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Comment by rybosworld | Hacker News Reader

Never ceases to surprise me when folks align cryptocurrency with these things.

Money laundering, drug dealing, scamming old people, these things have all existed well before cryptocurrency.

Arguing that central banks and a few other non-elected decision makers should be able to influence our lives by devaluing our savings is... insane. It's Stockholm syndrome really.

A few wealthy people decide your money should be worth less because a bunch of other wealthy people have made bad decisions for decades and now there's too much money floating around. Coincidentally, the interest rate adjustments won't tangibly affect the wealthy people! That's not something I want to continue to support.

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> Arguing that central banks and a few other non-elected decision makers should be able to influence our lives by devaluing our savings is... insane

Perhaps, but a currency that devalues based on news, scams, pump & dump schemes, and so forth isn't the solution. Crypto doesn't transfer the power of value to you, it transfers to people with a big enough following - or botnet - to amplify whatever news (false or not) that impacts their crypto the way they want it, up or down.

Your premise is reasonable, but your conclusion doesn't logically follow from it.

> Perhaps, but a currency that devalues based on news, scams, pump & dump schemes, and so forth isn't the solution.

This is an accurate characterization of the dollar as well.

A common theme in all the cryptocurrency hate is that crypto enables scams, drug deals, etc. It's value fluctuates because of the decisions of a few bad actors. The dollar and every other central bank currency also have these issues.

The dollar recently peaked around a 9% inflation rate.

The euro peaked around 10%.

I could also make an argument that these numbers are actually understated but that's not the point. These are supposedly stable currencies. A person who has saved up ~100K Euros by January 2022 now only has ~90k Euros in January 2023. That's some pretty significant volatility. Unfortunately, the central bank currency's never go back up in terms of purchasing power. They only go down.

> This is an accurate characterization of the dollar as well.

Not in the way you're saying - it's a matter of degree. When Theranos scammed hundreds of millions, the dollar didn't drop in value, nor has that ever happened.

You seem to have unconventional definitions of "stable" and "volatile". Calling a 10% devaluation in 1 year volatile is laughable compared to crypto. For example BTC -65% in 1 month (1/6/18 to 2/6/18) or how about TerraUSD, -80% in less than 1 week, 5/9-5/14/22.

Fiat and crypto aren't even in the same galaxy when it comes to volatility.

I think one of the best cases against crypto, is just how much the volatility in Crypto is a feature not a bug. Crypto is how people will make it rich, and rising 7% in a year doesn't enable that. Imagine a world where crypto routinely beat the major indexes by a point, so bitcoin being worth now around $1500, Eth $200. They would have been one of the most fantastic investments you could have made, and still a robust currency, but how much hype would they have made?

> I could also make an argument that these numbers are actually understated but that's not the point. These are supposedly stable currencies. A person who has saved up ~100K Euros by January 2022 now only has ~90k Euros in January 2023. That's some pretty significant volatility.

And? Is it even coming close to the volatility of the most popular coins?

> Unfortunately, the central bank currency's never go back up in terms of purchasing power. They only go down.

With good reason! Deflation is one of the greatest worries in any economy.

Rome wasn't built in one day, as the total market cap grows, price fluctuation will become irrelevant.

> That's not something I want to continue to support.

What’s your solution?

Not the parent but buying assets and not holding more fiat than I need personally.

Yeah.

Each medium of wealth storage has tradeoffs, so being categorically opposed to one type because of ideological principles seems suboptimal to me.

For example, fiat may be subject to devaluation, but is stable, widely accepted, highly liquid and (cash) is anonymous.

Bitcoin is subject to speculation, so prices are highly volatile, amongst other downsides.

Land tends to maintain or grow in value, subject to interest rates, tax environment, and adjacent developments, and is very illiquid.

They'll be aligned with those things as long as crypto is the "other" network where people go to do things you can't do with existing payment processors. Without a killer app to drive "normal" people it will stay this way.

It's the same reason why free-as-in-anarchy speech social networks become far right cesspools [1], you have little reason to switch unless you're someone who's been kicked off the major platforms.

[1] I really don't mean to pick on the right wing nutjobs, it's just that the "far left" doesn't exist in the US so you don't find groups pushing for violent worker uprisings, seizing control of industry, and significant wealth redistribution, I'm sure they would split off the mainstream too.

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