Meta shareholders rejected the Bitcoin plan with less than 1% in favour. The proposal called Bitcoin a hedge against inflation and weak bonds. GameStop and Metaplanet are among firms copying Saylor’s Bitcoin play.
Fundamental cryptocurrency is fascinating. It is mathematically sound, just like cryptography in general (computational complexity, one way functions, etc) and it had the theoretical potential to change existing political and economical structures. Unfortunately (arguably) the very foundation it is based on, namely mining for greed, brought a different community who inexorably modified not the technology itself but its usages. What was initially a potential infrastructure for exchange of value became a way to speculate, buy and sell goods and services banned, ransomware, scam payments, etc).
AI also is fascinating as a research fields. It asks deep question with complex answers. Research for centuries about it lead to not just interesting philosophical questions, like what it’s like to be think, to be human, and mathematics used in all walks of life, like in logistics for your parcel to get delivered this morning. Yet… gradually the field, or at least its commercialization, got captured by venture capitalists, entrepreneurs, regulators, who main interest was greed. This in turn changed what was until then open to something closed, something small to something required gigantic infrastructure capturing resources hitherto used for farming, polluting due to lack of proper permit for temporary electricity sources, etc. The pinnacle right now being regulation to ban regulation on AI in the US.
So… yes, technology itself can be fascinating, useful, even important and yet how we collectively, as a society, decide to use it remains what matters, the actual impact of an idea rather than its idealization.
there’s better methods than how Bitcoin works (PoW) like Proof of Stake, but that has its own problems, like bringing more centralization to the network. Like how with bitcoin if a miner controls more than half of the global hash rates, they can mint more money than should be, in a currency with PoS they could just buy half of the coins and do it. They probably wouldn’t because its not in their self interest, but its still a problem
The purpose of a system is what it does. Crypto is used to bypass regulations, generally for illegal or immoral things. Its also been used as a ponzi scheme over and over, I guess we call them rug pulls now but its the same bullshit.
Crypto is for gamblers or drug addicts, generally. Sometimes they are both. Sort of reminds me of the mortgage crisis in 2008 with people saying it wasnt the system just people abusing it. The system was built and modified to enable abuse.
Crypto is not used to bypass regulations. Failure to regulate is on the state, not the crypto. It is easier to regulate crypto because of the public multiple ledger system that is the Blockchain, allowing you to trace tokens all the way back to their conception.
The purpose of Crypto is that it removes the need for a bank for transactions and holding of nonphysical currency. Adoption rate proportional to total population is what gives them stability and makes them less susceptible to scams or pump and dumps.
From the very beginning it was sold as a way to work outside the existing banking system and all it did was recreate the earlier days of banking with little-to-no regulation.
It is easier to regulate crypto because of the public multiple ledger system that is the Blockchain, allowing you to trace tokens all the way back to their conception.
The key to regulation is enforcement. While some regulation was put on the books, the government has been very lax with enforcement. Obvious pump and dump schemes, which would be illegal with securities, are left completely alone with crypto. Ridiculous amounts of leverage has been used to pump up the value of bitcoin, including fraudulent printing (see Tether). Also, while the bitcoin ledger is public, you can shuffle and obscure entry and exit points enough to make it anonymous.
The purpose of Crypto is that it removes the need for a bank for transactions and holding of nonphysical currency. Adoption rate proportional to total population is what gives them stability and makes them less susceptible to scams or pump and dumps.
It removes the bank and introduces mining consensus. In the case of bitcoin, this consensus is slow and costly so people have built more centralized networks on top of it. Those are your new banks right there. Plus there is the issue of mining pools becoming too large and thus having more say in the consensus. Now talk about Proof of Stake and you’ll find it’s just a system where the more you hold, the more power you have (i.e. like the rich who hold more money).
Right, reminds me of the hacker mindset or more recently the workshop I did on “Future wheel foresight” with Karin Hannes. One can try their best to predict how an invention might be used but in practice it goes beyond what its inventors want it to be, it is truly about how what “it” does through actual usage.
Idk. I’ve been reading about Bitcoin since the very beginning and while I don’t think it’s necessarily a “scam” the whole project was based on a flawed hyper-libertarian economic theory that inflationary currency is inherently evil and that the ideal currency has a fixed quantity, requires effort to produce, and becomes rarer over time. From that standpoint, I feel like Bitcoin has failed in its original mission. You simply cannot use it as a day to day currency and everyone is just using it to gamble essentially. I do agree that if crypto had been an outright scam from the beginning, Satoshi would have rugpulled already, though.
That is almost a fundamental statement, requiring logical proof.
It’s like with a computer program that can contain vulnerabilities - fixing vulnerabilities might introduce new ones, and new functionality intended for security can contain new vulnerabilities in itself, possibly making the whole even less secure than without it.
Regulations aren’t perfect, but the banking industry has gotten vastly more full of scams since congress repealed Glass Steagall. Regulations offer a structure to punish fraud and scamming. We need clear defined rules to at least attempt to control markets from their worst possible outcomes.
Frankly movement is all that matters. Too deregulated looks like cryptocurrencies, too regulated looks like PSTN which every phreaker could own, because it relied upon laws for its defense, not technical robustness.
There’s no system that remains working when just kept standing, all that matters is that we can quickly rebuild any part of it. Which is why modern legal systems and modern Web suck so much, they’ve lost that trait.
In what way is Bitcoin not fundamentally a scam? There are multiple interpretations of “Bitcoin is a scam” you can take, and honestly with most of them I think it’s been true the whole time.
Edit: I think some folks are parsing my sentence incorrectly, and I can’t blame them. I didn’t do a great job communicating. When I said “in what way is it not a scam” I didn’t mean to make it sound like an exclamation like “how can you not think it’s a scam!?”, I am saying, “which specific way of people referring to it as a scam do you believe is wrong?”
Apart from that, well no big company or country profits from it. You’re not paying someone that’s actively trying to fuck you over. You’re not paying to fund a capitalistic villain that wants all the world money. You’re paying for an, at least the original goal was, uncensurable means of payment that’s decentralized and doesn’t rely on a government or a company.
A pseudonymous and trustless way of paying people. Believe in the maths, not a regulated entity that might seize your money at any time.
It’s the cypherpunk’s wet dream and I view it as such.
Most people only view it as investment and “ponzi scheme” because they don’t care about this. They don’t care about not giving too much power to a few individuals and don’t hate banks.
Any country can just print money and make what you have worthless, and it’s often done in poor countries as a way to wipe debts or similar bs. Crypto can shield them against that, which is probably the reason why it’s more used in those kind of countries (or in countries with oppressive governments)
Bitcoin is one of the cleanest cryptos. It’s old, doesn’t work that well, but it’s not owned by anyone and it has a strong identity
For anyone saying it’s only perceived value and doesn’t rely on anything, well it’s a bit like any market. How does it really differ from stocks for example? And crypto actually relies on the way of creating coins: mining, minting… which is known. If you don’t agree with it, don’t use it. The limited number of coins plays an important role in the price.
For example, I mainly hold crypto that I’ll be using for payments, or those I deem technologically interesting.
I’ve already made many crypto payments, know how they pretty much work, and prefer using them than paying by card, because fuck the banking system and those greedy visa/mastercard that takes huge cuts from payments. Also, anonymity benefit: don’t always want my name to be known, for example when donating to an individual or particular cause
I do hope you’re being real careful with your opsec if anonymity is important to you. Generally speaking, more people will know who paid who with crypto compared to bank transfers. Chains like Monero are an exception of course and yes, there are ways to anonymize other wallets too, but it requires a great deal of care, more than I personally trust myself.
You’ve got a valid point for the card payments where there are huge fees the merchant has to pay (nearly 2% for many I think), but bank transfers are infinitely cheaper (free) and instant, compared to paying gas fees and waiting. Obviously this is not true for all banking systems yet, but it’s getting there.
Chains like Monero are an exception of course and yes, there are ways to anonymize other wallets too, but it requires a great deal of care, more than I personally trust myself.
No worries, you got an XMR fan here. Churning and swapping to remove all leads
My biggest problem with card payments is the fixed fee, which, for small payments, is enormous. When I donate to some content creator, I hate that 30% of what I send is cut into various fees, and that’s even before VAT and tax.
Gas fees are only a thing in some cryptos. BCH, LTC, XMR have nearly non-existent fees.
Wire bank transfers suck big time. Enormous fees when sending to foreign countries, and it’s also super slow.
Well in the EU you get instant free payments through SEPA and the US is trying to implement something similar with FedNow. Doesn’t solve the cross border issues, but Wise does once you can get the money on Wise. I get paid in dollars via ACH and they become euros real fast once I see them in my account. 1000 dollars converted is just under 3 dollars in fees and then the transfer from Wise to any other SEPA account is free and instant.
Now crypto could very well make this all even smoother worldwide but unfortunately we have governments and they like to see what’s going on. So no reputable merchants will ever be able to take XMR payments in most countries.
I think they didnt say part of their reasoning. Crypto is useful to buy things that are either illegal or not socially acceptable/available in your local area.
It enables this, yes. Some may like it, some don’t.
I believe I should be free to buy porn, weed or start a seedbox. Not that I will do it, but being able to use the currency for what I deem acceptable gives a big feeling of freedom.
Someone could say crypto “is a scam” in that the proof of work aspect encourages miners to keep adding more hash rate to the network so long as it is profitable to do so and not whether the network actually needs it. It takes crazy amounts of energy for simple transactions.
Someone could say crypto “is a scam” in that proof of stake algorithms (like Ether) is just a plot for the rich to get richer and favor early adopters who have more coins.
Someone could say crypto “is a scam” in that it’s controlled by technology and not laws and can’t be fixed. Someone stealing it is more likely to get away with it because it’s not like a company can just revert fraud.
Someone can say crypto “is a scam” because it doesn’t hold value. Stocks do hold value because you own a portion of that company and if they don’t reinvest their profits you get dividends. Money does hold value because even in the absence of a gold standard we’ve been using it long enough that it’s so ingrained in everything and everyone agrees it has value. Money has value in that the massive amount of financial regulations surrounding it creates a more stable value. Not everyone agrees crypto has value. Crypto is hardly regulated. Crypto wildly fluctuates in price.
Someone could say crypto “is a scam” because it is often used in scams and makes it easier for scammers to be anonymous and lock down funds they steal.
These are all the ways I could think of off the top of my head. I don’t because agree with all of them, and some I think are more valid arguments than others. The last one being the weakest since it feels odd to say scam instead of a trap or something.
Someone could say crypto “is a scam” in that the proof of work aspect encourages miners to keep adding more hash rate to the network so long as it is profitable to do so and not whether the network actually needs it. It takes crazy amounts of energy for simple transactions.
I don’t see how it makes it a scam. But anyways, by definition, a bigger hash rate is always good.
Someone could say crypto “is a scam” in that proof of stake algorithms (like Ether) is just a plot for the rich to get richer and favor early adopters who have more coins.
You mean just like stocks, and banks, and real estate, and investing? Doesn’t make it a scam either. Find better algorithms. Crypto works because people use it. If something is better for everyone, it’ll end up gaining traction.
Someone could say crypto “is a scam” in that it’s controlled by technology and not laws and can’t be fixed. Someone stealing it is more likely to get away with it because it’s not like a company can just revert fraud.
I could see a valid reason in this but when you get into crypto, you know what to expect. I feel like I have been personally scammed by the banking system and PayPal through abusive reversals, which funnily enough, is fraud caused by the anti fraud system. Many people abuse this stuff.
For the crypto value thing. Well yea. Not everyone agrees it has value, but that stands for pretty much everything. You could draw a parallel with art. Most people don’t give a fuck about your black and blue painting that apparently costs millions. People might also not care about a blue spider hat. It doesn’t make it a scam in any way. If people pay, then it has value to them. No one forced them to buy crypto. They’re not a great value store, they’re a risky investment and usage product, just like stocks. It doesn’t make it a scam.
Someone could say crypto “is a scam” because it is often used in scams and makes it easier for scammers to be anonymous and lock down funds they steal.
Not a scam but it would be a valid reason to hate it. Cash is the same. Government seizing crypto because it was linked at some point to a scam even though you’re not linked to it is a scam imo.
I’m not really convinced by any of these reasons. They’re valid reason not to like crypto, but none of them makes it a scam.
Someone could say crypto “is a scam” in that proof of stake algorithms (like Ether) is just a plot for the rich to get richer and favor early adopters who have more coins.
You mean just like stocks, and banks, and real estate, and investing? Doesn’t make it a scam either. Find better algorithms. Crypto works because people use it. If something is better for everyone, it’ll end up gaining traction.
No, stocks, banks, and real estate do not give you more of themselves by mere fact of owning them. Some stocks pay dividends, but you don’t get more stock for owning it, setting something up to buy more with dividends is your own decision. Banks give you interest, but that is not a function of how money works, that’s something the bank does. Owning property does not give you more property over time. None of these are like how a proof of stake algorithm works.
Do I think it makes it a scam? No, not really. Do I think people saying it’s a scam because of that are wildly off base? Fuck no. It’s valid to be concerned about it. Do I think it’s better than proof of work? Yeah, probably. The arms race of increasing hash rate so long as it’s profitable energy wise is pretty nasty.
Your statement is technically true for everything you buy. You make the market price go up, so every owner benefits from it if they intend to sell at some point
It’s the same for stocks, it’s the same for houses. Welcome to economics
Decentralised currencies are fundamentally too expensive to operate, while providing dangerously little safety and a far worse user experience than fiat.
The scam part is the idea that any crypto coin is an asset with inherent value, when in fact the price is created entirely by new investment, in other words it’s just a ponzi scheme
I think you may have misunderstood. I’m saying people call it a scam for a variety of reasons, so when someone says it isn’t a scam, I’m asking which way of calling it a scam are they saying it’s not a scam in relation to.
No, I don’t. But I do find it humourous you moderate a community called “how to sell drugs online fast” lol. And I genuinely don’t mean that in some sort of “you’re biased” way, truly.
Not sure what your link is supposed to prove. I could make the exact same site but with problems related to the banking system, and trust me, it would be a lot worse.
I think you’re doing a disservice by saying everyone who calls it a scam doesn’t understand it well enough. It’s not like everyone saying it is a scam are doing it for the same reason. There’s a variety of reasons people have for doing it.
People can all have different reasons for a thing and yet all still come to the wrong conclusion. Bitcoin just doesn’t meet the criteria for a scam. It’s one thing to not like or trust it for legitimate reasons. It’s another thing to denounce the thing you don’t like or trust with an invalid accusation.
What’s the criteria for something being a scam in your opinion and why do you believe others whose criteria is different from yours don’t have legitimate reasons and make invalid accusations?
No, it’s your accusation. You tell me why you think this FOSS software protocol is a scam and if I don’t think your arguments hold water, I’ll tell you why. You’ve got a navigator avatar, dev in your username, and a programming home instance. I imagine you’re capable of educating yourself enough to make some sound arguments on the topic and a bit of factual contribution to the discussion.
You’ve got a navigator avatar, dev in your username, and a programming home instance. I imagine you’re capable of educating yourself enough to make some sound arguments on the topic and a bit of factual contribution to the discussion.
Alright, well in the spirit of you not thinking it’s a scam and merely listing why others may think it is, I guess I’ll respond to your compiled list.
the proof of work aspect encourages miners to keep adding more hash rate to the network so long as it is profitable to do so and not whether the network actually needs it. It takes crazy amounts of energy for simple transactions.
TL;DR I think this is a valid argument. But let’s break it down to really know what we’re saying. If you take the estimated global mining power of 175 TWh at an average 3,000 transactions per block, it works out to 1.1 MW/transaction. Which is a ton, easily arguable as far too much. The problem with this argument are IMO threefold, although they do amount to mere caveats:
It ignores sidechains like lightning, a federated network that handles the majority of small bitcoin transactions. Anecdotally speaking, most purchases of goods and services that I’ve ever made in bitcoin (Mostly software and game passes, a few coffees) have been via lightning. Potentially billions of lightning TXs can tether behind a single on-chain transaction. I do not believe lightning processes this level of volume today, but as it’s an immeasurable federated network it casts heavy doubt all power estimates. I would not be surprised if the ratio of side-chain to on-chain BTC transactions is already 100:1. Which is still too much power per tx but…
…The power argument gives a free pass to even more expensive proof of works that already exist, which are normalized enough to us that we do not think of them as the proof of works that they are. What is the single largest consumer of energy on the planet but an energetic protection of the value of the USD? There is a reason that the US military is several times larger than the next 9 world militaries combined, and it is not territorial expansion or defense. I’m not naive enough to think that a deflationary currency can stop a nation state from committing military violence on a mass scale so long as it wants to, but every time I hear that “proof of work is a waste” I get frustrated at what I see as misdirection.
Mining intensity plateaus over the long term due to several factors. Decreasing block rewards, regulatory catchup, and industry crowding put a cap on participation. The one and only force pushing back against these weights is increasing bitcoin value, which itself plateaus over time or at least S-curves off. When the price spikes, you are right that miners respond to the profit incentive by growing. But these spikes become less pronounced year over year, and with them the industry has already begun to level off. It’s growth is not exponential like some believe, and certainly not runaway.
Proof of stake algorithms (like Ether) is just a plot for the rich to get richer and favor early adopters who have more coins.
I agree with this. I feel that PoS breaks the holistic system that bitcoin’s whitepaper outlines. But Etherium is not Bitcoin, and I would not bother arguing for it’s sake.
It’s controlled by technology and not laws and can’t be fixed.
Just plain wrong. We have plenty of very strict laws that control software use. We can and should have laws surrounding bitcoin use, especially ones that pertain to steering the mining industry and taxation.
Someone stealing it is more likely to get away with it because it’s not like a company can just revert fraud.
Conditionally true. If the thief is in Russia or one of a handful of other nations that stand contrary to global financial regulation, then yes it would be relatively easy for them to get away with it. But outside of those jurisdictions it would be a matter of time before a motivated law enforcement agency tracked them down, as just about all on/off ramps are now regulated and value movement can be tracked along a chain of wallets - Including tumblers / mixers! - On the public ledger. Still conditional though, because the funds could be spent long before the thief is caught. This is one of the main reasons why I think multi-sig wallets are going to become the norm over the next decade.
it doesn’t hold value. Stocks do hold value because you own a portion of that company and if they don’t reinvest their profits you get dividends. Money does hold value because even in the absence of a gold standard we’ve been using it long enough that it’s so ingrained in everything and everyone agrees it has value. Money has value in that the massive amount of financial regulations surrounding it creates a more stable value. Not everyone agrees crypto has value. Crypto is hardly regulated. Crypto wildly fluctuates in price.
IMO this argument is completely vapid, and illustrative of my main gripe about the way that people criticize bitcoin. Bitcoin is money, all of the arguments made for “money” that you relay here can be made for bitcoin, and the fact that bitcoin is money is not a strength, it is the one single ACTUAL heavyweight criticism that can and should be leveled against bitcoin. But when it’s time to argue against bitcoin, all the leftists suddenly transform into liberals. Arguing against bitcoin from the position of defending money, rather than arguing against money, including bitcoin, on the basis that not only is bitcoin money but that it is accelerated, hyper-financialized, straight-into-your-veins money that intensifies all the typical immiseration of workers under capitalism! I can’t believe that people actually argue that “bitcoin isn’t money and that’s why it’s bad” instead of “bitcoin is the most money that ever did money and THAT is why it’s bad”! It eclipses any and all other criticisms, rational or otherwise, yet we fail to make that one argument.
it is often used in scams and makes it easier for scammers to be anonymous and lock down funds they steal.
Merh, I don’t find this argument compelling. I really don’t think that most scammers are anonymous or need to be. Most of the scams I see in the world are right out there in the open. The scammers successfully pushing their scams with their real faces. Crypto as a whole does attract scammers. But again, most of them have known names and addresses.
Anyway, since these aren’t necessarily all your arguments I’d be interested to see how your own opinions of them compare to mine. My fingers are sore, that was a lot of typing.
Fundamentally, no. That’s just what it’s become.
I agree and in fact I feel the same with AI.
Fundamental cryptocurrency is fascinating. It is mathematically sound, just like cryptography in general (computational complexity, one way functions, etc) and it had the theoretical potential to change existing political and economical structures. Unfortunately (arguably) the very foundation it is based on, namely mining for greed, brought a different community who inexorably modified not the technology itself but its usages. What was initially a potential infrastructure for exchange of value became a way to speculate, buy and sell goods and services banned, ransomware, scam payments, etc).
AI also is fascinating as a research fields. It asks deep question with complex answers. Research for centuries about it lead to not just interesting philosophical questions, like what it’s like to be think, to be human, and mathematics used in all walks of life, like in logistics for your parcel to get delivered this morning. Yet… gradually the field, or at least its commercialization, got captured by venture capitalists, entrepreneurs, regulators, who main interest was greed. This in turn changed what was until then open to something closed, something small to something required gigantic infrastructure capturing resources hitherto used for farming, polluting due to lack of proper permit for temporary electricity sources, etc. The pinnacle right now being regulation to ban regulation on AI in the US.
So… yes, technology itself can be fascinating, useful, even important and yet how we collectively, as a society, decide to use it remains what matters, the actual impact of an idea rather than its idealization.
Apart from all the other deflationary stuff…
I can’t get past the adjustable difficulty lottery system they use for mining blocks every 10m… :/ there has to be a better way.
It’s like diagonalizing huge matrices repeatedly just as a wait() function.
there’s better methods than how Bitcoin works (PoW) like Proof of Stake, but that has its own problems, like bringing more centralization to the network. Like how with bitcoin if a miner controls more than half of the global hash rates, they can mint more money than should be, in a currency with PoS they could just buy half of the coins and do it. They probably wouldn’t because its not in their self interest, but its still a problem
The purpose of a system is what it does. Crypto is used to bypass regulations, generally for illegal or immoral things. Its also been used as a ponzi scheme over and over, I guess we call them rug pulls now but its the same bullshit.
Crypto is for gamblers or drug addicts, generally. Sometimes they are both. Sort of reminds me of the mortgage crisis in 2008 with people saying it wasnt the system just people abusing it. The system was built and modified to enable abuse.
Crypto is not used to bypass regulations. Failure to regulate is on the state, not the crypto. It is easier to regulate crypto because of the public multiple ledger system that is the Blockchain, allowing you to trace tokens all the way back to their conception.
The purpose of Crypto is that it removes the need for a bank for transactions and holding of nonphysical currency. Adoption rate proportional to total population is what gives them stability and makes them less susceptible to scams or pump and dumps.
From the very beginning it was sold as a way to work outside the existing banking system and all it did was recreate the earlier days of banking with little-to-no regulation.
The key to regulation is enforcement. While some regulation was put on the books, the government has been very lax with enforcement. Obvious pump and dump schemes, which would be illegal with securities, are left completely alone with crypto. Ridiculous amounts of leverage has been used to pump up the value of bitcoin, including fraudulent printing (see Tether). Also, while the bitcoin ledger is public, you can shuffle and obscure entry and exit points enough to make it anonymous.
It removes the bank and introduces mining consensus. In the case of bitcoin, this consensus is slow and costly so people have built more centralized networks on top of it. Those are your new banks right there. Plus there is the issue of mining pools becoming too large and thus having more say in the consensus. Now talk about Proof of Stake and you’ll find it’s just a system where the more you hold, the more power you have (i.e. like the rich who hold more money).
Right, reminds me of the hacker mindset or more recently the workshop I did on “Future wheel foresight” with Karin Hannes. One can try their best to predict how an invention might be used but in practice it goes beyond what its inventors want it to be, it is truly about how what “it” does through actual usage.
Idk. I’ve been reading about Bitcoin since the very beginning and while I don’t think it’s necessarily a “scam” the whole project was based on a flawed hyper-libertarian economic theory that inflationary currency is inherently evil and that the ideal currency has a fixed quantity, requires effort to produce, and becomes rarer over time. From that standpoint, I feel like Bitcoin has failed in its original mission. You simply cannot use it as a day to day currency and everyone is just using it to gamble essentially. I do agree that if crypto had been an outright scam from the beginning, Satoshi would have rugpulled already, though.
What any unregulated market becomes.
A lot of scams are dependent on the presence of regulations.
But a lot more are dependent on the absence of them.
That is almost a fundamental statement, requiring logical proof.
It’s like with a computer program that can contain vulnerabilities - fixing vulnerabilities might introduce new ones, and new functionality intended for security can contain new vulnerabilities in itself, possibly making the whole even less secure than without it.
Regulations aren’t perfect, but the banking industry has gotten vastly more full of scams since congress repealed Glass Steagall. Regulations offer a structure to punish fraud and scamming. We need clear defined rules to at least attempt to control markets from their worst possible outcomes.
Frankly movement is all that matters. Too deregulated looks like cryptocurrencies, too regulated looks like PSTN which every phreaker could own, because it relied upon laws for its defense, not technical robustness.
There’s no system that remains working when just kept standing, all that matters is that we can quickly rebuild any part of it. Which is why modern legal systems and modern Web suck so much, they’ve lost that trait.
In what way is Bitcoin not fundamentally a scam? There are multiple interpretations of “Bitcoin is a scam” you can take, and honestly with most of them I think it’s been true the whole time.
Edit: I think some folks are parsing my sentence incorrectly, and I can’t blame them. I didn’t do a great job communicating. When I said “in what way is it not a scam” I didn’t mean to make it sound like an exclamation like “how can you not think it’s a scam!?”, I am saying, “which specific way of people referring to it as a scam do you believe is wrong?”
It would be better to state how it is a scam
Apart from that, well no big company or country profits from it. You’re not paying someone that’s actively trying to fuck you over. You’re not paying to fund a capitalistic villain that wants all the world money. You’re paying for an, at least the original goal was, uncensurable means of payment that’s decentralized and doesn’t rely on a government or a company.
A pseudonymous and trustless way of paying people. Believe in the maths, not a regulated entity that might seize your money at any time.
It’s the cypherpunk’s wet dream and I view it as such.
Most people only view it as investment and “ponzi scheme” because they don’t care about this. They don’t care about not giving too much power to a few individuals and don’t hate banks.
Any country can just print money and make what you have worthless, and it’s often done in poor countries as a way to wipe debts or similar bs. Crypto can shield them against that, which is probably the reason why it’s more used in those kind of countries (or in countries with oppressive governments)
Bitcoin is one of the cleanest cryptos. It’s old, doesn’t work that well, but it’s not owned by anyone and it has a strong identity
For anyone saying it’s only perceived value and doesn’t rely on anything, well it’s a bit like any market. How does it really differ from stocks for example? And crypto actually relies on the way of creating coins: mining, minting… which is known. If you don’t agree with it, don’t use it. The limited number of coins plays an important role in the price.
For example, I mainly hold crypto that I’ll be using for payments, or those I deem technologically interesting.
I’ve already made many crypto payments, know how they pretty much work, and prefer using them than paying by card, because fuck the banking system and those greedy visa/mastercard that takes huge cuts from payments. Also, anonymity benefit: don’t always want my name to be known, for example when donating to an individual or particular cause
I do hope you’re being real careful with your opsec if anonymity is important to you. Generally speaking, more people will know who paid who with crypto compared to bank transfers. Chains like Monero are an exception of course and yes, there are ways to anonymize other wallets too, but it requires a great deal of care, more than I personally trust myself.
You’ve got a valid point for the card payments where there are huge fees the merchant has to pay (nearly 2% for many I think), but bank transfers are infinitely cheaper (free) and instant, compared to paying gas fees and waiting. Obviously this is not true for all banking systems yet, but it’s getting there.
No worries, you got an XMR fan here. Churning and swapping to remove all leads
My biggest problem with card payments is the fixed fee, which, for small payments, is enormous. When I donate to some content creator, I hate that 30% of what I send is cut into various fees, and that’s even before VAT and tax.
Gas fees are only a thing in some cryptos. BCH, LTC, XMR have nearly non-existent fees.
Wire bank transfers suck big time. Enormous fees when sending to foreign countries, and it’s also super slow.
Well in the EU you get instant free payments through SEPA and the US is trying to implement something similar with FedNow. Doesn’t solve the cross border issues, but Wise does once you can get the money on Wise. I get paid in dollars via ACH and they become euros real fast once I see them in my account. 1000 dollars converted is just under 3 dollars in fees and then the transfer from Wise to any other SEPA account is free and instant.
Now crypto could very well make this all even smoother worldwide but unfortunately we have governments and they like to see what’s going on. So no reputable merchants will ever be able to take XMR payments in most countries.
I think they didnt say part of their reasoning. Crypto is useful to buy things that are either illegal or not socially acceptable/available in your local area.
Absolutely - if you’re good about your opsec. If you’re not, it’s almost worse than a bank transaction and for sure worse than cash.
It enables this, yes. Some may like it, some don’t.
I believe I should be free to buy porn, weed or start a seedbox. Not that I will do it, but being able to use the currency for what I deem acceptable gives a big feeling of freedom.
Very true, although I don’t think freedom is always a good thing.
They extra costs of creditcards is why I use a modern bankcard, but the US is really behind on that so for some things I need to use my CC
Wdym by “modern bankcard”? And I feel like the USA are pretty good in terms of crypto
A chipped bank card aka what the rest of us use with modern standards like 2FA etc
Someone could say crypto “is a scam” in that the proof of work aspect encourages miners to keep adding more hash rate to the network so long as it is profitable to do so and not whether the network actually needs it. It takes crazy amounts of energy for simple transactions.
Someone could say crypto “is a scam” in that proof of stake algorithms (like Ether) is just a plot for the rich to get richer and favor early adopters who have more coins.
Someone could say crypto “is a scam” in that it’s controlled by technology and not laws and can’t be fixed. Someone stealing it is more likely to get away with it because it’s not like a company can just revert fraud.
Someone can say crypto “is a scam” because it doesn’t hold value. Stocks do hold value because you own a portion of that company and if they don’t reinvest their profits you get dividends. Money does hold value because even in the absence of a gold standard we’ve been using it long enough that it’s so ingrained in everything and everyone agrees it has value. Money has value in that the massive amount of financial regulations surrounding it creates a more stable value. Not everyone agrees crypto has value. Crypto is hardly regulated. Crypto wildly fluctuates in price.
Someone could say crypto “is a scam” because it is often used in scams and makes it easier for scammers to be anonymous and lock down funds they steal.
These are all the ways I could think of off the top of my head. I don’t because agree with all of them, and some I think are more valid arguments than others. The last one being the weakest since it feels odd to say scam instead of a trap or something.
I don’t see how it makes it a scam. But anyways, by definition, a bigger hash rate is always good.
You mean just like stocks, and banks, and real estate, and investing? Doesn’t make it a scam either. Find better algorithms. Crypto works because people use it. If something is better for everyone, it’ll end up gaining traction.
I could see a valid reason in this but when you get into crypto, you know what to expect. I feel like I have been personally scammed by the banking system and PayPal through abusive reversals, which funnily enough, is fraud caused by the anti fraud system. Many people abuse this stuff.
For the crypto value thing. Well yea. Not everyone agrees it has value, but that stands for pretty much everything. You could draw a parallel with art. Most people don’t give a fuck about your black and blue painting that apparently costs millions. People might also not care about a blue spider hat. It doesn’t make it a scam in any way. If people pay, then it has value to them. No one forced them to buy crypto. They’re not a great value store, they’re a risky investment and usage product, just like stocks. It doesn’t make it a scam.
Not a scam but it would be a valid reason to hate it. Cash is the same. Government seizing crypto because it was linked at some point to a scam even though you’re not linked to it is a scam imo.
I’m not really convinced by any of these reasons. They’re valid reason not to like crypto, but none of them makes it a scam.
No, stocks, banks, and real estate do not give you more of themselves by mere fact of owning them. Some stocks pay dividends, but you don’t get more stock for owning it, setting something up to buy more with dividends is your own decision. Banks give you interest, but that is not a function of how money works, that’s something the bank does. Owning property does not give you more property over time. None of these are like how a proof of stake algorithm works.
Do I think it makes it a scam? No, not really. Do I think people saying it’s a scam because of that are wildly off base? Fuck no. It’s valid to be concerned about it. Do I think it’s better than proof of work? Yeah, probably. The arms race of increasing hash rate so long as it’s profitable energy wise is pretty nasty.
I don’t agree with your first paragraph. It’s virtually the same as banks and stocks.
So is owning ETH… all ETH is not staked. And even if it was, how does it matter? In the end everyone gains the same percentage.
Apart from that, everyone uses compounding interests and most people reinvests dividends.
You’re free to unstake your ETH at any point.
What putting money into crypto does is empower early bitcoin speculators
Your statement is technically true for everything you buy. You make the market price go up, so every owner benefits from it if they intend to sell at some point
It’s the same for stocks, it’s the same for houses. Welcome to economics
Right, but definitely not a ponzi scheme. Also, proof of stake is also definitely not a ponzi scheme.
Low effort troll
It’s a joke. Trolling implies intent to deceive or get a negative reaction.
Bitcoin is not directly a scam. Rather it is a vector for scams. It makes scamming just a bit easier until regulations catch up.
Now, the various meme coins are directly scams. You are guaranteed to lose money buying into them.
In what way is it?
Decentralised currencies are fundamentally too expensive to operate, while providing dangerously little safety and a far worse user experience than fiat.
The scam part is the idea that any crypto coin is an asset with inherent value, when in fact the price is created entirely by new investment, in other words it’s just a ponzi scheme
I think you may have misunderstood. I’m saying people call it a scam for a variety of reasons, so when someone says it isn’t a scam, I’m asking which way of calling it a scam are they saying it’s not a scam in relation to.
In the way that none of those other ways are fundamental to it’s intended use by it’s creator as an actual currency.
There are plenty of things that aren’t created by scammers to be scams that people call scams.
That exactly my point.
Which doesn’t take away for them to be scams anyway.
They believe shitcoins = the whole crypto economy
The only thing they know are ERC20 tokens
No, I don’t. But I do find it humourous you moderate a community called “how to sell drugs online fast” lol. And I genuinely don’t mean that in some sort of “you’re biased” way, truly.
Haha yea funny
I like the show and I wanted to have a community for it on Lemmy rather than Reddit
Apart from that, crypto usage increased due to dark net markets so there’s a real link
It means you spied on me though 👀😂
https://web3isgoinggreat.com/
The entirety of blockchain is a scam. And especially Bitcoin.
Not sure what your link is supposed to prove. I could make the exact same site but with problems related to the banking system, and trust me, it would be a lot worse.
It’s not a scam. It’s also not immune from valid criticism, but people who call it a scam don’t understand it well enough to make those criticisms.
I think you’re doing a disservice by saying everyone who calls it a scam doesn’t understand it well enough. It’s not like everyone saying it is a scam are doing it for the same reason. There’s a variety of reasons people have for doing it.
People can all have different reasons for a thing and yet all still come to the wrong conclusion. Bitcoin just doesn’t meet the criteria for a scam. It’s one thing to not like or trust it for legitimate reasons. It’s another thing to denounce the thing you don’t like or trust with an invalid accusation.
What’s the criteria for something being a scam in your opinion and why do you believe others whose criteria is different from yours don’t have legitimate reasons and make invalid accusations?
No, it’s your accusation. You tell me why you think this FOSS software protocol is a scam and if I don’t think your arguments hold water, I’ll tell you why. You’ve got a navigator avatar, dev in your username, and a programming home instance. I imagine you’re capable of educating yourself enough to make some sound arguments on the topic and a bit of factual contribution to the discussion.
I never said it was a scam. I’m asking what people’s response to others who feel it is a scam is.
I listed many reasons why many people might view it as a scam here: https://programming.dev/comment/17292659
No need to be so condescending.
Alright, well in the spirit of you not thinking it’s a scam and merely listing why others may think it is, I guess I’ll respond to your compiled list.
TL;DR I think this is a valid argument. But let’s break it down to really know what we’re saying. If you take the estimated global mining power of 175 TWh at an average 3,000 transactions per block, it works out to 1.1 MW/transaction. Which is a ton, easily arguable as far too much. The problem with this argument are IMO threefold, although they do amount to mere caveats:
I agree with this. I feel that PoS breaks the holistic system that bitcoin’s whitepaper outlines. But Etherium is not Bitcoin, and I would not bother arguing for it’s sake.
Just plain wrong. We have plenty of very strict laws that control software use. We can and should have laws surrounding bitcoin use, especially ones that pertain to steering the mining industry and taxation.
Conditionally true. If the thief is in Russia or one of a handful of other nations that stand contrary to global financial regulation, then yes it would be relatively easy for them to get away with it. But outside of those jurisdictions it would be a matter of time before a motivated law enforcement agency tracked them down, as just about all on/off ramps are now regulated and value movement can be tracked along a chain of wallets - Including tumblers / mixers! - On the public ledger. Still conditional though, because the funds could be spent long before the thief is caught. This is one of the main reasons why I think multi-sig wallets are going to become the norm over the next decade.
IMO this argument is completely vapid, and illustrative of my main gripe about the way that people criticize bitcoin. Bitcoin is money, all of the arguments made for “money” that you relay here can be made for bitcoin, and the fact that bitcoin is money is not a strength, it is the one single ACTUAL heavyweight criticism that can and should be leveled against bitcoin. But when it’s time to argue against bitcoin, all the leftists suddenly transform into liberals. Arguing against bitcoin from the position of defending money, rather than arguing against money, including bitcoin, on the basis that not only is bitcoin money but that it is accelerated, hyper-financialized, straight-into-your-veins money that intensifies all the typical immiseration of workers under capitalism! I can’t believe that people actually argue that “bitcoin isn’t money and that’s why it’s bad” instead of “bitcoin is the most money that ever did money and THAT is why it’s bad”! It eclipses any and all other criticisms, rational or otherwise, yet we fail to make that one argument.
Merh, I don’t find this argument compelling. I really don’t think that most scammers are anonymous or need to be. Most of the scams I see in the world are right out there in the open. The scammers successfully pushing their scams with their real faces. Crypto as a whole does attract scammers. But again, most of them have known names and addresses.
Anyway, since these aren’t necessarily all your arguments I’d be interested to see how your own opinions of them compare to mine. My fingers are sore, that was a lot of typing.