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I think people are too hyper focused on the price aspect of cryptocurrencies. The experiment that is Bitcoin shows that people do not need to rely on a monetary

I think people are too hyper focused on the price aspect of cryptocurrencies. The experiment that is Bitcoin shows that people do not need to rely on a monetary system where a cabal of rich and powerful individuals can arbitrarily modify the money supply without any regard to all the participants in that monetary system. The genie is already out of the bottle and there is no way to put it back. There will always be those especially in the younger generations that want something better than the current system. Bitcoin shows that you can have a completely transparent monetary system based on code that is available to be audited by anyone. Bitcoin may or may not survive, but the idea behind it will.

twblalock 4y ago
What this has also shown is that most people (literally almost everyone) are better off relying on the traditional financial system.
camjw 4y ago
> There will always be those especially in the younger generations that want something better than the current system. Sure, this isn't it though.
AlexandrB 4y ago
> The experiment that is Bitcoin shows that people do not need to rely on a monetary system where a cabal of rich and powerful individuals can arbitrarily modify the money supply without any regard to all the participants in that monetary system. I don't get it. How does this description fail to encompass the likes of SBF, CZ, or Do Kwon? And while they didn't modify the money supply (although UDT kinda did), their actions had a strong impact on the value of money. So anyone holding coins in their own wallets still got screwed by their actions.
- zmaurelius 4y ago
  Bitcoin only solves the problem of manipulation of the underlying money supply. It does not solve the problem of fraud and scams. Maybe one day we can also solve that problem with exchanges existing only as smart contracts, but with exchanges that are not completely transparent you always run into the risk of getting defrauded because you don't really know what's going on under the hood.
  - ahahahahah 4y ago
    Yeah. The transparency of smart contracts has ensured that there's no scams in that space.
  - Forgeties79 4y ago
    I always see advocates for crypto bashing central exchanges, but at the same time they bemoan the slow pace of adoption. I just don’t see it ever being even remotely main stream without central organizations. It is far too much work managing it all yourself even for tech savvy people. Just the process of downloading a wallet and downloading ledger is a huge pain in the ass. And then have to do it for every crypto if you’re not using a multi-wallet!
    - EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 4y ago
      Downloading a wallet takes a few seconds. You dont need to download a ledger to pay.
      - selectodude 4y ago
        I'd rather not have my access to my net worth be behind a six word phrase. Might be tough to pay for shit after I get hit by a car or get old or something and have trouble remembering stuff.
      - Forgeties79 4y ago
        If you’re storing your own crypto you need a wallet, backups, and cold storage at the very least. Plus you need to remember your seed phrase. If I lose my bank account info or cards I have several ways of getting access to my money, crypto no so much. It has been a while since I set up but last time I did I had to download the blockchain’s ledger aka the history of every single transaction. Is this no longer the case?
        EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 4y ago
        no longer)
jcranmer 4y ago
> The experiment that is Bitcoin shows that people do not need to rely on a monetary system where a cabal of rich and powerful individuals can arbitrarily modify the money supply without any regard to all the participants in that monetary system. Is this really true, given that the largest currency pair of Bitcoin is with USDT, which is alleged to have been arbitrarily created at whim to pump up the price of Bitcoin?
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
this_steve_j 4y ago
Let’s not forget the frictionless enablement of spectacular ransomware enterprises, and the glorious enrichment of dangerous actors with stolen funds. It’s a small price to pay for all this… freedom?
- zmaurelius 4y ago
  It also enabled about $60+ million dollars to be donated to Ukraine and that's just one data point. Whether these other problems are a small price to pay will depend on who you are talking to. To the Ukrainians that benefited from these donations and to those that have food, weapons and shelter from these donations, it is most likely a small price to pay. Perhaps a portion of these donations could have come from other sources if cryptocurrencies did not exist, but there isn't really a good way to quantify that, so I won't go into that discussion.
  - yunohn 4y ago
    > It also enabled about $60+ million dollars to be donated to Ukraine and that's just one data point I love how every crypto enthusiast (incl Vitalik) uses this one-off example to justify everything these days.
    - EFreethought 4y ago
      Maybe they finally realized they looked stupid after a decade of using Venezuela as an example of how crypto can help a country, even though crypto hasn't made anything better there.
  - camjw 4y ago
    A quick google shows that the US government has given $16.8bn in aid to Ukraine. It seems like the centralised system is doing significantly better.
    - landemva 4y ago
      Giving my tax dollars to Ukraine without forcing Ukraine to negotiate an end to it is not "doing better".
UncleMeat 4y ago
It is true that a cabal of rich people cannot arbitrarily modify the money supply. We instead get a permanently chosen system of money supply that was created by an ideologically driven software engineer who appears to have vanished into the ether. Is it not possible that Satoshi chose a less optimal system than the central banks would? The finite and logarithmic rewards make a huge huge huge difference in the eventual distribution of BTC worldwide, should it become a dominant system. In my opinion, a system where early adopters get unimaginably rich forever is simply unethical. And if another system eventually wins... then isn't that simply an example of a cabal of people (though not necessarily rich at first in this case) modifying the rules for money supply? Doge produces a different outcome than BTC. That's important.
- zmaurelius 4y ago
  I don't think fair distribution of cryptocurrency in the bootstrap phase is a solved problem. We got a long way to go if we are to come up with a fair system. Satoshi went with the best that he could come up with which is a no premine solution. A slightly better solution would be a no premine coin with a global announcement for 5 years before the mining begins so everybody gets a fair shot at participation. I am sure we can develop even more fair forms of distribution with sufficient research.
  - EFreethought 4y ago
    Honestly, that would give wealthy people (and possibly scammers) plenty of time to figure out how to game the rules.
- EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 4y ago
  Nobody is going to be rich forever, because nobody is going to live forever. You have a very hard time limit to spend your coins.
  - UncleMeat 4y ago
    Coins don't return to the reward pool when somebody dies. A system of new aristocratic families based on who was an early adopter and held on to some BTC is not something I'm excited about.
FridgeSeal 4y ago
> people do not need to rely on a monetary system where a cabal of rich and powerful individuals can arbitrarily modify the money supply without any regard to all the participants in that monetary system. Is this satire? Because crypto currencies are not the gleaming example of “free of manipulation” that you think they are. There’s endless cases of whales, exchanges, NFT groups and crypto-celebrities using their capital and power in order to manipulate markets and supply in exactly their favour. The NFT space was especially bad for this. In fact, a lot of those NFT groups are exactly what I’d describe as a “cabal”.
- labrador 4y ago
  That was my reaction but you said it better than I could so I'll let Depeche Mode say it The grabbing hands grab all they can Everything counts in large amounts
ausbah 4y ago
>The experiment that is Bitcoin shows that people do not need to rely on a monetary system where a cabal of rich and powerful individuals can arbitrarily modify the money supply without any regard to all the participants in that monetary system. if this is a stab at the federal reserve, my response would be "democracy" at least in the abstract. either way not much different from the whales that hold disproportionate amounts of influence in the system right?

twblalock 4y ago

What this has also shown is that most people (literally almost everyone) are better off relying on the traditional financial system.

camjw 4y ago

> There will always be those especially in the younger generations that want something better than the current system. Sure, this isn't it though.

AlexandrB 4y ago

> The experiment that is Bitcoin shows that people do not need to rely on a monetary system where a cabal of rich and powerful individuals can arbitrarily modify the money supply without any regard to all the participants in that monetary system. I don't get it. How does this description fail to encompass the likes of SBF, CZ, or Do Kwon? And while they didn't modify the money supply (although UDT kinda did), their actions had a strong impact on the value of money. So anyone holding coins in their own wallets still got screwed by their actions.

zmaurelius 4y ago
Bitcoin only solves the problem of manipulation of the underlying money supply. It does not solve the problem of fraud and scams. Maybe one day we can also solve that problem with exchanges existing only as smart contracts, but with exchanges that are not completely transparent you always run into the risk of getting defrauded because you don't really know what's going on under the hood.
- ahahahahah 4y ago
  Yeah. The transparency of smart contracts has ensured that there's no scams in that space.
- Forgeties79 4y ago
  I always see advocates for crypto bashing central exchanges, but at the same time they bemoan the slow pace of adoption. I just don’t see it ever being even remotely main stream without central organizations. It is far too much work managing it all yourself even for tech savvy people. Just the process of downloading a wallet and downloading ledger is a huge pain in the ass. And then have to do it for every crypto if you’re not using a multi-wallet!
  - EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 4y ago
    Downloading a wallet takes a few seconds. You dont need to download a ledger to pay.
    - selectodude 4y ago
      I'd rather not have my access to my net worth be behind a six word phrase. Might be tough to pay for shit after I get hit by a car or get old or something and have trouble remembering stuff.
    - Forgeties79 4y ago
      If you’re storing your own crypto you need a wallet, backups, and cold storage at the very least. Plus you need to remember your seed phrase. If I lose my bank account info or cards I have several ways of getting access to my money, crypto no so much. It has been a while since I set up but last time I did I had to download the blockchain’s ledger aka the history of every single transaction. Is this no longer the case?
      - EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 4y ago
        no longer)

jcranmer 4y ago

> The experiment that is Bitcoin shows that people do not need to rely on a monetary system where a cabal of rich and powerful individuals can arbitrarily modify the money supply without any regard to all the participants in that monetary system. Is this really true, given that the largest currency pair of Bitcoin is with USDT, which is alleged to have been arbitrarily created at whim to pump up the price of Bitcoin?

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

this_steve_j 4y ago

Let’s not forget the frictionless enablement of spectacular ransomware enterprises, and the glorious enrichment of dangerous actors with stolen funds. It’s a small price to pay for all this… freedom?

zmaurelius 4y ago
It also enabled about $60+ million dollars to be donated to Ukraine and that's just one data point. Whether these other problems are a small price to pay will depend on who you are talking to. To the Ukrainians that benefited from these donations and to those that have food, weapons and shelter from these donations, it is most likely a small price to pay. Perhaps a portion of these donations could have come from other sources if cryptocurrencies did not exist, but there isn't really a good way to quantify that, so I won't go into that discussion.
- yunohn 4y ago
  > It also enabled about $60+ million dollars to be donated to Ukraine and that's just one data point I love how every crypto enthusiast (incl Vitalik) uses this one-off example to justify everything these days.
  - EFreethought 4y ago
    Maybe they finally realized they looked stupid after a decade of using Venezuela as an example of how crypto can help a country, even though crypto hasn't made anything better there.
- camjw 4y ago
  A quick google shows that the US government has given $16.8bn in aid to Ukraine. It seems like the centralised system is doing significantly better.
  - landemva 4y ago
    Giving my tax dollars to Ukraine without forcing Ukraine to negotiate an end to it is not "doing better".

UncleMeat 4y ago

It is true that a cabal of rich people cannot arbitrarily modify the money supply. We instead get a permanently chosen system of money supply that was created by an ideologically driven software engineer who appears to have vanished into the ether. Is it not possible that Satoshi chose a less optimal system than the central banks would? The finite and logarithmic rewards make a huge huge huge difference in the eventual distribution of BTC worldwide, should it become a dominant system. In my opinion, a system where early adopters get unimaginably rich forever is simply unethical. And if another system eventually wins... then isn't that simply an example of a cabal of people (though not necessarily rich at first in this case) modifying the rules for money supply? Doge produces a different outcome than BTC. That's important.

zmaurelius 4y ago
I don't think fair distribution of cryptocurrency in the bootstrap phase is a solved problem. We got a long way to go if we are to come up with a fair system. Satoshi went with the best that he could come up with which is a no premine solution. A slightly better solution would be a no premine coin with a global announcement for 5 years before the mining begins so everybody gets a fair shot at participation. I am sure we can develop even more fair forms of distribution with sufficient research.
- EFreethought 4y ago
  Honestly, that would give wealthy people (and possibly scammers) plenty of time to figure out how to game the rules.
EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 4y ago
Nobody is going to be rich forever, because nobody is going to live forever. You have a very hard time limit to spend your coins.
- UncleMeat 4y ago
  Coins don't return to the reward pool when somebody dies. A system of new aristocratic families based on who was an early adopter and held on to some BTC is not something I'm excited about.

FridgeSeal 4y ago

> people do not need to rely on a monetary system where a cabal of rich and powerful individuals can arbitrarily modify the money supply without any regard to all the participants in that monetary system. Is this satire? Because crypto currencies are not the gleaming example of “free of manipulation” that you think they are. There’s endless cases of whales, exchanges, NFT groups and crypto-celebrities using their capital and power in order to manipulate markets and supply in exactly their favour. The NFT space was especially bad for this. In fact, a lot of those NFT groups are exactly what I’d describe as a “cabal”.

labrador 4y ago
That was my reaction but you said it better than I could so I'll let Depeche Mode say it The grabbing hands grab all they can Everything counts in large amounts

ausbah 4y ago

>The experiment that is Bitcoin shows that people do not need to rely on a monetary system where a cabal of rich and powerful individuals can arbitrarily modify the money supply without any regard to all the participants in that monetary system. if this is a stab at the federal reserve, my response would be "democracy" at least in the abstract. either way not much different from the whales that hold disproportionate amounts of influence in the system right?