[zmaurelius]

I think people are too hyper focused on the price aspect of cryptocurrencies. The experiment that is Bitcoin shows that people do not need to rely on a monetary system where a cabal of rich and powerful individuals can arbitrarily modify the money supply without any regard to all the participants in that monetary system.

The genie is already out of the bottle and there is no way to put it back. There will always be those especially in the younger generations that want something better than the current system. Bitcoin shows that you can have a completely transparent monetary system based on code that is available to be audited by anyone. Bitcoin may or may not survive, but the idea behind it will.

[UncleMeat]

It is true that a cabal of rich people cannot arbitrarily modify the money supply. We instead get a permanently chosen system of money supply that was created by an ideologically driven software engineer who appears to have vanished into the ether. Is it not possible that Satoshi chose a less optimal system than the central banks would? The finite and logarithmic rewards make a huge huge huge difference in the eventual distribution of BTC worldwide, should it become a dominant system. In my opinion, a system where early adopters get unimaginably rich forever is simply unethical.

And if another system eventually wins... then isn't that simply an example of a cabal of people (though not necessarily rich at first in this case) modifying the rules for money supply? Doge produces a different outcome than BTC. That's important.

[zmaurelius]

I don't think fair distribution of cryptocurrency in the bootstrap phase is a solved problem. We got a long way to go if we are to come up with a fair system. Satoshi went with the best that he could come up with which is a no premine solution.

A slightly better solution would be a no premine coin with a global announcement for 5 years before the mining begins so everybody gets a fair shot at participation. I am sure we can develop even more fair forms of distribution with sufficient research.

[EFreethought]

Honestly, that would give wealthy people (and possibly scammers) plenty of time to figure out how to game the rules.

[EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK]

Nobody is going to be rich forever, because nobody is going to live forever. You have a very hard time limit to spend your coins.

[UncleMeat]

Coins don't return to the reward pool when somebody dies. A system of new aristocratic families based on who was an early adopter and held on to some BTC is not something I'm excited about.

[EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK]

The world was much more unequal than today back in the time. It all diffuses quickly with usage.

[UncleMeat]

We might have different definitions of "quickly."

I also don't think that going backwards is a good thing. Yes, BTC is more equitable than a system of divine right of kings where the monarchy literally owns everything. Hooray.

[AlexandrB]

> The experiment that is Bitcoin shows that people do not need to rely on a monetary system where a cabal of rich and powerful individuals can arbitrarily modify the money supply without any regard to all the participants in that monetary system.

I don't get it. How does this description fail to encompass the likes of SBF, CZ, or Do Kwon? And while they didn't modify the money supply (although UDT kinda did), their actions had a strong impact on the value of money. So anyone holding coins in their own wallets still got screwed by their actions.

[zmaurelius]

Bitcoin only solves the problem of manipulation of the underlying money supply. It does not solve the problem of fraud and scams. Maybe one day we can also solve that problem with exchanges existing only as smart contracts, but with exchanges that are not completely transparent you always run into the risk of getting defrauded because you don't really know what's going on under the hood.

[yunohn]

What everyone is saying and you’re missing, is that those scams and frauds affect the inherent value of your bag, and reduces your purchasing power of services/products. You can take solace in having X/N possible BTCs, but you’ll need 100X when the price falls.

[ahahahahah]

Yeah. The transparency of smart contracts has ensured that there's no scams in that space.

[Forgeties79]

I always see advocates for crypto bashing central exchanges, but at the same time they bemoan the slow pace of adoption. I just don’t see it ever being even remotely main stream without central organizations. It is far too much work managing it all yourself even for tech savvy people. Just the process of downloading a wallet and downloading ledger is a huge pain in the ass. And then have to do it for every crypto if you’re not using a multi-wallet!

[EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK]

Downloading a wallet takes a few seconds. You dont need to download a ledger to pay.

[Forgeties79]

If you’re storing your own crypto you need a wallet, backups, and cold storage at the very least. Plus you need to remember your seed phrase. If I lose my bank account info or cards I have several ways of getting access to my money, crypto no so much.

It has been a while since I set up but last time I did I had to download the blockchain’s ledger aka the history of every single transaction. Is this no longer the case?

[EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK]

no longer)

[selectodude]

I'd rather not have my access to my net worth be behind a six word phrase. Might be tough to pay for shit after I get hit by a car or get old or something and have trouble remembering stuff.

[FridgeSeal]

> people do not need to rely on a monetary system where a cabal of rich and powerful individuals can arbitrarily modify the money supply without any regard to all the participants in that monetary system.

Is this satire?

Because crypto currencies are not the gleaming example of “free of manipulation” that you think they are. There’s endless cases of whales, exchanges, NFT groups and crypto-celebrities using their capital and power in order to manipulate markets and supply in exactly their favour. The NFT space was especially bad for this. In fact, a lot of those NFT groups are exactly what I’d describe as a “cabal”.

[labrador]

That was my reaction but you said it better than I could so I'll let Depeche Mode say it

    The grabbing hands grab all they can
    Everything counts in large amounts

[jcranmer]

> The experiment that is Bitcoin shows that people do not need to rely on a monetary system where a cabal of rich and powerful individuals can arbitrarily modify the money supply without any regard to all the participants in that monetary system.

Is this really true, given that the largest currency pair of Bitcoin is with USDT, which is alleged to have been arbitrarily created at whim to pump up the price of Bitcoin?

[twblalock]

What this has also shown is that most people (literally almost everyone) are better off relying on the traditional financial system.

[camjw]

> There will always be those especially in the younger generations that want something better than the current system.

Sure, this isn't it though.

[this_steve_j]

Let’s not forget the frictionless enablement of spectacular ransomware enterprises, and the glorious enrichment of dangerous actors with stolen funds. It’s a small price to pay for all this… freedom?

[zmaurelius]

It also enabled about $60+ million dollars to be donated to Ukraine and that's just one data point. Whether these other problems are a small price to pay will depend on who you are talking to. To the Ukrainians that benefited from these donations and to those that have food, weapons and shelter from these donations, it is most likely a small price to pay.

Perhaps a portion of these donations could have come from other sources if cryptocurrencies did not exist, but there isn't really a good way to quantify that, so I won't go into that discussion.

[camjw]

A quick google shows that the US government has given $16.8bn in aid to Ukraine. It seems like the centralised system is doing significantly better.

[landemva]

Giving my tax dollars to Ukraine without forcing Ukraine to negotiate an end to it is not "doing better".

[EFreethought]

Why should Ukraine be forced to negotiate? Russia invaded Ukraine.

Then again, a crypto bro blaming the victim makes perfect sense.

[EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK]

You are paying them to protect you and the entire world from unimaginable evil.

[landemva]

Evil was German Nazis. And the Ukraine Nazis which the USA did not pursue after WW2.

NATO pushing closer to Russia the past 30 years didn't protect anything except the paychecks of the war makers.

[newt_slowly]

I was able to donate hundreds of dollars to Ukraine using the same credit card I use for everything else. What is special about crypto donations to Ukraine? I suspect that the fees of converting USD->BTC (or other crypto) and then the recipients converting back to UAH are higher than the <2% CC fee I paid. (I used a card with no foreign transaction fee.)

And with credit card, the donation recipient wouldn't be at risk of losing double digit percentages of the value donated if they didn't immediately cash out into fiat currency.

[yunohn]

> It also enabled about $60+ million dollars to be donated to Ukraine and that's just one data point

I love how every crypto enthusiast (incl Vitalik) uses this one-off example to justify everything these days.

[EFreethought]

Maybe they finally realized they looked stupid after a decade of using Venezuela as an example of how crypto can help a country, even though crypto hasn't made anything better there.

[ausbah]

>The experiment that is Bitcoin shows that people do not need to rely on a monetary system where a cabal of rich and powerful individuals can arbitrarily modify the money supply without any regard to all the participants in that monetary system.

if this is a stab at the federal reserve, my response would be "democracy" at least in the abstract. either way not much different from the whales that hold disproportionate amounts of influence in the system right?