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.

 

[beginner99]

Trusting banks is bad, yo. Better to trust random people on the internet, like Coinbase!

I still remember people in this forum telling us a bank hack is no different to getting your wallet mugged on the street...

While I greatly disagree with your anti crypto-stance, of course if some poster said above sentence it's clearly wrong. Still, if you use services like coinbase then you are not doing it right. You simply replaced a bank with a less regulated and less reputable one. Yes, we need exchanges to say change from bitcoin to ethereum but you don't need to store your funds there. Not your key, not your crypto.

And that is the fundamental difference: Crypto make yourself responsible for your own funds with all the bad parts included like doing it wrong and losing it all. Hence it is not for the masses, at least yet with current tools.

I know someone that indeed got hacked on a bank (cause unknown but knowing that someone it was most likley some malware + insecure banking software). Anyway the bank refunded the full 30k. All that needed to be done was sign a paper to not talk about the incident. Which alone tells you there was a security issue and at least partially the banks fault.
So I agree that for storage, banks (FIAT) should be prefered over exchanges but not keeping it in your own hardware wallet properly backed up.

 

[DrMrLordX]

Exchanges have an enormous attack surface. Even putting a naked keyfile on a USB somewhere in your house and checking its file integrity every so often with an offline OpenBSD machine (or what have you) is preferable to just leaving your money on an exchange. Only reason why you should be on an exchange is if you're actively trading/holding a position.

 

[Shivansps]

I still remember when i belived Bitcoin collapsed... back in... 2011? When someone hacked a big fish mtgox account and sold everything causing BTC value to drop to 0. Thats when i sold all the BTC i had back then that today would be worth +20 millon dollars. YEAY.

So, yeah, thats how you learn.

 

[ozzy702]

I still remember when i belived Bitcoin collapsed... back in... 2011? When someone hacked a big fish mtgox account and sold everything causing BTC value to drop to 0. Thats when i sold all the BTC i had back then that today would be worth +20 millon dollars. YEAY.

So, yeah, thats how you learn.

Ha! I did the same in 2013 for like $12-$100. Dumped almost all around $100. Would have been 25M today... yeah, unreal. It's all good, it paid for my son's birth and stay in the NICU. He's my 25M miracle baby.

 

[aigomorla]

Eth and BTC had a hell of a week...

And i finally got my Staking in ETH2. yay.. lets see if i do get that 5%.

 

[CP5670]

I still remember when i belived Bitcoin collapsed... back in... 2011? When someone hacked a big fish mtgox account and sold everything causing BTC value to drop to 0. Thats when i sold all the BTC i had back then that today would be worth +20 millon dollars. YEAY.

So, yeah, thats how you learn.

Exact same story for me, sold out after it crashed with the Mt. Gox hack. I made a bunch of money off it later on but nothing close to what it would be if I held on from the beginning. Oh well.

 

[Mopetar]

Could be worse for you both. At least you didn't lose a hard drive or something like that. I remember a story of some guy he threw one out that had some wallet worth millions today and how he's trying to find it in the local landfill now.

There's also probably someone who could have had hundreds of millions but spent it all on a pizza back in the day.

Besides if you did keep it and cash out now you'd just be kicking yourself for not holding on for a few more decades and becoming a billionaire.

 

[ozzy702]

Could be worse for you both. At least you didn't lose a hard drive or something like that. I remember a story of some guy he threw one out that had some wallet worth millions today and how he's trying to find it in the local landfill now.

There's also probably someone who could have had hundreds of millions but spent it all on a pizza back in the day.

Besides if you did keep it and cash out now you'd just be kicking yourself for not holding on for a few more decades and becoming a billionaire.

I learned my mistake and thankfully didn't repeat it with Ethereum, never sold, may never sell principle and only staking rewards. If Ethereum proves to be a solid long term play then I could easily live off of staking rewards alone. Since inception ETH is following BTC closely and looks good for 20k at some point in the next 18 months, that would probably get me to sell a good chunk of my stack.

 

[ultimatebob]

Just in case you needed a reminder, there is NO SUCH THING as a "diversified" cryptocurrency portfolio. When Bitcoin goes down, they ALL go down:

 

[aigomorla]

And they all crashed down like humpy dumpy today.
Well, makes me buying more ETH and then staking it better.
This way i get ETH as interest, and don't feel so bad when it tumbles.

 

[PingSpike]

Could be worse for you both. At least you didn't lose a hard drive or something like that. I remember a story of some guy he threw one out that had some wallet worth millions today and how he's trying to find it in the local landfill now.

There's also probably someone who could have had hundreds of millions but spent it all on a pizza back in the day.

Besides if you did keep it and cash out now you'd just be kicking yourself for not holding on for a few more decades and becoming a billionaire.

I was going to say, even if they held it they probably would have sold it by now for way less. I would have. Holding out for 25 million when I have 1 million just isn't a decision I would make. I guess that's why I'm poor, ha.

 

[beginner99]

For some of the haters that claim crypto has no use:

I honestly don't care about HODLING crypto (more power to all of you though).
I was forced into it because I was losing so much money from traditional banking.
Background: I get most of my income from marketing clients abroad (I manage digital ad campaigns). Paypal/Swift used be the default method to get paid because it was ubiquitous and honestly quite easy to use for clients.
But Paypal charged me A LOT.

• They take a cut from each payment I get from each client
• Then they take another cut to convert those funds (ie. USD, AUD) into my local currency
• Finally they charge me to transfer funds to my bank account
• There's no interest or staking on any funds I leave and don't transfer to a local account

This happens to each client and for each payment. All these fees and extra charges each month easily add up to $150-$300.
For context, this is how much $300 is worth in my country:

• I can get 6 weeks' worth of groceries for my 5-person household
• It's almost 50% higher than our minimum wage
• It's equal to more than half what a young professional earns each month in their 1st job
• I can eat 98 Big Macs

Now, I get paid in crypto (not all, but a big chunk). It's mostly XRP because it's easy to withdraw here and the fees are next to nothing.
I basically get a bonus paycheck every month and I love it.
I now have less stress because of strict budgets for groceries, can buy actual good quality stuff, and have a bit extra to get a few small gifts every now and then for the people I care about.
But it also makes me sad because there are literal millions of people like me who rely on payments or remittances from abroad to survive.
$300 might be small time for folks in the US, but it's life changing for us.

 

[bigboxes]

Now we're just meme-ing.

When we really should be banning.

 

[darkswordsman17]

For some of the haters that claim crypto has no use:

I've never been charged to transfer money from Paypal to my bank account. I'm guessing that's not the only thing from that guy's spiel that doesn't add up.

And...again, not paying taxes is not some miraculous new business plan. There's other ways to get paid than Paypal so his whine about Paypal fees is BS.

Forced into it. What a crock. Also "digital marketing" from "abroad" aka, he probably runs click farms if he's not outright running scams. Oh no, my hater is showing.

 

[blckgrffn]

I've never been charged to transfer money from Paypal to my bank account. I'm guessing that's not the only thing from that guy's spiel that doesn't add up.

And...again, not paying taxes is not some miraculous new business plan. There's other ways to get paid than Paypal so his whine about Paypal fees is BS.

Forced into it. What a crock. Also "digital marketing" from "abroad" aka, he probably runs click farms if he's not outright running scams. Oh no, my hater is showing.

Overseas, like in India for example, it's not unusual for the bank to charge fees for transfers like that, and it makes sense to me that PP would just pass those on.

International payment is a PITA, I have to use wires and that is fees upon fees and certain feeling of doom if it gets messed up somehow.

Anyway, feel free to hate if he manages Google ad campaigns or something, I guess.

 

[DisarmedDespot]

He also glosses over the whole converting crypto to actual money thing. Is he using an exchange and hoping it doesn't mysteriously lock his account, globally stop withdrawals (which every exchange does when the price crashes) or just collapse with his money? Is he in-person exchanging crypto for cash?

I'm always cynical about these stories since the whole 'crypto is helping the third world!!!1!' narrative has been around forever, I remember people saying bitcoin was the future of remittance payments until the fees got too high for it to be used for anything but speculation and ransomware. It's never been more than the occasional story that pops up every few months, with mass adoption never actually happening.

On this topic, El Salvador rolled out their much-hyped 'bitcoin' wallet this week. and, like all crypto projects, it's a complete dumpster fire. It's almost all off-chain (since the lightning network still doesn't actually work) and the entire thing just looks like an excuse to print digital 'dollars'.

 

[blckgrffn]

On this topic, El Salvador rolled out their much-hyped 'bitcoin' wallet this week. and, like all crypto projects, it's a complete dumpster fire. It's almost all off-chain (since the lightning network still doesn't actually work) and the entire thing just looks like an excuse to print digital 'dollars'.

A lot of reasonable points there, but what's broken about Lightning? Legitimately curious.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I've never been charged to transfer money from Paypal to my bank account. I'm guessing that's not the only thing from that guy's spiel that doesn't add up.

I get charged 1.5%.

 

[Mopetar]

A lot of reasonable points there, but what's broken about Lightning? Legitimately curious.

I'm assuming the part about it being off the blockchain. Every time you read a story about someone stealing a bunch of crypto it's because of this reason. As soon as you move off of the blockchain you lose the protection inherent to the technology.

I'm assuming they haven't done anything as stupid as to try building a system that allows for some kind of scheme where they can print their own tokens and inflate them endlessly since if they wanted to do that they wouldn't be using USD in the first place. But that could be a worry where they don't have enough BitCoin in reserve to actually back their system.

 

[DrMrLordX]

A lot of reasonable points there, but what's broken about Lightning? Legitimately curious.

LN has many, many problems. It's a bad hack on top of a low-throughput blockchain.

Putting Pressure on Bitcoin’s Lightning Network Vulnerabilities Will Strengthen It

These vulnerabilities are reminders that improvements come with trade-offs – and that security and usability are two sides of the same coin.

www.coindesk.com

Those are just some of the problems.

 

[DisarmedDespot]

A lot of reasonable points there, but what's broken about Lightning? Legitimately curious.

DrMrLordX already posted a link with specifics but ultimately the lightning network is fundamentally flawed. Since you're taking the transaction off-chain it's basically an admittance that bitcoin's blockchain sucks and chokes the moment it faces any sort of volume, and raises the question of why you're even using it to begin with.

And remember, this has been in development for over half a decade at this point. It's always been this magic bullet that'll solve all of Bitcoin's problems if you can just wait another few* months!
*These months never arrive

I've said before I really doubt any crypto will succeed, but at this point bitcoin's future as a failure is pretty much sealed as it's just got nothing but inertia behind it. It'll never move off Proof of Work so it'll continue to drain vast amounts of power to print internet libertarian funny money and its blockchain will forever be clogged to the point of uselessness. As cynical as I am, some coins at least try.

 

[BFG10K]

For some of the haters that claim crypto has no use:

So your "use" for Crypto is converting it back to FIAT?

 

[bigboxes]

Even if mining is completely dead it might cost quite a lot more anyhow if we just keep printing money while telling a big chunk of people they can't go back to work yet. Reducing overall production while increasing the money supply has already lead to higher than normal inflation.

Have you been drinking again? One doesn't equal the other. But please stop telling everyone that the reason your mining is to save us all from fiat currency. Just stop that crap. Don't lie and say you're altruistic. You're not.

 

[BFG10K]

But please stop telling everyone that the reason your mining is to save us all from fiat currency.

Yep, exactly. Nobody can show me a single miner that ignores all their FIAT earnings in the name of "progress", because such a person doesn't exist.

They're all in it to make a quick buck from the ponzi scheme. The sole goal of mining is getting more FIAT, the very thing they claim is going to collapse. Why would anyone burn power and expend resources to get something they claim will collapse?

It's like watching pr0n for the story. Doesn't exist, like unicorns and fairies.

 

[DrMrLordX]

DrMrLordX already posted a link with specifics but ultimately the lightning network is fundamentally flawed. Since you're taking the transaction off-chain it's basically an admittance that bitcoin's blockchain sucks and chokes the moment it faces any sort of volume, and raises the question of why you're even using it to begin with.

To be fair, most of the major modern/semi-modern blockchain projects are looking at "second layer" solutions to numerous problems. Bitcoin's fundamental problem is that it was never made with "second layer" anything in mind. LN requires the use of smart contracts, so first you have to graft smart contract functionality onto the chain. Compare this to Ethereum and plasmas. Furthermore, off-chain solutions CAN be effective if the smart contracts upon which they are written do not have intrinsic problems.