2y ago

Is Crypto Finally Dead?

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.

You're viewing a single thread.

65 comments

As an actual currency, it's functionally useless. Even if every retailer on the planet were to accept it, the overhead for making the transaction is just a non-starter
Because of that, it's entirely just funny money. Even further, since it's entirely a virtual asset, if the power goes out, your wallet goes with it
The environmental impacts are horrifying. This fact alone means that it should all be eradicated. Destroying the planet for Internet funny money isn't an acceptable proposition
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
Its high profile association with grifters, scammers, malware, and dark web shenanigans has completely soured its image in the public mind
It's entirely a speculative investment scam now. There's no way to decouple it from that.
- As an actual currency, it's functionally useless. Even if every retailer on the planet were to accept it, the overhead for making the transaction is just a non-starter
  New technologies such as the lightning network will fix this.
  Because of that, it's entirely just funny money. Even further, since it's entirely a virtual asset, if the power goes out, your wallet goes with it
  If the power goes out, your local ATMs and card readers will stop working as well. It'd have to take a global power outage to bring a crypto network down, and at that point we probably have more important issues to deal with.
  The environmental impacts are horrifying. This fact alone means that it should all be eradicated. Destroying the planet for Internet funny money isn't an acceptable proposition
  This is fixed by proof-of-stake.
  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
  True, but it's a personal choice. You don't have to have to store them centralized if you don't want to. The same cannot be said about traditional currencies, as it's not feasable to have stacks of cash lying around.
  Its high profile association with grifters, scammers, malware, and dark web shenanigans has completely soured its image in the public mind
  Also true, but that has nothing to do with the actual currencies. The public image will improve once people learns how it works.
  It's entirely a speculative investment scam now. There's no way to decouple it from that.
  Maturity will make it decouple from that.
- 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.
  
  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?
  
  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?
  
  The L2 experience is quite poor at the moment, which is more an indicator of how bright the future is
  
  How so? GameStop’s NFT Marketplace for games has been showcasing Layer 2 tech from Loopring and it’s smooth as fuck.
  There are many others that use Layer 2 tech not just LR of course. Which L2 are you talking about?
  
  I'm talking about Loopring itself
- Some of these points are not inherent properties of cryptos, like the environmental impact and the transaction overhead.
- Correct me if I'm wrong, but since ETH moved to a proof of stake model rather than proof of work (i.e. "mining"), isn't its environmental footprint now a fraction of the wasteful behemoth it was previously?
  (Though I 100% agree given the 'gas fees' (transaction costs), it's still absolutely useless as an actual currency.)
  
  You're right about the environmental footprint - proof of stake dropped the energy consumption by 99.95%
  Ether (ETH) was never intended to serve as a digital currency. it was only meant to be the fuel or incentive for computational tasks on the Ethereum network. An L2 like Optimism or Arbitrum runs on top of Ethereum and facilitates transactions that are significantly faster (tens of thousands of transactions per second), for a fraction of the cost (pennies or fractions of pennies)

65 comments