[dehrmann]

> No wonder that it's hard for some people to see the Ponzi schemes, pyramid schemes and what else those things are called.

On the other hand, it's quite easy. After the third flavor of ETH and nested contracts, I thought to myself "fuck, that's complicated." Then just follow Buffett's advice of not investing in things you don't understand.

[nicbou]

I always thought that for something meant as a currency, it sure is hard to understand, even for a passively interested, financially literate computer scientist.

[SrslyJosh]

A currency is only useful if you can actually buy things you need with it, and that means (among other things) you need its value to be relatively stable.

Everyone (or almost everyone) pushing cryptocurrency is, in one way or another, a speculator, so their incentives are not aligned at all with people who might actually want to use it as a currency.

[nicbou]

Even if you could do that, the barriers are insane compared to cash and cards.

Just the security practices required to avoid fraud are absurd, but since scammers can irreversibly empty your wallet, they're required. There's no credit card company to call, no fraud detection, no withdrawal limits, no way to lock your stolen card.

The same applies to personal information. Lose your key, lose your money. It requires the sort of data security and redundancy discipline that few people outside of tech are capable of.

[Tostino]

Few inside are capable of it for years on end without a mistake.