[haskellandchill]

> Dogecoin has as much value as Bitcoin

Correct, and that is zero (or really negative) value. I see crypto as a plague on productive society. People think they can just get rich by investing in currency. It's insane. Value is being destroyed with all the attention wasted in the space. Governments need to step in and protect their citizens from this nonsense.

[zenron]

Speaking as an US Citizen:

Why is it you think the government should be involved in this when they are demonstrably incompetents in keeping our basic Credit Cards and Checking Accounts safe from scammers and fraudulent attacks? Especially not keeping our elderly population safe.

They can't even keep public emails safe from a certain Secretary of State.

They can't keep a single man in a Prison safe from 'suiciding' while waiting for the court case of the century.

They can't even keep the phone companies accountable to the Do Not Call list for spam calls.

They cannot keep telco and cable companies from price gauging consumers for internet while at the same time enforcing lock downs that keep people at home- with children- that require internet access and lots of bandwidth. Many states holding the state residents hostage from any sort of options of providers.

If the crypto rush is the new gold rush and it is a burgeoning market, why should - or how could, the government save people from their personal decisions. Crypto itself is not fraud. We have laws against fraud if one specific instance is found to be fraudulent. Why should we make new laws to save people from their bad decisions? Honestly, those bad decisions started with the elected officials that aren't held accountable to the public as it is. So we're going to let incompetents govern incompetently for what exists and ask them to govern competently for NEW things? How peculiar.

[andrewzah]

I don't really get the argument here. Various parts of the government have issues (including parts not at all related to finance), so we should throw our lot in with immutable chains that give zero consumer protection?

The U.S. govt, banks, and credit card companies have issues but there are also a lot of protections for the average person. The govt does get involved when it comes to finance, and that's fine. Things like tobacco and alcohol get regulated, and that's fine.

Cryptocurrencies aren't this magical thing that can't (or shouldn't) be touched by government. It was always a matter of time before the slow machine caught up.

> why should - or how could, the government save people from their personal decisions.

Because having a non-trivial amount of citizens losing their life savings on snakeoil, get-rich-quick schemes is a net negative for society. Plenty of laws and regulations exist -precisely- to prevent or save people from their bad decisions. That's what a government and society is -for-, not to say "too bad, kid, you should've known".

[NicoJuicy]

And most of these (from my POV) erratic comments are from crypto holders based on greed.

Look at the scam surrounding tether and all of the warnings that have been put out to warn crypto holders.

One of the roles of the SEC is to protect against piramid schemes and crypto has a lot of similarities with it.

Ps. Crypto is not "new", it's more than a decade old.

[nitrogen]

So we're going to let incompetents govern incompetently for what exists and ask them to govern competently for NEW things? How peculiar.

Believing the government to be incompetent is a self-fulfilling prophecy:

- Only the incompetent or apathetic will choose to work for government and take the hit to their personal reputation.

- Underfunding leads to underperformance which leads to perceptions of incompetence which leads to underfunding.

- True incompetence, corruption, etc. start getting ignored as just "that's how the government is," so nobody tries to fix anything.

- Those who have a financial interest in reducing the capabilities of government will "starve the beast" and make it progressively more incompetent.

There are many functions of government that, though they could always do better, make the world better than it would be in their absence: fire departments, paramedics, infrastructure management (in areas where this is actually done reasonably well), utilities, financial crimes enforcement, agricultural and pharmaceutical quality enforcement, etc.

We're already pretty far down this road of destruction of competence, so I'm not sure how to turn things around, but that doesn't mean we have to keep driving forward into the land of feudalistic anarchocapitalism.

[betwixthewires]

Your argument basically boils down to "they'll do well if we just have faith in them" which is not convincing. I can see how in some instances lack of faith in public institutions compounds their failure, but it never starts with lack of faith. Nations create governments because they want them and they think they can work, if a couple generations later they no longer do, it is because the government is not functioning as intended. The incompetence precedes the pessimism, not the other way around. Negative sentiment can compound the failure, but it always begins with failure, not negative sentiment.

[marsrover]

> so I'm not sure how to turn things around

We don't.

> Underfunding leads to underperformance which leads to perceptions of incompetence which leads to underfunding.

Incompetence leads to underfunding. If they would get their shit together I would be fine with funding them (obv not for regulating the crypto market but just in general).

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1986-07-30-vw-18804-...

[echelon]

Crypto is the thinking person's equivalent of an MLM.

Fiat works because a government for and by the people backs it. The government provides protection, services, and a means for the citizens to be productive.

Crypto provides none of this. Only a pyramid shape for the early adopters to get rich off the latecomers.

Nobody elects crypto whales or maintainers. You can't force them out of office. That's a bad structure for society.

Crypto is far from equitable and democratized. It's just a bunch of "finance bros" with code and cryptography, and all the power is at the top. It even lacks the release valves that fiat has.

[mdorazio]

> People think they can just get rich by investing in currency. It's insane.

Here's the problem - replace [currency] with any of many other things and the statement is still valid. You need to explain why crypto specifically deserves more hate than, say, Forex or options trading.

[spicybright]

I'm guessing you as an individual would have no problem trading coins though, right? Even if they firewall the country, all you need is any vpn to make transactions.

[haskellandchill]

It's a false equivalency. Crypto is different than the other things, which are regulated. Crypto exchanges need regulation. That is all.

[cwkoss]

A quick check of the price charts demonstrates that millions of people disagree that the value is zero.

If you feel strongly about it, you should short Bitcoin. I wouldn't recommend doing so, but if that is your conviction you have the option to put your money where your mouth is.

[tmn]

Explain how it's a plague please

[haskellandchill]

I could write an essay and it would not change a soul. Figure it out, or don't. Enjoy your life either way.

[tmn]

I mean this is a uncommon opinion. I'd appreciate a few sentences because I was curious. But whatever, I won't lose sleep. I don't know if you think it's because of the energy waste, or invoking speculative rampage, or something else.. It's the something else I'm more curious about.

[haskellandchill]

I see smart people watching charts like pornography addicts instead of engaging in productive business activities, that is all. I see money that could be invested in the community going into scams like Chainlink.

[tmn]

Fair point. I was addicted the chart watching for a few months the 2017 run. I would put this under the speculative rampage.