Yes, I know that it still exist, and yes, decentralized currency which utilizes distributed, cryptographic validation is not actually a strictly bad idea, but…

Is the speculative investment scam, which crypto substantially represented, finally dead? Can we go back to buying gold bars and Pokemon cards?

I feel like it is, but I’m having a hard time putting my finger on why it lost its sheen. Maybe crypto scammers moved on to selling LLM “prompts?” Maybe the rug just got pulled enough times that everyone lost trust.

  • I have a few bitcoin that I got when it was new, and I was playing around with it; then I forgot about my coins until it exploded and made it into the public (non-tech) news. I luckily still had my wallet, and I bought a quite expensive watch with Bitcoin when it was near its price peak. The transaction was no more difficult than using Paypal. I could have bought a lot of things; at one point, I could have bought a car with it. There are many vendors who’ll accept Bitcoin even today. So, regardless of your other points, saying that it’s funny money that you can’t buy anything with is simply false. It’s worth what people will pay for it, just like the American dollar, or gold, or the artificially inflated price of blood diamonds.

    I don’t think promoting falsehoods helps any argument. If that one is obviously wrong, what about your other points? Lots of people want cryptocurrency to fail. Lots of people want to maintain the hegemony of the US dollar. Some people even have valid criticisms of proof-of-work cryptocurrencies, and the giant farming installations. It’s certainly something to discuss, as long as it’s kept to facts.

    • davehtaylor@beehaw.org
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      1 year ago

      The issue with retail is how long it takes for a bitcoin transaction to be confirmed. The overhead simply isn’t feasible. A vendor isn’t going to sit around an wait an hour for confirmation that payment has been received. A private seller might not care. But a company that processes millions of transactions per day isn’t going to deal with that. It has nothing to do with the belief in it and its worth.

      And yes, let me be perfectly clear: I absolutely do want cryptocurrency to fail. That’s not about being a shill for government hegemony. It’s about there being literally no inherent good in it, either in principle or in practice. From the fact that it consumes more energy than entire countries and pumps more CO2 into the atmosphere than entire major industries, to the environmental impact of increased mining for rare earths, increased manufacturing strain, and supply chain disruption due to the demand for the chips to drive the miners.

      Also I really don’t appreciate your passive aggressive way of calling me a liar

      • Your position was clear.

        I’m not sure how else you’d prefer someone to call out untruths that you’ve posted. It’s either calling you a liar, or some version of saying you’re talking out your ass, or what not. But you’re right, that’s what I was saying. FWIW, I don’t think it’s lying the way Trump lies; I think there’s just a lot of uninformed knee-jerk reactionism. For example, you talk about processing times; have you ever heard of Lightning? It’s a crypto used a lot in Nostr and which has instant transfer times.

        My point is that I you’re arguing a point that is easily refuted, when you have other points that are reasonable and justifiable. I could argue against the other points, too; for example, I could bring up proof-of-stake crypto-currencies which do not have huge energy use, and which haveno more energy footprint than the SSL transactions that you’re using constantly, every day. But it would be a harder arguement for me to make because the original cryptocoin, Bitcoin, is proof-of-work and has had a huge eco impact.

        And I might not try to argue that unless I thought you were open to discussing the topic in good faith. Which I don’t believe you are; I think you’ve already made up your mind on the topic, and now all that’s left is evangelism.

        I do have a question, though: do you understand how blockchains work, and the what the various kinds of proofs are? Not in the “could you program it” sense, but in general, like could you describe how they work to someone over beer? Or have you just read a lot about how bad they are? How much of your opinion is based on your social media filter biases?

        • Dymonika@beehaw.org
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          1 year ago

          That’s exactly what I was gonna say: @davehtaylor must have no idea of the nearly-cost-free Layer 2 network.

          Additionally, how much money does it take to power banks? All the staff, the electricity, the Brinks armored cars, the accounting for all that cash, the safety deposit boxes and all of their contents and insurance… Does he think ACH transfers or, worse, checks or money orders, are free on an environmental level? How is USD with all of its nonstop-growing debt safe in any long-term way?

      • arbitrary@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        Also I really don’t appreciate your passive aggressive way of calling me a liar

        They’re not wrong to do so when most of your points are outdated or crap:

        the overhead for making the transaction is just a non-starter

        Outdated

        if the power goes out, your wallet goes with it

        Bullshit

        For a decentralized currency, people sure do love centralizing under large exchanges, and the massive losses, thefts, fraud, etc. have shown that no matter how “decentralized” it’s supposed to be, it’s still susceptible to the same bullshit as any other currency

        Privacy coins are the best way to live the dream of fungible secure currency, which is why they’re being suppressed. All the others are an experiment in how to monitor transactions more deeply.

        Its high profile association with grifters, scammers, malware, and dark web shenanigans has completely soured its image in the public mind

        If I may don a tin foil hat, likely left rampant by design. The proof of concept has been done, the tech works and has been in the hands of the public long enough that it’s normalized. This may be to pave the way for countries to replace their currency with “legit” crypto versions in the next decade or two, which requires putting a bullet in the head of the rest.

        It’s entirely a speculative investment scam now.

        If you talk in absolutes you’re destined to be wrong.

        The issue with retail is how long it takes for a bitcoin transaction to be confirmed. The overhead simply isn’t feasible. A vendor isn’t going to sit around an wait an hour for confirmation that payment has been received.

        Outdated.

        And yes, let me be perfectly clear: I absolutely do want cryptocurrency to fail. That’s not about being a shill for government hegemony. It’s about there being literally no inherent good in it, either in principle or in practice. From the fact that it consumes more energy than entire countries and pumps more CO2 into the atmosphere than entire major industries, to the environmental impact of increased mining for rare earths, increased manufacturing strain, and supply chain disruption due to the demand for the chips to drive the miners.

        At some point PoW will probably die a death and PoS will be all that remains. PoS is cheap.

      • cannache@slrpnk.net
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        1 year ago

        I think a lot of people just have difficulty decoupling a few separate but connected ideas like crypto being internet money, from the blockchain as a ledger, and transaction records as a means of proof.

        What people really need is a ledger for cash itself, where notes can be scanned and then structured into a transaction and popped into the blockchain where said transaction ID gets verified and printed out like an EFTPOS note.

        If that sounds like we’re going full circle it’s probably because everything becomes harder but not always necessarily better with the more you DIY.

      • fiah@discuss.tchncs.de
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        1 year ago

        there are decentralized currencies that work perfectly well without wasting tons of energy, although I agree that none have yet achieved the necessary scale to actually replace current centralized money systems. These currencies might find a niche that doesn’t need the capacity to handle thousands of transactions per second, or perhaps one of the many many different ways to scale these currencies that are currently being worked on will end up being good enough (they aren’t, yet)