I feel ppl like you act in very bad faith, but you also claim crypto isn’t even financial infrastructure, so perhaps you’re just clueless.
I don't see how this refutes anything above. Just because it is technical doesn't mean it isn't a gambling den and that it isn't being used to fleece suckers.
The argument can go both ways.
Reason I point that out is there are somethings I like, that I don't find comparable to other services and just convenient, not necessarily revolutionary.
For example, give me a cloud platform that has the same pricing structure for developers. The pricing structure is that I only pay once application deployment, and then get unlimited reads at any amount of bandwidth for free, and all my users pay to update my variables and database, instead of me. That's not the case with GCP, Azure, AWS and anything non-blockchain that I've looked at. I like that development environment. I like that the users are willing to pay and have an insatiable demand of doing so. I don't care that the same application could work at orders of magnitude greater throughput on other cloud systems when the users now have to be found and then go through a 12-step funnel to be convinced to use credit card rails. So that observation is going to continue attractive developers and their whole networks.
I enjoy the instant collateralized lending. That's revolutionary in the sense that the speed is light years better.
I enjoy the price discovery that allows for the instant collateralized lending.
I enjoy the free and standardized API access that allows for the price discovery.
I enjoy being able to chain actions across distinct services. Especially consequential financial actions, but also not necessarily.
I enjoy being able to simulate the state of the entire economy, to see what affects what. Since you can branch off of a blockheight and prod locally.
I like that there's enough people there for any of this to matter. I'm not someone that needs the "revolutionizes" and "a billion users" goal posts. I think its right for people to be disillusioned by crypto enthusiast's ideological claims. Its still financial services, merely because there are finances to service. The same as how the non-crypto financial services industry works (the largest industry on the planet). It doesn't have to have utility to you, it just needs to reduce friction for the people that are already there, and there are lots now.
This doesn’t require the decentralization or chains, just the same development environment and distributed use of it amongst many organizations. But without the speculation component and confidence in the system, that won’t happen, in the mean time this exists and its fine.
Crypto just lets you watch it in real time. The efficacy of its transparency selling point is actually at the crux of criticisms.
Whether its simple noticing there’s a big market for collectibles, but pretending crypto’s version of collectibles are uniquely speculative problems.
Or seeing that the cryptocurrencies have wealth consolidated in the hands of a few, as if that undermines something about an infinitely divisible asset, while the criticism is describing state currencies.
We can see the phishing attacks and hacks globally, compared to not being able to see and quantify that outside of crypto, we choose not to make an international headline every time someone falls for a scam outside of crypto.
I find that very hard to believe without data.
I think you can corroborate that easily, you’ve put your attention on the verifiable aspect of crypto and can already see the consolidation
You haven’t seen the headlines about the traditional reality in a place you respect?
Seems like thats the only missing piece for that specific criticism.
* https://bitinfocharts.com/top-100-richest-bitcoin-addresses....
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-10-08/top-1-ear...
https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/wealth-inequality-o...
Pick whichever source you respect more so
A) we know its the same distribution with bitcoin
B) now you know its the same distribution as with other markets
C) knowing that and knowing that bitcoin didn't set out to change that, lets us focus on other things within the crypto ecosystem
The developer story is not the same as a speculator story
There is nothing technical about the biggest "stable coins" not being able to produce a single audit of their financials. The only thing they were able to show were "attestations" of USD in a bank account and even that was done by some shady accounting firms.
Stable coins and other tokens which are not native blockchain assets are referred to as cryptocurrencies (shiba inu is one such example of this which is not a stablecoin).
Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, Avalanche, and a bunch more are also the native token of their blockchain. In other words, they're the primary mechanism for rewarding participants in the blockchain at the node/consensus level for their efforts, and they're also the currency used for getting transactions included into blocks on their blockchains (for paying the transaction fee, also called "gas" on many chains).
Blockchains which have the capability of running user-submitted code are said to have "smart contracts", bits of code which execute when certain conditions are met during a transaction. Most chains with smart contract functionality also include standards for deploying what are referred to as "tokens" which are essentially smart contracts which provide a conforming interface for interacting with the token and tracking the balances of users on that blockchain.
While all tokens provide the same basic interface, they can also have custom code which affects the behaviour. In the case of most stablecoins (the centralized ones), that means privileged parties who can do things like mint new tokens, or blocklist addresses from being able to transact those tokens.
USDC for example, operates by allowing users to create an account with the issuer (Circle), deposit USD, and then have Circle "mint" new USDC tokens to your address. They also let users go the other way and redeem their USDC. However, not everyone who wants to hold USDC needs to mint it; they can also buy it on a centralized or decentralized exchange (decentralized exchanges also being governed by specialized smart contracts of various types).
There are also "algorithmic stablecoins" which, in theory, don't have privileged issuers, and use various protocols to attempt to "peg" the price to the price of some stable asset / USD (these are complicated, have many different methods of operation, and are not really proven to be completely resilient at this point). UST/LUNA was the big one that exploded about a year ago, vaporizing several billion dollars over the course of a few days.
So, "stablecoins" are a cryptocurrency, but not a native blockchain asset (unless there's a chain that primarily accounts in a stablecoin which I'm not aware of), and the primary stablecoins people hear about are also not decentralized.
Let the talkers talk. They are acting in bad faith by speaking as if knowing something when knowing the thing will 100% convert you to its side, unless you are a bad actor that profits off the corruption. There is a beautiful elegance to that. Since most people, I think, are "good," then naturally the conclusion is rightly just ignorance.
People who read the code and understand what the real deal looks like will profit. Fighting against math is always a losing battle.
You did not present any argument in your defense beyond "I looked at it, trust me br0", and then claimed the person you're responding to is acting in bad faith.
However, the Bayesian in me says that (from a simple search on, say, youtube or twitter), anyone who is extolling the virtues of crypto is highly likely to be selling me something worthless, and thus acting in bad faith. How do you expect people to reconcile these facts?
Neither did the other person.
> However, the Bayesian in me says that (from a simple search on, say, youtube or twitter), anyone who is extolling the virtues of crypto is highly likely to be selling me something worthless, and thus acting in bad faith. How do you expect people to reconcile these facts?
Opinions are not facts.
Wouldn't expect bagholders to know the difference.
However, if you read my comments carefully, you'll see that I described an experiment that anyone can repeat and reproduce to come to their own conclusion.
Thankfully I'm not a bagholder whose sinking bags rely on shilling and pump and dumping 24/7 on online forums, otherwise I would never have developed observational/experimental skills.
Just as a helpful summary, this is the conversation we're having:
A: Crypto Twitter/YouTube is full of shills and scammers.
B: But that's just like, your opinion, man!
A: Actually no, anyone can experience it for themselves.
B: Ehh, that's still SUBJECTIVE EXPERIENCE. I only bow to OBJECTIVE TRUTH.
A: ???
Ah, the classic "Few understand" attack of the buttcoin pumpers. I fear this may be hopeless, but for anyone else following this thread, I've worked at a DeFi startup during the now famed DeFi summer, and resigned soon after the company narrowly escaped the Terra Luna meltdown despite my repeated warnings.
So I understand the nature of this scam very well, probably better than the shiller above.
You can actually demonstrate proper understanding of things rather than continue the same old tired "I can cherrypick a couple scammers therefore the literal entirety of a whole category of technology and financial instruments must be a scam" at your leisure.
> I've worked at a DeFi startup during the now famed DeFi summer, and resigned soon after the company narrowly escaped the Terra Luna meltdown despite my repeated warnings.
Good for you. That doesn't mean your experience is representative. Not sure how many times you have to be informed that anecdotes are fundamentally flawed evidence-wise before it starts to stick.
> probably better than the shiller above.
You can name the thing I'm allegedly "shilling" at your leisure.
In the meantime, anyone else following this thread can see full well that you have no substantial argument here other than "crypto bad, my anecdotes matter more than your anecdotes, anyone who disagrees with me is a bagholder shill". If you've got nothing else to add beyond the same bullshit folks have been parroting for more than a decade now, then I rest my case.