[admyral]

What's so righteous about the status quo that makes skeptics feel so compelled to defend it so vehemently by degrading Bitcoin?

But it seems we should be far beyond Denial and Anger stage and well into Bargaining and Guilt at this point. Don't worry, he'll join the chorus of "blockchain is good, Bitcoin is bad" rhetoric soon enough.

[aitrean]

What's so righteous about the status quo? I'll put it to you as succinctly as possible:

I can hold money in a checking account and have the same amount of money next week, or next month

Inflation is largely predictable, and pretty much non-existant compared to crypto volatility

Fraud, phishing, and hacking will not cause me to lose my life savings. My mother is not technologically savvy at all. I would be terrified to let her keep any significant portion of her savings in a system where a hash with a typo will cost you you everything.

For as much as cryptocurrency supporters will harp about the evils of Wall Street; the explicit scams, pump and dumps, and market manipulation by 0.001% of crypto holders make Goldman Sachs look like a company of boy scouts. 2008 Financial recession? Ha, wait until you see what happens when Chinese mining pools decide it's time to weed out the small fish (ie, every other month or so). Sure, lecture me all you want about how the Federal Reserve is evil - but at least they don't prey on investors with explicit pump and dumps, useless ICOs, or that shit circus Tether.

Although there are certainly smart people working in the blockchain space - most cryptocurrency/blockchain supporters are needlessly confrontational, smug, have a limited understanding of economics or financial engineering, and use ad hominems when they're confronted by arguments they can't debate against.

From an economics and engineering perspective, there are a lot of holes in blockchain and crypto as a technology. This is reflected in the fact that there are currently no useful innovations built on blockchain, other than money laundering, and cryptocurrency (which has no inherent value itself).

[admyral]

I find nothing righteous about a system designed for a select few to profit from maintaining the illusion our money is safe and secure in a vault somewhere. That illusion has already cost people their life savings without any attacks or user error required. But the difference is they are deemed "too big to fail", so when they screw up, they get bailed out while everyone else loses it all.

More egregious is economists insistence that the continuous debasement of our currency combined with skyrocketing consumer debt and stagnant wages due to automation will not end badly. These are the same economists that couldn't possibly predict what would happen when bankers and creditors were allowed to produce billions in worthless financial derivatives and sell them as triple-A investments.

[hndamien]

Funnily enough, when people realised they could copy code and sell them off as triple-A investments that is exactly what they did. (OK, not triple A, but the scam of money from nothing is happening again and again.) At least with Bitcoin there is an end.

[admyral]

I see little distinction between a shitcoin ICO and a fart app on the App Store. A fool and their money are easily parted.

[hndamien]

If you buy Bitcoin, you still have that much Bitcoin at the end of the week. I think you are referring to exchange rates. Your money is still subject to exchange rate variation on a daily basis.

[llcoolv]

"Although there are certainly smart people working in the blockchain space - most cryptocurrency/blockchain supporters are needlessly confrontational, smug, have a limited understanding of economics or financial engineering, and use ad hominems when they're confronted by arguments they can't debate against."

How is this not an ad hominem on its own? Easily the most hipocritical one I have seen in years too.