Crypto was never intended to be used (and abused) in such a way, and is a considerable deviation from Satoshi's original vision regarding Bitcoin. Perhaps it's time to get back to basics.
I think Bitcoin was a really interesting idea in the pre-iPhone era, but for a variety of reasons it just didn't pan out. Which is why the space was so readily colonized by scammers, grifters, criminals, fraudsters, speculators, and loons.
While convenience remains the core point under contention, the secondary point of debate with crypto is the one you raise here: why is this a good thing?
Why would I want an unregulated currency, free of consumer protections or government oversight? If someone steals my credit card I call the bank and reverse the charges. When a bank gets robbed or collapses, the FDIC ensures consumers are unaffected.
Governments aren't a power independent of their communities, they're not aliens from outer space interfering with natural human ways of life. Government is how we the community organize ourselves to ensure our collective protection. They're, obviously, deeply imperfect, but a system completely severing itself from those organizing principles is fated to replicate them with even greater imperfection.
And why would I believe that it has value compared to gold, or a cow? And while the value of a dollar is an abstract of those physical trades, at least it has the backing of the nation’s resources, its people, and its military ability to plunder. Bitcoin has all the backing of …
It’s panning out just fine. Everyone who thinks Bitcoin is old news presupposes that you can do something like Bitcoin, but better. There’s no evidence of this in any non-Bitcoin cryptocurrency.
This also ignores that Bitcoin is improving every year. Tools like Liquid and Lightning are incredibly sophisticated, first principles based approaches to real problems in finance, banking, and fungibility. That fly by night securities called "cryptocurrencies" with shallow liquidity claim that they can do better, but always fail to deliver, hasn't undermined anything about Bitcoin.
I agree with the parent post. This is great for crypto. Maybe all the web developers who think they can do cryptography better than cryptographers can go do something else now.
For most people's everyday purposes, all those things the parent mentioned are doing something like Bitcoin, but better.
The one technical problem that cryptocurrency unquestionably handles better than any other technology is solve a problem that is only experienced by people who choose to use cryptocurrency.
It hasn't managed to do much more than be fancy digital gold. I don't find gold very interesting. It isn't a productive asset. It's just a shiny rock that people lock up in a vault. It doesn't benefit society.
And as financial instruments, both bitcoin and gold are deflationary, which seems quite bad.
I still have a bit of hope for some actually useful stuff to come out of the defi / smart-contract space. But I'm still fairly skeptical. There is a lot of noise and little signal.
The iPhone era describes mobile computing, touchscreens, app stores, etc.
My point is that conceptually, the peer-to-peer, proof-of-work thing was much more suited to the desktop era, a sort of SETI@Home for money. It wasn't until a few years later that we truly began to see what the mobile era would look like (e.g., Venmo was August 2009, Uber was May 2010). The peer-to-peer aspect is basically a failure, as the rise of mining pools and centralized exchanges demonstrate. As do the relatively small transaction volumes for Bitcoin compared to things that are actual modern cash substitutes. If somebody were inventing cryptocurrency today, it would not look like Bitcoin.
[1] https://appleinsider.com/articles/10/02/04/idc_apple_iphone_...
Could wind up with major governmental oversight moving forward, basically making damn sure it's barely ever adopted. Everyone always talks about "satoshi's vision" and what not, but crypto isn't going to be worth shit if you are forced to make trades in black market scenarios because it shit the bed so bad it took down serious stuff with it.
Granted this is probably worst case which i'd put at very low odds.
I'm basically of two minds about this.
One is that as long as people understand they're buying nothing of real value, it's fine if they want to "gamble". It's like a lottery ticket in this regard.
The other is if or perhaps when taxpayers will need to bail out crypto companies. At this point, I'll be extremely angry, and want the strictest government regulation possible.
I would be fine with regulation that just bans those sorts of vehicles from investing in crypto. That way individuals can speculate with their money, while being guarded against more systemic and indirect risks.
If pensions were involved the people who decided that pensions should be invested in crypto should be prosecuted.
> I would be fine with regulation that just bans those sorts of vehicles from investing in crypto.
I would be fine with regulation that banned people from investing in something that has no value.
If it ever got to that point I think we'd more likely see prudential authorities restrict traditional finance actors from investing in crypto rather than governments banning crypto outright.
If broad adoption was an actual goal, cryptocurrencies wouldn't be fundamentally structured like ponzi schemes.
It's impossible to have a currency without speculation and financial markets on top of it.
There are going to be some great discounts when correlated assets bid down during these liquidations, and some nice block space available
Just pick the right asset if you want to speculate, there is always some that move
pre-2017 crypto was not a beneficiary of quantitative easing, the hedge funds didnt exist (barring like 3 with low AUM) and the LPs had no vehicle to purchase crypto
its more closely a return to that environment, except with waaaay better infrastructure
There is still over $200bn in stablecoins ready to move into any crypto asset at any moment 24/7, the redemptions to fiat aren’t really happening
So those people are probably going to rely upon taxpayers for help. And so when homeless hodlers appear on the streets looking for the government handout, that's gonna piss off liberals and conservatives alike.