[ETH_start]

Cryptocurrency replicates cash. A cash-based economy still needs government and the laws it enforces. The government's powers are just more limited due to cash, and its electronic corollary, not being easily surveilled, or controlled through intermediaries that can act as bottlenecks.

Cryptocurrency holds the potential to restore the traditional balance of power between private citizen and state that existed when most financial transactions used physical bearer instruments like gold or cash bills.

Ever since large financial intermediaries took over as the dominant force in the payment system, power has become extremely concentrated in the hands of a few corporations and governments.

[JustLurking2022]

Cash doesn't require an internet connection to use or leave a uniquely traceable signature for every transaction. Crypto is nothing like cash so stop spreading this nonsense.

Also, to the other commenter's point - don't complain about losing uninsured imaginary monopoly money when the entire sales pitch for crypto is "you don't need the traditional financial system with all it's corrupt government regulation and interference". Turns out, for most people who aren't doing something illegal, those protections are a good thing.

[ETH_start]

Of course there are differences between cash and cryptocurrency, but the latter's design aspires to make it similar to the former, especially with respect to making peer-to-peer transfers possible.

Privacy-enhancements like mixer smart contracts using cryptographic zero-knowledge proofs further mimic cash, in jettisoning the naive blockchain transaction of its traceability.

>>don't complain about losing uninsured imaginary monopoly money when the entire sales pitch for crypto is "you don't need the traditional financial system with all it's corrupt government regulation and interference".

Firstly, it's not imaginary monopoly money when people assign a value to it, and it exists as real information in a persistent database. I think if you take some to think about it without your preconceived ideological presuppositions, you would see that.

Secondly, the sales pitch of cryptocurrency is not that we need zero government or that we don't require laws against theft to be enforced. Surveillance and limits on contract freedom are not "protections" and people have a right to want to live without these encroachments without being told they're anarchists who deserve to be robbed.

[JustLurking2022]

I've got all the baseball cards I owned as a 10 year old stored in a persistent database too, but that does nothing to give it value. Crypto is purely a case of the greater fool playing out.

All the drivel about mixers and zero knowledge proofs is the sales pitch of snake oil salesmen (and people who bought snake oil to a point they feel invested in it's value) - yes, the technology is interesting but it's a solution in search of a problem that there's little evidence isn't already better solved by a regulated financial industry.

[ETH_start]

>>I've got all the baseball cards I owned as a 10 year old stored in a persistent database too, but that does nothing to give it value.

That's a strawman. I was merely making the point that its existence as information in a persistent database means it's not "imaginary".

As for what confers it with value: that's the market. It has market value, so it is not "monopoly money", regardless of your various theories as to why it shouldn't have value.

>>All the drivel about mixers and zero knowledge proofs is the sales pitch of snake oil salesmen (and people who bought snake oil to a point they feel invested in it's value)

I made factual points about its similarities to cash. Your critique is knee-jerk hostility based on ignorance of the technology and your preconceived notion that it's a scam.

[Yizahi]

Sure, we would love to have less surveillance. That's why tokenbros promote a system which allows even more control, even more surveillance and is basically 100% transparent for every single human forever. And then tokenbros wonder why people on HN and on programming subs hate tokens. ThEy DoN't UnDeRsTaNd It (c).

[ETH_start]

Not having to submit to surveillance laws like KYC is a big step towards ending surveillance. No other form of electronic money provides the ability to transact without complying with such laws.

As for the traceability associated with public validation of transactions: that can be solved with zero knowledge proofs which I alluded to earlier. Indeed you don't understand the technology which is why you persist in these criticisms.

[Yizahi]

Except you do, and in much worse way. Instead of semi-transparent and regulated banks and other financial structures, at least pretending to be for humans, now tokenbros want us to succumb to the completely closed private pseudo-banks and exchanges, operating in some non extradition offshores, which STILL DEMAND KYC but do it completely opaque, not beholden to any rules, can ban you or block your tokens for whatever reason and have zero customer support or ways to appeal bans and blocks. And often operated literally by convicted criminals, for previous frauds. Amazing.

Just as an example - in reply above in this thread, your sour brother in this Church of St. Saylor provides Tornado as an example of of how private tokens are. But he is completely clueless about it, because the moment some of your tokes pass through it, then ALL your tokens become tainted. And majority of the exchanges will just ban you or block if that will happen. What an amazing future - if you want to be private, you must use some shady money laundromat and then risk losing all your tokens. Great idea. And there are other implications, like fouling other people wallets with Tornado tokens etc.

PS: oh wait, it was also you, that's funny :)

[ETH_start]

I am not talking about exchanges, which are not cryptocurrency. I am talking about on-chain finance, which in theory, can supersede the entire financial system, negating the need to interface with off-chain entities like exchanges.

Yes, this is all speculated/unrealized potential at the moment, but the potential is there nonetheless.

[adultorata]

In a way yes, you don't understand it completely, DeFi space is close to solving inflation, we're just really really early, yes, 99% of tokens will die, but that 1% that lives will be the building foundation of the future of smart money, novel winning economist Hayek proposed denationalisation of money and we are finally witnessing it, I do seriously think you don't understand it.

[Yizahi]

Well, you didn't understand even my short comment, so there is that :) . Fundamentally all tokens have exact same issues, one of the which I have mentioned. That mythical 1% will also have them. Either it will be truly decentralised and be a surveillance dystopia, or it's authors will lie and it will be centralised.

I don't pretend to understand world economic (unlike tokenbros claim so), but at least I understand enough to be horrified by the ultra centralised unaccountable and nonpunishable corporate dystopia which tokenbros promote. The fact that they claim their tokens help common people or help reduce inequality is even more infuriating.

[ETH_start]

Are you familiar with https://tornado.cash? It negates your argument that decentralization/public-auditability inescapably enables a surveillance dystopia.