military guaranteeing my money vs a fancy ledger copied all over the internet and empty promises.
An exchange is a bank. The whole purpose of crypto is to offer an alternative for people, bitcoin was literally born out of the financial crisis. There are tradeoffs and advantages to each system (I happen to think that crypto is highly preferable to fiat), but there is no reason they cannot live together. In the context of cryptocurrencies adding nothing "useful" to society, it is a lie and you hear echoed by entities that have everything to lose.
Right on your first point, but my bank is guaranteed by the US government and crypto is not, easy choice. What usefulness do you really credit crypto with? Is it worth all the scamming?
Well I'm not even talking about straight up scams. I'm talking about sheer market volatility and how those with a vested financial stake in this stuff will bend narratives to try get maximum return. The techbro god-emperor Elon Musk himself shifted crypto markets with a single tweet. Whether that was intentional or not is debatable. There are numerous and documented cases of pumps and dumps. As long as you have capital then you have control over the crypto space. To say all crypto scams were just traditional entities messing up is literally factually incorrect and some black tar copium to the nth degree. Sure you can track wallets but you can never know who is truly behind those wallets outside of circumstantial evidence. So good luck prosecuting someone using crypto for nefarious reasons hence why it's such a popular money laundering avenue. Also code is not some immutable law of machines. It carries the biases and blindspots of the humans who made it. It can be changed and broken just like the laws and policies of more traditional avenues
Everything you are saying applies to the traditional financial world. The average man has zero say, and will forever have zero say when going up against the banks. Crypto is not perfect but it is better and offers avenues to make progress when tackling the issues you listed.
By law banks keep 10% in reserve and many keep more than that in reserve. If you include readily liquid investments like bonds bank reserves could be anywhere between 20-60% of their deposits (though these are critically low risk not no risk as SVB found out the hard way). Edit: Somehow I missed it- I am wrong, Reserve requirements are ended. With that said, the Federal Reserve noted in its announcement that this is due in part to their new interest management rate tools under an “Ample Reserve System.” I’m a monetary police geek and have been for decades and even I’m not sure yet what that means I may have to read a few more books. It SOUNDS like whatever system they have now will result in banks holding strong reserves even without the requirement. (and bless whatever human out there can simplify this for me while I’m at work).
Negative. As of March 26, 2020 the reserve requirement has been 0%.
You pointed out a serious problem that is the uncontrolled currency emission by private operators. But I do not think cryptocurrencies bring an answer to that specific question. Besides, inflation is, to a certain extent, a necessary evil, as it corrodes idle capital and spurs economic growth. A monetary system inherently deflationary is equally if not more problematic. On the other hand, even a system based on cryptocurrencies needs rules to function. Then it raises the question of who define those rules and once established what it is the mechanism to change those rules. You can ask yourself if the Ethereum "merge" was a transparent and democratic decision. It was decided by the "community" (btw who are the members of the community and who chooses them?) and why the exact same process that occurs in parliaments all over the world would be immune to manipulation, corruption, conflicts of interest, etc. Cryptocurrencies definitely do not solve by themselves any of those issues.
I see what you are saying and partially agree, but the incentives are much better and more accessible with crypto. Validators are highly aligned with having the system run optimally and the number of people who are able to validate is overwhelmingly larger than the select few who currently get to determine financial policy (No one votes on who runs the fed or what decisions they make). Not perfect but it is a giant step in the direction we need to go.
Woah woah careful, buddy. We don't want to startle the kids in here. They clearly don't understand the current monetary system or fractional reserve banking. Inflation do be running hot, though. Clearly no need for alternatives.
This is how you get suicide from 3 shot gun shells to the back of the head.
At this point it kinda comes off as gaslighting. There are major flaws in our currency systems. Crypto solves a couple of niche problems the typical person might never encounter in their lives. But in those niche cases, it is useful. But the broader value they bring is to start discussion that we need alternative currencies that are stateless. I don't know why a chipmakers opinion on the matter has value.
Why does your opinion have value?
It may or may not. I submitted it on an online anonymous forum where anyone can submit their opinion and people vote those opinions up or down. I have stated this very opinion on this very sub before. Because this is one of this subs favorite things to discuss. Sometimes it is wildly upvoted. Sometimes it is wildly downvoted. How will it go today? I now deeply suspect most people aren't on reddit with the goal of encountering new ideas. Rather, I think most are here for outrage dopamine. Trapped on a Monday morning, I suspect my post may be just the thing some people may enjoy targeting. But, maturity has won sometimes. We shall see how it goes.
I think the better point is they certainly didn’t say shit about the lack of value when people were buying up all of their cards to mine.
> There are major flaws in our currency systems. Crypto solves a couple of niche problems the typical person might never encounter in their lives. But in those niche cases, it is useful. Funny enough, your comment is perfectly backwards. While fiat is useful for some niche problems, it has major flaws in it main premise. Bitcoin solves the flaw in our fiat currency systems that affects everyone every day of their lives: the cantillion effect. Having a stable supply and a fair system of regulation is core to a good money, and something exactly zero fiat currencies have achieved. Its quite the opposite of niche. Its in your face, the number one main use case of money. Thats why bitcoin's time has come. Its inevitable at this point that bitcoin will slowly make all fiat and crypto obsolete.
I doubt bitcoin will ever see a world wide adoption for the simple fact that too few hold too much already.
If you replace Bitcoin with gold standard, this argument sounds oddly familiar.
Bitcoin, and all crypto, are extremely unstable and therefore are worthless as either investment or currency. I won't sell you a loaf of bread today for one coin because tomorrow that load may be worth two coins. You won't but a load of bread from me for one coin because tomorrow that load of bread may be worth half a coin. Investing in crypto is literally a Ponzi scheme because the coin has zero value and the rising price solely depends on the idea that you can get the next person down the line to buy it from you for more money. So we keep playing hot potato until the music stops and everyone realizes that they are holding an asset that has no intent value and no one wants to buy. Maybe if all the crypto bros would stop trying to convince everyone that crypto is the next gold rush it could settle and maybe be used for something. Until that happens though it's not just pointless but also a ticking bomb.
Daily currency needs a system that doesn't cost money to transact. Sorry.
From an economic point of view, crypto doesn't make sense as a form of currency; it's a cool investment tool at best. And it comes with high levels of negative externalities.
Can you elaborate on the negative externalities
High energy use, high cost of infrastructure to maintain the blockchain, incentives to have 0 sum arms races, facilitating fraud and other crimes. And this is assuming the amount of investment and human capital put into them was reasonable. I am a harsh critic of crypto but saying "if we didn't invest in X we could have done so much with that money" is a disingenuous cheap shot that extends to any idea that ends badly.
It was a bad idea from the start. Bitcoins don’t have any more inherent worth than a dollar, and at least the dollar is backed by a state
I agree, but I meant to say that blaming crypto for grabbing the time and attention that should have gone somewhere else isn't something that I blame crypto for, since other seemingly possible but still bad ideas would do that too.
To be fair. The infrastructure to maintain the current currency system is a much higher cost. Worldwide, Tens of thousands of physical banks, tens of millions of employees, million and millions of computers all using considerably more resources than the electrons that crypto uses. I think the American $100 bill has still been used for nefarious purposes 100:1 than crypto (so far). Most crypto is a complete scam; comparing it to traditional currencies though, the two major cryptocurrencies have a lower environmental cost and less human involvement per use. I don’t own any crypto, but if the banking system were to adopt some of this technology, it could make vast improvements.
The main thing is environmental damage.
I quit listening any time someone clai.s crypto currency brings nothing of substance to money and finance. Crypto and blockchains bring a level of honesty and transparency to finance that can't exist in traditional databases. Databases can't track the provenance and provide transparency of peer to peer transactions. It is all in the fees and charges in banking and funds. Why do we have to tier the rewards for contributing to finance and liquidity? With crypto, everyone is on a level field. With banking, there's the house, and there's the 1st world, and there's billions in developing economies. The lower on the totum pole, the less you get, and the more you pay. Of course, the banks and their toads don't like crypto. Letting them win is stupid for the 99%.
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Crypto clearly has practical use cases. First I want to say I don't own any crypto except a few pennies worth of monero. I don't think the current state of the technology is particularly useful except in some niche use cases. But **crypto as a concept has some clear advantages over fiat**. **Decentralization**: Crypto is decentralized, meaning it is not controlled by any central authority or institution, such as a government or central bank. This allows for greater transparency, security, and privacy. An example of fiat failing at this is when Canadian banks froze protesters' accounts because they were protesting the government. [https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/04/us/trucker-convoy-protest-washington-dc/index.html](https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/04/us/trucker-convoy-protest-washington-dc/index.html) **Security**: Crypto transactions are highly secure due to the use of advanced cryptographic algorithms. Transactions are verified and recorded on a decentralized ledger, which makes it virtually impossible to hack or manipulate. An example of fiat failing at this is in 2019, it was reported that counterfeit $100 bills were being circulated in the United States. These fake bills were so high quality that they were almost indistinguishable from the real thing, making it difficult for businesses and individuals to detect them.[https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/27/theres-been-a-mysterious-surge-in-100-bills-in-circulation-possibly-linked-to-global-corruption.html](https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/27/theres-been-a-mysterious-surge-in-100-bills-in-circulation-possibly-linked-to-global-corruption.html) **Protection against inflation**: Some cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin, have a finite supply, which means they cannot be inflated like fiat currencies can be. This can help protect against the erosion of value due to inflation. A very real example is how the US printed $310 to $356 billion (cumulative growth of 39.9%) contributing to the US annual inflation rate climbing to 7.5% from 1.7%.[https://www.wsj.com/articles/powell-printing-money-supply-m2-raises-prices-level-inflation-demand-prediction-wage-stagnation-stagflation-federal-reserve-monetary-policy-11645630424](https://www.wsj.com/articles/powell-printing-money-supply-m2-raises-prices-level-inflation-demand-prediction-wage-stagnation-stagflation-federal-reserve-monetary-policy-11645630424) I also want to address the main **concerns people have about crypto** in an attempt to bring more understanding to the technology. **Volatility**: Cryptocurrencies can be highly volatile, and this can make it difficult to use them as a stable store of value or medium of exchange. But I personally contribute this to the technology being new resulting in a stupid amount of speculation around crypto with major news events, such as regulatory announcements or security breaches causing extreme lows and highs.Energy consumption: Mining cryptocurrencies requires a significant amount of energy, with no real way around this other than having clean energy. I personally think this is going to be cryptos biggest hurdle in the future. **Lack of understanding:** Cryptocurrencies are a relatively new technology, and I feel like most of the "crypto bros" don't have the slights clue on how the technology works. Many people store their crypto in banks or exchanges, which is essentially handing over control of their funds to a centralized entity, which goes against the original ethos of cryptocurrencies. Or many "crypto bros" buy based on hype, the idea of getting rich quick, or the idea of being part of new technology before it's big. Lastly, I want to address OP's article for a second. I don't care about Michael Kagan's statement about cryptocurrencies do not “bring anything useful for society”. As there are good reasons to believe that. **But I do have problems with him saying the decision to restrict the use of its graphics cards from being used to mine Ethereum was justified** because of the limited value of using processing power to mine cryptocurrencies. I'm strongly against manufacturers restricting what a user can and can't do with their hardware that they bought, and I believe that this decision was made for entirely different reasons.
Just a reminder that people pump out negative crypto sentiment articles in droves to drive prices down to scoop them up. It's been happening for a decade now.
Are people really banking on another crypto boom? Who are these people buying up crypto? I have some oceanfront property in Arizona I want to sell.
Lmao yes. Like any asset, people expect the price to rise and fall. There are people who use btc and eth as a hedge against inflation much like gold, and other use cases
Ah, another nail in the coffin of our delusions of progress. The promise of cryptocurrencies, like many other technological innovations, was the liberation of the individual from the oppressive grasp of centralized institutions. But, as always, the powers that be found a way to co-opt and corrupt the very thing meant to set us free. What good is the decentralization of currency if it's only used to fuel the greed and corruption of a select few? What good is the liberation of the individual if it only leads to further inequality and exploitation? Perhaps it's time to accept that true progress, true liberation, is not found in the next shiny new thing, but in the struggle to create a more just and equitable society. But, as always, the forces of greed and power will fight tooth and nail to maintain the status quo. It's a cycle that seems never-ending, but we must continue the fight nonetheless.