[cies]

It's in it's infancy. In two decades we will know what it means to us as mankind.

Cars were also dangerous, unregulated, expensive and excessively polluting. It got a lot better on all these points, and not all due to the cars: some of it was a mind shift that mankind had to make.

Same will hold true for cryptocurrency.

[knorker]

But cars had value. They have value. They had value from day 1.

Cryptocurrencies just don't. It's all smoke and mirrors, where everything would be better without the blockchain. Without irreversibility. Without everything about it.

There are whole books about how terrible and useless it is.

And please do what the article said: How much of your own money is dependent on you selling the lie of cryptocurrency or smart contract to the next level in this multi level marketing?

I sold my BTC when it was at $15k, because I felt disgusted in participating in this super-immoral going-nowhere-moral tech, so my balance is 0.

I made a profit, sure, but regret touching it at all.

> Same will hold true for cryptocurrency.

By this logic you could start kicking puppies, because "eventually something good will come out of kicking puppies", and just as baseless reasoning.

[acdha]

> But cars had value. They have value. They had value from day 1.

This is so true: cars have massive externalities but the 20th century was spend rebuilding the world around them because they were useful. You saw that immediately and the true costs only became more apparent years later.

Cryptocurrency is as if Robert Moses had redesigned NYC around pet rock warehousing on the theory that someone would later find a use for them, and the warehouses needed to burn coal continuously.

[joepie91_]

> This is so true: cars have massive externalities but the 20th century was spend rebuilding the world around them because they were useful.

Well, no, not really.

While cars do have non-zero usefulness, the reason we rebuilt the world around them was because of car manufacturer lobbying, not because of some shared revelation about their value to society.

[acdha]

There's some truth to that but the main point was simply that anyone who bought a car, especially earlier on, saw immediate benefits. Later on they might have reconsidered if they learned how traffic jams work, saw the effects of pollution or injuries, etc. but by then they were most likely financially invested with major commitments to an automobile-based lifestyle.

That's the problem with these kind of things: the early adopters see benefits but probably not the costs, that convinces other people to join them, and it quickly reaches the point where the easiest/most profitable is to continue down that path. If you're the average suburban homeowner, you might hate the effect that sitting in traffic has on your health and time but if you can't afford to live next to the office you're probably going to treat it as inevitable since dramatic changes affect your property values.

[knorker]

Even if the costs had been obvious from day one, unlike cryptocurrencies they also had value.

Many things do. Cryptocurrencies don't.

[acdha]

No argument here: in the second decade, the only cash-positive usage is convincing other people to buy them. That’s a long time to have nothing to show despite such massive cash flow into the system.

TBL transformed the world in a few years for a tiny fraction of the cost despite much higher barriers to adoption.

[noxer]

There is no cash flow "into the system". Its a forever repeated nonsense idea. If you exchange fiat or maybe gold for fiat there is no cash flow into anything its just an exchange. Crypto to crypto or to fiat is exactly the same. No cash goes anywhere other than to the seller.

(obviously ignoring fees and such but they also dont go into anything its just paying someone for providing a service)

If you look at crypto as the huge trading space and you dont see it produce anything is simply because its not supposed to. You look at the space that just exchanges stuff. If you look at a grocery store and you dont see anything produced you are right. The store is just where people exchange stuff. Its not where value is created or where you would find innovation in producing something.

[acdha]

What do you think happened to all of the money from VCs, big consulting companies, etc. which was spent on blockchain services? How many people have received a full-time paycheck for years for the express purpose of building something worth using?

Your grocery store analogy illustrates why there are so many skeptics: I don't have to ask people whether they use a grocery store because they have food on their shelves and there's a steady stream of people entering and leaving the store. Blockchain systems, on the other hand, are never mentioned other than by people who have a vested interest in selling the system rather than doing anything with it. People say they're going shopping to buy something for dinner, but it's extremely hard to find someone saying they're buying cryptocurrency because there's something it helps them do faster/better/cheaper rather than just hoping they'll be able to sell the same token to someone else for more than they paid for it.

[argvargc]

The US government has been using cryptocurrencies to deliver aid direct to Venezuelans, for whom previously traditionally bank-wired funds were been pilfered by local (government-controlled) banks.

The aspect of direct "peer to peer" electronic cash, coupled with plausible deniability of ownership and no need for trusted parties, are tremendously positive characteristics in poor, corrupt and developing nations where everyday crypto adoption is running high.

There is nothing else available to solve many of these problems, hence Bitcoin and others filling the void.

There are many other potential positives too, but to say there are none - even right now - is ill-informed.

https://decrypt.co/49088/us-government-use-usdc-stablecoin-b...

[narwally]

I'm not doubting you, but do you have a better source than a cryptocurrency news site?

Also, the US government sending cryptocurrency to South America honestly doesn't sound like a definite positive. Even recently, the US doesn't have a great track record with their interventions in that region of the world.

[argvargc]

Don't worry, you can trust decrypt (at least inasmuch as you can trust Yahoo):

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/us-government-enlists-usdc-gl...

Regardless of a given view on the politics of this particular intervention, accepting the intervention occurs at all, also accepts crypto's utility for this purpose of circumventing systemic centralised corruption, which was the point of the example.

[dTal]

I have to say I am very impressed by your moral compass's sense of market timing!

[knorker]

I sold at the peak of a bubble, so I can be happy about that. Sure, it's higher now, but I also don't invest in payday loan companies for the same reason. I hear it's very profitable too, but it's just too evil.

[eric_cc]

> Cryptocurrencies just don't [have value]. It's all smoke and mirrors

> super-immoral going-nowhere-moral tech

lol what? Is US dollar moral? Is it not also "smoke-and-mirrors" by your definition since it's just paper that we all believe has value?

[2pEXgD0fZ5cF]

> Is US dollar moral? Is it not also "smoke-and-mirrors"

US Dollar and other "real" currencies are and can be used for payments and transactions (money in exchange for goods, services etc.). Cryptocurrencies are only converted to/from other currencies to make profits based on speculation.

[s3krit]

Disclaimer: I don't know world global finance, I don't know much about economics, I hold several cryptocurrencies. I am fantastically unqualified to actually make this post.

I was curious about this comment, because I know FOREX is a massive market. According to [1] the daily volume of FOREX in USD is $6.1 trillion. According to [2], the average 'consumer unit' (ugh... I guess that means 'person'?) in the US spends about $63k per year. Let me know if my maths or methodology here is wrong because, and I cannot stress this enough, I am a moron acting in good faith but a moron nonetheless... (63 000 / 365) * 330 000 000 (the US population) = 56958904109.6, or $57bn. That's a lot but it's only (conveniently) about 1% of the volume of the FOREX market. Which means what, the vast majority of USD changing hands is in the form of 'converted to/from other currencies to make profits based on speculation'?

Again, please let me know if my methodology is broken, my sources are shit, whatever.

[1] https://www.compareforexbrokers.com/forex-trading/statistics... [2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/247407/average-annual-co...

[2pEXgD0fZ5cF]

I think one would have to factor in how much of the population is actually personally involved in that, the rich hold a large majority of all the money and wealth [1] and the amounts of money they move are lightyears away from the amount of money an "average" person uses for everything their daily life encompasses.

A rich person can move more money than whole towns combined. We are left with the question: Which one does better reflect the "actual" usage of money? 2-3 rich people doing speculations or thousands of "regular" people (living expenses, entertainment, work supplies etc.) with way less money?

Compared to that there is the problem that something like bitcoin is actively harmful towards practical usage due to the extremely high transaction cost, slow transactions, volatility, absolute lack of privacy, extremely high energy cost (that already surpasses whole countries with only very few people using it).

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_inequality_in_the_Unite...

[tome]

> the average 'consumer unit' (ugh... I guess that means 'person'?) in the US spends about $63k per year

Surely it means 'household'? There's no way the average American spends $63k per year. That's more than the average salary.

[knorker]

> lol what? Is US dollar moral?

What exactly is your argument?

> Is it not also "smoke-and-mirrors" by your definition since it's just paper that we all believe has value?

USD is backed by the mostly aligned incentives of the whole world in general, and the biggest company in the world in particular, and by the largest military might and nuclear arsenal, ultimately.

USD is paper and bits we believe has value. BTC is bits that most people believe doesn't have value. And that everyone knows will never displace USD because (see above) won't allow it.

[eric_cc]

> USD is paper and bits we believe has value.

Speak for yourself.

> BTC is bits that most people believe doesn't have value.

This is changing rapidly, is it not?

[knorker]

>> USD is paper and bits we believe has value.

> Speak for yourself.

Raaa-haaaight. Next time you don't believe USD has value you'll skip picking up that $100 bill on the street. When you get robbed you'll laugh and give the robber your worthless USD and say "good luck using this for anything!".

>> BTC is bits that most people believe doesn't have value.

> This is changing rapidly, is it not?

I wouldn't say so, no.

[mvolfik]

I'm not a crypto supporter, but I'd say that he is right there. If _you_ found private key to a wallet with 1 BTC somewhere, would you leave it be? Even if you can't buy a coffee with it, the exchangability for USD is real.

[nullsmack]

Yes. For one thing you can buy stuff with it because it is legal tender for all debts. For another thing the value is mostly the same from day to day. You're not going to go buy bread today and have it be 10% more expensive than it was yesterday, or 30% less expensive next week.

Cryptocurrencies are not currencies. Bitcoin might be priced at $63,000 today (or $48,000 or 53,000 or oops 30,000 tomorrow?) but it's worth is $0.

[cies]

> But cars had value. They have value. They had value from day 1.

You dont get to decide what has value. The market does. Crypto apparently has value.

> By this logic you could start kicking puppies, because "eventually something good will come out of kicking puppies", and just as baseless reasoning.

Worst argument I've read all month.

If you dont see potential in crypto: feel free to do without. Others do. Thankfully we have some freedom.

[cle]

You don't think there's value in open-source, decentralized financial infrastructure?

(Disclosure: I hold no cryptocurrencies, nor have any financial stake in the industry)

[knorker]

Hmm… taking your question at face value. Can you be more specific?

Is there value in nonreversibility? No, that "feature" has negative value, and it's the reason people trust credit cards.

Value in anonymity? Not at this scale, no. On net that feature just is not workable in a society built on anything other than libertarian-anarchy. And most people actually want a structured society, not fiefdoms.

Take KYC and AML laws, for example. What percentage of people do you think would say we should abolish them, if you explain what they are, and what they are for.

Open Source? The functioning of our traditional economy is pretty open in its working. It's complex, yes. But you are welcome to understand it, and participate in the process.

The "code" that the economy works on is legal code. I think where I disagree with you is that computer code is inherently more suitable. I say that as a professional programmer, who's been programming for decades.

Here's the thing: "The programs" was never the problem.

I can illustrate this best with smart contracts. They're a solution to a non-problem, while making the actual problem much worse. Contract disputes mainly come from disagreements about what the contract means, and errors in codifying intention as text.

Ability to enforce was never the biggest problem. Never. And by forcing the enforcement by using a smart contract it's actually making the problem worse, where "that's not what I meant". Yes, the default action in a real contract, without contextual evidence, is to take the wording of a contract literally (and oxford commas matter). But if there is other evidence, then yes a court will take that into account. Do you not want that? Do you honestly want a maliciously injected underhanded bug in a contract to be enforced, with no recourse?

I think the problem with your question is that people who ask it don't actually know what they're asking.

In the libertarian-anarchist utopia based on this infrastructure the enforcement methods are beyond the reach of the police. So what do you do when someone robs you? When someone uses a bug in a smart contract to take your house?

[danaris]

> Value in anonymity?

Just as a reminder (from someone who admittedly knows little about cryptocurrencies aside from this): BTC and other cryptocurrencies are not anonymous. They are, at the most, pseudonymous, and because of their very nature, the trail linking whatever online identity you used to make the transaction lives forever on the blockchain.

[knorker]

I'm here talking about the goals, not the implementation. So what you're saying is a bit off topic. But yes some cryptocurrencies actually are anonymous, as I understand it. E.g. Monero.

[015a]

Crypto miners buy a slab of silicon, plug it in, and its profitable. If this weren't the case, no one would mine it. Cryptocurrency is a fungus; either it will die, or it will eat up as much electricity & high-powered silicon as miners can get their hands on, diverting both from more economically interesting and productive applications. If I have one or two computers; that's enough. I don't need anymore. There is never "enough" computers for miners; they will always want more, because more electricity & computers means more money.

This is not theoretical. This is happening. Its destroying any service which dares to offer free tiers of generic compute. Its had a significant impact on a global silicon shortage the likes of which we've never seen, impacting products from graphics cards and work computers to cars and defense hardware.

That's it; there's no other correct opinion, only incorrect ones. If you support cryptocurrency, you support the environmental collapse of our planet. We don't need it; its die-hard supporters are either profit-motivated or have nothing beyond a grade-school understanding of historical macroeconomic trends and the broad, undeniably negative impact immutable currencies like Gold & Silver had on the average person's standard of living during economic downturns.

[IiydAbITMvJkqKf]

Regulated, cheap, mostly environmentally friendly currencies exist, they're called USD, EUR, etc.

[svachalek]

A lot of people are not comfortable with the fact that a secretive club of bankers can produce more of these at will, and give them to who they like. The moral hazard here is off the charts, and it's too much to expect that they won't keep producing more and more until it's worthless as has happened to every fiat currency in history. See the current prices of stocks, bonds, real estate, and education for examples, and yes even the current crypto market.

Crypto may not be the answer, personally I'm sure Bitcoin is not. But the problem is real.

[IiydAbITMvJkqKf]

Bitcoin does not solve this problem at all, since 71% of the global hashrate is concentrated in China [1]. Instead of a currently controlled by central bankers, you get a currency which can be controlled at any moment by a totalitarian government which currently attempts to expand its territory using military means.

Ironically this is also why gold-backed currencies are not an acceptable replacement for dollars either - just substitute China with Australia (which is of course politically a far more benign country than China, but you're still outsourcing control of your currency).

The problem of currency stability is real, but crypto is not a solution at all.

[1] https://cbeci.org/mining_map/

[danaris]

The answer to that concern is introducing and voting for policies that make the control of the global financial system more transparent and accountable, not introducing a new form of speculative commodity the (unintentionally-aptly-named) mining of which is, even now, contributing materially to global climate change that will, if left unchecked, devastate human civilization as we know it.

[nullsmack]

Cars are at least useful for something.

Cryptocurrency invents value out of nothing. It's a scam, a fraud, a ponzi scheme, and nothing more than counterfeit money. And it should be treated as such by the governments of the world.

[ninju]

And we're only now addressing the excessively polluting nature of the internal combustion engine.

[JBorrow]

What is your stake in crypto?

[shkkmo]

Cars are still extremely dangerous and are have caused massive damage to the planet, cars also solved significant and real problems and did so without waiting decades.

Cryptocurrency has had plenty of time to find a legitimate use and has completely failed. It is not a functional currency and it does not solve any real problems for non-criminals.

Not only does it waste energy and computing resources, it has helped fund a significant amount of the digital threats that the average person will encounter.

[ta9999]

I would argue cars are still mostly a disaster. They're not good for the environment, they partitioned neighboorhoods, they're very dangerous (the biggest non-disease killer of younger people before drugs), and they're another thing poor people end up having to buy and owe payments on every month.

[grumpyprole]

So true! I once told my kids about the beautiful car-free bicycle cities, they replied something like "wow, I wish we could live there".

[mdoms]

> and not all due to the cars: some of it was a mind shift that mankind had to make

Mostly it was due to regulation.