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this post was submitted on 08 Aug 2023
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AskBeehaw
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I think cryptocurrencies are largely inefficient, attract tons of scammers, generally propose deregulation of the finance sector and serve no real purpose.
Largely, I don't think they solve problems as much as they create them.
I'd argue that crypto is more efficient than the legacy fiat currency banking systems. The people/central banks that print money are some of the most corrupt on the planet. Scammers are attracted to money. There are plenty of fiat scammers too. Crypto doesn't propose any kind of regulation or deregulation. It's about decentralization and freedom to control your own assets. The fundamental driving force behind it is very much the same as the fediverse. It's decentralized money.
They serve the purpose of being able to quickly and easily send money around the globe without middle men that can censor your transactions. Anyone in the world can create a wallet for free. There are many places in the world where it's difficult to even get a bank account.
I don't understand where you got the ideas that you have about cryptocurrency?
I don't believe this to be true.
Sure, but you don't see fiat currencies being used to pump and dump.
It does. A system where you can transfer money without giving the information that would be needed for a government to tax you or regulate transactions is one that encourages people to commit fraud and avoid financial regulations.
No. Distributed systems are fundamentally incompatible with federated systems. They are both decentralized but the way they are decentralized is very different.
This is true but there are often reasons why transactions might be blocked. Some might be right and some might be wrong. If we're talking about fraud, blocking transactions is good. If we're talking about sex work, blocking transactions is bad. There is not an inherently bad value to blocking transactions.
I'd love to see information about that.
I've seen cryptocurrency spaces and have informed myself on the subject. I don't believe it solves real problems.
I guess there is no convincing you. You seem very set in your ways. Edit: but I'll try...
Let's forget about "crypto" and just discuss Bitcoin and Ethereum. Those are the only two that have real value.
Ethereum switched to proof of stake, which dropped the energy used by the network by 99%. Bitcoin is still proof of work, but we waste electricity on lots of silly things. A lot of bitcoin mining is already done with renewable sources of energy.
There are a lot of cryptos that are used for pump and dumps. That's doesn't take away from the utility and value of crypto that isn't used for that.
Blockchains are public ledgers. They are terrible for avoiding taxes!
There is a lot of overlap in the culture of distributed centralization and federated systems. Many people that are into Bitcoin are really into the fediverse too.
There may be "good" reasons to block someone from making transactions, but who gets to decide what is good? like you said, sex workers should have access to financial transactions just as much as any other worker.
Andreas Antonopoulos has done some good talks on banking the unbanked: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-Y_F3PS4JE
I use Bitcoin and Ethereum to store my wealth. From my perspective it solves the problem of needing to trust someone else with my money. It's not unheard of for banks to fail and take your money. Look at the debt crisis that happened in Cypress and Greece. They just took money from people's bank accounts. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012%E2%80%932013_Cypriot_financial_crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_government-debt_crisis
Well, proof of stake is less power hungry for sure but it also has a big con : The people who control most of the currency can now fake money. Considering our capitalist society with very big gaps in wealth, this is not an acceptable thing.
That's not great. These sources of energy could be used more productively. There's also nonetheless tons of it is done on coal.
Public ledgers which do not contain the information needed for taxation - pointless.
There is some but I think most people who want a distributed system will go for a distributed social service like Aether for example.
The people should through the government that establishes regulation. I don't believe workarounds to be solutions to these problems. After all, a sex worker can still not solicit work through social media and would be unlikely to look for help from the government if they need it because their work is prosecuted. Cryptocurrency does not solved that.
Again, I believe in the government needing to bring good laws to solve these problems. I don't believe that deregulation solves these issues. I also think that you have to trust an infinite number of people to trust in a blockchain system, people who are not regulated by law.
You have far too much faith in governments and laws created by humans. Laws change as society changes, and society is usually far ahead of laws in terms of evolution. They aren't real unless people agree on them. Like with weed being illegal federally in the US, but individual states not giving a fuck about federal laws. All governments are corrupt, and will never help solve the wealth gaps. The US government is bought and paid for by corporations. Places like china just control the population through fear. We need separation of money and state to have real freedom.
There is no need to trust people when using Bitcoin. it's a trustless system that uses a consensus algorithm. I would rather accumulate large amounts of wealth and help people than stay poor.
Did you watch the talk by Andreas?
This just means that we need to change our political system to be more wary of that.
Blockchain technology does not help to fix these problems, not sure why it's being brought up.
This is not true, we simply need better states. Money does not equal freedom.
There is, you need to trust that there are no flaws in the system. Programs have flaws - I don't know of any program that is perfect. Not only that but moving to proof of stake means trusting people who have the most money to not collude and create fake money in the blockchain.
If you don't see the accumulation of wealth through the usage of your currency as deeply problematic, I'm not sure what to tell you.
Yes, I have. I think the anger and frustration is misplaced.
Have fun staying poor.
There are better ways to drop out of a conversation than to offer a flippant, and, quite frankly, condescending dismissal of the other person's concerns. Just agree to disagree and move on.