• shortwavesurfer@lemmy.zip
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        2 days ago

        The word “investors” is the problem here.

        The word is crypto"currency". The goal would be to completely replace traditional currency.

        Your job pays you in crypto, you pay your electric bill in crypto, you pay your mortgage in crypto, you pay your car payment in crypto, you save in crypto, you buy your Starbucks in crypto. You sell your old game system for crypto, etc.

        When you completely give up on the traditional system and value your life in crypto, your life gets better.

          • shortwavesurfer@lemmy.zip
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            2 days ago

            No, I don’t think I will, because I’m not abusing it. I am a crypto anarchist.

            I believe in rules without rulers and voluntary human association. Governments are illegitimate due to the use of force.

                  • shortwavesurfer@lemmy.zip
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                    1 day ago

                    For that so decentralized video, we are actually in agreement. That is absolutely not decentralized, as it is very easy for a government to knock on the door and tell them to do whatever they want, and if they want to continue to exist as a business, they must comply.

                    While Monero, for example, still uses proof of work, it is deliberately designed to work on general purpose CPUs, such as the ones you have in your phone, laptop, desktop, etc.

                    This completely murders the idea of a mining farm and completely murders the idea of being able to centralize in a place like that.

                    There’s not one or only a few doors to knock on. There’s thousands upon thousands of doors to knock on all across the world. And since it’s so distributed, there’s not jet engine level noise in one specific area harming the community like this.

                  • some_kind_of_guy@lemmy.world
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                    1 day ago

                    Are you a bot? Of course there’s going to be some minority that abuse these things. You don’t have to accelerate the cherry picking.

                    As for Venezuela, yeah, it’s going about the same as dollarization went, that’s no surprise. It was never meant for gouvernements. (Also, that’s Bitcoin, so no surprise there).

                  • shortwavesurfer@lemmy.zip
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                    1 day ago

                    Hey, thanks for the read. That was actually very interesting.

                    I think a lot of the problems are the shifting of the meanings of words over time, in that words get used in different contexts, in different time periods. For example, socialism is commonly thought to be Marxist-Leninist states like the old Soviet Union, etc., when apparently that’s not what it meant at all.

                    On a personal level, I don’t know quite what the hell I am because I feel as though I could identify with some aspects of American libertarianism as well as anarchism and voluntarism and i like the NAP. i am absolutely opposed to war, see the right to bare arms as absolutely imparative, and hate fiat money because it gives one group of humans the means to destroy the lives of everyone else silently and without most people being able to identify the root of the problem.

                    I like Ayn Rands “Atlas Shrugged”, Alongside Night by, i’m going to butcher his name, J Neil Schulman, and some of Sek3.

                    I am in no way opposed to drugs, but think that individuals who choose to use hard drugs are only hurting themselves. Cocoa leaf tea is one thing. Cocaine is totally different, just because of how much stronger it is. Marijuana is fine because you’re not going to overdose and die from it, even if sometimes you might feel like you will.

                    With that said, what a person chooses to put in their body and enjoy is none of my fucking business. And I have no say over that, nor should I.

                    Another thing I found to be quite interesting was assassination politics and the assassination marketplace for those power hungry people who think they could lord it over everybody else wouldn’t be able to do so for very long.

                    Edit: a few of the people i have major respect for are Cody Wilson (liberator 3d pistol) J Stark (Fuck Gun Control (FGC) 9mm, murdered by german poliece RIP), Amir Takki (dark wallet) and Edward Snowden (NSA leaks)

        • Five@slrpnk.netOP
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          1 day ago

          Why bitcoin is worse than a Madoff-style Ponzi scheme by Robert McCauley

          Brazilian computer scientist Jorge Stolfi is one voice who has contended this. His view is based on the following observations:

          1. Investors buy in the expectation of profits.
          2. That expectation is sustained by the profits of those that cash out.
          3. But there is no external source for those profits; they come entirely from new investments.
          4. And the operators take away a large portion of the money.

          All of this rings true true. But in calling bitcoin a Ponzi scheme, critics are arguably being too kind on two counts. First, bitcoin doesn’t have the same endgame as a Ponzi scheme. Second, it constitutes a deeply negative sum game from a broad social perspective.

            • Five@slrpnk.netOP
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              15 hours ago

              Bitcoin = Monero in your mind. They aren’t the same, not even close.

              LOL. I understand they are very different entities.

              Bitcoin Monero
              Proof of work Proof of work
              Uses a blockchain ledger Uses a blockchain ledger
              Extremely volatile exchange rate Extremely volatile exchange rate
              Unregulated Unregulated
              Price easily manipulated by wealthy investors Price easily manipulated by wealthy investors
              “HODL” - unrealistic expectation that the endgame is general use as currency “HODL” - unrealistic expectation that the endgame is general use as currency
              Heavily driven by FOMO Heavily driven by FOMO
              Uses obscene amount of energy per coin Aspires to use an obscene amount of energy per coin to prevent another 51% attack
              Ledger has become so large it is unwieldy to store and transfer Ledger 200+ GiB, constantly expanding
              Represents an ecological catastrope A currently smaller part of the ecological catastrope
              Most popular currency used to facilitate human trafficking Has features that should make it more attractive for use in human trafficking
              Difficult and annoying to use Even more difficult and annoying to use
              Available on most cryptocurrency exchanges Available on fewer exchanges
              Claimed by early proponents that transactions were ‘anonymous’ but now frequently the subject of blockchain analysis Proponents claim transactions to be anonymous
              Pre-mining began January 2009 Pre-mining began April 2014
              Advocates behave like people in an MLM cult Advocates behave like people in an MLM cult
              Represents the vain hope to individually escape catastrophe while the world burns by using theoretically clever but practically unworkable technological solutions that create further social problems, while the real, difficult though not intractable social problems of government abuse, economic instability, and authoritarianism continue to increase because resources for real social solutions are starved of resources Represents the vain hope to individually escape catastrophe while the world burns by using theoretically clever but practically unworkable technological solutions that create further social problems, while the real, difficult though not intractable social problems of government abuse, economic instability, and authoritarianism continue to increase because resources for real social solutions are starved of resources
              $116,760 / coin $270 / coin
              20M coins 18.5M coins
              Logo is a circle with the letter “B” Logo is a circle with the letter “M”

              One of the hilarious details I discovered while researching this is that according to the US Government Accountability Office report “Use of Online Marketplaces and Virtual Currencies in Drug and Human Trafficking” in 2022,

              Representatives of two analytics firms and one exchange also noted that illicit actors use privacy coins less frequently, as they are more difficult to obtain and are supported by fewer exchanges compared to Bitcoin, making it difficult to convert funds to government-issued currency.

              So whatever benefits Monero claims to have in protecting the privacy of illicit activities, the people who could face real time in jail don’t consider the benefits worth how extremely annoying it is to use.

          • GasMaskedLunatic@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            1 day ago

            Well, if Lord Robert McCauley says it, it must be true. I am truly humbled by your superior intellect and ability to determine a currency from a Ponzi scheme by citing essays that have nothing to do with Monero. Goodbye.

          • ar1@lemmy.sdf.org
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            1 day ago

            I think what you, and the people you believed, are making one wrong fundamental assumption (and I read it as your main point), which is “to evalute crypto currency one must compare it against fiat money”.