[jopicornell]

Well, I'm no cryptobro by any means, but I see the usability in cryptocurrencies. As always, when humans touch something well built and thought, it goes corrupt.

The basis? It is useful to overcome censorship, inflation and money transfers without relying on third parties (or relying on burocratic, traditionally greedy and ancient parties). It has some uses as a ledger, but this has not come that useful. Or, in my opinion, useful projects are overlooked and only greedyness is what drives the space.

Your sentiment is not wrong, but I see it as a reflection of human currency interaction. If I say "I don't think I ever heard anything good coming out of cash" could be true. Why would we hear something good about something that only its bad uses are news and worth mentioning. Same happens with crypto. I know it is a bit of a mental stretch to use this argument and it isn't 1:1, but cash is being used illegaly as well.

I see a trend that all privacy focused projects have this bad press always: - Cryptocoins (used only by scams) - GrapheneOS/privacy focused oses (used by fugitives and crimibals) - Tor (Used for dark web)

and while that's true, I keep thinking that the interests for banning privacy focused projects is what drives that bad sentiment and bad press. Not only that, I know betwen black and white there are grays and colours :D

Just my grain of salt

[bigbadfeline]

> It is useful to overcome censorship, inflation and money transfers

No it's not. It cannot overcome any of these, and the constant nagging to the opposite is a big part of the scam. The problems in question are political and cannot be solved outside of the regulatory framework.

> without relying on third parties (or relying on burocratic, traditionally greedy and ancient parties).

Well, the non-traditionally greedy happen to be much greedier and a mere tool in the hands of the "traditional and ancient parties". A bunch of politicians and those connected to them are the ones who benefit the most from crypto scams, guess what's going to happen when the music stops and their profits dry up.

> I see a trend that all privacy focused projects have this bad press always - Cryptocoins, GrapheneOS, Tor

Because they are designed to accommodate scams under the guise of privacy - I'd exclude GrapheneOS from that list though, it's very different, it doesn't have a bad name among the grassroots and including in this list is nonsensical.

[OutOfHere]

> No it's not. It cannot overcome any of these, and the constant nagging to the opposite is a big part of the scam.

The only person here who is running a scam here is you with your blatant disinformation and fundamental ignorance. Just because you cannot do basic tasks doesn't mean that others can't either.

[bigbadfeline]

> The only person here who is running a scam here is you

A naked claim that lacks elementary support, like motives.

> with your blatant disinformation and fundamental ignorance.

Another evidence-free claim. I'm simply describing the state of affairs as they are in real life, the empirical evidence is fully in agreement with my writing.

> Just because you cannot do basic tasks doesn't mean that others can't either.

Same old, same old, you know nothing about me but continue to throw wild claims at the wall.

FYI, I'm quite familiar with all sides of crypto, it's the crypto-bros who are so blinded by greed that end up with absolutely no clue about what they are doing on social level.

[OutOfHere]

You're the one who said cryptocurrency cannot overcome censorship and do money transfers. You might as well have said that humans cannot breathe oxygen. I don't need to prove self-evident truths. By rejecting obvious truths, you are operating in extremely bad faith.

[bigbadfeline]

> You're the one who said cryptocurrency cannot overcome censorship and do money transfers.

And you're the one who can't reason.

In order to use crypto, you have to submit your ID with a picture to an entity subject to banking regulations. Thus the anonymity is lost at the edge and from there the vast majority of people can be censored and their transactions suppressed by the banking system - the term is de-banking. They are subject to losing their jobs too plus a number of other strings attached to every law-abiding person.

Criminals on the other hand, don't care about the law, have no jobs and must avoid the banking system so the crypto arrangement works well for them, it also works for corrupt officials, be them private or public.

Crypto is almost exclusively a tool of crime and corruption. That's its social role in the real world. Just because crypto allows a criminal here and a criminal there to avoid censorship, doesn't mean that censorship is a solved problem on social level - not only it's unsolved, you added a criminal problem on top of it.

I don't think you can understand that though, greed impairs the mind and those obsessed with crypto are the living examples of it.

[OutOfHere]

There exist crypto exchange networks that interface with governmental fiat and do not require any KYC. Also, there are mixers and privacy-coins that break linkage. Where there is a will, there is a way.

As for criminals vs others, that again is your own limited viewpoint, with no relation to the broader truth.

It's really not about greed. It's about protection from the government and the whims of banks.

[saubeidl]

Here's my two cents.

I use GrapheneOS myself and think it's a valuable project to enable communication without being stalked by Big Tech.

I believe cryptocurrencies, however, are primarily an ideological technology, designed to establish the primacy of free market capitalism over any sovereign law.

I think that is why people still hold onto them, despite nothing but scams coming out of them so far.

As somebody who doesn't think unrestrained free markets are a good idea, it feels like the capitalist monkey paw: Finally, there's completely unrestrained uncensorable money. Unfortunately, the result of that is what every advocate of regulation would've told you: Nothing but scams.

Ironically, the phrase capitalists use to describe why socialism can't work - "doesn't account for human nature" - has been proven to apply to their preferred ideology.

They got what they wanted and turns out it sucks. The technology that was supposed to establish the primacy of their world view ended up disproving it instead, plunging them into ideological crisis.

They have no choice but to double down despite ever more evidence of free market failure. There's a certain ideological cost sunk fallacy going on - to admit error and change ones ideological framework completely would be too painful, so they keep waiting for redemption.

Just my grain of salt as a socialist.