"I've seen people get rich off crypto" and I've seen hundreds of gambling addicts lose their house and put their family on the street when the bet didn't go right. Even when you're talking about serious coins, ignoring the rug pulls. That money comes from somewhere. Who's holding the bag?
Crypto people tend to have an infinite dose of "f** you got mine" even if they didn't get theirs.
Yep, for every person who gains a dollar someone had to lose a dollar. No value was created. In this way crypto is actually a less than zero sum game since some money is always lost to the machine through sending to abandoned wallets, lost private keys, etc. So on average everyone loses.
There are many venues to gamble your money. You could also go for meme/penny stocks.
I personally have only Bitcoin and some small amount of ETH. I don't consider myself a gambler and think that these smaller cryptocurrencies are very far away from Bitcoin, which is very stable and safe these days as the toolset is quite developed.
It's unfortunate that the loudest advocates of crypto in the US and Europe are screeching libertarians and grifters/scammers. They drown out the everyday users in far off places like Argentina and Nigeria that nobody (in the US and Europe) seem to care about.
The author describes precisely my reason for being interested in Bitcoin.
Things which other people seem to readily accept, such as ATM's having limits, the nature of card payments being inherently asymmetric, the middlemen, "know your customer", etc.
All of that stuff just seems insane to me. It's as if someone were standing at my door, telling me that I can't take more than seven items out of my house per day, asking me why I'm moving furniture around, etc.
If you're happy with that stuff, great, stick with it. I'm not.
It is not and never was about "getting rich". That's the side effect of the utility of the system.
How does crypto solve any of that if its future is just more regulation pressing it into the molds of already established systems? I can’t pay my moving guy in crypto, I have to convert it to cash and all that “protection” is easily surmountable.
Money isn’t like your house. It’s like the roads and other infrastructure that connects your house to other places.
You can’t drive at 100mph on the wrong side of the road. You can’t mess with the plumbing and electricity in ways that would affect the grid, even if you do it on your own property.
There are of course places in the world that are so empty or so undeveloped that you can make your own rules off-grid. But most people don’t want that because it’s a lot of work and means you’re largely disconnected from others. Bitcoin as a currency has the same problem.
This is a very welcome counterpoint to a lot of the cryptocurrency hate that tends to be promoted. I think this is more along the lines of a "strong man" argument for cryptocurrency.
The article contains no real information, in fact can't even support its own title because apparently stablecoins are more attractive to those living in high inflation environments than Bitcoin.
The reader is left with no more information about "The Meaning of Bitcoin" than they entered with. No attempt is made to inform the reader about how cryptocurrency solves inflation or any of the other proposed issues with centrally-controlled currencies, besides reminding the reader that "stablecoins" exist. Well "stable" is in the name so it must be true, right? End article.
You’re making it sound like there’s a uniform blob of unreflected hate, when it’s really specific criticisms for many different aspects.
I feel like a steelman argument for Bitcoin specifically is somewhat easier to make than one for NFTs or quasi-investment share tokens, in that it’s at least not a transparent Ponzi scheme by its issuers (one might argue it is one by its current holders, though).
The problems of Bitcoin are largely different to those of stablecoins, NFTs etc.
Hmm.. the government effectively owns the network, the land, and the police force. The idea that the government cannot stop a monetary transaction is woefully naive; the only reason they haven't in the case of BTC is that it isnt money. If it came anywhere close to rivalling a state-backed currency, you'd be undermining the monetary and financial ability of a democratically elected government to exercise its economic policies. You'd be thrown in prison.
Aside from the obvious ease with which a government can undermine the network, it's participants, and so on -- there is also the lack of incentive for anyone not ideologically committed to interpreting a blockchain as currency, to do so.
A database, of any type, is just a set of numbers. The meaning of those numbers is a social and institutional practice. Contracts enforcing that meaning is a legal and political one.
This article displays the same extraordinary naivety of tech libertarians that I'd assumed had now past. Money is a social institution. Social institutions will not be replaced by anyone's preferred system of rules.
This is a common flaw in all utopian thinking, that necessarily and forever, all people will have more incentive to listen to them and follow their rules, than to ignore them or kill them. There is no evidence for the former, and daily mountains of evidence of the latter.
The final incentive to accept the dollar is the threat to your life, and all people you'd conspire with, to undermine it. This is the only known solution to forming stable contracts and society-wide reliable institutions.
You're thinking too far ahead: governments define the currency that can be used to extinguish debts, particularly to the state (taxes).
You can't pay your taxes in Bitcoin: you can only use Bitcoin to buy enough local currency to pay your taxes from someone else who has some. Which they get from the state.
While the endpoint of this is jail and the monopoly on violence of government, it's also just regular economic reality: you can't buy something if you don't have anything the seller will accept. And the government doesn't accept Bitcoin.
There is a multitude of governments involved in Bitcoin with different incentives and strategies. If you claim "The government can do X to Bitcoin" you should explain which government(s) and how exactly that would work.
When was the FED a "democratically elected government", by the way?
> Another bought a laptop by taking out a stablecoin loan on a DeFi platform when no bank would lend to him.
Could someone explain this to me — I thought that loans on cryptocurrency platforms had to be collateralized by cryptocurrency? How could someone buy a house with a crypto loan if they didn’t already have enough to buy one in the first place?
Ok i do not want to get into the whole argument of usefulness of bitcoin, but I have to repeat something that I have been repeating for many years on this site, on other sites and in real life, and it still does not catch on. Bitcoin is not anonymous! True, the government may need to do some work to find your wallet number, but once they do they will know all transactions you have ever done with that wallet in all of time. In fact bitcoin allows for surveillance possibilities that governments could only dream of before. It also provides surveillance opportunities for people that are not the lawful government and do not have the power to issue warrants.
Anytime you engage in any transaction using bitcoin, the other party must necessarily know your wallet number. Then the other party can easily check every single transaction made with that wallet for the history of bitcoin, and can do additional checks in the future. Of course you can get a new wallet, but moving the money from the old wallet to the new wallet will also appear for everyone to see.
Thus any government agent, creditor or ordinary stalker can figure out a way to sell you something or buy something from you using bitcoin, and voila they have your entire financial history.
The writer of the original article is being dangerously misleading when he implies bitcoin is anonymous. There are people languishing in jails right now because they thought bitcoin was anonymous.
Argentina may have serious monetary problems, but does the USD? Do we really need financial innovation to move at the "pace of programmers?" Is "bitcoin" really money when you can't use it to buy anything without converting it to money first?
No. If you're happy with USD, then use USD. If you are Argentinian (or Venezuelan, or Iraqi, or Zimbabwean) and your currency is getting devalued to nothing and the government is restricting access to your funds and preventing you from holding USD, then Bitcoin or Stablecoins are a pretty good option.
The attitude I see a lot (mostly by Americans and Western Europeans) is that "Crypto is not useful to me, therefor it is not useful to anyone" - forgetting that it's a global network open to everyone and anyone. And that other countries exist that are difficult places to live at times.
> Argentina may have serious monetary problems, but does the USD?
It is a possibility. The US's debt payments are a similar order of magnitude to their military spending and there is not really a scenario where the principle will get paid back in real terms. And the US's net international investment position is eyewatering. It isn't obvious that the money was well spent in the negative interest rate years, although maybe there has been a lot of capital formation in the US that flew under my radar it is early days yet of positive interest rates.
We're also probing at a big war and there are real questions over what the US will do to USD holdings in the event that risk materialises. We all see what is happening to Russia's assets.
It isn't particularly obvious that the USD is a safer currency in the abstract than the Argentine Peso. Certainly as a foreigner it looks a bit risky. It might also become unreliable for internal use, the debt situation or a political blow up are both ways it could go bad. The situation is something of a spectacle.
Not only is it nearly impossible to use anywhere... but a huge component of BTC's mythology is making fun of someone who ACTUALLY spent it as money (Bitcoin Pizza)
It is amusing that the author was burned by a corrupt third party holding their wallet. I appreciate the growth to understanding the point is for you to be your own bank.
The killer app will be the day Putin offers oil for BTC. When nations conduct business on crypto, then sanctions mean next to nothing and will cost real blood and treasure to enforce.
HN in this sense is a community, there are people pro- and anti- whatever, I guess. There are topics where a clear consensus will raises, but probably few that will gather unanimity.
I mean, I wouldn’t be surprised that some people in HN would find that making cannibalism illegal is an outrageous restriction of their holy personal freedom. I would find it surprising that it would not shape a clear anti-cannibalism consensus.
Now of course cryptocurrency is nothing close to cannibalism, of course.
Yet another useless Bitcoin puff piece from some random tech bro that doesn't understand economics.
"Bitcoin is awesome!" article concluded by, "my friends in Argentina save in stablecoins". Wait, why don't they use Bitcoin if it's so great?
>Lucky for them, bitcoin will always be there, waiting with open arms… immutable, unwavering, eternal, unbiased, welcoming, and untamed.
It will be hilarious when they see what happens to transaction fees and/or network hash distribution as mining rewards dry up. Or maybe they ignore that because the vast majority of Bitcoin changes hands off-chain through exchanges. Which makes:
>To really get crypto, you have to have been fucked by some third party with power over your money. Be it a government, a bank, a business, or an ex-employer, it will come.
Quite ironic because most activity in crypto is being facilitated through 3rd parties, and even if one uses an offline wallet the vast majority are using exchanges to cash in/out as needed. I'd wager a bet that more people have been screwed over by some crypto entity than their government or banks.
But yeah, Bitcoin/crypto is great as long as the wash trading, price-pumping sham can continue and "number goes up." Good thing all the cryptobros price things in their local currencies and not BTC! Hmm something about inflation again...
[+] [-] imabotbeep2937|1 year ago|reply
Crypto people tend to have an infinite dose of "f** you got mine" even if they didn't get theirs.
[+] [-] HermanMartinus|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] earnesti|1 year ago|reply
I personally have only Bitcoin and some small amount of ETH. I don't consider myself a gambler and think that these smaller cryptocurrencies are very far away from Bitcoin, which is very stable and safe these days as the toolset is quite developed.
[+] [-] lxgr|1 year ago|reply
Inconsistent rewards foster addictive patterns like nothing else.
[+] [-] grugagag|1 year ago|reply
That comes from the hope of recovering their loss one day and dumping the bags on somebody else.
[+] [-] ric2b|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] maraoz|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] eterpstra|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] throwaway22032|1 year ago|reply
Things which other people seem to readily accept, such as ATM's having limits, the nature of card payments being inherently asymmetric, the middlemen, "know your customer", etc.
All of that stuff just seems insane to me. It's as if someone were standing at my door, telling me that I can't take more than seven items out of my house per day, asking me why I'm moving furniture around, etc.
If you're happy with that stuff, great, stick with it. I'm not.
It is not and never was about "getting rich". That's the side effect of the utility of the system.
[+] [-] righthand|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] pavlov|1 year ago|reply
You can’t drive at 100mph on the wrong side of the road. You can’t mess with the plumbing and electricity in ways that would affect the grid, even if you do it on your own property.
There are of course places in the world that are so empty or so undeveloped that you can make your own rules off-grid. But most people don’t want that because it’s a lot of work and means you’re largely disconnected from others. Bitcoin as a currency has the same problem.
[+] [-] abetusk|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] floundy|1 year ago|reply
The article contains no real information, in fact can't even support its own title because apparently stablecoins are more attractive to those living in high inflation environments than Bitcoin.
The reader is left with no more information about "The Meaning of Bitcoin" than they entered with. No attempt is made to inform the reader about how cryptocurrency solves inflation or any of the other proposed issues with centrally-controlled currencies, besides reminding the reader that "stablecoins" exist. Well "stable" is in the name so it must be true, right? End article.
[+] [-] lxgr|1 year ago|reply
I feel like a steelman argument for Bitcoin specifically is somewhat easier to make than one for NFTs or quasi-investment share tokens, in that it’s at least not a transparent Ponzi scheme by its issuers (one might argue it is one by its current holders, though).
The problems of Bitcoin are largely different to those of stablecoins, NFTs etc.
[+] [-] mjburgess|1 year ago|reply
Aside from the obvious ease with which a government can undermine the network, it's participants, and so on -- there is also the lack of incentive for anyone not ideologically committed to interpreting a blockchain as currency, to do so.
A database, of any type, is just a set of numbers. The meaning of those numbers is a social and institutional practice. Contracts enforcing that meaning is a legal and political one.
This article displays the same extraordinary naivety of tech libertarians that I'd assumed had now past. Money is a social institution. Social institutions will not be replaced by anyone's preferred system of rules.
This is a common flaw in all utopian thinking, that necessarily and forever, all people will have more incentive to listen to them and follow their rules, than to ignore them or kill them. There is no evidence for the former, and daily mountains of evidence of the latter.
The final incentive to accept the dollar is the threat to your life, and all people you'd conspire with, to undermine it. This is the only known solution to forming stable contracts and society-wide reliable institutions.
[+] [-] XorNot|1 year ago|reply
You can't pay your taxes in Bitcoin: you can only use Bitcoin to buy enough local currency to pay your taxes from someone else who has some. Which they get from the state.
While the endpoint of this is jail and the monopoly on violence of government, it's also just regular economic reality: you can't buy something if you don't have anything the seller will accept. And the government doesn't accept Bitcoin.
[+] [-] lgrapenthin|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] orangea|1 year ago|reply
Could someone explain this to me — I thought that loans on cryptocurrency platforms had to be collateralized by cryptocurrency? How could someone buy a house with a crypto loan if they didn’t already have enough to buy one in the first place?
[+] [-] hristov|1 year ago|reply
Anytime you engage in any transaction using bitcoin, the other party must necessarily know your wallet number. Then the other party can easily check every single transaction made with that wallet for the history of bitcoin, and can do additional checks in the future. Of course you can get a new wallet, but moving the money from the old wallet to the new wallet will also appear for everyone to see.
Thus any government agent, creditor or ordinary stalker can figure out a way to sell you something or buy something from you using bitcoin, and voila they have your entire financial history.
The writer of the original article is being dangerously misleading when he implies bitcoin is anonymous. There are people languishing in jails right now because they thought bitcoin was anonymous.
[+] [-] Geee|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] maraoz|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] yaybitcoin|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] eterpstra|1 year ago|reply
The attitude I see a lot (mostly by Americans and Western Europeans) is that "Crypto is not useful to me, therefor it is not useful to anyone" - forgetting that it's a global network open to everyone and anyone. And that other countries exist that are difficult places to live at times.
[+] [-] roenxi|1 year ago|reply
It is a possibility. The US's debt payments are a similar order of magnitude to their military spending and there is not really a scenario where the principle will get paid back in real terms. And the US's net international investment position is eyewatering. It isn't obvious that the money was well spent in the negative interest rate years, although maybe there has been a lot of capital formation in the US that flew under my radar it is early days yet of positive interest rates.
We're also probing at a big war and there are real questions over what the US will do to USD holdings in the event that risk materialises. We all see what is happening to Russia's assets.
It isn't particularly obvious that the USD is a safer currency in the abstract than the Argentine Peso. Certainly as a foreigner it looks a bit risky. It might also become unreliable for internal use, the debt situation or a political blow up are both ways it could go bad. The situation is something of a spectacle.
[+] [-] bgroat|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] pwndByDeath|1 year ago|reply
The killer app will be the day Putin offers oil for BTC. When nations conduct business on crypto, then sanctions mean next to nothing and will cost real blood and treasure to enforce.
[+] [-] giraffe_lady|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] theoperagoer|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] uwagar|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] psychoslave|1 year ago|reply
I mean, I wouldn’t be surprised that some people in HN would find that making cannibalism illegal is an outrageous restriction of their holy personal freedom. I would find it surprising that it would not shape a clear anti-cannibalism consensus.
Now of course cryptocurrency is nothing close to cannibalism, of course.
[+] [-] Finneyfamily|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] floundy|1 year ago|reply
"Bitcoin is awesome!" article concluded by, "my friends in Argentina save in stablecoins". Wait, why don't they use Bitcoin if it's so great?
>Lucky for them, bitcoin will always be there, waiting with open arms… immutable, unwavering, eternal, unbiased, welcoming, and untamed.
It will be hilarious when they see what happens to transaction fees and/or network hash distribution as mining rewards dry up. Or maybe they ignore that because the vast majority of Bitcoin changes hands off-chain through exchanges. Which makes:
>To really get crypto, you have to have been fucked by some third party with power over your money. Be it a government, a bank, a business, or an ex-employer, it will come.
Quite ironic because most activity in crypto is being facilitated through 3rd parties, and even if one uses an offline wallet the vast majority are using exchanges to cash in/out as needed. I'd wager a bet that more people have been screwed over by some crypto entity than their government or banks.
But yeah, Bitcoin/crypto is great as long as the wash trading, price-pumping sham can continue and "number goes up." Good thing all the cryptobros price things in their local currencies and not BTC! Hmm something about inflation again...
[+] [-] paulbecker1919|1 year ago|reply
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[+] [-] SonjaHinton|1 year ago|reply
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[+] [-] unknown|1 year ago|reply
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[+] [-] momentmaker|1 year ago|reply
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