Hacker News Reader

Comment by throwaway22032 | Hacker News Reader

throwaway22032

Ten years of this is just so _boring_.

The media is trying _so hard_ to push the narrative that these exchanges matter. They just don't.

They only matter to people who are obsessed with making cryptocurrency into traditional regulated finance.

That would be cryptocurrency dying, because then it would simply be a very inefficient system for bank transfers. Just as a road legal Formula 1 car would be something else entirely.

Does Z library going under mean that book piracy is going to zero? Does it prove that buying books is the future?

Does Twitter going through struggles mean that online messaging is going to zero?

Does a tech hiring downturn mean that programmers are worthless and going to zero?

View on HN

This is a silly take. Bitcoin's value depends on the leverage and wash-trading generated on the exchanges, and on the exchanges to generate a steady supply of "greater fools" to buy Bitcoin. Fundamentally, Bitcoin has failed as both a store of value and as a medium of exchange-- the cost to run the mining network is greater than the value created.

No doubt the ponzi schemers will reboot the casino, and Bitcoin in some form will live forever, and ETH proof of stake holds real promise. But FTX signals the next leg down for Bitcoin, likely the collapse of Tether, and a return to 2016 valuations.

Over a million people lost billions of dollars in the FTX collapse/apparent fraud. This is the most important financial story in a generation, nothing "boring" about it!

> the cost to run the mining network is greater than the value created

No evidence is offered about this at all. But even so mining should be a pretty low-margin and relatively risky endeavor. You don't want mining to be profitable.

The worst part of fiat is that rent-seekers are chasing after the money spigot and devising ways to profit off how fiat is "mined." It's the Cantillon effect.

I commented elsewhere using an analogy I quite liked:

You don't say that sausages are worthless just because the dog ate a couple that were left on the kitchen counter.

The problem may be the dog, or the lack of discipline by the owner, or whoever left the sausages out on the counter, but the one thing free from any accusation of blame is the fucking sausages.

That's a good argument for continuing to explore cryptocurrency-adjacent tech (or simply programming, if you like), but not necessarily purchasing and promoting the use of cryptocurrencies.

There is a confusing entanglement between the thoughts about the technology vs the thoughts about actually doing financial transactions with it. I have admiration for the developers and awe at the websites, games and services that were spawned, the technology. As a financial construct it's a perfect storm for exploitation; human nature + unregulated hyper-capitalism = bad.

Not even going to the level of promoting or purchasing, just not "now it should no longer exist".

Regulation is required, As much as for banking because consumer funds are being stored and / or transferred.

FTX was just grossly, fraudulently mismanaged and I'm not actually sure the exact machinations of regulation that could ensure that kind of thing doesn't happen - regular reporting of figures, independent audits, etc, but then with the money FTX had been throwing around it would have been easy to fake reports and pay for clean audits (in my layman view of a very complex landscape).

The thing is that regulation could very easily require that exchanges be decentralised.

But that won't happen because money laundering is a religious belief. Instead we'll just get more stupid attempts to watch the watchmen.

Well unless it's a piece of plastic disguising as a sausage sold at the price of a sausage. There s never been a sausage man.

The sausage is a lie.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com