• LootGoblin42@beehaw.org
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    3
    ·
    1 year ago

    “Crytpto” is not a scam. Bitcoin and Ethereum are the future of money.

    There are a lot of shitcoins out there, but don’t let them fool you into staying poor. Fiat money is dying.

    • Uniquitous@lemmy.one
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      27
      ·
      1 year ago

      All money is fiat money. It has an agreed upon value outside of its intrinsic worth. If you want to get away from fiat money you have to go back to barter.

      • LootGoblin42@beehaw.org
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        1 year ago

        That’s not true. Fiat money is money created and managed by a government. We need separation of State and Money.

        from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

        noun Legal tender, especially paper currency, authorized by a government but not based on or convertible into gold or silver.
        

        from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

        noun economics Money that is given legal value or made legal tender for money debts by government fiat.
        

        from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

        noun money that the government declares to be legal tender although it cannot be converted into standard speci
        
        • Uniquitous@lemmy.one
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          27
          ·
          1 year ago

          So you prefer your currency to backed by the full faith and credit of… nobody? And you think you’re not being duped. Hilarious.

          • LootGoblin42@beehaw.org
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            3
            ·
            1 year ago

            It’s backed by math. There is a fixed amount of Bitcoin. We have never had the concept of “digital scarcity” before. There are thousands of computers running independently that are following a consensus algorithm. it’s an open, permisionless, trustless system that anyone on the planet can be part of.

            You would rather have money controlled by corrupt governments? Hilarious.

            • beefcat@beehaw.org
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              28
              ·
              edit-2
              1 year ago

              There is a fixed amount of Bitcoin.

              That is part of the problem. As long as the economy grows, then Bitcoin is deflationary. This encourages people who have it to hoard it, rather than to move it around and drive the economy. It is almost perfectly designed to be used as a speculative investment rather than an actual day-to-day currency.

              Having a fixed pool of money to represent your economy only makes sense if the total value of the economy will never change. This doesn’t happen in the real world. Populations grow, new technologies add value, and poverty generally goes down. This is all fairly simple math.

              • LootGoblin42@beehaw.org
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                2
                ·
                edit-2
                1 year ago

                It’s a great place to store and hold wealth.

                The concept you are describing is Gresham’s Law. https://bitcoinmagazine.com/culture/how-does-greshams-law-relate-to-bitcoin

                Bitcoin is digital gold. Other cryptocurrencies will become used as well for basic payments. Eventually you will be able to pay cross chain so it wont even matter which coins you hold.

                Edit: Using ChainLink: https://twitter.com/0xShmn/status/1696169139168059896

                • beefcat@beehaw.org
                  link
                  fedilink
                  arrow-up
                  8
                  ·
                  1 year ago

                  Amid all of this, nobody has managed to give me a reason why I would want to use crypto for transactions instead of my debit/credit card.

                  Crypto doesn’t come with any of the consumer protections I expect from my current payment methods. And in fact, it is designed to make some of them literally impossible (I.e. chargebacks). This might be appealing to sellers, but financial transactions are a buyers market. Sellers hate dealing with PayPal, but they put up with it because consumers trust PayPal and demand to use it.

                  So right now, crypto has these problems:

                  1. It is riskier to me than my current solutions.
                  2. Even with PoS, it is an order of magnitude more energy intensive than current centralized solutions. The the energy cost for just McDonald’s to replace all their credit card transactions with Ethereum would be staggering.
                  3. Most importantly, it does not solve any problems I have that other solutions do not. There needs to be a reason for consumers to change their habits. You can’t build your sales pitch on intangible benefits that are only relevant to a tiny minority.

                  It’s been over a decade and blockchains are still a neat technology without a useful practical application.

            • Uniquitous@lemmy.one
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              11
              ·
              1 year ago

              Ah, I see, you think that because you can mint Schmecklebux or whatever and use it as a medium of exchange, you’re somehow exempt from the laws of whatever country you’re in when the trade goes down? Tell me, does your flag have a fringe on it?

              • LootGoblin42@beehaw.org
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                1
                ·
                1 year ago

                Why do you assume I think I’m exempt from laws? I paid over $300,000 usd in taxes last year! I’m not using crypto to break laws, I’m using to to become wealthy.

                • Uniquitous@lemmy.one
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  9
                  ·
                  1 year ago

                  Then how are you free from “corrupt governments”? You’re still paying taxes on income and on property, so even if you acquired property with funny money the government is still getting its cut. And if the government felt like crypto was getting out of hands it would apply further laws to it or outlaw it.

                  • LootGoblin42@beehaw.org
                    link
                    fedilink
                    arrow-up
                    1
                    ·
                    1 year ago

                    Free in the sense that the place I store my wealth can’t be confiscated (e.g. Cypress, Greece, etc…) or it’s value inflated away by money printing.

                    Bitcoin is peer-to-peer digital cash. Governments can’t ban it, that’s why they are regulating it and accepting it as a thing.

            • Baut [she/her] auf.@lemmy.blahaj.zone
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              5
              ·
              edit-2
              1 year ago

              digital scarcity

              ipv4 addresses. Also bitcoin is the worst example here, as it’s just an asset. It’s not bearable as real money, you can’t trust its always changing value. It’s also a victim of constant market manipulation. XMR on the other hand is a relatively stable currency.
              Bitcoin is also a privacy and ecological nightmare.
              In general it’s also really fun that you can lose all your money without doing anything wrong.

              • LootGoblin42@beehaw.org
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                1
                ·
                1 year ago

                yeah, but we have ipv6 now. ipv4 was never designed to be a scarce asset, and it’s managed by a centralized authority.

                XMR is one of the best cryptocurrencies. Big fan of privacy!

                I’ve been holding bitcoin since 2011. Haven’t had any instances of “losing all my money without doing anything wrong”.

                • Baut [she/her] auf.@lemmy.blahaj.zone
                  link
                  fedilink
                  arrow-up
                  2
                  ·
                  1 year ago

                  But that’s digital scarcity, even if not designed like that.
                  You didn’t lose anything because it’s completely random. There are big pools just randomly generating wallets to see if they get a used one. And they had multiple hits.
                  Even when not talking about people not good with computers, people mess up backups and forget passwords. They shouldn’t lose their belongings just because of that.

            • Turun@feddit.de
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              3
              ·
              edit-2
              1 year ago

              I think crypto could have its place as the cash of the internet. No one can watch your transaction, but if the other person takes your money and runs you are shit outta luck. No way to revert transactions, perfect for money laundering, but also anonymous, which can be a plus.

              But all this makes it completely unsuitable in everyday use.

              Also: yes, there is a fixed amount of Bitcoin. But you know what governments all over the world did when Inflation was sky high? Change the interest rates to change the amount of money that goes into the economy to make everyday items affordable again.

              And for Bitcoin in particular, if everyone actually uses it as intended the artificial limit of the transaction rate would only allow you to perform one transaction every two yearsor something like that.

            • davehtaylor@beehaw.org
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              10
              ·
              1 year ago

              It’s backed by math.

              No, it’s backed by the power grid. Shut off the power, and you have nothing.

              Also trying to create scarcity in a realm where none actually exists shows how greedy and scammy it is.

              It’s worse than any other fiat currency. There’s literally nothing behind it.

        • Helluin@feddit.de
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          4
          ·
          1 year ago

          you should read “what is money” by mitchel innes. he shows very well that pretty much any money ever has been fiat money

        • HalJor@beehaw.org
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          4
          ·
          edit-2
          1 year ago

          Fiat money via WIkipedia:

          Fiat money can be:
          * Any money that is not backed by a commodity.
          * Money declared by a person, institution or government to be legal tender,[5] meaning that it must be accepted in payment of a debt in specific circumstances.[6]
          * State-issued money which is neither convertible through a central bank to anything else nor fixed in value in terms of any objective standard.[7]
          * Money used because of government decree.[2]
          * An otherwise non-valuable object that serves as a medium of exchange[8] (also known as fiduciary money).[9]
          

          Doesn’t have to come from a government. Crypto is three of these. The article even starts with “Fiat money is a type of currency that is not backed by a commodity, such as gold or silver.” Nothing about government there either.