[cowtools]

These scams, crashes, are exploits are non-issues to anyone with a reasonable degree of competence and skepticism. The solution is not to "fix" the system by removing user agency so that even an idiot can use it safely, but to educate users so that an idiot doesn't need to use cryptocurrency in the first place.

This criticism of cryptocurrency would be analogous to criticizing the concept of fiat currency by pointing to the inflation of the deutsche mark as an example. The cryptocurrencies being discussed here are real cryptocurrencies, they are bloated and useless shitcoins. Any credible project would not have all the bloated crap that enables the "exploits" mentioned in the article in the first place.

[majormajor]

You can't both want crypto to have a real, material future and also simply blame the user for everything they get wrong or don't bother to educate themselves on.

If it's harder and riskier then the user isn't going to care if it's their fault or not.

Do you want a world where crypto is common and useful, or do you want it where it's the web equivalent of casinos, with some sharks making money off suckers but most people not taking it seriously as a "real" or useful business?

[cowtools]

>You can't both want crypto to have a real, material future and also simply blame the user for everything they get wrong or don't bother to educate themselves on.

I can and I will. People know not to give out their credit card numbers to fishy businesses or install untrustworthy software on their computer. Why does that personal responsibility suddenly disappear when we talk about cryptocurrency?

>Do you want a world where crypto is common and useful, or do you want it where it's the web equivalent of casinos, with some sharks making money off suckers but most people not taking it seriously as a "real" or useful business?

The path to the world where crypto is a common and useful tool starts with these speculators and gamblers losing all their monopoly money and leaving. It's no surprise to me that the "scams" and "exploits" mentioned in the article are enabled by bloated "smart contract" cryptocurrencies like etherium that serve little real purpose.

[Gigachad]

It's pretty well known that individuals _do_ need protections against this while institutional investors do not. When crypto gets on the news, regular, uninformed people go and dump their life savings in to it. No matter how much you tut tut and say they should have done their research, they will still do it. And preventing people from losing their life savings on scams is good for society in general.

[cowtools]

No. If you invest your money in something you do not understand, you deserve to lose it. I'm sorry you think that you need some authority to put their thumb on the scale and tell you what you can and can't do with your own money.

[chowells]

Why do you believe that victims should be punished? Wouldn't it be more compassionate to recover their losses and punish the perpetrators? Trust shouldn't be seen as a weakness. Trust powers all the best things humans can do. Trust should be rewarded, not punished.

[cowtools]

>Why do you believe that victims should be punished?

I don't believe victims should be punished. I just don't think victims should be rewarded either. I do think that the perpetrators should be punished.

>Wouldn't it be more compassionate to recover their losses

It would be "compassionate", but it would also encourage people to make risky and stupid decisions. Tough love I suppose.

>Trust shouldn't be seen as a weakness. Trust powers all the best things humans can do. Trust should be rewarded, not punished.

There is a difference between knowledge, trust, and blind faith. Your inability to discriminate between the three is what allows you to mix these unrelated platitudes.

[chowells]

> It would be "compassionate", but it would also encourage people to make risky and stupid decisions. Tough love I suppose.

What you call tough love, I call inflicting trauma that makes everyone worse off. No one should ever risk being destitute. There's no societal benefit to risks with a downside of total loss.

And that's why I think your comment of blind faith was a non-sequitor. I'm not advocating for blind faith, I'm advocating for informed faith. I think we should have an informed assumption that the risk in a scam is on the part of the scammer. When something blows up, the scammer pays. Let's go ahead and reward people for blowing up scams from the inside.

[giaour]

Do you feel the same way about violent crime? I.e., if a person through their own stupidity or naivete puts themselves in a position where they become a victim of armed robbery/assault/murder/rape, did they get what they deserved?

[cowtools]

only to the extent that the violent crime is preventable. Ultimately, the victim bears the risk and the rest of society will do what they must (policing, self-defense, investigation, justice, compensation) after the fact to prevent future victimization themselves.

In the case of crypto/investment fraud, you have to take into account that all investments and transactions bear a certain amount of risk and reward. It's not fair to expect the public to bail you out for risks that you knowingly accepted when they wouldn't get a slice of the reward. In the conventional financial system, the public sees a slice of that reward through taxation. The same is not true of cryptocurrency, so why use everyone else's tax dollars to regulate it?

The only reason authorities like the SEC exist is to reduce risk, thus increasing the amount that ordinary people can safely invest. It's not a matter of ethics, it's a matter of economics.

[giaour]

> In the conventional financial system, the public sees a slice of that reward through taxation. The same is not true of cryptocurrency, so why use everyone else's tax dollars to regulate it?

You should maybe run that past a tax attorney just to make sure. I'm in the US, where capital gains from cryptocurrency are taxed just like capital gains from stocks, but of course this may not be true in your jurisdiction.

> The only reason authorities like the SEC exist is to reduce risk, thus increasing the amount that ordinary people can safely invest. It's not a matter of ethics, it's a matter of economics.

I don't think that's correct, but if it is, yeesh! What a bleak hellscape we live in, where the only reason to add safety to anything is to prevent the plebs from getting too scared to spend money.

I take it from your responses that you're one of the "hardcore believers in the 'code is law' dark forest" mentioned in an earlier comment, so I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree.