Cryptocurrency in general. Even on the surface, as presented, the main appeal to buy in is “to get rich from it” and the main way you’re supposed to get rich is “other people buying in, get in early while you can.”
It does have a utility though, buying drugs, moving money past capital controls, and creating fake revenue/losses for laundering money and tax evasion.
The dollar is the favourite currency for that stuff. Cryptocurrencies are meant to take power away from banks and give it to the people. Sure, the vast majority of the people use them for spsculation, but that doesn’t make the technology useless. It’s just that people are mostly interested in making as much money as they can. That’s a society problem, not cryptocurrency’s.
The main appeal is the ability to make transactions without intermediaries. The problem is that most people have as the only interest to get richer and richer and there will be always other people happy to sell them that dream… For a fee. These are the vastmajorituy of the people in cryptocurrencies, but that doesn’t disreguard the power and utility of the technology. It’s easy to shit on the tool, but the real problem is the greed-driven society we live in.
I’ve been living on cryptocurrencies only for the last >6 years. Buying groceries, travels and whatever else i need. So yes, people do that. You don’t hear about it because people are too busy talking about speculators and price movements.
Cryptocurrencies are seeing high adoptions in country where banking is limited, in the rich country is 99% speculation.
Speculation makes it harder because it causes price volatility, which is good and bad. There are services like bitrefill, travala and coincards that make very easy to buy almostanything using crypto. Of course if somebody accepts crypto directly i prefer them.
I disagree that cryptocurrency in itself is a scam. It can have legitimate utility, for example I want to exchange money for international services without a credit card or mailing an envelope of cash/cheque. Bitcoin and some others are mainstream enough that I can do this.
That said, investing in them is absolutely a scam, using it as a marketing buzzhype is a scam, and most of them are founded as scams.
Sure, sure. But does it and can it actually stay that way?
I haven’t seen a functioning example actually out there yet of a planet-burning electricity-wasting math busywork generator that actually does anything it supposedly can do besides become another ruinous and wasteful grift that does more damage to the planet than whatever convenience it supposedly offers to comfort the comforted.
I agree that it is wasteful and overall a bad thing… now that I think about it could be somewhat excusable if they adopted a PoW algrothim that actually solves socially-useful expensive problems like protein-folding, through distributed computing.
But that doesn’t make it a scam. There’s not really any trickery. It’s just bad.
now that I think about it could be somewhat excusable if they adopted a PoW algrothim that actually solves socially-useful expensive problems like protein-folding, through distributed computing.
You’re claiming that cryptogrifts can theoretically cease being environmentally ruinous energy-wasting grifts (for Science!™) and so on, so why not go one further and state that such applications theoretically DON’T need Bitcoin or related blockchain monetization at all?
If it’s already an environmentally ruinous energy-wasting grift, and you’re claiming it can do good things while also being an environmentally ruinous energy-wasting grift, why not take the speculative fantasy a little further and lose the environmentally ruinous energy-wasting grift entirely?
I’m not claiming that. It would still be environmentally ruinous (insofar as the energy production where miners live remains ruinous, which I guess is the foreseeable future) but at least the PoW would be actually contributing to tasks we wanted to do anyway that require large amounts of work. Hence the heavy emphasis on ‘somewhat’. I’m not saying it would be justified, but it would be far far far more useful to society.
Incidentally, why characterise non-profit medical research as “for Science!™)”? I hope we can both agree that understanding the human body is valuable to society and curing disease.
and state that such applications theoretically DON’T need Bitcoin or related blockchain monetization at all?
There are cryptographic requirements for securely conveying the necessary information for that application, an application that requires extremely limited identity and trust and centralization. I can’t think of an alternative covering those requirements that is plausible right now and not pure what-if (there is a big jump in feasibility between ‘change the proof of work algorithm’ and ‘invent an alternative to cryptocurrency’). If we can find an alternative to expensive PoW, wonderful!
Yes, if those requirements are relaxed, there are alternatives. If you’re fine with PayPal storing your personal and financial details and those of the recipient and exploiting you a little bit, then it’s an alternative. If your recipient is fine giving personal information, speed isn’t an option and you live in a country where sending cash in mail is legal and won’t get stolen, that’s an option. Of course, this all goes to shit if you’re trading with someone in a sanctioned country.
There’s not really any trickery.
(X)
Alright, what about Bitcoin is fraudulent? We agree it’s bad, but that doesn’t make it fraudulent (i.e. a scam)
It would still be environmentally ruinous (insofar as the energy production where miners live remains ruinous, which I guess is the foreseeable future) but at least the PoW would be actually contributing to tasks we wanted to do anyway that require large amounts of work. Hence the heavy emphasis on ‘somewhat’. I’m not saying it would be justified, but it would be far far far more useful to society.
“Less of a net negative” is still a net negative if it requires a massive and ever-growing bloated blockchain to verify every accumulating transactions for the vague and non-enforced promise of FOR SCIENCE™ benefits.
If we can find an alternative to expensive PoW, wonderful!
At present the alternative is not doing it because it’s still a net negative when it comes to wasted energy and environmental damage.
Alright, what about Bitcoin is fraudulent? We agree it’s bad, but that doesn’t make it fraudulent (i.e. a scam)
Sea lioning at this point is very bad form and I’m quite confident that you’re not going to accept any example or definition I give because you’re already sold on your particular investment, but fine.
Let’s start with the actual fucking fraud done with it, from phishing to theft to holding data hostage and demanding payment to decrypt that data before it’s destroyed, as is a growing common “use case” for Bitcoin when it isn’t being used for human trafficking and the like. You can piously claim in some pedantic “CODE IS LAW” thing that there’s no fraud in the code itself but splitting hairs like that doesn’t remove the incentive (or the risk, or the ongoing caseload) of fraud done with, around, and even against your favorite investment vehicle.
Agreeing with the parts re: net negative. No, I don’t invest in cryptocurrency; like I said, investing in them is a scam.
Let’s start with the actual fucking fraud done with it
Fraud is done with basically anything considered to have value. Cash, credit, signatures, votes, wine, wires, mail, licenses, taxes, recorded age. Fraud is the scam! And cryptocurrency is especially useful for scamming (has the anonymity of cash without the physical restrictions). But that’s not it’s purpose or main use. That’s not spiting hairs, it’s calling the hat the head. Your example of encrypting ransomware used to be done with the postal service, floppy discs and cash in the 90s. One example from 1989
edit: this of course is an advantage of non-transferable labour vouchers!
Sea lioning
That’s not what sea-lioning is. Someone asked us to name some scams, you said cryptocurrency, I disagreed that it qualified as a scam, you replied that you doubted my disagreement and I asked for clarification. If either of us wants to stop, we stop. Sea-lioning is stalking across the site like a debate pervert, it’s not replying to replies.
I’m not just running my mouth here, I’m evaluating my understanding of cryptocurrency and finding disagreements to make me question them. And also seeing if I’m able to have a constructive conversation - it’s good practice for real labour conversations in the workplace.
So it is all pedantic arguments for the sake of some theoretical version of something that does not actually exist in a functioning and usable form right now without all of the net negative consequences that already exist, right now.
But you did a transaction! And in theory it can be for science™! That makes it all okay because technically a dictionary absolves the holy code of all the wrongdoing done with the holy code.
And also seeing if I’m able to have a constructive conversation
Bring me one that isn’t pedantic sea lioning and sure, maybe.
But that’s not it’s purpose or main use
It is the purpose and use for people buying into it, right now, and that’s what gets people interested and investing, no matter what claims are made by the grifters themselves.
it’s good practice for real labour conversations in the workplace.
If you’re a leftist in any actual form please reconsider peddling internet funny money to people that can (and often have) lost a lot of money buying into it, whether through volatility or outright fraud/theft done with the technically not theft holy code you’re apparently trying to peddle.
It can have legitimate utility, for example I want to exchange money for international services without a credit card or mailing an envelope of cash/cheque.
It does it infinitely more inefficient, slower and insecure than all other existing alternatives that can do this (and there are a lot of alternatives which doesn’t involve blockchain). Which is also why people doesn’t use it for this.
I was into Bitcoin before it even had value. Cryptocurrency is a cool concept and not a scam by default, but it was never meant to be some mainstream thing that was going to replace the dollar as you hear parroted annoyingly everywhere.
When non tech people started getting interested is when the scams started (also didn’t help that governments were lending money at 0% interest rates for like the last two decades)…
Drug dealers also like getting paid in crypto, but they never hold on to it. The few that use it like a currency are ok, but the vast majority use it like a commodity.
Back in the early days (early 2010s was when I first heard of it) when Bitcoin was worth pennies on the dollar that was exactly the kind of thing it was good for, and it was marketed as an international currency not beholden to governments. It is a shame that it got taken from that for the sake of “Bitcoin being valuable because you can profit off owning Bitcoin.”
Its best use cases are only circumstantial and in every case it wastes a lot of electricity, jacks up the price of video cards, and dumps a lot of extra carbon into the atmosphere. It’s like a shitty planet-burning Rube Goldberg machine.
But it’s technically not a scam in a pedantic way at the coding level so any scams done with it don’t really count and scientific research can totally be done with blockchain and if you ignore the wasted electricity and carbon disaster that cumulatively builds higher and higher with the way blockchain technology actually works because of every individual computer needing to verify proofs with every other computer it is actually not a scam and can do good things and I am sharping the katana of my wit because I can claim that I can not condoning cryptocurrency except I am in a contrarian way
Cryptocurrency in general. Even on the surface, as presented, the main appeal to buy in is “to get rich from it” and the main way you’re supposed to get rich is “other people buying in, get in early while you can.”
Ponzi. Schemes. All of them.
It does have a utility though, buying drugs, moving money past capital controls, and creating fake revenue/losses for laundering money and tax evasion.
You forgot the human trafficking potential. Checkmate
The dollar is the favourite currency for that stuff. Cryptocurrencies are meant to take power away from banks and give it to the people. Sure, the vast majority of the people use them for spsculation, but that doesn’t make the technology useless. It’s just that people are mostly interested in making as much money as they can. That’s a society problem, not cryptocurrency’s.
Sigh… It’s like the currency still has issues or something
The main appeal is the ability to make transactions without intermediaries. The problem is that most people have as the only interest to get richer and richer and there will be always other people happy to sell them that dream… For a fee. These are the vastmajorituy of the people in cryptocurrencies, but that doesn’t disreguard the power and utility of the technology. It’s easy to shit on the tool, but the real problem is the greed-driven society we live in.
If people paid rent or bought groceries with crypto currency? Sure. It’s not like thousands of people without bank access are using coins.
I’ve been living on cryptocurrencies only for the last >6 years. Buying groceries, travels and whatever else i need. So yes, people do that. You don’t hear about it because people are too busy talking about speculators and price movements.
Cryptocurrencies are seeing high adoptions in country where banking is limited, in the rich country is 99% speculation.
Doesn’t the see saw of speculation kind of screw this up for you? Or do you only engage in business with other crypto people?
Speculation makes it harder because it causes price volatility, which is good and bad. There are services like bitrefill, travala and coincards that make very easy to buy almostanything using crypto. Of course if somebody accepts crypto directly i prefer them.
I disagree that cryptocurrency in itself is a scam. It can have legitimate utility, for example I want to exchange money for international services without a credit card or mailing an envelope of cash/cheque. Bitcoin and some others are mainstream enough that I can do this.
That said, investing in them is absolutely a scam, using it as a marketing buzzhype is a scam, and most of them are founded as scams.
Sure, sure. But does it and can it actually stay that way?
I haven’t seen a functioning example actually out there yet of a planet-burning electricity-wasting math busywork generator that actually does anything it supposedly can do besides become another ruinous and wasteful grift that does more damage to the planet than whatever convenience it supposedly offers to comfort the comforted.
Well, my transaction went through, so yes.
I agree that it is wasteful and overall a bad thing… now that I think about it could be somewhat excusable if they adopted a PoW algrothim that actually solves socially-useful expensive problems like protein-folding, through distributed computing.
But that doesn’t make it a scam. There’s not really any trickery. It’s just bad.
You’re claiming that cryptogrifts can theoretically cease being environmentally ruinous energy-wasting grifts (for Science!™) and so on, so why not go one further and state that such applications theoretically DON’T need Bitcoin or related blockchain monetization at all?
If it’s already an environmentally ruinous energy-wasting grift, and you’re claiming it can do good things while also being an environmentally ruinous energy-wasting grift, why not take the speculative fantasy a little further and lose the environmentally ruinous energy-wasting grift entirely?
I’m not claiming that. It would still be environmentally ruinous (insofar as the energy production where miners live remains ruinous, which I guess is the foreseeable future) but at least the PoW would be actually contributing to tasks we wanted to do anyway that require large amounts of work. Hence the heavy emphasis on ‘somewhat’. I’m not saying it would be justified, but it would be far far far more useful to society.
Incidentally, why characterise non-profit medical research as “for Science!™)”? I hope we can both agree that understanding the human body is valuable to society and curing disease.
There are cryptographic requirements for securely conveying the necessary information for that application, an application that requires extremely limited identity and trust and centralization. I can’t think of an alternative covering those requirements that is plausible right now and not pure what-if (there is a big jump in feasibility between ‘change the proof of work algorithm’ and ‘invent an alternative to cryptocurrency’). If we can find an alternative to expensive PoW, wonderful!
Yes, if those requirements are relaxed, there are alternatives. If you’re fine with PayPal storing your personal and financial details and those of the recipient and exploiting you a little bit, then it’s an alternative. If your recipient is fine giving personal information, speed isn’t an option and you live in a country where sending cash in mail is legal and won’t get stolen, that’s an option. Of course, this all goes to shit if you’re trading with someone in a sanctioned country.
Alright, what about Bitcoin is fraudulent? We agree it’s bad, but that doesn’t make it fraudulent (i.e. a scam)
“Less of a net negative” is still a net negative if it requires a massive and ever-growing bloated blockchain to verify every accumulating transactions for the vague and non-enforced promise of FOR SCIENCE™ benefits.
At present the alternative is not doing it because it’s still a net negative when it comes to wasted energy and environmental damage.
Sea lioning at this point is very bad form and I’m quite confident that you’re not going to accept any example or definition I give because you’re already sold on your particular investment, but fine.
Let’s start with the actual fucking fraud done with it, from phishing to theft to holding data hostage and demanding payment to decrypt that data before it’s destroyed, as is a growing common “use case” for Bitcoin when it isn’t being used for human trafficking and the like. You can piously claim in some pedantic “CODE IS LAW” thing that there’s no fraud in the code itself but splitting hairs like that doesn’t remove the incentive (or the risk, or the ongoing caseload) of fraud done with, around, and even against your favorite investment vehicle.
https://www.cryptopolitan.com/3-4-billion-penalty-in-cftc-bitcoin-fraud/
https://www.theblock.co/post/226534/silk-road-hacker-sentenced
https://www.newsmax.com/finance/streettalk/bitcoin-fraud-cftc/2023/04/28/id/1117850/?ns_mail_uid=8b680911-ae97-4076-9bbe-2f0447621e49&ns_mail_job=DM466889_04292023&s=acs&dkt_nbr=010102ydx2id
Agreeing with the parts re: net negative. No, I don’t invest in cryptocurrency; like I said, investing in them is a scam.
Fraud is done with basically anything considered to have value. Cash, credit, signatures, votes, wine, wires, mail, licenses, taxes, recorded age. Fraud is the scam! And cryptocurrency is especially useful for scamming (has the anonymity of cash without the physical restrictions). But that’s not it’s purpose or main use. That’s not spiting hairs, it’s calling the hat the head. Your example of encrypting ransomware used to be done with the postal service, floppy discs and cash in the 90s. One example from 1989
edit: this of course is an advantage of non-transferable labour vouchers!
That’s not what sea-lioning is. Someone asked us to name some scams, you said cryptocurrency, I disagreed that it qualified as a scam, you replied that you doubted my disagreement and I asked for clarification. If either of us wants to stop, we stop. Sea-lioning is stalking across the site like a debate pervert, it’s not replying to replies.
I’m not just running my mouth here, I’m evaluating my understanding of cryptocurrency and finding disagreements to make me question them. And also seeing if I’m able to have a constructive conversation - it’s good practice for real labour conversations in the workplace.
So it is all pedantic arguments for the sake of some theoretical version of something that does not actually exist in a functioning and usable form right now without all of the net negative consequences that already exist, right now.
But you did a transaction! And in theory it can be for science™! That makes it all okay because technically a dictionary absolves the holy code of all the wrongdoing done with the holy code.
Bring me one that isn’t pedantic sea lioning and sure, maybe.
It is the purpose and use for people buying into it, right now, and that’s what gets people interested and investing, no matter what claims are made by the grifters themselves.
If you’re a leftist in any actual form please reconsider peddling internet funny money to people that can (and often have) lost a lot of money buying into it, whether through volatility or outright fraud/theft done with the technically not theft holy code you’re apparently trying to peddle.
Oh, also:
https://www.merriam-webster.com/wordplay/sealioning-internet-trolling
You just failed at sea lioning me about sea lioning.
And the forks!
It does it infinitely more inefficient, slower and insecure than all other existing alternatives that can do this (and there are a lot of alternatives which doesn’t involve blockchain). Which is also why people doesn’t use it for this.
Removed by mod
I was into Bitcoin before it even had value. Cryptocurrency is a cool concept and not a scam by default, but it was never meant to be some mainstream thing that was going to replace the dollar as you hear parroted annoyingly everywhere.
When non tech people started getting interested is when the scams started (also didn’t help that governments were lending money at 0% interest rates for like the last two decades)…
Drug dealers also like getting paid in crypto, but they never hold on to it. The few that use it like a currency are ok, but the vast majority use it like a commodity.
Back in the early days (early 2010s was when I first heard of it) when Bitcoin was worth pennies on the dollar that was exactly the kind of thing it was good for, and it was marketed as an international currency not beholden to governments. It is a shame that it got taken from that for the sake of “Bitcoin being valuable because you can profit off owning Bitcoin.”
It clearly has lower utility than being able to buy drugs legally
Its best use cases are only circumstantial and in every case it wastes a lot of electricity, jacks up the price of video cards, and dumps a lot of extra carbon into the atmosphere. It’s like a shitty planet-burning Rube Goldberg machine.
I don’t remember what my og argument was
Seconding crypto.
But it’s technically not a scam in a pedantic way at the coding level so any scams done with it don’t really count and scientific research can totally be done with blockchain and if you ignore the wasted electricity and carbon disaster that cumulatively builds higher and higher with the way blockchain technology actually works because of every individual computer needing to verify proofs with every other computer it is actually not a scam and can do good things and I am sharping the katana of my wit because I can claim that I can not condoning cryptocurrency except I am in a contrarian way