Then they will ask why nobody wants to use their payment cards
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Ideally, no one controls it. It's just exists as a medium for exchange.
There are both good and bad points to currency have value that can be adjusted by gov'ts; crypto currency solves one set of problems, but has it's own, inherent issues.
You're not really selling it for me, which I guess is the point aye?
What I imagine as ideal is an open-source and transparent bank and payment system that issues its own currency backed by ties to its investment portfolio that is properly regulated by its host country. i.e. you would use their currency to trade among others on the platform according to the percentage value of their portfolio that you own as measured by the currency to which you which to convert your holdings for a given purchase. You could select different tiers of risk if you'd like your "savings" to grow in value over time but experience potential dips or even loss of value if there is major market stability.
I am not an expert on such things, but this at least has real links to tangible asset worth, and isn't based on the artificial scarcity of an increasingly unsolvable math problem.
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i do think they hold some value for things like bank to bank, where each party is kiiiiind of untrusted and unrelated (not on a public chain - it’s just a private consensus between collaborating parties)
it also undeniably provides payment outside of standard card networks and the finance sector (people have been using crypto to buy drugs for decades now), so can be used to circumvent things like this mastercard/visa morality police garbage… i think in that, it’d be useful to have a strongish cryptocurrency somewhere at least to be able to provide uncensorable competition (the alternative to that being some global EU network that everyone accepted in the same manner)
but i think the value in blockchain in general is minimally about currency: that was just the first implementation… it’s a distributed, trustworthy log between untrusted individual entities. the benefits of that are honestly pretty niche, but i think it does solve some valuable problems… just most people should never even know that blockchain was involved
Fair points, cheers.
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I honestly never understood how Lemmy, a privacy and decentralisation focused community, is so vehemently anti-crypto. It's worse than genAI. Every time it is mentioned, everyone goes "crypto is a scam". I don't think I've ever seen any good faith discussion around it, just "scam", "pyramid scheme", and "only criminals use it".
Let's get something out of the way immediately: shitcoins are a literal pyramid scheme and a scam. Anyone can make their own cryptocurrency in an evening, and anyone who throws money at them is either a fool or a gambler.
But I really don't understand what people mean when they say Bitcoin, or Ethereum, or Monero are a scam. Sure they can be used to scam you, just like Amazon gift cards can. Maybe it's about the price volatility, but the price of all 3 mentioned before is up on a day, week, month, 6 months, year, and 5 year scale. It's volatile, but is not a scam. If you bought and sold at two random points in time, it's more likely you made a profit than "got scammed".
You know what actually is a scam? Credit scores, overdraft fees, having to pay to check your balance, and so many other fucked up practices in the US banking system."Criminals use them" is just the worst fucking argument, especially in a space like this. Are PGP, VPNs and TOR for criminals too? Do you think getting rid of crypto would stop crime?
And yes, proof of work fucking sucks. The energy consumption of Bitcoin mining is a problem. I am not a cryptobro who spends all his time making trades and is here to tell you that crypto is the salvation. They are far from being "good" for everyday use. I just wanted to point out how it seems that critical thought gets shut down at the sight of those 6 letters, and I hope someone can explain to me what they find so terrible about crypto (aside from environmental concerns and shitcoins)
Bitcoin is a pyramid scheme because it only keeps its value as long as people are constantly buying it. If no one wants to buy it, the value of any amount of bitcoin is zero. This is why people who have bitcoin are trying to convince anyone else to keep buying.
Your local government-backed currency does not have this problem, because you get paid with it, you pay taxes with it and vendors in your country have to accept it.
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Bitcoin is a pyramid scheme because it only keeps its value as long as people are constantly buying it. If no one wants to buy it, the value of any amount of bitcoin is zero. This is why people who have bitcoin are trying to convince anyone else to keep buying.
Your local government-backed currency does not have this problem, because you get paid with it, you pay taxes with it and vendors in your country have to accept it.
Bitcoin is a pyramid scheme because it only keeps its value as long as people are constantly buying it. If no one wants to buy it, the value of any amount of bitcoin is zero. This is why people who have bitcoin are trying to convince anyone else to keep buying.
any currency is initially a bank's promissory notes, and then a promise to exchange the paper for some kind of labor. As a person who has experienced at least one default in his life and whose entire toilet is covered with USSR money, I can say that in this regard, no currency is different from bitcoin.
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The main reason I don't care for bitcoin is I have to count a bunch zeros after the decimal point, before reaching a useful number.
$1 = 0.000006128921 btc? Really? Screw those zeroes. Bitcoin is inefficient in so many ways.wrote last edited by [email protected]Things are often measured in mBTC or µBTC for this exact reason.
Just as you don't measure the length of an ant in meters, you measure it in millimeters.
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Sorry my phrasing was bad and made it confusing. Let me explain it in detail.
They correctly choose a unsigned int for the time but they based it on Unix time, and Unix time is signed. So they choose a system that would require an conversion from Unix time to Bitcoin time (or the other way around) anyway. But you don't need to be able to have a timestamp for 1970, which their timestamp system supports, because instead of counting from 2008 (the invention of Bitcoin) they count from 1970. Wasting 38 years and as you know Unix time is hitting a limit in 2038, 68 years after its start, Bitcoin time is unsigned and so it gets to 2106. 2106-1970= 136 years. And they are wasting 38 years!!! Why? You need a conversion between both after 2038 anyway. And if they really care for cheap conversion, a signed 64bit value would be much better, because after 2038, that will probably be the standard. So they chose to waste 38 years for compatibility which will break after 2038, instead of choosing compatibility after 2038 for 292 billion years.
And if size was the reason and 64bit timestamps would have been too big, just start counting from 2008 (or better 2009 when the network started) and get all those juicy 136 years instead of 98 years.
It is stupid.
or they can simply inherit the UNIXTIME library, in which 0 has shifted from 1970 to 2038, and add one additional "time epoch" flag. Think about what's easier - create your own time library or inherit from unixtime?
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What if foreign words scare me more?
The person you’re replying to loves republicans, so they should be familiar with the concept.
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It depends, I have shopped at places where they will discount up to 15% by paying cash.
Yeah, there are a bunch of places around me that offer cash discounts which I make solid use of. Lets them lower prices for you as you aren't forcing a credit card transaction fee onto them.
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Adding a few more points to fully kill crypto as a "freedom currency"
- Generating crypto requires capital; people with computers and access to energy will instantly get the ability to outgenerate any other crypto participant
- Energy-centric currency just empowers the same rich lobbies; oil and gaz lobbies are delighted to see that there's an uptick in energy demand
- People with right material (read, capital) can track you, but low chance to track anyone doing crime at a national level (due to odds of them having a competent IT (baring the Hegseth drunkards out there))
I have an ignorant question: is gaz a French-Canadian spelling? I always thought it was Russian.
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Pay same in cash or credit. Priced in or not what the company asks for is what the consumer pays, so point being these crypto transaction arguments make no difference when it comes to fees. Like you said end retail price is already priced in.
Company wants 10 Stanley nickles consumer is charged 10 Stanley nickles regardless of payment method.
Pay same in cash or credit.
Depends on the vendor. There are a bunch of places around me that offer cash discounts, which I make solid use of. Lets them lower prices for you as you aren't forcing a credit card transaction fee onto them.
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The main reason I don't care for bitcoin is I have to count a bunch zeros after the decimal point, before reaching a useful number.
$1 = 0.000006128921 btc? Really? Screw those zeroes. Bitcoin is inefficient in so many ways.If you're paying for small good (25-50$) you usually pay in "Satoshis" 0.00000001 BTC. If you convert it to dollars, 10 satoshis is 1 cent.
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It was far less valuable when it first started becoming trendy. 1 BTC for a pizza, or whatever. Now it's turned into a hyperinflation wheelbarrow kind of situation.
Exact opposite of hyperinflation
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No bank or goverment can control it. It is the benefit of being able to send money to anyone around the world while maintaining ownership of your money as if it were cash in hand.
Anti-inflationary to keep cash in BTC as opposed to sitting in an account at a bank
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I can't say I've ever seen fascists pushing Bitcoins, but then again I don't frequent those spaces. I struggle to see how they are ideologically similar though. Doesn't seem like a very authoritarian concept
And can we really say we know what brought about the publication of the bitcoin whitepaper?
The Republicans in US congress just forced through a bunch of pro-crypto crap, if you’re looking for undeniable proof. They love being able to accept foreign bribes.
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Many MAGA/libertarian/fascists love ice cream. Does that mean ice cream is bad?
We should be able to make up our own minds about things instead of turning everything into a partisan issue. A broken clock is right twice a day.wrote last edited by [email protected]They aren’t pushing pro-ice cream laws, this is a disingenuous take.
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You've done it! You've fully killed Bitcoin! Now it will certainly become irrelevant! In 5 years, the top answer for "what would you do if you had a time machine and went back 5 years?" definitely won't still be "Buy more Bitcoin."
wrote last edited by [email protected]Of course cryptocurrencies will exist in the future. Same as simpler pyramid schemes, corruption, human trafficking, and banging your finger on a corner of a table. It's not an indication of any positive quality of those things.
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It should also be noted, that using more power isn't fine just because it's renewable. It's still worse for the environment, and especially not until it's 100%
Even at 100%, there's still better things to do with electricity than Bitcoin. Like hydrogen and fuel production (for planes, ships, heavy industry).
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Bitcoin bros are acting like little pushed around victims now?
wrote last edited by [email protected]Needlessly antagonistic interpretation presented not for good faith discussion but for your own fragile emotional needs. Reap what you sow.
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If you're paying for small good (25-50$) you usually pay in "Satoshis" 0.00000001 BTC. If you convert it to dollars, 10 satoshis is 1 cent.
Case in point
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They should bring in subunits like an MMO. 1 bitcoin (118905USD) = 100 bitsilver
1 bitsilver (1189.05USD) = 100 bitcopper
1 bitcopper = 11.89USDIt doesn't even make any different to the number of bitcoin used, its just a more user friendly way of displaying it for small purchases.
They already do that with SI prefixes.
