[AlexandrB]

And yet, they're still operating. This is the kind of thing that makes me think the whole cryptocurrency ecosystem is a house of cards. Cryptocurrency advocates seem to be really bad at spotting and punishing incompetent and malicious actors in their markets.

[TameAntelope]

I think if you got a few beers in even the most adamant crypto advocate, you'd discover their thinking is more along the lines of, "The house of cards is out in the open with crypto, vs. hidden behind bureaucracy and obfuscation in traditional banking".

With crypto, the "average" person gets to feel "in on it" in a way usually reserved for coked up Goldman associates. That is possibly not a good thing, as you're pointing out.

[toofy]

Sure, but anything which is open about crypto is also open in the financial system. It isn’t “hidden” away, people just don’t do the necessary studying to learn the underlying incredible complexity necessary for an actual world scale financial system.

It’s only hidden in the sense that the definition of “decathect” is hidden. The definition isn’t “hidden”, I just haven’t looked into and learned its definition and i havent considered all the implications of its material interactions with the world yet.

This notion of “hidden” will not be solved by a coin were it to become ubiquitous. People would just have to learn a completely different set of complexities—many of which will actually be hidden by the grifters who take advantage of lack of regulations.

Much of (not all, but much) of this “hidden” argument rests on people who would just prefer simple barter/exchange—but they just don’t seem to understand the complexities that scale inevitably brings. Along with this is that they just don’t understand that crypto is not an answer to the scale complexity problems.

And if someone attempts to make a coin which addresses these complexities, oops, now we’re back to a complex, messy, and steep learning curve.

All of the grifts that we’ve seen throughout society’s history with finance will be repeated in the coin sphere and these people will sadly fall victim to these same grifts yet again.

Does our current financial system have problems? Absolutely. Does crypto solve them without reintroducing previously patched bugs? Nope. Not at all.

[pasabagi]

It's a misunderstanding of what the house of cards is about, though.

One of the first empires to use fiat currency was the Yuan dynasty, and it worked, because if your currency is backed by the mongols, you're absolutely going to act as if it makes sense, even if it seems crazy to you. The backing of money is not precious metals, nor currency, but rather force - a state can demand tax in it, and exact retribution if their taxes are not paid. The state could demand taxes in cowries, and people would collect cowries, because you are going to get imprisoned if you don't pay your tax.

The fiat-currency house of cards collapses when people think the state isn't going to be able to pay their bills and collect their dues. Cryptocurrencies are more like tulips. There's nothing behind the curtain - it's just a weird social eddy that's grown out of all proportion.

[dboreham]

I prefer beanie babies as an analogy vs tulips.

[chihuahua]

In my opinion it's a house of cards (and Ponzi scheme), but combined with the John Maynard Keynes observation that the market can reman irrational longer than you can stay solvent (if you were to bet against it)

[onlyrealcuzzo]

Why would they? If you're invested in Crypto - you don't want it to go down. It's better to look the other way while someone is pumping and hope they never start dumping.

[usrusr]

While they are not completely divested, self-interest mandates that they still hype what they try to get out of. And after that, they simply don't care and pride discourages them from being vocal about their apparent change of heart. Some might be good at spotting, but they will be excellent at staying quiet about their conclusions.

[ikiris]

It's hard to claim someone's specifically malicious / incompetent when the entire "market" is.

[wbsss4412]

It’s really an amazing case study in what happens when* you take libertarian ideology to its conclusion.

Edit: typo*

[CryptoPunk]

Libertarian ideology has resulted in Tether being replaced by USDC in Ethereum DeFi. Your claim is based on the bizarre premise that people are only intelligent when formulating mandates for otherd, while they can only exercis if formulating a course of action for themselves

[wbsss4412]

> Your claim is based on the bizarre premise that people are only intelligent when formulating mandates for otherd, while they can only exercis if formulating a course of action for themselves

I’m not sure where my statement implied what you are assuming here. I think you may have your dogmatic blinders on.

Both tether, and crypto unrelated to tether are implicated in what I stated. That doesn’t make tether any less a result of libertarian ideology drawn to its conclusion.

[CryptoPunk]

The last sentence of my last comment has a mistype. It should be "while they can only exercise naivety when formulating a course of action for themselves."

As for my point, it's pretty simple: the market moves away from tether on its own just as libertarian ideology suggests it would.

Those who use tether are aware of the risks and are choosing to use it anyway, and if they lose money no one will bail them out.

I suggest you reevaluate what you think a libertarian market, where adults are treated like adults and not like children who are subordinate to high up regulators, evolves into.

And really, that's what you're implying: that certain people, should control other people, for their own good, and I find it bizarre that any one would advocate for that when you can see the extreme inequality and dysfunction this approach has produced in traditional finance.

I think it's holding to your belief - not to the belief in a free society - that requires having ideological blinkers on.