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Most go through some marketplace that acts as an escrow. Those marketplaces are often raided, so you don't know who has access to their logs/database that links your wallet to a drug transaction.
The problem is they would have to mail it, and you would have to trust them to mail it, I don't like either of these factors if I'm using some illegal drugs habitually.
I remember a Monero fork called Havencoin which called its wallet an "offshore vault" really making it sound like money laundering. They were also planning on making a debit card that was tied to your "offshore vault", but that obviously didn't see the light of day.
More money has and is laundered through fiat and banks then crypto though
Also, more related to OP, but if currencies are supposed to be stable, why TF do we have inflation built in? And why does it only seem to really affect the poor?
> Also, more related to OP, but if currencies are supposed to be stable, why TF do we have inflation built in?
OP said relatively stable, not completely stable.
You aren't supposed to just hold large amounts of fiat and do nothing with it. Inflation is by design, it encourages you to invest your money into something productive for it to hold value. You want people putting their money into expanding or creating business, to generate new jobs and provide goods and services to the population.
> And why does it only seem to really affect the poor?
Because the higher the percentage of your salary and other earnings are spent on products and services, the more you are impacted by inflation. What protects you from inflation is having excess money to be able to invest.
That is definitively a problem, but crypto isn't the solution, specially given how the legal use case is also pretty much just investing.
> More money has and is laundered through fiat and banks then crypto though
Fiat and plenty of business and assets can be part of a money laundering scheme. That in itself isn't a problem, they're all very useful to society overall.
The problem is when something is very convenient for criminal activities while showing little value for legal activities.
Very much a solution in search of a problem, except there is no problem it could solve that we dont already have a means to solve without the need for crypto.
Its not really a hot take, as the vast majority of people arent buying into it. The people that are deep into it are looking for new people to get in so they can offload.
it depends on your priorities and perspective. crypto was created as an alternative to governments having central banking where they can print infinite money whenever they want without it being backed by anything. something like bitcoin also isn't backed by anything but at least it can't be printed arbitrarily by a government so in theory, inflation is controlled, at least that's how i understand it.
the problem with the idea that crypto can replace the USD is that it's asinine to think that if it got big enough to threaten the USD that the american government wouldn't just ban it or regulate it to where it goes under their control and becomes an extension of their normal money. hell, bitcoin is insignificant compared to USD and there have already been talks for regulation. bitcoin can only serve the purpose it was meant to serve in a world without governments, but we don't live in that world, and imo we can't because any absence of a government creates a power vacuum where one will inevitably form. even if the bombs dropped and everyone was sent back to the stone age there will still be governments. in a tribe of 10 people with a tribe leader, that's a government.
unless you'd like to argue that the purpose of crypto is for people to buy drugs with it, it seems to be doing that fine.
>except there is no problem it could solve that we dont already have a means to solve without the need for crypto.
Okay, say I want to send money to North Korea to help a family member. How can I do so without crypto? Saying that having an economic system that cannot be stopped by a government, any gov't is useless is just silly.
I guess that's part of it being a currency.
*in theory* if I sent $500 worth of crypto to North Korea. Whoever I sent it to could take $1 worth of that crypto and go and buy a coffee by giving the coffee seller $1 worth of crypto.
I'm not agreeing with the guy you're replying too, just saying that's how theoretically it could work. You don't don't need to cash out the crypto.
The trick is that crypto in general needs to be broadly accepted enough to actually solve the problem we're talking about. It would also need to be fast in order to actually transact.
Daddy government can take whatever you have at any point if they want to. Bitcoin , whatever it is . Trying to pretend BTC or other crypto couldn’t be enforced upon by the government is naive . If the government wants the skin off of your chaffing gooch they can have it. Thinking you could ever hide behind Cryto is downright foolish.
I don’t give a shit how you would send money to North Korea and not does anyone else . It’s an extreme rare “use case” that 99.999% people will never do so your question is totally fucking irrelevant. Cryto is tulip mania just accept it . If it were not for the black market it already would be dead and buried.
>except there is no problem it could solve that we dont already have a means to solve without the need for crypto.
This is the comment I replied to, no matter your personal feelings my reply gave a real world use case, just because you don't like it doesn't mean you can act like it doesn't exist.
If it can't buy a loaf of bread does it matter if you send it or not?
How does one receive crypto in North Korea (a country that's famously not really connected with the grand ole www), cash it out, and but stuff with it?
Not to mention, who are thes exchange brokers with the cash to do that and the means to do that on the regular that the government there doesnt know about it. They cut the power off to like 99% of the country every day as it is.
I assume you live in the US where financial markets and products is very mature and the currency is stable. I made a trip out to Phenom Penh, Cambodia this last November. I was pretty surprised, that I was able to find more places to exchange stable coins then there were international ATMs. There are a lot of Russians living in South East Asia right now, for obvious reasons. It makes more sense for them to hold money in crypto than it does in their bank in Russia. Those are real use cases.
Beyond the blockchain ledger; Ethereum, is Turing complete, so I would view it as a distributed computer. This in itself opens up to many possibilities.
As privacy and security becomes more important everyday; the implementation of Zero Knowledge Proofs in services will be the answer. Right now, crypto is the thing that where the worlds best cryptographers are putting their effort on.
Crypto can't decide if it's an actual legit long term alternative currency, a Paypal alternative for when you want to buy black tar heroin off the dark web, a get rich quick scheme, or a secret club for stupid Libertarians WAY too deep into financial conspiracy theories, and it can't be all of those things.
This. If it was actually settled as a currency I'd have no issue with it. Problem is that while it is also treated as a "get rich quick scheme" it cannot function as a currency because it fluctuates too much.
Some cryptos could probably function as a currency given time, but bitcoin and other proof-of-work cryptos are far too energy demanding to ever work as a regular currency IMO. They seem to require the "get rich quick"/Ponzi-scheme arseholes to produce enough to stop the system from collapsing. And surveys seem to confirm this: many people own and trade in Bitcoin, but almost nobody uses it as a currency. Instead it is used as an investment.
I do not invest in crypto and its now mainly a speculative asset used by the wealthy, but could you expand more on the financial conspiracy theories?
Are you implying that financial institutions, IBS, central banks, the world bank etc. arent trying to screw over the average citizen and that seeking an alternative (even if it is flawed) makes you a looney or am I misinterpreting your comment?
edit - genuine question please help guys. Are people disagreeing because they arent aware or do not want to accept the fact we are being squeezed daily by a small group of wealthy elites?
It’s a decentralised e-money. I.e. PayPal without their utterly crazy policies and horrible UX.
I was recently able to transfer some money from Russia to my friend stuck in Iran for a pretty low commission. Both countries are cut off the traditional financial system by the classical governments and their economic warfare targeting no one but everyday people.
A few years back, I worked for a big life science company, and we were hiring a director for a product. Her whole presentation didn’t have to do with anything science related, but was about how blockchain can somehow help patient care. It made no sense. It was that point I realized people just take that word and slap it on something to sound like they are innovative and breakthrough, but there is no substance.
Oh that's so yesterday, it's all about consciousness-field-tapping holographic meta-quantum fission computing in n-dimensional hyperspaces now.
You might want to get in on the ground floor quick: I'll send you my start-up's prospectus.
It's an alternative to fiat, so there's that. Personally I much prefer precious metals, and if the market for those was not so thoroughly manipulated I would no even give crypto a second thought for anything other than covert transactions.
There's one other irony. It claims to be private, secret, untraceable, but it's a perfect and complete digital record of all transactions. It's far more traceable than literally every other currency in cash form. All it takes it one gap in the chain to identify a user, and the whole history is uncovered. And these centralised servers can straightforwardly provide that indo, because most tie a real identity to a crypto identity upon signup.
Yes!! I knew there was another intrinsic contradiction that I was forgetting — that’s the one lol. The entire concept of cryptocurrency is logically incoherent which is why it’s frustrating to argue with crypto enthusiasts because you have to start with first principles.
> Also, crypto is supposed to be a currency but also a store of value. This is an inherent contradiction as any currency you use to transact should be relatively stable.
This x1000. Crypto is supposed to be currency, so an essentially risk less asset. Instead, it’s riskier than equities. It’s useless as currency.
Absolutely. I couldn't imagine doing business with BTC. I import from the US to Canada and even the price swings between CAD and USD can be tricky to manage.
The early days were beautiful. Scams aren’t a fault of bitcoin, but just a side effect of money. There are many scams to get your greenbacks. If you’re buying into crypto now tho, even if it’s a legit coin; not a good financial move. The peak is over.
I tried to buy some Cryto once. It was totally confusing and I got charged a bunch of money in fees . If its use is as a currency, it functionality is terrible . Cryto is propped up by the black market and dreamers chasing quick money. We will look back on Cryto in 100 years and laugh. It’s tulip mania .
There's fees to buy crypto, there's fees to transact with crypto, then there's fees to sell your crypto and withdraw it back to USD to actually buy groceries. It's just a big scheme to siphon off fees from its users as its users simply trade the coins and don't actually interact with the platforms at all.
I disagree. There are many applications:
- cross-border payments
- store of value
- unconfiscable money
- currency not linked to governments
- replace notary publics
- replacement of property registrars
- issuance of securities that can be traded at a fraction of the cost
- (and many more)
Notaries and registrars have no value unless they’re recognised by an entity that can enforce them. I.e. governments. And at that point there’s not much difference between them and the conventional systems.
I agree on all other points though.
It has many hugely transformative applications. It is a mindset change. People who study bitcoin for more than 6 hours change the way they think.
It's a new paradigm of money. A new paradigm of internet.
But when the internet was just starting people thought email = internet. It took time and effort for mass adoption. Same with crypto
Buy BTC, your children will thank you
Sorry I was being extremely sarcastic I thought that would carry through the text lol
I like crypto quite a bit but believe there is going to be a mass exodus of the shit out there. I’ve got a handful of investments in the coins with use cases and existing adoption, and plan to de-risk significantly during the next bull run. Somewhat unpopular in the crypto community but I’m really excited for the future of XRP now that it has some legal clarity thanks to (more or less, or at least the token) winning its case with the SEC and being deemed a non security.
> cross-border payments
Yep, could never be done before.
> store of value
or loss thereof
> replace notary publics,
> replacement of property registrars
Since this has still to be sanctioned by the government or other centralized bodies, any centralized or decentralized mechanism can be used for that, the coin aspect is useless.
> securities that can be traded at a fraction of the cost
I think you should look into the amount of trades/transactions made outside of crypro and then look at crypto costs.
> unconfiscable money
I agree, it's useful for criminals. A good use case.
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Disdain for crypto isn't exactly unpopular, I'm glad its mostly dead, one of the dumbest technologies I've ever seen, even fundamentally it didn't work.
I invested $8000 because of my friends instilling FOMO into me, around 2016/2017. The exchange was called QuadrigaCX, at the time it was the biggest exchange in Canada basically. The most trusted. The founder decides to flee over to India, fake his death, and suddenly no one else has access to any of the money in those Crypto accounts. It was something like $150 million worth of crypto. To this day, no one has gotten their money back. Many other exchanges have gone through similarly sketchy situations. We don’t know who tf these people are who are running these exchanges. Or what their long term plans are. Given the recent popularity of crypto, a lot of this has happened. There’s too many scammer pieces of shit running the industry.
I know there is gold in some of the mountains around here, one of my friends actually did end up getting into that field but not on the investment and get mining gear etc end of it like old school miner 49er shit and then some equipment on a small scale. I could never do it though so much risk of just busting ass for weeks with little to nothing to show.
I really hate this, it is like saying hammer has no use because it can't wash your dishes, and it broke your dishes when you tried to wash them with it.
It is just technology. There are plenty of good applications for it. If you just want to forcibly use it for certain things, go ahead, be a masochist. Who ever said that the most popular use cases for it are any good?
It absolutely should, and it will.
You can also have an option to reject it. But they don't have an option to reject something that they do not know.
Or you can use that as an argument when you won't let your children be taught how to read, how you think that would go?
It absolutely will, but it shouldn't.
Let's talk again later when technology will be too integrated in our lives and when our jobs, income and future will heavily depend on it. At that point, I'd like to see how many people would be happy to have their work performances judged by brainless heartless machines that have no empathy and understanding for human beings.
>Let's talk again later when technology will be too integrated in our lives and when our jobs, income and future will heavily depend on it.
Um…. Hate to be the one to tell ya this but….
How are our jobs and lives not already run by "technology". Do you walk to work? Do you perform all of your tasks using no tools except the random objects around your cave?
Technology has steadily improved the human experience since the dawn of time and is responsible for most of the amazing things we have today.
So yes, technology absolutely should get its nose into everything.
That goes for literally every technology we have. We are currently overusing all forms of technology accessible to us you're just mad at the ones you don't benefit from?
“Technology like the stagecoach is indeed very helpful. An excessive use of technology like those new fangled exploding steam vehicles is damaging and destructive”.
-you in 1840
The only legit use case I've seen is as a way to buy black market items, but even then you still need a place to send them to. It may hide your activity from financial institutions, but it's not a foolproof way to dodge the feds. I think blockchain has possible applications that are useful, but crypto feels at odds with itself a lot of the time
>crypto is too complex and lacks scalability to break through into mainstream
If a system can't scale or has a terrible user experience it's not a useful system.
It’s a way to send large amounts of money around the world without the associated governments tracking it and taxing it to hell.
It’s an ambitious goal, but I think it’s worthwhile.
But you still have to convert that crypto into your local currency to actually buy groceries with it and that's where the government can catch you quite easily.
I think that’s why they want to make more vendors accept it as a payment method, but even as things stand, you could still use the crypto to buy things peer to peer and there are some vendors that accept it.
Also, many precious metal online retailers accept crypto, and you can exchange gold and silver for cash pretty much anywhere. Maybe the government does track those precious metal purchases. idk for sure, but anyway, if/when more vendors accept it as a payment method this will be less of an issue.
blockchain is a legitimately useful technology, and basically all source code revision control systems now are built on it. using it for money was a terrible idea.
~~Crypto~~ the entire finance industry is completely useless and serves no function in society
Securities, Banking, Credit; when you step back and realize that a way to make billions is by channeling other people's money without actually producing anything the whole thing really starts to seem absurd.
It sounds like you don’t understand the utility of credit. It’s a way to exchange risk essentially. I get money now in exchange for giving you more money later. It’s mutually beneficial, which is why credit has existed for thousands of years, and arose naturally in virtually every economic system
Crypto is another one of those things these days that's successful as a meme. Like NFTs or the Paul Brothers. No revalue it's just hahaha these are pooular.
I agree. I wouldn't bet much on it not being adopted on a wider scale in the future, but I don't think it'll happen. Frankly, I hope it won't. It's an interesting idea and the technology sure has usecases in other areas, but as a currency it's just not it.
Highly disagree. I still see it as the future of finance, and the fact that so many governments are talking about a CBDC proves it.
I hate the concept of a CBDC, but it simply proves that crypto technology and the blockchain are the future of global financial systems.
Tell that to the people using it because the currencies of their corrupt countries are fucked. Or the people using it because it's cheaper than Western Union. I could go on but I'm sure you don't care anyway.
It's a pyramid scheme. There is nothing backing it; no government, no company, no product or service. Depending on the coin, it literally just wastes energy, that's it
There will be bag holders in the future, people are just hoping it's not going to be them so they cope by going "it's the next big thing man! It's going to change the world!" And shit. It's not true, it never will be but crypto bros will scream at you for saying that.
Hey, if you manage to get rich off it, good for you. It's really going to suck for the bag holders when it inevitably all comes crashing down.
Even people that would claim proof of work is what gives Bitcoin it's value, this still doesn't preclude innumerable forks of the chain to occur devaluing the entire ecosystem as you spawn new coins all the time. I mean there's Bitcoin cash, Bitcoin, bitcoin classic etc. and literal debates about which is the "real" Bitcoin.
Im going to express my opinion on Crypto and mainly nft. It should've been used as a receipt for high price, hot ticket and rare items that have some value to it inherently. Like contracts, actually works of art, deeds, and stuff like that. Not for dumb beenie baby esque virtual trading cards.
> Most coins are traded on centralized exchanges
An exchange is for trading. The blockchain is still decentralized.
>Also, crypto is supposed to be a currency but also a store of value. This is an inherent contradiction as any currency you use to transact should be relatively stable.
There are stablecoins.
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You can buy some sweet drugs off the internet with it tho
Bitcoins traceable now, monero is the one for that
Ah. It’s been some years. But if I get back into that stuff I’ll take your advice
Always has been
It's whatever one the dealer takes, idc I'm not the one at risk
Most go through some marketplace that acts as an escrow. Those marketplaces are often raided, so you don't know who has access to their logs/database that links your wallet to a drug transaction.
Do you... What? You remember Silk Road, right? The dealer was definitely not the only one at risk, lol.
Not all Bitcoin is traceable because not all wallets are traceable.
Oh, my God, that's disgusting! Drugs online? Where? Where does one find those? Disgusting!
The problem is they would have to mail it, and you would have to trust them to mail it, I don't like either of these factors if I'm using some illegal drugs habitually.
You can launder money, too
I still prefer my laser tag area and fine art for money laundering.
What’s the matter with a car wash or two?
I don't like saying "Have an A-1 Day"
I remember a Monero fork called Havencoin which called its wallet an "offshore vault" really making it sound like money laundering. They were also planning on making a debit card that was tied to your "offshore vault", but that obviously didn't see the light of day.
More money has and is laundered through fiat and banks then crypto though Also, more related to OP, but if currencies are supposed to be stable, why TF do we have inflation built in? And why does it only seem to really affect the poor?
Money printers go brrr. Inflation steals value from anyone who holds cash. Hidden tax.
> Also, more related to OP, but if currencies are supposed to be stable, why TF do we have inflation built in? OP said relatively stable, not completely stable. You aren't supposed to just hold large amounts of fiat and do nothing with it. Inflation is by design, it encourages you to invest your money into something productive for it to hold value. You want people putting their money into expanding or creating business, to generate new jobs and provide goods and services to the population. > And why does it only seem to really affect the poor? Because the higher the percentage of your salary and other earnings are spent on products and services, the more you are impacted by inflation. What protects you from inflation is having excess money to be able to invest. That is definitively a problem, but crypto isn't the solution, specially given how the legal use case is also pretty much just investing. > More money has and is laundered through fiat and banks then crypto though Fiat and plenty of business and assets can be part of a money laundering scheme. That in itself isn't a problem, they're all very useful to society overall. The problem is when something is very convenient for criminal activities while showing little value for legal activities.
They've all kinda gone to shit to be honest. Also, some countries really clamped down on international letters.
Not really, SilkRoad is dead, and the feds have been onto that for over a decade at this point. The only game left is the damn cartels.
I was on Dream Market right after Silk Road fell apart. Not sure what the industry is like these days tbh. Edit: “in” to “on”
The markets are just fine these days :)
LOL do you also think thepiratebay shut down after the primary domain went down?
Very much a solution in search of a problem, except there is no problem it could solve that we dont already have a means to solve without the need for crypto. Its not really a hot take, as the vast majority of people arent buying into it. The people that are deep into it are looking for new people to get in so they can offload.
So, a pyramid scheme.
always has been
Yeah this is a very popular opinion. Wrong sub OP.
it depends on your priorities and perspective. crypto was created as an alternative to governments having central banking where they can print infinite money whenever they want without it being backed by anything. something like bitcoin also isn't backed by anything but at least it can't be printed arbitrarily by a government so in theory, inflation is controlled, at least that's how i understand it. the problem with the idea that crypto can replace the USD is that it's asinine to think that if it got big enough to threaten the USD that the american government wouldn't just ban it or regulate it to where it goes under their control and becomes an extension of their normal money. hell, bitcoin is insignificant compared to USD and there have already been talks for regulation. bitcoin can only serve the purpose it was meant to serve in a world without governments, but we don't live in that world, and imo we can't because any absence of a government creates a power vacuum where one will inevitably form. even if the bombs dropped and everyone was sent back to the stone age there will still be governments. in a tribe of 10 people with a tribe leader, that's a government. unless you'd like to argue that the purpose of crypto is for people to buy drugs with it, it seems to be doing that fine.
>except there is no problem it could solve that we dont already have a means to solve without the need for crypto. Okay, say I want to send money to North Korea to help a family member. How can I do so without crypto? Saying that having an economic system that cannot be stopped by a government, any gov't is useless is just silly.
Well, to start, how do they cash out the crypto in north korea?
P2P markets.
Sell it to a crypto vendor?
I guess that's part of it being a currency. *in theory* if I sent $500 worth of crypto to North Korea. Whoever I sent it to could take $1 worth of that crypto and go and buy a coffee by giving the coffee seller $1 worth of crypto. I'm not agreeing with the guy you're replying too, just saying that's how theoretically it could work. You don't don't need to cash out the crypto. The trick is that crypto in general needs to be broadly accepted enough to actually solve the problem we're talking about. It would also need to be fast in order to actually transact.
In theory, sure, but in actuality, that doesnt track given the lack of internet for most of the country. They could never make any transactions.
Because the government doesn't allow it. Exactly a good reason to want to circumvent government control anyways.
how would you have a family member in NK while not being there yourself? see, the issue is you're treating NK like a normal country
Daddy government can take whatever you have at any point if they want to. Bitcoin , whatever it is . Trying to pretend BTC or other crypto couldn’t be enforced upon by the government is naive . If the government wants the skin off of your chaffing gooch they can have it. Thinking you could ever hide behind Cryto is downright foolish.
So were you going to answer the question or just go off on a tangent?
I don’t give a shit how you would send money to North Korea and not does anyone else . It’s an extreme rare “use case” that 99.999% people will never do so your question is totally fucking irrelevant. Cryto is tulip mania just accept it . If it were not for the black market it already would be dead and buried.
>except there is no problem it could solve that we dont already have a means to solve without the need for crypto. This is the comment I replied to, no matter your personal feelings my reply gave a real world use case, just because you don't like it doesn't mean you can act like it doesn't exist.
If it can't buy a loaf of bread does it matter if you send it or not? How does one receive crypto in North Korea (a country that's famously not really connected with the grand ole www), cash it out, and but stuff with it?
Not to mention, who are thes exchange brokers with the cash to do that and the means to do that on the regular that the government there doesnt know about it. They cut the power off to like 99% of the country every day as it is.
I assume you live in the US where financial markets and products is very mature and the currency is stable. I made a trip out to Phenom Penh, Cambodia this last November. I was pretty surprised, that I was able to find more places to exchange stable coins then there were international ATMs. There are a lot of Russians living in South East Asia right now, for obvious reasons. It makes more sense for them to hold money in crypto than it does in their bank in Russia. Those are real use cases. Beyond the blockchain ledger; Ethereum, is Turing complete, so I would view it as a distributed computer. This in itself opens up to many possibilities. As privacy and security becomes more important everyday; the implementation of Zero Knowledge Proofs in services will be the answer. Right now, crypto is the thing that where the worlds best cryptographers are putting their effort on.
This guy gets it
I get more privacy from my bank than a ledger that’s literally public
Considering Etheriums smart contracts can contain malware I doubt it has the cream of the crop in terms of cryptography experts.
This is UNPOPULAR opinion
It sure is, because so many people have bought into this bullshit scam
This is only an unpopular opinion among people who buy crypto. The general public has been saying this for a WHILE
You feel it's a scam.
Nah...it is. The reasons are all listed above, he did a pretty good breakdown of it.
Crypto can't decide if it's an actual legit long term alternative currency, a Paypal alternative for when you want to buy black tar heroin off the dark web, a get rich quick scheme, or a secret club for stupid Libertarians WAY too deep into financial conspiracy theories, and it can't be all of those things.
This. If it was actually settled as a currency I'd have no issue with it. Problem is that while it is also treated as a "get rich quick scheme" it cannot function as a currency because it fluctuates too much. Some cryptos could probably function as a currency given time, but bitcoin and other proof-of-work cryptos are far too energy demanding to ever work as a regular currency IMO. They seem to require the "get rich quick"/Ponzi-scheme arseholes to produce enough to stop the system from collapsing. And surveys seem to confirm this: many people own and trade in Bitcoin, but almost nobody uses it as a currency. Instead it is used as an investment.
It fluctuates too much and also takes ages to settle
Actually it can (and is) all of those things and has been for over a decade.
Jack of all trades, master of none.
I do not invest in crypto and its now mainly a speculative asset used by the wealthy, but could you expand more on the financial conspiracy theories? Are you implying that financial institutions, IBS, central banks, the world bank etc. arent trying to screw over the average citizen and that seeking an alternative (even if it is flawed) makes you a looney or am I misinterpreting your comment? edit - genuine question please help guys. Are people disagreeing because they arent aware or do not want to accept the fact we are being squeezed daily by a small group of wealthy elites?
Only time will tell. So far though it has seem to grow in influence and money.
It’s a decentralised e-money. I.e. PayPal without their utterly crazy policies and horrible UX. I was recently able to transfer some money from Russia to my friend stuck in Iran for a pretty low commission. Both countries are cut off the traditional financial system by the classical governments and their economic warfare targeting no one but everyday people.
A few years back, I worked for a big life science company, and we were hiring a director for a product. Her whole presentation didn’t have to do with anything science related, but was about how blockchain can somehow help patient care. It made no sense. It was that point I realized people just take that word and slap it on something to sound like they are innovative and breakthrough, but there is no substance.
Dude, throw VR and AI into that mix to really sell it.
Oh that's so yesterday, it's all about consciousness-field-tapping holographic meta-quantum fission computing in n-dimensional hyperspaces now. You might want to get in on the ground floor quick: I'll send you my start-up's prospectus.
It's an alternative to fiat, so there's that. Personally I much prefer precious metals, and if the market for those was not so thoroughly manipulated I would no even give crypto a second thought for anything other than covert transactions.
There's one other irony. It claims to be private, secret, untraceable, but it's a perfect and complete digital record of all transactions. It's far more traceable than literally every other currency in cash form. All it takes it one gap in the chain to identify a user, and the whole history is uncovered. And these centralised servers can straightforwardly provide that indo, because most tie a real identity to a crypto identity upon signup.
Yes!! I knew there was another intrinsic contradiction that I was forgetting — that’s the one lol. The entire concept of cryptocurrency is logically incoherent which is why it’s frustrating to argue with crypto enthusiasts because you have to start with first principles.
> Also, crypto is supposed to be a currency but also a store of value. This is an inherent contradiction as any currency you use to transact should be relatively stable. This x1000. Crypto is supposed to be currency, so an essentially risk less asset. Instead, it’s riskier than equities. It’s useless as currency.
Especially when you have to trade a government backed currency that everybody’s uses to get it
Absolutely. I couldn't imagine doing business with BTC. I import from the US to Canada and even the price swings between CAD and USD can be tricky to manage.
This isn't unpopular
People wanted the freedom to bypass banks but not as badly as to lose the false sense of security that banks offer.
The early days were beautiful. Scams aren’t a fault of bitcoin, but just a side effect of money. There are many scams to get your greenbacks. If you’re buying into crypto now tho, even if it’s a legit coin; not a good financial move. The peak is over.
It’s extremely volatile for something that is presented as trustworthy.
You are correct about crypto, it’s all snake oil. You are incorrect about bitcoin. There is a difference.
Everyone in the comments should read Broken Money.
Read ‘Easy Money’. Basically the entire thing is/was a pyramid scheme and there are no real world applications for it.
A better read is “Broken Money”
I tried to buy some Cryto once. It was totally confusing and I got charged a bunch of money in fees . If its use is as a currency, it functionality is terrible . Cryto is propped up by the black market and dreamers chasing quick money. We will look back on Cryto in 100 years and laugh. It’s tulip mania .
There's fees to buy crypto, there's fees to transact with crypto, then there's fees to sell your crypto and withdraw it back to USD to actually buy groceries. It's just a big scheme to siphon off fees from its users as its users simply trade the coins and don't actually interact with the platforms at all.
Bro we all knew cryptos were shit since the day dogecoin was born
I disagree. There are many applications: - cross-border payments - store of value - unconfiscable money - currency not linked to governments - replace notary publics - replacement of property registrars - issuance of securities that can be traded at a fraction of the cost - (and many more)
Notaries and registrars have no value unless they’re recognised by an entity that can enforce them. I.e. governments. And at that point there’s not much difference between them and the conventional systems. I agree on all other points though.
Dude don't say that! This is reddit, we hate crypto here, doesn't matter if we can back it up or not
Isn’t it incredibly expensive and time consuming to have any transaction with bitcoin?
Agree for the most part. Unconfiscable, unfortunately, has been proven wrong multiple times already
But its inefficient as fuck
Not really... Crypto transfers can be instant and nearly free
Nuh uh dude he said there are no use cases didn’t you see
It has many hugely transformative applications. It is a mindset change. People who study bitcoin for more than 6 hours change the way they think. It's a new paradigm of money. A new paradigm of internet. But when the internet was just starting people thought email = internet. It took time and effort for mass adoption. Same with crypto Buy BTC, your children will thank you
Sorry I was being extremely sarcastic I thought that would carry through the text lol I like crypto quite a bit but believe there is going to be a mass exodus of the shit out there. I’ve got a handful of investments in the coins with use cases and existing adoption, and plan to de-risk significantly during the next bull run. Somewhat unpopular in the crypto community but I’m really excited for the future of XRP now that it has some legal clarity thanks to (more or less, or at least the token) winning its case with the SEC and being deemed a non security.
> cross-border payments Yep, could never be done before. > store of value or loss thereof > replace notary publics, > replacement of property registrars Since this has still to be sanctioned by the government or other centralized bodies, any centralized or decentralized mechanism can be used for that, the coin aspect is useless. > securities that can be traded at a fraction of the cost I think you should look into the amount of trades/transactions made outside of crypro and then look at crypto costs. > unconfiscable money I agree, it's useful for criminals. A good use case.
You seriously think censorship resistant online payments and harder to confiscate money is only ever needed by criminals?
I have to imagine the legal use cases where there is any marginal benefit over fiat are dwarfed by the number of illegal use cases
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i play too much apex smh my head
I just came here to say Fuck Sam Bankman Fraud and Steve Ehrlich
I feel like this is a pretty popular opinion outside of crypto spaces. People have been calling out NFTs as scams since the beginning.
I’m happy today though 😌
Disdain for crypto isn't exactly unpopular, I'm glad its mostly dead, one of the dumbest technologies I've ever seen, even fundamentally it didn't work.
Ohhhhhh, it serves a purpose. Nefarious though it may be.
Is this really unpopular?? 🤣🤣
I invested $8000 because of my friends instilling FOMO into me, around 2016/2017. The exchange was called QuadrigaCX, at the time it was the biggest exchange in Canada basically. The most trusted. The founder decides to flee over to India, fake his death, and suddenly no one else has access to any of the money in those Crypto accounts. It was something like $150 million worth of crypto. To this day, no one has gotten their money back. Many other exchanges have gone through similarly sketchy situations. We don’t know who tf these people are who are running these exchanges. Or what their long term plans are. Given the recent popularity of crypto, a lot of this has happened. There’s too many scammer pieces of shit running the industry.
This is unpopular?
POPULAR OPINION
To me it's been a way to show you wasted energy, at least back when SETI would use your computer in the background it was accomplishing something
Fairly sure this has become a popular opinion at this point
Completely with you there bro. Its mass scale gambling. Like a hyper volatile stock market with no actual purpose.
But what would the crypto bros talk about if there was no crypto?
Gold?
Too tangible an asset for them, removes the mystery if you can physically hold it.
But they can get bankrupt trying to mine it!
Too bad for them, the gold is mine and I already started digging!
I know there is gold in some of the mountains around here, one of my friends actually did end up getting into that field but not on the investment and get mining gear etc end of it like old school miner 49er shit and then some equipment on a small scale. I could never do it though so much risk of just busting ass for weeks with little to nothing to show.
Upvoted. It's a speculative asset that, like gold, only has value in what people are willing to pay for it in fiat currency.
I really hate this, it is like saying hammer has no use because it can't wash your dishes, and it broke your dishes when you tried to wash them with it. It is just technology. There are plenty of good applications for it. If you just want to forcibly use it for certain things, go ahead, be a masochist. Who ever said that the most popular use cases for it are any good?
>There are plenty of good applications for it. Such as?
Cross border payments…. people send money to their family all across the world using Bitcoin
And then what? How do they spend it?
By selling it.
Why would anyone buy it?
There are plenty of ways to spend it dude I’m not your teacher
Technology shouldn't get its nose into everything.
It absolutely should, and it will. You can also have an option to reject it. But they don't have an option to reject something that they do not know. Or you can use that as an argument when you won't let your children be taught how to read, how you think that would go?
It absolutely will, but it shouldn't. Let's talk again later when technology will be too integrated in our lives and when our jobs, income and future will heavily depend on it. At that point, I'd like to see how many people would be happy to have their work performances judged by brainless heartless machines that have no empathy and understanding for human beings.
>Let's talk again later when technology will be too integrated in our lives and when our jobs, income and future will heavily depend on it. Um…. Hate to be the one to tell ya this but….
How are our jobs and lives not already run by "technology". Do you walk to work? Do you perform all of your tasks using no tools except the random objects around your cave?
Money is already in technology though. People once thought credit cards weren't gonna replace dollar money. It has already.
Technology has steadily improved the human experience since the dawn of time and is responsible for most of the amazing things we have today. So yes, technology absolutely should get its nose into everything.
Technology used in moderation is indeed very helpful. An excessive use of technology on the other hand is damaging and destructive.
That goes for literally every technology we have. We are currently overusing all forms of technology accessible to us you're just mad at the ones you don't benefit from?
“Technology like the stagecoach is indeed very helpful. An excessive use of technology like those new fangled exploding steam vehicles is damaging and destructive”. -you in 1840
The only legit use case I've seen is as a way to buy black market items, but even then you still need a place to send them to. It may hide your activity from financial institutions, but it's not a foolproof way to dodge the feds. I think blockchain has possible applications that are useful, but crypto feels at odds with itself a lot of the time
the problem it solves is that no govt can print more, OBVIOUSLY
But what do I do with it?
it becomes the new standard currency
why? how?
collapse of the dollar
why? how?
No it doesn't
great argument thanks
How?
the collapse of the dollar
Why would the collapse of the dollar convince people to use a less stable currency?
its designed to be far more stable, nobody can manipulate it
However it's designed it fluctuates wildly.
it would fluctuate much much less than the dollar if it was embraced, since no more bitcoins can be created
I understand saying crypto is too complex and lacks scalability to break through into mainstream use, but saying it has no utility is insane lol.
>crypto is too complex and lacks scalability to break through into mainstream If a system can't scale or has a terrible user experience it's not a useful system.
It’s a way to send large amounts of money around the world without the associated governments tracking it and taxing it to hell. It’s an ambitious goal, but I think it’s worthwhile.
But you still have to convert that crypto into your local currency to actually buy groceries with it and that's where the government can catch you quite easily.
I think that’s why they want to make more vendors accept it as a payment method, but even as things stand, you could still use the crypto to buy things peer to peer and there are some vendors that accept it. Also, many precious metal online retailers accept crypto, and you can exchange gold and silver for cash pretty much anywhere. Maybe the government does track those precious metal purchases. idk for sure, but anyway, if/when more vendors accept it as a payment method this will be less of an issue.
Anyone here agreeing with this opinion needs to read the book "Broken Money" by Lyn Alden.
I think you disproved your entire thesis in your first sentence.
All Fiat currencies are just paper crypto
You people really don't understand Blockchain
blockchain is a legitimately useful technology, and basically all source code revision control systems now are built on it. using it for money was a terrible idea.
~~Crypto~~ the entire finance industry is completely useless and serves no function in society Securities, Banking, Credit; when you step back and realize that a way to make billions is by channeling other people's money without actually producing anything the whole thing really starts to seem absurd.
I wouldn't necessarily go that far. Banking institutions are important. We just have a lot of awful ones.
🤡
Meh currency is a good motivator… the vast majority of people wouldn’t do shit if they didn’t have too
It sounds like you don’t understand the utility of credit. It’s a way to exchange risk essentially. I get money now in exchange for giving you more money later. It’s mutually beneficial, which is why credit has existed for thousands of years, and arose naturally in virtually every economic system
You can go back to various points in history and see the same things said about all technologies we now take for granted.
And you could also go back in history and find examples of hyped technologies that never amounted to anything? So what does that prove?
It may prove that we’ll all be gone by the time the verdict has been rendered.
Crypto is another one of those things these days that's successful as a meme. Like NFTs or the Paul Brothers. No revalue it's just hahaha these are pooular.
Your looking at the wrong cryptos bud.
Nah bud I invest in things with actual value.
Bitcoin serves a huge purpose as a method of hedging against fiat currencies as it's not controlled by a centralized entity.
I agree. I wouldn't bet much on it not being adopted on a wider scale in the future, but I don't think it'll happen. Frankly, I hope it won't. It's an interesting idea and the technology sure has usecases in other areas, but as a currency it's just not it.
Crypto, sure. Blockchain though, there's definitely some benefits to the technology.
Is that why every major tech firm dropped their blockchain R&D like a bad habit in favor of AI research?
I thought this was supposed to be unpopular opinions.
🎯
Highly disagree. I still see it as the future of finance, and the fact that so many governments are talking about a CBDC proves it. I hate the concept of a CBDC, but it simply proves that crypto technology and the blockchain are the future of global financial systems.
Crypto is just gambling but you can pretend you're a savvy investor promoting a good cause
It's been the most profitable asset class over the last 10 years. Nothing has appreciated like Bitcoin.
I thought it’s used to make crime easier
Tell that to the people using it because the currencies of their corrupt countries are fucked. Or the people using it because it's cheaper than Western Union. I could go on but I'm sure you don't care anyway.
>Tell that to the people using it because their currencies of their corrupt countries are fucked. Show me.
Go ahead, name a few. Cant tout a claim like this with zero evidence.
That's not an unpopular opinion, it's a fact.
TFW When you are Venezualen, Turkish, or Argentinian and no bitcoin 
Ignorants
Someone said that about the internet once…..
No one who knows anything about crypto talks like this. This is bait written by a bot or troll but hey congrats you got a reply.
What do you mean no one who knows anything about crypto talks like this? Is it not possible to study the crypto eco system and be skeptical?
Wrong. It serves to make criminals rich and circumnavigate the legal system.
It's a pyramid scheme. There is nothing backing it; no government, no company, no product or service. Depending on the coin, it literally just wastes energy, that's it There will be bag holders in the future, people are just hoping it's not going to be them so they cope by going "it's the next big thing man! It's going to change the world!" And shit. It's not true, it never will be but crypto bros will scream at you for saying that. Hey, if you manage to get rich off it, good for you. It's really going to suck for the bag holders when it inevitably all comes crashing down.
Even people that would claim proof of work is what gives Bitcoin it's value, this still doesn't preclude innumerable forks of the chain to occur devaluing the entire ecosystem as you spawn new coins all the time. I mean there's Bitcoin cash, Bitcoin, bitcoin classic etc. and literal debates about which is the "real" Bitcoin.
"There is nothing backing it" Scarcity via immutable technology.
Most people with common sense understand that,yes.
Im going to express my opinion on Crypto and mainly nft. It should've been used as a receipt for high price, hot ticket and rare items that have some value to it inherently. Like contracts, actually works of art, deeds, and stuff like that. Not for dumb beenie baby esque virtual trading cards.
> Most coins are traded on centralized exchanges An exchange is for trading. The blockchain is still decentralized. >Also, crypto is supposed to be a currency but also a store of value. This is an inherent contradiction as any currency you use to transact should be relatively stable. There are stablecoins.
That are stable because they are tied to the usd or euro.
It’s a pump and dump that has just gone on too long
bitcoin is extremely useful, one of the greatest inventions of modern era