We keep expecting crypto to die but then again, we still have antivirus software that is spyware (avast), a scammy vpn industry, and a thriving anti vax movement. No matter how absurd it is, it might stick around for a long time now
Both markets have some degree of irrationality, and the parent did not show that cryptos have more of it to justify preference of the regular market over crypto.
There are structural problems at play. It's completely impossible for there to be an escape velocity of irrationality where Ponzi schemes can become legitimate. All you're able to observe is that people with more money than YOU are still playing. That's not the same as escape velocity: the real money is still waiting for its cue to throw the Ponzi scheme under the buss, and you will not get warning of this.
.....who uses the USD.
For sending money to friends in other countries, it is so much cheaper, faster, and more reliable than the traditional money-transfer options I had before.
For buying things around town, I have a debit card that draws from my USDC wallet. Currently, it's less convenient than my credit card, because I have to keep that account full enough to be used, and if I need to fill it up in the moment, it takes about five minutes to jump through all the hoops necessary to not incur any fees. But, as an early adopter I don't mind. Fixing that UX isn't the kind of thing that requires a major technological breakthrough.
USDC operates on multiple layer-1 blockchains, for example Algorand. When transferring USDC between Algorand wallets, the transaction takes a few seconds and costs a small fraction of a cent. Compare that to the shit show that is Western Union, or Small World Money Transfer, or wiring money between non-cooperative banks.
I also own ALGO coins. I could use these as a medium of exchange as well, but I don't, and it would make less sense to do so. Instead I think of these as stocks. Their value fluctuates with the market, and they allow me to vote in Algorand governance voting sessions. If I wanted to liquidate these assets, I would wait until the price went up and then convert them to USD or USDC. I wouldn't spend them with a debit card any more than I would spend stocks with a debit card.
Of course there is an additional use of ALGO's as a medium of exchange - transaction fees for executing smart contract transactions. I haven't found any compelling dApps yet, but in theory this will become another primary use case.
The only current usecase I'm aware of for crypto as a medium of exchange is for criminals, i.e. ransomware / extortion / etc.
Just wondering, what would it take for you (and others who share similar views) to change your mind about crypto? How long does the technology need to be around to be validated? Would you feel better about the space if it was regulated (which would bring scams, manipulation, and illicit activity down), or would you still think it's all nonsense?
The "change my mind" criterion for this would be actual price stability. That is, a significant market for goods and services which can be bought at a fixed crypto price over a period of a year or more with zero price variation. People getting paid salary in fixed crypto denominations. People taking out 10-year mortgages in fixed crypto denominations at interest rates comparable to fiat mortgages.
It is feasible that cryptocurrency might be more stable than, say, the Bolivar. It is not feasible that it will be more stable than the dollar.
If you want a really concrete use case, suppose you want to buy a new Macbook next year and you want to save on a weekly basis. If you'd done that over various periods over the last year you'd end up with between 150% and 70% of the price of the Macbook. Now, so long as "number go up" you're winning ...
See you in 5 years when Ethereum has flipped Bitcoin, then.
You may even have to wait until Ethereum forks again, honestly.
And even if we grant a Metcalfe exponential relationship between crypto prices and crypto participants, you're still running into the basic Ponzi scheme problem that if all your value comes from the price appreciation predicated on the number of HODLers growing, it'll hit that ceiling eventually. Which means it isn't a particularly great store of value, compared with something like a stock that generates future income regardless of whether new people enter the stock market or not
Also, if there's not enough Bitcoin ever going to be created for everyone alive even now to own just one (21 million max supply cap), and assuming the interest in it only increases over time, how would a ceiling ever be hit?
Facebook/Meta and Twitter getting more MAUs means that they sell more ads. Zuck would still be rich if nobody was willing or able to buy FB at all.
But if their only product was FB and TWTR stock, the only thing that stock did was allow you to hold, give or sell it, and the only argument for buying it was an entirely recursive argument that it was a store of value because people will value more in future because more of them will want to buy it because its a store of value and an appeal to Metcalfe's law for the valuation because stock markets are a bit like telecoms networks then yes, they would definitely be Ponzi schemes.
Question makes more sense flipped on his head: if you think everything that looks a little bit like a telecoms network in terms of having lots of participants obeys Metcalfe's law, then why aren't actual Ponzi schemes actually extremely valuable to participate in?
Yeah, good point there. I think the thing with a Ponzi scheme, the way I see it, is that I can't transfer a share of that Ponzi scheme across the world, 24/7. I could only hold it, and if it is a Ponzi scheme, it would eventually collapse. I do see value in the monetary transfer aspect to crypto as well, so that's part of it, and I personally don't think crypto will collapse, at least not Bitcoin, Ethereum, and probably several of the other major ones. The rest, I have no idea, and maybe some of those other altcoins could be considered Ponzi schemes. Definitely some of the altcoins are pump and dump schemes, if not Ponzis, and definitely some altcoins will collapse. I just don't think applying Ponzi scheme to the entire crypto ecosystem is fair.
Also, sorry, I edited the comment you responded to, so it changed a bit. I do wonder what you think about the ceiling I mentioned, in regards to that there's only 21 million Bitcoin ever going to be created, and that's not enough for everyone in the world to have even one full Bitcoin. If interest grows, and population continues to grow, then how would a ceiling ever be hit? I don't see that as a Ponzi scheme, I see that as interest in a scarce asset, that you can't make more of, while we are in an inflationary period, with governments printing money all around the world. Just wondering if you have any thoughts on that.
The way I'm thinking about it is that some people may want to hold Bitcoin forever, and just loan it out, to put it to use, while also having a deflationary asset in their portfolio.
"If interest grows" is the big if and "price go up" is a very, very bad reason for interest in one particular coin to continue growing indefinitely when faced with all the alternative ways for people to park their money, from technically superior coins to investments they can actually live in (some available for less than a cryptographic string!) or stuff that pays actual dividends and gives you legal claim to actual real world assets. And for all the FUD cryptoenthusiasts like to spread about government money printing, it's the "fiat" world that has all the mechanisms that link money supply growth with market demand and real world activity, ability to shrink the money supply if its growing too fast, and the crypto world where basically the entire supply of coins has been printed in a few years by a small number of people trying to get rich and those coins will continue to exist for as long as the blockchain is maintained whether people want to buy them or not.
* Is it a currency or an investment? None of the major coins seem usable as a currency to me, the values are too volatile.
* What does it offer me over using USD? For me at least I see very little value, I often cannot use it for purchases and most of the places that I have seen it offered do it for secrecy, VPN or counterfeit goods. I am not trying to perpetuate the idea that cryto is only used for illegal activities but for myself I have little to no benefit of using it for purchases.
* Would you compare your "store of value" use case the same as owning gold? It is interesting to hear coins having a store of value since for me at least the volatility kills it and without a huge use in the economy I don't have confidence in it holding up.
More of an investment, for the time being.
* What does it offer me over using USD? For me at least I see very little value, I often cannot use it for purchases and most of the places that I have seen it offered do it for secrecy, VPN or counterfeit goods. I am not trying to perpetuate the idea that cryto is only used for illegal activities but for myself I have little to no benefit of using it for purchases.
Yes, I've purchased like one thing with crypto and that was back when you couldn't buy hardware wallets with USD, so crypto was the only option.
* Would you compare your "store of value" use case the same as owning gold? It is interesting to hear coins having a store of value since for me at least the volatility kills it and without a huge use in the economy I don't have confidence in it holding up.
Yes, I do compare the store of value use case similar to owning gold. Gold is just much harder to transport, send across the world, store, etc. Gold has also been trading sideways for about a year, so I don't think it really protects from inflation (someone correct me if I'm mistaken about that). I actually do own both gold and crypto, so I've been able to compare them first hand.
Also, crypto is super volatile, for sure, but if you think about it over a multi-year horizon, similar to how someone would invest in an S&P 500 index fund, then I think crypto will in general appreciate and the volatility should go down as more people hold it and consider it valuable. The idea is that it stabilizes as its market cap goes up. Also just want to call out that I consider Bitcoin its own thing, apart from the rest of crypto, since Bitcoin actually has a max supply cap. Many cryptocurrencies do not (they can essentially print money), or their max supply is so ridiculously high as to barely matter at all.
Thanks for responding! I like to hear about how people are thinking about this, beyond the point that it's only used for illicit activities.
That’s the rub isn’t it? They have absolutely zero intrinsic value, and any energy expended to mine them and give them value is a literal waste.
> what would it take for you (and others who share similar views) to change your mind about crypto
It would help if we could go a month without another DAO breaking.
Ultimately I have enough faith in the system that I want my money to be centralized.
It would be great if the demand was organic and driven by consumption. This could stabilize the price. Right now it's mostly speculative.
Also if people see value in it, vs other assets, wouldn't they want to hold it, so wouldn't value be stored in it? Curious if you have any thoughts about that.
But otherwise, yeah, if there's enough people to make the whales look comparatively smaller, it may get more stable.
I didn't say anything at all about crypto-as-a-store-of-value. Like any fiat currency, crypto has value iff people think it has value, no surprises there. At the moment, crypto's value is heavily tied to speculation about massive increases in its future value, which is not sustainable in the long term and is the biggest blocker for the medium-of-exchange usecase.
I have nothing against the idea of crypto - it's a good idea, especially with the stuff built on top of it around smart contracts, and the technology is neat - but until it stabilizes at predictable exchange rates it will never be used by the unsophisticated masses as a medium of exchange.
Also: Bitrefill.com, and that's without even running a search.
You may be impressed with both the offerings, and the currencies accepted. I know I was.
The ability to hold decentralized state is a resilient way is pretty cool and a lot of the finance applications are better than legacy stuff - try sending large amounts of money around in the legacy system, expect to wait several days for every action.
HN people can continue to cynically dismiss it, but the nice thing about economic bets is it doesn't really matter. Those that see the value will become rich anyway. There are always people dismissing any new thing - the value of that signal is near zero.
I'm excited about what kind incentive alignment we might be able to achieve with programmable money. The city coins stuff I think is pretty cool, maybe a way out of NIMBY type incentive problems. There's a ton of stuff that's being figured out on the frontier - it's exciting. Like I imagine the web was like in 1999 (with the good, and as potentially the case in the OP's article, the bad).
The legacy system (e.g. banks) aren’t sitting still either. In many parts of the world (Europe) a transaction is pretty much instant.
I still see the crypto tech being more capable long term, but the ux is still in its infancy.
Well, cryptos aren't really money so actually sending money via crypto requires transferring crypto from a bank to an exchange, making a purchase, withdrawing it to a destination wallet at an exchange, selling it, and transferring the proceeds to another account. That takes days, requires multiple transactions and costs boatloads of fees. By constraining it to transfer of an intermediate representation you're not making a good faith representation of the process.
Second, the only thing you can do better with crypto than a centralized exchange is crime, grift and regulatory arbitrage. What you're describing is the third. Sending money in any classic fintech system takes milliseconds. What takes longer sometimes is AML/KYC and security. Crypto pretends those don't exist. Like any other regulatory arbitrage you can certainly make things faster or cheaper, for instance by dumping chemical waste into lakes. Once again comparing a car to a little buggy with a 2-stroke engine and no catalytic converter on the basis of fuel efficiency is disingenuous too.
Anyways, sending "large amounts of money" isn't a problem most people have by definition. And if you actually do have large amounts of money, sending it around isn't an issue. I've had six-figure domestic wire transfers clear instantly with no questions asked from my brokerage account, free of charge, same day. The first time they called to check. I didn't mind.
Most of the world has free or nearly free instant transfers. Europe has SEPA, the UK has FPS, Canada has Interac e-transfers, Australia has NPP. The US is getting RTP and FedNow in 2023.
[edit] In fact, the cheapest way to move USDC from FTX to Coinbase is actually to request a free wire transfer from FTX to your bank account, and then either a free wire or ACH from your bank account to Coinbase. Saves $25.
Yeah, I’m betting on the future utility enabled by the tech, not what it can do right now. Similarly people said the web was useless in the 90s [0] when the future utility (imo) was obvious.
> “Second, the only thing you can do better with crypto than a centralized exchange is crime, grift and regulatory arbitrage.”
There are non-crime advantages to being able to use decentralized systems. These are most obvious in places with hostile governments and unstable currencies. The new stuff you can do with decentralized state and public auditable records is super new and the applications there I think will be really interesting.
> “ What takes longer sometimes is AML/KYC and security.”
Is this true? I thought there was a complex system of clearing houses, record updates, etc. a lot of which is done manually? Am I wrong?
> “Like any other regulatory arbitrage you can certainly make things faster or cheaper, for instance by dumping chemical waste into lakes. Once again comparing a car to a little buggy with a 2-stroke engine and no catalytic converter on the basis of fuel efficiency is disingenuous too.”
I think you’re failing to steelman this. It’s possible to build a lot of stuff to handle things like KYC in a way that’s better because of crypto tech. Imagine using an NFT as a pseudonymous ID that you KYC once and then can use anywhere unless it changes wallets. There are also likely better ways to determine credit worthiness than FICO enabled by the new stuff. A lot of your arguments feel like someone saying “ever heard of radio” when someone else says you can stream sports on the internet. I think you’re being a little myopic.
I guess we’ll see how it shakes out, but for better or worse I’m betting against you.
Blockchain is a database. Records at a bank are a database. There's no reason you can't just execute a SQL transaction to deduct from one and increment the other haha. That's not the slow part.
That's why every one of the systems I mentioned supports real-time 24/7 transfers: SEPA, FPS, NPP, Interac, RTP, FedNow, ISO20022. Not a blockchain in sight. Amazing right?
> It’s possible to build a lot of stuff to handle things like KYC in a way that’s better because of crypto tech.
It does not address KYC at all. KYC is built on top at the CEX level. If you have some concrete non-speculative way you think this is true, please share.
> I guess we’ll see how it shakes out, but for better or worse I’m betting against you.
I seriously doubt you're betting against me haha.
[edit] Any the reason settlement hasnt been addressed sooner is because thanks to the magic optimization of centralization and trust, you can just borrow the capital until settlement happens. I mean think about it, equity settlement is T+2 but yet somehow HFTs exist?
Remember the golden rule of blockchain: except in the case of regulatory arbitrage, grift and crime, if you think a blockchain is a better solution to a problem than any classical solution - you either don't know enough about crypto or you don't know enough about the problem.
> "Remember the golden rule of blockchain: except in the case of regulatory arbitrage, grift and crime, if you think a blockchain is a better solution to a problem than any classical solution - you either don't know enough about crypto or you don't know enough about the problem."
There's a real possibility here that you're way overconfident and wrong and this overconfidence will blind you from a lot of interesting stuff that's going on.
> "There's no reason you can't just execute a SQL transaction to deduct from one and increment the other haha. That's not the slow part."
Yeah - that's because that's ignoring the entire context of everything else required around that. The centralized systems, the manual trust, the integration problems between organizations. The sql update is not the issue.
It seems clear from your tone that you're not really curious about this so I'll just leave it here.
> "Not a blockchain in sight. Amazing right?"
Good for you - let's check back in 10yr.
> "I seriously doubt you're betting against me haha."
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I'm always open to that possibility, and I spend a lot of time learning about blockchain technology. And I've spent the last 10 years working in fintech. Of the commenters here, I probably have more context than most on both.
> Yeah - that's because that's ignoring the entire context of everything else required around that. The centralized systems, the manual trust, the integration problems between organizations. The sql update is not the issue.
Correct, centralization and trust represent massive efficiencies.
Banks trust each other or can trust a central intermediary which is again why NPP, RTP, FedNow, SEPA, FPA all work instantly, basically free, without blockchain. Whereas moving USDC-ETH between two accounts costs $25.
> Good for you - let's check back in 10yr.
It's been 14 years and yet we have nothing to show for it except a whole pile of used up Kazakh and Xinjiang coal - and some really ugly twitter avatars. But yes, I'll wait, I'm sure OP will deliver by 2031.
You may be right in the end, but people with exposure to the industry at risk of disruption are often bad at recognizing it. See Ballmer at Microsoft mocking the iPhone, Blockbuster failing to adapt to Netflix, Borders failing to adapt to Kindle/Amazon etc.
That knowledge can provide context for accuracy, but it can also mislead or bias you against something that's changing rapidly.
> "Correct, centralization and trust represent massive efficiencies."
At a real cost. The web comparison would be decentralized underlying protocols vs. the centralized applications on top of them. "Web3" may allow a way to fix the things that lead to centralization at the application layer with UX that actually works. This is distinct from cryptocurrency, but there's some overlap. ETH cost should get reduced by ETH2 and sharding, the cost is representative of current transaction demand.
I'm not a crypto-anarchist, I think both systems will have complementary purposes. Programmable money is something new, knee-jerk dismissals of "it's all crime" are dumb imo.
That's a lovely narrative except I work in fintechs exposed to crypto.
> ... That knowledge can provide context for accuracy, but it can also mislead or bias you against something that's changing rapidly.
And as I said I spend a lot of time researching so that I can have informed discussions.
> At a real cost. The web comparison would be decentralized underlying protocols vs. the centralized applications on top of them. "Web3" may allow a way to fix the things that lead to centralization at the application layer with UX that actually works.
The real cost of PoW blockchain is the electricity consumption and e-waste production of a country, and the cost of all blockchains is a system absolutely rife with corruption and scams.
You're just describing APIs, which we've had forever.
I'm tempted to start keeping track of how many hundreds of negative comments about crypto HN generates each day, every day. It doesn't really come across as confidence to me.
You find me one thing, just one thing, that crypto is better at than a traditional solution and I'll be all over it. 14 years and counting. 0 killer apps.
So despite what you say, you will not be “all over it”. You have no interest in changing your mind or in engaging in genuine discussion.
You won’t even update “14yrs” which is just a clear factual error.
[0]: getting wealth out of a corrupt country for one
Do you have a concrete example that wouldn't (a) be suitably handled by Wise, Xoom or a wire transfer and (b) isn't out of a sanctioned country and (b) isn't out of a country where the transfer fee would be prohibitive? If so, could you quantify?
Is it even good for this? You have to buy the coins from someone else, meaning if you did it domestically you're still net the same level of welfare. If you traded them internationally, you can just buy USD.
This is yet another hand-wavey claim, and what I asked for was something concrete, tangible, measurable.
> You won’t even update “14yrs” which is just a clear factual error.
2008 to 2022. Just rounding by a couple months.
> So despite what you say, you will not be “all over it”. You have no interest in changing your mind or in engaging in genuine discussion.
I have no interest in slapping crypto on the back when it hasn't done anything but crime, grift and regulatory arbitrage. Bitcoin is the official currency of the alt-right and yes, it's now older than your average high schooler. [1] Just one, concrete application is all I ask.
[1] https://chicago.suntimes.com/2021/9/30/22703200/bitcoin-cryp...
Stored wealth, memorized seed words and regenerated on the other side.
There was also an interview with someone relying on BTC in Venezuela too because their currency is worse.
You’re rounding by multiple years, especially if you consider ETH.
Also: https://www.matthuang.com/bitcoin_for_the_open_minded_skepti...
Of course its possible for one or two people to benefit but net net the Ukranians either (a) traded amongst themselves in which case the net welfare stayed the exact same or (b) they traded with people abroad in which case they could have chosen literally any asset on earth, many of which outperformed Bitcoin and other cryptos.
> There was also an interview with someone relying on BTC in Venezuela too because their currency is worse.
An anecdote is not a substitute for data, and Venezuela decided to dollarize, not bitcoinize. 66% of transactions in Venezuela are USD denominated now due to a groundswell of popular support. [1] They didn't bitcoinize. Because the dollar is better.
> You’re rounding by multiple years, especially if you consider ETH.
I'm rounding by a few months. That there are recent developments doesn't roll forward the clock on launch day. The iPhone launched at the same time as Bitcoin. That's what a killer product looks like.
[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-01-13/venezuela...
It’s hard to get dollars in Venezuela which is why this guy was relying on BTC. I never claimed BTC was superior to the dollar.
The iPhone is a product, Bitcoin (really blockchain and programmable money more broadly) is more akin to the web in 1996. It’s a protocol for money.
You can believe what you want, the nice thing about economic bets is it doesn’t matter.
Crypto is too old to play this card.
Could you have gotten rich off investing in Enron? Sure, it made some people fantastically rich. That doesn't mean Enron was a sound company.
Nothing with the word "currency" can experience 5 digit deflation and call itself anything but a failure in that regard. Nothing cynical about that take, and it's a useful signal for those who expect to treat it as a currency.
You’re right of course, my point was not that cynicism is always false, but that people are cynically dismissive about everything so it holds zero signal.
It’s basically the Sagan quip, “They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.”
BTC is more like some sort of asset class than a currency imo [0], but there are others that are more suited to currency.
[0]: https://www.matthuang.com/bitcoin_for_the_open_minded_skepti...
But the fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses
The dismissiveness is often a signal, that was his point.
BTC has grown too far to be compared to Columbus setting out anyways, it's reached widespread access and accessibility, there are public companies devoted to it's access, BTC ETFs, etc.
We've reached the point where the cynicism is backed by reality. I think the fact we're now abandoning the currency pipedream for the most well known cryptocurrency says it all.
The point is to keep in mind that just because people are laughing doesn't mean you're a genius, but people do also mock people doing great things.
Elon Musk is another easy example, look at the HN dismissal of Tesla and SpaceX over the years - even in the face of obvious massive success. You basically have to dismiss the naysayers and evaluate things for yourself.
... why? Any point of view, pro or against, should be evaluated for substance.
Telsa naysayers were going on about things like "the quality sucks" "Promising FSD today is incredibly stupid", etc... well they were right? Quality has been varying depending on which part of the car you look like in a very "one step forward two steps back" way, FSD hardware did end up changing and the FSD beta is a farce, etc.
The only naysayers to dismiss are people who can't justify their position, but the same also goes for people who support something without being able to justify it. The problem isn't "naysaying", it's not saying anything at all.
I'd argue the problem is often overconfidence everywhere mixed with people who don't know what they're talking about.
I agree that stuff needs to be evaluated for substance, I just think there tends to be a pretty extreme status-quo bias by default so a naysayer is more likely to be wrong because of that.
The future of crypto for anyone other than an anacap libertarian is CBDCs.
CBDC's _might_ fill that void, but governments would need to treat it as infrastructure and not exercise some of the power that companies like Visa enjoy (blocking otherwise legal transactions).
To be fair, crypto hasn't really stepped up as being fantastic even for those fringe goods (insufficient adoption, painful user experience), but some utility still exists.
Yep, I agree.
> CBDC's _might_ fill that void, but governments would need to treat it as infrastructure and not exercise some of the power that companies like Visa enjoy (blocking otherwise legal transactions).
I'll be the first to say that the current legacy financial system is no panacea. Visa and Mastercard should be infrastructure just as you say. In my opinion, they should be required by law not to discriminate against any legal transactions and have safe harbor.
That said ACH carries all legal transactions without discrimination. I don't know why CBDCs wouldn't do the same.
What we need isn't crypto, it's payment network neutrality. The legacy financial system needs a refactor, but crypto ain't it. It's strictly worse in every way.
This is the most important financial lesson of the pandemic for me.
There is something deeply wrong with many parts of our economy and financial system, any one who is an expert in any specific area will tell you that things seem weird and don't make sense.
A great example of this is ad tech. I've worked in ad tech for many years and strongly agree with Tim Hwang's Subprime Attention Crisis. Everything is a house of cards, fraud (intentional or not) is wide spread.
However one thing that Hwang (or anyone pointing out that our systems are houses of cards, scams, or otherwise unsound) fails to answer is the question "what makes it fall apart?"
I'm a huge fan of at least the film version of the Big Short, which does a great job exploring the 2008 financial crisis and how unstable our financial system can be. But it's important to recognize that a key part of everyone's discovery isn't just realizing "this is all bullshit" it's realizing precisely when and why reality will come crashing in. There's even a great scene where Michael Burry calls the major banks and realizes that they essentially won't let the market collapse until they get their piece, that they can essentially push back reality a bit until they get theirs.
So crypto may be unquestionably a ponzi scheme, but what will make that scheme fall apart? ad tech might be mostly bs, but what will make everyone stop paying into it? stock prices maybe completely out of line with reality (with inflation and cash injections who even knows) but what will force them to face reality?
We may all be living in la la land, a wild fever dream, but pointing out you're in a dream doesn't always make you wake up. The question is "what precisely will wake us up". And for all the things that seem very wrong with our current world, I have yet to hear anyone give a concise answer or even guess as to what this is. If the pandemic didn't knock over our house of cards, I'm not entirely sure what will or when it will happen. If Wile E. Coyote never looks down after running of a cliff, will he still fall?
The funny thing is, I clicked on a few articles about NFT's and the metaverse because I was interested in the programming behind it and now my morning feed is filled with articles about "How to invest in crypto!", "We can tell you how to beat th crypto market!", "Check out these super looking graphs of crypto prices!".
I wouldn't have a problem with this if there wasn't so much inequality at the human level. A schoolteacher should not be struggling to pay their rent when obvious bullshit NFTs are selling for hundreds of thousands of dollars and startups with barely a product and no revenue are raising A rounds.
> Now, an effort is underway to force the exchanges to report real numbers.
I can’t believe this isn’t fraud of some sort already
https://techcrunch.com/2019/01/29/facebook-project-atlas/?gu...
https://techcrunch.com/2019/02/21/facebook-removes-onavo/
https://www.pcmag.com/news/7-vpn-services-found-recording-us...
Is that the royal "we", or do you mean to include other people that may or may not share your opinion?