> Cryptocurrencies have one use: to evade regulation. As soon as that use disappears so will cryptocurrencies. Crime isnt a side-effect, it's the point.
Sometimes, HN appears to have the collective memory of a goldfish.
On HackerNews over the years, we've seen hundreds, maybe even thousands of sob stories from people like "X payment provider has locked my account and is not giving me access to my funds"
In every case, it's pointed out that crypto might be a way for people to reduce risk of this kind of thing happening.
Yet there's some people who continue to insist with a straight face that crime is the only conceivable use of crypto.
Also, I support sci-hub through crypto. That's pretty much my only use case for it, but it is one. Wish we lived in a world where we didn't have to bypass regulations to get free access to journals... but cryptocurrency is a solution for now.
As some flavor of libertarian, I understand the concept of the NAP (non-aggression principle) and make the distinction between morality and legality and would like to have a different definition of "crime". That said, as we operate under a legal system that is forced on us, we do have to make references to the legislation that exists.
I'm aware that under the status quo a person can be denied banking, online payments, etc. without appropriate systems of redress.
In blockchain, redress is impossible. That's part of why it's so lucrative for fraudsters.
The failure modes in monetary systems are human, not technological -- and blockchains fuck humans. They make the problem worse.
The sales pitch for blockchains is a lie. The problem is real, but this isnt the solution. This solves only the needs of criminals in the strongest sense: people out to get other people.
Regulation will pop these schemes and nothing will be left -- it took 10-30 years to regulate credit cards. Hopefully regulators will step in sooner here.
The following is clearly labeled as an opinion and a purely subjective value judgment, but here's one thing about crypto that I can't shake my head from.
I notice that disgusting, wicked authoritarians that relish in their desire to achieve control over other human beings absolutely despise crypto.
If I knew absolutely nothing about crypto other than the fact that enemies of humanity hate it truly vehemently, what should my judgement of crypto be?
People who think they're smarter than everyone else tend to be very gullible. It's not about TV, its about you.
If you want to be smart, don't judges technologies based on supposed virtues signalled; judge them by understanding how they work independent of how their salesmen say they work. Learn, know and understand.
Your entire world view is pretty dumb: who is signalling what I should be allied to?
That's a dumb question; and it signals that you're ripe for abuse. All you need to be sold an idea is to have it associated, by signals of virtue, with what you hate.
You're not alone. This type of gullibility is the mentality of most victims of crypto; and indeed, many scams.
80% of the crypto community is people who think they're smarter than the people scamming them -- that's the other 20%, and they're winning
It doesn't. A steel mill produces 200,000 tons of steel per year (at the low end) and consumes 770 Kwh of energy per ton, which works out to 0.154 Twh per year. Post-merge ethereum uses 0.0026 Twh, so about 1% the energy usage of one steel mill
Some produce up to 3,000,000 tons, so the ethereum network would consume about 0.1% as much energy as one of those
edit: Bitcoin for comparison consumes somewhere around 100 Twh, so is comparable to 1000 steel mills (which might be more than the number of actual steel mills in operation globally?)
The enegry usage is not proportional to the transaction rate, it's a security margin so it's only weakly related.
Payment channels allow arbitrarily high transaction rates w/ bitcoin, I've seen demonstrations sustaining hundreds of transactions per second. A side effect of their scalability is that no one knows the actual transaction rate-- only the few transactions related to opening and closing channels are broadcast the bulk is only seen by the participants in the channel, which is what makes it scalable to begin with.
[And, as an aside,-- 5 tx/sec is roughly fedwire's average transaction rate]
> Crime isnt a side-effect, it's the point.
That is false and defamatory towards anyone whos used or worked on Bitcoin. Please withdraw this point, the hyperbole doesn't illuminate the subject or add to the discussion.
If you want to argue that the only use you have for it would be to commit crimes, feel free but jumping from the fact that the only thing you can think to do with Bitcoin is commit crimes with it to crimes being the point is a bridge too far.
> That is false and defamatory towards anyone whos used or worked on Bitcoin
I will not withdraw this point. It isn't hyperbole.
Cryptocurrency technology has the economic and social incentive structures of ponzi and pyramid schemes; and primarily enables fraud. The purpose is avoiding the law.
The best that can be said, about the unwitting, is they aren't conscious of the incentive structures they participate in; and hence spread scams without realising it. This is indeed, how pyramid schemes work.
These libertarian ideological projects prove Hobbes point: absent governance, life in society is "nasty, brutish, and short".
The properties of these systems ruin people's lives for the sake of providing, at its "most noble", and ideological casino for people to cosplay a financial system. And that nobility is really just a pyramid scheme framing device for spreading the scam around.
The ideological window dressing is nothing more than "hey, maybe these vitmins will cure cancer. Dont you want to cure cancer?! Don't you think BigPharma is terrible?! Dont you think the healthcare system is broken?! Here, take 100 boxes of these vitamins -- everyone wants them!"
Ethereum is about 20 for the electricity usage of a few steel plants.
Cryptocurrencies have one use: to evade regulation. As soon as that use disappears so will cryptocurrencies.
Crime isnt a side-effect, it's the point.