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A collection of some classic Lemmy memes for your enjoyment
The insane thing about Bitcoin's continued popularity is that out of all the thousands of cryptocurrencies out there, it's easily the worst in every regard.
I'm not going to name names for fear of being called a shill, but if you want a cryptocurrency for just buying stuff there's a ton that are more stable, faster, don't cost a fortune to process, and don't destroy the planet.
Sure, lets replace a regulated scam with an unregulated scam, that will solve things /s
Whaaaaaa, are you talking about bitcoin, the currency developed out of pure kindness and honest intentions and promising equality and equity for all? Surely you can't mean the grand and noble bitcoin, I was told for years that it would decentralize all currency and make all our wildest dreams come true. Any day now.
(Unless it conflicts with the predictions for AI, that it will provide equality and equity for all and decentralize skill, talent and knowledge and make all our wildest dreams come true.)
Last time I checked, BTC transaction fees were prohibitively high to pay for 80$ AAAA games with them, and WAY too high to pay for a 5 USD single-developer itch.io game.
I haven't looked at other Crypto in a while. I made some money off BTC, but I think it is wildly overvalued for a long time, and I've been disappointed in how un-currency-like other alternatives were, even those that have been around long enough that they are unlikely to be rug-pulls.
That said, if you need to get paid and Visa/MC won't let you use them, I'm not going to attack you (too hard) for accepting Crypto. They are bad systems, but we live in Captialism, so you gotta get paid. They might be the least-worse system that is global and isn't Visa/MC. I'm unlikely to buy your product that way, tho; I'm more likely to pirate than I am to participate in cryptocurrency again.
Crypto remains a pyramid scheme masquerading as a resistance against tyranny
Ironically you know what ACTUALLY protects from powergrabs by payment processors? A fully centralised, government backed form of digital cash that is fully equivalent to paper money.
Ask a Brazilian about pix. Super low fees (often feeling non existant). And transactions can't be invalidated on the whims of a corporate board. For something to not be buyable by pix it has to be illegal, thus having to go through every layer of checks and balances a democracy has.
The problem with visa and their ilk is that finance has been privatised. Too much power in the hands of corporations that have deftly dodged regulation that would keep them neutral and honest. Thinking privatising things further and turning everyone into a fully unregulated petty digital landlord is gonna solve anything rather than make it worse is foolhardy.
Adding a few more points to fully kill crypto as a "freedom currency"
What keeps people from looking at point 1 and not totally stopping there, you think? The game is statistically unwinnable and the more rubes play, the bigger the leech gets.
I looked into crypto seriously several years ago when a friend got interested. I had to inform them it was still a casino where Have's print the cash and make the rules, specifically so the currency returns to them with interest off someone else's(our) brow. ie, same scam as wall street stonks. Just reiterating Point 1.
Pretty pointless unless there is an anti-fascist buying collective or something. Remember when reddit saved gamestop for a few years and, uh, very suddenly a lot of common investment apps 'stopped working' that week?
As soon as you get a hand in their game, they'll show you right away you were meant to die slaving for them, not participating in decisionmaking (money AND politics).
you know what ACTUALLY protects from powergrabs by payment processors? A fully centralised, government backed form of digital cash that is fully equivalent to paper money.
Only if the government is democratic, many governments seems to be autocratizing these days, which wouldn't help when they start enacting puritan policies and refuse payment transfers. Not to mention, even some democracies banned porn (South Korea, for example).
Credit card companies should be nonprofits under democratic control.
Isn't that kind of what a credit union issued card is?
Isn't this a right wing meme about centrists, but with the text changed?
The Bitcoin side wouldn't catch you, because that interferes with the user's choice to hit the ground.
Lmao, crypto tech bros coming out of the woodwork trying to get popularity for their bag holder's game...
Also pretending that shit hasn't been bought up by wall street
Both sides are bad
Yep. Just because one side is bad, it doesn't mean the other is any good.
Cryptocurrency is still dependent of a pyramid scheme and criminals-enabling. Credit card companies are still a private owned government branch with no concern for human rights and criminals-enabling.
I learned recently FedNow is a payment processor ran by the Federal Reserve, with a fee of $0.043 per transaction. Making it much, much cheaper than every other payment processor out there.
It just launched two years ago; I'm wondering if this might become more of a thing moving forward for digital payments.
Say that any louder and it’ll be DOGEd overnight.
Yep, but cryptocurrency isn't dictating what you can spend with it...yet at least. So if no government does anything to help us, then we must adopt a cryptocurrencies like Monero to fight back against censorship as nothing more than a private citizen.
Yes let’s definitely side with the scam that’s been around for two decades and its only practical use is to rug pull chumps yes this is good advice
If you do not know a lot about "crypto" then I would say the main thing to understand is that there is Bitcoin (not owned by any single entity) and then there is everything else. Other "coins" are owned by corporations that can make decisions about it and change it to some extent. These are extremely risky.
Bitcoin (btc) does have risk but much less. It is not owned by any company or person or country. It is like the internet, only exists because tens of thousands of internet providers(miners for Bitcoin) around the world make it possible. Bitcoin has, in its codebase, a limitation that any change must be agreed upon by 95% of these providers(miners). This way security patches and bug fixes can be added because everyone agrees those are good. Other harmful changes would never reach 95% agreement therefor could never be implemented. There is a limit of 21 million Bitcoin and this number can never increase unless 95% agree to it... which they never would. This is in stark contrast to normal money which is constantly printed(at random rates depending on who happens to be in control at that moment) so that the supply increases making its value drop.
Scamming happens with cryptos, Bitcoin, euros, dollars,yuan... and always will.
Neither side makes good points except about how the ither sucks. There arent any.
Yeah, but one is extra bad for our enviroment while being a scam.
That's what i thought, too. I would never believed if someone telled me some years ago that there will be another scam (ai) that wastes even more power.
Yeah, I'm going to buy my games with bitcoin now.
Oh shit, the fee is higher than the price of the game, can I use Litecoin ?
The current Bitcoin transaction fee is $0.67. Which means for a purchase larger than $34, Bitcoin is cheaper than the average credit card transaction fee.
Benefits of centralization: Someone can counteract harmful interactions.
Drawbacks of centralization: Someone can decide legitimate interactions are harmful.
It does suck when the “harmful interaction management system” goes haywire. But I’m not sure it sucks enough that I’d rather simply not have one.
I really like Taler
I honestly never understood how Lemmy, a privacy and decentralisation focused community, is so vehemently anti-crypto. It's worse than genAI. Every time it is mentioned, everyone goes "crypto is a scam". I don't think I've ever seen any good faith discussion around it, just "scam", "pyramid scheme", and "only criminals use it".
Let's get something out of the way immediately: shitcoins are a literal pyramid scheme and a scam. Anyone can make their own cryptocurrency in an evening, and anyone who throws money at them is either a fool or a gambler.
But I really don't understand what people mean when they say Bitcoin, or Ethereum, or Monero are a scam. Sure they can be used to scam you, just like Amazon gift cards can. Maybe it's about the price volatility, but the price of all 3 mentioned before is up on a day, week, month, 6 months, year, and 5 year scale. It's volatile, but is not a scam. If you bought and sold at two random points in time, it's more likely you made a profit than "got scammed". You know what actually is a scam? Credit scores, overdraft fees, having to pay to check your balance, and so many other fucked up practices in the US banking system.
"Criminals use them" is just the worst fucking argument, especially in a space like this. Are PGP, VPNs and TOR for criminals too? Do you think getting rid of crypto would stop crime?
And yes, proof of work fucking sucks. The energy consumption of Bitcoin mining is a problem. I am not a cryptobro who spends all his time making trades and is here to tell you that crypto is the salvation. They are far from being "good" for everyday use. I just wanted to point out how it seems that critical thought gets shut down at the sight of those 6 letters, and I hope someone can explain to me what they find so terrible about crypto (aside from environmental concerns and shitcoins)
Lemmy is quite left-leaning, and the impetus behind creating Bitcoin was right-wing Austrian school economics. Now, it's being pushed by literal fascists.