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by zmaurelius 1313 days ago
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.
3 comments

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.
Yeah. The transparency of smart contracts has ensured that there's no scams in that space.
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!
Downloading a wallet takes a few seconds. You dont need to download a ledger to pay.
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?

no longer)
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.