The anti-crypto thread

[BFG10K]

Great news, crypto's collapsing across the board: https://www.techpowerup.com/282380/...ions-in-less-than-24-hours-did-the-bubble-pop

Also China's banned crypto, though individuals can still have it: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/chinese-financial-payment-bodies-barred-122712260.html

The sooner this cancerous parasite is wiped out, the better.

 

[DrMrLordX]

Do I not have a right to be upset?

No. Everyone had a chance to vote against the EIP, so. Consensus protocol at work. Plus at least initially, earnings weren't really down for miners anyway:

EIP 1559 Hasn’t Affected Ethereum Miner Revenue

Plus: The first hard fork for Ethereum 2.0 is scheduled for testnet activation.

www.coindesk.com

And is anything that I portrayed untrue?

Yes. It's keeping fees down, rather than letting them escalate even further.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Plus at least initially, earnings weren't really down for miners anyway:

Only down around 30%...

Yes. It's keeping fees down, rather than letting them escalate even further.

Ah yes, keeping fees down to a "manageable" level. Where it costs $45 in fees to send $100 worth of ETH.

 

[DrMrLordX]

Only down around 30%...

Oh well! Blame the miners and node operators. They voted for it.

Ah yes, keeping fees down to a "manageable" level. Where it costs $45 in fees to send $100 worth of ETH.

Already linked the story to Coinbase's analysis of the situation. They're saving a ton of money on fees. Anyone actually using the blockchain is paying lower fees than what they would without EIP-1559.

 

[ultimatebob]

Only down around 30%...

Ah yes, keeping fees down to a "manageable" level. Where it costs $45 in fees to send $100 worth of ETH.

Yeah, I don't think that's quite THAT bad, but it is bad. It looks like the average transaction fee is about $11 today:

https://etherscan.io/gastracker

It's the ERC-20 transaction fee that's the killer. At an average price of $33, they've basically made most Ethereum tokens (like SHIB or Coolcoin) worthless as a tool for exchange. What's worse is that it's been this way for a year now, and they can't seem to be willing or able to fix it.

 

[DrMrLordX]

It's the ERC-20 transaction fee that's the killer. At an average price of $33, they've basically made most Ethereum tokens (like SHIB or Coolcoin) worthless as a tool for exchange. What's worse is that it's been this way for a year now, and they can't seem to be willing or able to fix it.

Ethereum's on-chain transaction fees and rate are both pretty bad. zk rollups show some promise, but it would be nice if the EF could push more improvements to the performance of the base chain.

 

[DisarmedDespot]

As for the constant haters coming with links to scams, I can only say "A Fool and His Money Are Soon Parted". Doesn't matter if it is crypto or fiat. safemoon was mentioned. It's clearly shit with no usage. SHIB hasn't been mentioned because it actually made many. many people millionaires, on paper for now. But yes, it's an example of "just wanting to make quick buck" and not really believing in a tech. It doesn't have any use and will go away at some point like doge.
If you are in it in the long term, look at projects with an actual use-case. Monero for privacy is an obvious example outside of the big 2 (ETH, BTC).

Er, what does BTC have going for it besides inertia? Eth at least has the meth-fueled dream that is web3.0 and Monero's great for selling drugs laundering money ransomware payments private transactions, but the only thing special about bitcoin is that it was the first. It's slow, its blockchain clogged to the point of uselessness, currently uses close to 1% of the entire world's electricity for seven transactions a second and isn't moving off of PoW any time soon.

You can call me a hater, but I think I'm a realist. I mean, there's thirteen years of cryptos failing to actually succeed at much beyond making their price go up. I think you can understand why I'm cynical about libertarian funny money.

 

[Insert_Nickname]

I mean, there's thirteen years of cryptos failing to actually succeed at much beyond making their price go up.

I thought that was the whole idea? To make money out of thin air...

The whole payment thing I consider secondary.

(Full disclosure; I cashed out some bitcoin during the last bubble that I'd mined back in the beginning. Forgot about them until prices shot up to ridicules levels. Did pretty well actually, but so did the taxman...)

 

[gdansk]

The idea is that it is less thin air than actual currencies. Not really sure how that works out or if it is desirable in general. But somehow it became valued lately.

 

[beginner99]

You can call me a hater, but I think I'm a realist. I mean, there's thirteen years of cryptos failing to actually succeed at much beyond making their price go up

like the modern system was built in 13 years, yeah sure. Crypto is software and security critical software. that is hard and takes time. banks at the core still mostly run on ancient code from the 70ties because no one dares to touch it. everything else is just built on top of it up to online banking. crypto is now doing what banks did in the 70ties. laying the foundations with all we have learned since in terms of software engineering. which means it will be more adaptable and less brittle.

 

[DisarmedDespot]

like the modern system was built in 13 years, yeah sure. Crypto is software and security critical software. that is hard and takes time. banks at the core still mostly run on ancient code from the 70ties because no one dares to touch it. everything else is just built on top of it up to online banking. crypto is now doing what banks did in the 70ties. laying the foundations with all we have learned since in terms of software engineering. which means it will be more adaptable and less brittle.

If you wanna argue that crypto is following 70s-era waterfall software development where you have to spend decades of development before you see any worthwhile functionality, you go right ahead. That's not how software development works nowadays.

Remember, all crypto does is jump through cryptographic hoops to ensure the integrity of its network and allow trustless immutable transactions. That's it. It's not magic, and the use-cases for trustless transactions where there's no trusted third-party are very few (and often illegal). It falls apart the moment it has to interact with something outside the network (i.e.: do something people actually want). How is it going to replace the financial system when it can't do anything but verify its own network? Why bother using a slow blockchain when you need to trust an appraiser or credit bureau anyway? How's DeFi gonna handle a default or missed payment?

 

[DrMrLordX]

How is it going to replace the financial system when it can't do anything but verify its own network?

Don't suppose you've ever heard of oracles then?

 

[Insert_Nickname]

banks at the core still mostly run on ancient code from the 70ties because no one dares to touch it.

Why would you want to touch it? It's been stable for 50 years, even if it was a kludge to begin with.

You don't need to refactor software all the time when it actually works.

 

[beginner99]

Why would you want to touch it? It's been stable for 50 years, even if it was a kludge to begin with.

You don't need to refactor software all the time when it actually works.

Because it's often if not always cobol which no sane person learns anymore. It also means that at the core, there is most likely 0 security whatsoever.

But in general I don't disagree, if it works and is maintainable. But they don't touch it because it's actual not maintainable and not well documented either (relying on 3rd party information here). Not touching it means you can't add any new features. I guess it seems to work OK enough for now.

But my point holds. Crypto is in the phase of building this core and then usability software on top. Stuff like that takes time given the security requirements. Banks had no competition when doing this so of course it went easier and faster.
And one could argue it took then till the 2000s for online banking to be readily available, so like 30 years. The system core didn't directly benefit me much as user. it was for the banks to save money on employees.

 

[biostud]

I might have misunderstood something but, blockchain technology is the smart technology that can be used to verify and secure electronic transfers. And while cryptocurrencies uses this technology, the value of said cryptocurrencies are somewhat speculative. So:

Blockchain = Secure electronic transfers
Cryptocurrency = Blockchain + Speculation + Mining

?

 

[Insert_Nickname]

Because it's often if not always cobol which no sane person learns anymore. It also means that at the core, there is most likely 0 security whatsoever.

But in general I don't disagree, if it works and is maintainable. But they don't touch it because it's actual not maintainable and not well documented either (relying on 3rd party information here). Not touching it means you can't add any new features. I guess it seems to work OK enough for now.

I don't disagree. Especially on the COBOL part. But then again if you can actually do COBOL well, you can pretty much dictate your pay these days. It niche, but a nice one if you can get it.

Because of that, I'd argue it'd be easier (not easy, but easier) to start from scratch in a modern language, rather then trying to decipher such ancient poorly or undocumented code.

 

[DisarmedDespot]

But my point holds. Crypto is in the phase of building this core and then usability software on top. Stuff like that takes time given the security requirements. Banks had no competition when doing this so of course it went easier and faster.
And one could argue it took then till the 2000s for online banking to be readily available, so like 30 years. The system core didn't directly benefit me much as user. it was for the banks to save money on employees.

Why on earth is this a binary choice, though? You're jumping from 'banks use old tech!' to 'crypto is essential to innovate!' Why does it have to be built atop crypto, a tech with an astounding zero percent success rate and whose benefits don't make sense here?

Again, all cryptocurrencies do is verify their own network for trustless immutable transactions. And it's not magic, that has a cost. You're trading significant computation efficiency for that. Any system which needs to jump through those cryptographic hoops will be less efficient than one that does not. How are trustless immutable transactions worth the trade-off in this scenario? Is immutability even desirable? Do you really want to build the finance world off unpatchable smart contracts that are basically an eternal bug-bounty where the winner gets all your money? Where identity theft and fraud are irreversible?

 

[beginner99]

Again, all cryptocurrencies do is verify their own network for trustless immutable transactions. And it's not magic, that has a cost. You're trading significant computation efficiency for that. Any system which needs to jump through those cryptographic hoops will be less efficient than one that does not.

What you are forgetting is that this trustless system eventually can entirely replace banks or notaries or Uber. The efficiency comes in for not needing these companies anymore and save their office space, office heating/AC, compute resources, execs flying around and so forth.

You are not seeing the big picture and it's simply due to the misnomer of "cryprocurrency". Ethereum is a global computer and you pay for computations you do on it in ETH. That is it. What you compute is up to you and can be completely unrelated to anything finance like NFTs. Ethereum goal is not to just move currency from one address to another. It let's people deal directly with other people and get rid of the middle-man (=companies). that is why it is a huge threat to the elites in power.

 

[Glo.]

What you are forgetting is that this trustless system eventually can entirely replace banks or notaries or Uber. The efficiency comes in for not needing these companies anymore and save their office space, office heating/AC, compute resources, execs flying around and so forth.

You are not seeing the big picture and it's simply due to the misnomer of "cryprocurrency". Ethereum is a global computer and you pay for computations you do on it in ETH. That is it. What you compute is up to you and can be completely unrelated to anything finance like NFTs. Ethereum goal is not to just move currency from one address to another. It let's people deal directly with other people and get rid of the middle-man (=companies). that is why it is a huge threat to the elites in power.

Blockchain's Proof of Work can also be used for Voting.

 

[DrMrLordX]

a tech with an astounding zero percent success rate

Really?

 

[DisarmedDespot]

What you are forgetting is that this trustless system eventually can entirely replace banks or notaries or Uber. The efficiency comes in for not needing these companies anymore and save their office space, office heating/AC, compute resources, execs flying around and so forth.

You are not seeing the big picture and it's simply due to the misnomer of "cryprocurrency". Ethereum is a global computer and you pay for computations you do on it in ETH. That is it. What you compute is up to you and can be completely unrelated to anything finance like NFTs. Ethereum goal is not to just move currency from one address to another. It let's people deal directly with other people and get rid of the middle-man (=companies). that is why it is a huge threat to the elites in power.

Friend, the whole 'crypto's efficient because it removes middlemen' line has been around since the bitcoin whitepaper, and it's still not true. Frankly half the stuff crypobros think of as 'inefficiencies' end up being there for a reason. Satoshi called out chargebacks in the whitepaper, and he missed that while chargebacks can be used for fraud, they're really for consumer protection and just removing them flat-out isn't a good idea. Do you think every company should emulate Binance Bitfinex, with a multi-billion dollar company having 10 employees, no permanent address and make users beg on reddit for help when something inevitably goes wrong?

I'm seeing the big picture, I'm just not buying into the magical thinking. I'm open to crypto having a use case, I just haven't hear one that didn't go 'adopt crypto => ????? => PROFIT' yet.

Blockchain's Proof of Work can also be used for Voting.

please no
there's multiple fundamental issues

New MIT Paper Roundly Rejects Blockchain Voting as Solution to Election Woes

An encryption inventor and the head of MIT’s Digital Currency Initiative are among authors of a new paper that points out why blockchain and voting are a bad pairing.

www.coindesk.com

Really?

Admittedly I'm mostly memeing there. My source is an admittedly old study from 2018 about blockchain vendors.

I'm not sure the rate's improved much, though.

 

[AdamK47]

Ah yes, keeping fees down to a "manageable" level. Where it costs $45 in fees to send $100 worth of ETH.

It wasn't the miners of the California gold rush that got rich. It was the merchants "aiding" in their endeavors.

 

[DrMrLordX]

I'm not sure the rate's improved much, though.

It's hard to keep up with everything going on in the cryptoverse, especially when so much of the work is competitively redundant. However, if you do some digging, you can find projects making great strides (instead of getting distracted by crap like DOGE and SHIB). Polygon (and zk rollups in general) are bringing fast, cheap transactions to the Ethereum blockchain that will make it a significant publicly-available rival to private mercantile payment systems once onboarding becomes easier for members of the public.

The goal of most "serious" blockchain efforts wrt payment systems is that the end users would never really know that blockchain was involved at all.

 

[beginner99]

Friend, the whole 'crypto's efficient because it removes middlemen' line has been around since the bitcoin whitepaper, and it's still not true.

Friend, such changes take decades. This is not tiktok to get a new thrill and dopmaine rush every 5 seconds. It's a long game. It's a core change to the financial system. And that is why you are still very much an early investor if you invest now.

 

[Insert_Nickname]

Blockchain's Proof of Work can also be used for Voting.

Now, that's just a bad idea on all levels.

Obligatory xkcd:

 

[beginner99]

Now, that's just a bad idea on all levels.
Obligatory xkcd:

Just to be clear, the issue here isn't the blockchain, it's the software on top to get the data in the blockchain. Blockchain does help you nothing if your input layer is full of security holes and that is where the xkcd comes in.