Crypto has become the ultimate swamp asset
economist.com
economist.com
I’m not sure why this simple narrative isn’t more common, but one guess is that the media is largely dominated by institutional players (deeply plugged into finance) and the simultaneous “death” of cyberpunk & cypherpunk as original culture, rather than just a video game aesthetic. Makes me wish that Satoshi had released bitcoin in 1995 or 2005, when that culture was still alive.
and also tech journalism as a whole is pretty abysmal to begin with
How did we get here? The Telecom Act of 1996 legalized cross-media ownership and an unprecedented degree of consolidation across all forms of media, news and otherwise. Those rules existed to promote local journalism and independent voices. We now have no local journalism and no independent voices that are staffed and budgeted for doing real, investigative journalism.
Now journalists say what their corporate parent tells them to say; the ones who refused were fired years ago. The ones who stuck around work really hard to obscure this fact because they're clinging to their jobs in a declining industry. We went from a press that was the envy of the world to a cartel of decaying shills. Either reform the industry and break up the monopolies or just terminate it and fire everyone.
I have time on the side, because working for the man gives me the freedom to do things other than surviving.
Long lives commerce and capitalism.
The issue is that journalism is monopolized. The industry was restructured into an anti-competitive cartel.
It is oligarchic now, not capitalistic (it is no longer a free market).
This is not 1995 anymore, when there was an air of naive optimism about technology, and everyone thought that would only be a force for progress and good.
When crypto was on the rise, many people warned against it. There were many who were skeptical.
Those who were building it were in on the grift. Gesturing to some shadowy cabal of people that subverted crypto into something it was not meant to be is just giving a pat on the head to people that were willingly building something very destructive for their own damn benefit.
"I was just summoning demons because they look cool, I didn't expect those evil cultists to sacrifice a child in a pentagram" is not a valid line of defense.
Case in point: this site is called Hacker News and it’s run by a venture capital investment firm. Those two things (hacker/cyberpunk culture and VCs) would probably have seemed almost antithetical in the 90s.
Hippie and punk were really the same thing, with different haircuts. Both were useless beyond selling lifestyle.
"cyberpunk" always carried an aesthetic baggage that accomplished nothing, but there was still something there, and it is still there, if you know where to look. I think the deterioration of the political situation in the US and Europe has people dusting off their cyberpunk inclinations. I know that it has lit a fire under me.
Broadly speaking, I divide people into builders and redistributors according to their primary approach to life - not just their job but their belief system - both how they seek to keep themselves fed and what they enjoy doing.
The thing is, builders are driven by the need to create and that's what occupied most of their time and energy. Sure, they publish their stuff but that's not their primary driver.
Then redistributors notice what they've built and see ways to make money off of it. And because good advertising is way more effective at convincing people to give you their money than simply having a good product, in the end it's them who end up building the narrative because it's them who invest way more time into publicizing the thing.
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(Note I am not saying all redistributors are bad, there are plenty of honest and socially positive jobs which don't build stuff but have a positive outcome for everyone involved. But I feel like increasingly more and more of the population is preoccupied by how to make the most money with the least effort.
Maybe I need better terminology and split redistributors into two categories.)
I’m a child of the 90s. The exuberant promise of the wonders of free access to information really fell short and transformed the world in odious ways. We gave access to a vast swath of human knowledge, but instead consume gambling, porn and think the world is flat.
Crypto is no different. We created a means to transfer wealth like the modern financial system without any controls… and shocking… we created a fertile environment for cons and criminals of all stripes to operate at greater scale than ever before.
See Penny Arcade comic from 2004:
* https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19/green-blackboa...
So while the regular internet might be host to Wikipedia as well as social media, the ONLY people switching to crypto payments are those who are willing to take the hit to evade the authorities.
Personally, I think Solana does the best at balancing the original cypherpunk ethos while ultimately driving towards the future with crypto being the rails for natively programmatic global commerce.
You have to remember that for about a year and a half, everyone thought Solana was dead / doomed to fail.
Yes, a lot of techno anarchist and ancaps were part of the scene - with grand dreams of defi taking over the world.
These days it has just evolved into play money for finance bros and hedge funds, and more lately, a mechanism for circumventing corruption for the powerful and wealthy.
Makes it a perfect place to run investment frauds, scams, Ponzi schemes and other activities that would be illegal in the regular financial sector. Also attracts criminals, tax evaders and money launderers.
Meanwhile it’s slow and cumbersome enough that anyone not seriously motivated to operate beyond the reach of the law stick with existing systems for convenience.
I'm not sure how crypto continues to gain mainstream adoption in the face of that, no matter how much excitement there is for it in the current US administration.
My previous argument was that a technology where losing your password means you lose your net worth was incompatible with how human beings actually work. This kidnapping thing appears to be getting a whole lot more media coverage than that.
Likewise being able to ransom people half way across the world and knowing there is an irreversible way you can get them to transfer the money across borders makes ransomware possible.
now it's way easier to track public blockchain transaction chains on Bitcoin, Ethereum and the like than it is to track bank transfers across countries
Bank transfers are A) linked to a passport and B) can be blocked.
It’s not that hard to cover your tracks. And sometimes it doesn’t matter if your beyond the reach of the authorities in the country the crimes were committed.
So was speculation.
Crypto is just another value carrier. Password is just a risk factor, like trust in govt is.
The whole "time immemorial" argument is a little silly when we put it in the context of modernity: we have safeguards people didn't have "before money was invented" because we're the beneficiaries of a sophisticated set of social rules intended to protect people. Getting rid of those safeguards because they're recent is fairly likely to make our lives worse.
And you never know when safeguards will turn against the beneficiaries, like Freedom Convoy https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/emergencies-act-banks-ottaw...
History has this way of repeating itself. And it seems the blind will never see. Those who can see, just keep working. Talk is cheap. We will drag humanity into the future kicking and screaming if needed, because we know what waits for us on the other side.
Irreversible transactions make scammy businesses more profitable.
A2A is becoming a thing, and now it's a realistic thing to potentially expose an agent on a public endpoint to do useful work. Agents working with agents is a very clear future direction.
But everything is a closed ecosystem. But with the addition of a few extra fields to an Agent card (chain name, accepted tokens, cost) and perhaps a transaction addition to the task/send interface. We could build a network of agents working for agents. Compatible with each other. It doesn't have to be all on-chain. It's just the economic layer. You host the agent, the agent accepts payments. The agent makes payments. All the crypto tech we need already exists.
Use USDC, don't have to worry about speculation driving up costs. Use a network like SOL, AVAX, SUI and the transaction will be finalized in seconds.
Credits should be transferable, and not locked in little ecosystem.
We could take it one stop further. Prices could be dynamic. If GPU usage is high, cost should be high. If demand low, price should be low. Outages are a pricing issue, not a technical issue.
And agents just make it easier.
What HTTP headers are used? What's the body of the HTTP 402 response? The docs don't say any of that, they just say `npm install x402`.
Because that's my bar for "does payments really well".
Sure, I can't spend my Amazon gift cards for my Warframe platinum. Yeah, Amazon could strike a deal with Digital Extremes. And maybe I could even use that platinum on Fortnite skins. But their respective deals will happen in dollars, not dogecoins.
I see lots of spam videos, pictures and texts that flood insta, Youtube etc. to monetize on ad revenue or simply scam people.
I think cryptocurrency aren’t any better if you compare legit uses vs criminal ones.
> Should we not consume energy at all?
No need for a strawman. Prevention of wasteful use doesn’t mean no use at all.
You are advocating for more fucking cryptocurrency.
You don't get to ignore any response as "a tired old debate devoid of facts".
It's fine to point out the energy waste of more traditional PoW chains (particularly Bitcoin, which accounts for the bulk of PoW), but to frame that as a problem with blockchains in general is misguided.
Bitcoin is still the biggest player in the cryptocurrency world, so still a lot of wasted energy.
If Bitcoin fails then it seems to me the bottom will fall out of all of crypto So all of it still depends on PoW propping up BTC.
Or do you mean in the sense that (some argue) the most fair way to do an initial token distribution is PoW with no premine?
https://pocket.network/case-study-building-a-decentralized-d...
I don’t disagree that it would be nice to be able to do this, but barring some black swan-esque event that changes how people see these things, it’ll probably always be somewhat niche compared to more permissioned or centralized systems. That or the decentralized systems will need to be VERY competitively priced to make the value-prop a bit more of a slam dunk for making this more widespread outside of philosophically-aligned hardliners and idealists
Sounds like things are working just fine without the extra cryptocurrency step.
Even the Fed is counting on the "economy to grow faster than the debt". It's like a fiction world. I fully expect a "crypto equivalence" executive order for things where the US can muscle trade partners.
or the bypass paywalls extension, or probably a number of other ways.
All three of those countries have restrictions/regulations on converting crypto currencies into local currencies - doesn't crypto just move the the problem to converting it to local currency?
1. You want to convert the "hard" currency into the local currency
2. You want to convert the local currency back to the hard currency
3. You want to send hard currency back
Often there are official rates set by the central bank in these countries, and then there are black market rates. Banks etc will convert hard currency to local currency only using the official rates, which tends to be a lot lower than the black market rate, so you get shafted by that in the first instance. Then, when you want to convert the local currency back, banks won't sell it to you because the government does not let them sell hard currency to the general population. Finally, sending hard currency abroad is usually de facto (and sometimes also de jure) banned so your money can't leave the country once it's in. And as a last resort if you say screw you I will withdraw e.g. USD notes and take a flight, banks will refuse to give cash hard currency.
Obviously crypto lets you sidestep all that as nothing can prevent you from sending USDT from your wallet.
While it is useful for this case, it is not 'legit', in that its purpose is to by-pass (break even) laws of the country with the capital controls. In that sense, money laundering is also a legit use-case.
Most arguments for cryptocurrency are just as weak as this one.
Crypto allows my family members to bypass arbitrary restrictions set by one such kleptocrat right now so the benefit is very much more than marginal.
By sending your family money, as crypto or US dollars, you have to assume some percentage of that money is going to end up in the kleptocrat's pocket. If the funds are eventually settled through official exchanges in the country, its very likely that the government gets a cut of the exchange transactions. If its being settled by unofficial exchanges like street exchange vendors, those individuals probably pay some bribe or tax to operate that eventually makes its way back to the kleptocrat. Additionally you are offering the kleptocrat increased liquidity by operating with crypto. Assume the kleptocrat is the largest buyer of cryptocurrencies in their country.
Bitcoin generally appreciated, where fiat had inflation.
While the transaction costs/speed have eliminated this, there was a few years of my life that I both sent money to friends and used a Bitcoin debit card.
One must ask whether the Bitcoin valuation has raised 1000% because the fiat has inflated as much, or is it mostly driven by speculation. For reference point, the buying power of fiat currency has not changed dramatically during the same period.
Society has been struggling for decades to overcome prohibition via political channels, and watching as multiple generations have been damaged by its impact on local economies, civil liberties, and the boon to criminal cartels.
Then, a mathematical solution arises which unambiguously undermines this regime, and somehow that's a bad thing?!
You're proposing that it's a technological solution to a societal problem. These only last as long as a particular regulatory body / regime allows them to.
Mining. It has long been infeasible for anyone without prior capital and investment. Ban that - you can easily get a lead through the electricity bill - viola.
Private key custody. Even technologically-inclined individuals mess it up from time to time. Hence the proliferation of centralised services to keep the keys ("wallets") for you. Block the exchange. QED.
Fraud generally has good returns for the fraudsters.
the only way to get "fleeced" like a "rube" is to sell or never buy.
There is substantially more to it than that but I will let you chew that over just to point out how blatantly incorrect your prior is.
Your moral equivocation is utterly irrelevant.
Payment processors essentially get to dictate what is and is not allowed to be financially viable which is a very powerful form of control over culture.
Crypto is just speed running the 19th century and making us re learn all the reasons why we made the pre crypto regulations.
Because the CEO of one could read a false news article about your site and prohibit you from transacting with them anymore. Your existence is at the whims of a few people.
In theory, but it doesn’t in practice. Most crypto transfers never make it to the blockchain, they happen entirely in SQL databases of exchanges.
Also, Tether has complete control over USDT and can block or reverse any payment or freeze any account it wants. No bank or payment processor in the world has such centralized control over the traditional financial system.
If anything, crypto is more centralized by comparison. Both in terms of payment processors as well as wealth distribution.
In practice neither exchanges or Tether have made any attempts at refusing to allow payments to legal businesses as far as I'm aware. So in practice it does.
Russian here. My forgotten Bitcoin stash saved my ass multiple times by providing a way to transfer money to a friend abroad who then paid for my western expenses (hosting, VPNs etc.) using his Visa / MC cards.
Also, a lot of programmers who emigrated from Russia to countries such as Georgia in 2022 were using USDT as a way to receive their salaries.
Did you know in some countries, a good loan for someone with perfect credit is 20% apr? Do you know in some countries police can confiscate all the money you have and never give it back? Have you ever heard of civil asset forfeiture? Did you know in some countries, just protesting can have your accounts frozen? Did you know in some countries, sending money can take over 3 days with no knowledge of what is happening to your money during that time? Did you know that Debit and Wire transfer often cost well over $20 to perform?
This list could go on for days. Only fools would speak about crypto so confidently without doing a minimal investigation into its utility.
Only fools would speak about a technological solution without understating the reality, that technology still leans on society, power structures, and ability to enforce laws.
Civil disobedience works as a means to shift the rules, the balance of power; you can't maintain it perpetually. P2P eventually shifted the attention of the recording industry to online distribution. People jumped to Netflix and iTunes, because they became more convenient, while providing good value for the money.
Challenging media empires was child's play compared to challenging the world's financial system. Bitcoin has successfully illustrated a new and better way. Presidents have been killed for less. Civil rights activists have been killed for less.
Bitcoin and the crypto economy is now inevitable, just as gasoline vehicles became inevitable, and a nuclear armed world became inevitable. The world is changing, please do not let your self-identity interfere with the reality of this.
When a new and revolutionary invention becomes part of the human mental strata, you cannot take it back. This has never been done before since the knowledge of building a campfire or sharpening rocks. It doesn't matter how powerful, stable, beneficial, or otherwise the old system was. It has been super-ceded by something that outcompetes it.
That's reality. I hope that you and others like you realize it and have a prosperous life.
- paying/receiving bribes
- bypassing international sanctions to finance wars
There's a lot of uses for cryptocurrency and only a very small fraction are good for individuals.
Also there are plenty of blackmarket goods that are heavily restricted and legally punished without good cause, and I do not believe just because something is "illegal" that it is automatically bad.
Crypto has many different useful applications. One of the main ones: limited supply (I am aware not all crypto has a cap).
Hey now. There's also trading child pornography.
No, crypto does not need regulation. Law-based order needs crypto regulation. That's a big difference already. But we can go further than that. What if we don't get crypto regulation, what happens to law-based order exactly?
Trump is not the kind of guy to build businesses and create wealth. He more like kinda goes through them. He's not the guy to invest, he's the guy to cash out. Right now, he's cashing out of the US economy. Lots of real value is there for him to extract that is completely unprotected.
Trump is right. All those assets exist, and he can take them, destroy them, and liquidate them. He has that power. He is permitted. It is a programme, and his execution is successful. There's no point saying "but he can't do that, it would be unethical". Sure it's unethical, dumb, and nonsensical, but at face value, he can do all of that. No point in saying "but he can't do that, America would never be the same". That argument is reactionary, of course everything was going to change anyways.
So, let's face it. A president that is not going to miss his chance to join the true billionaires club (10+ b), a ruling class of industry leaders like it existed 120 years ago. Whether he stays president doesn't even matter. Government programmes are going down the drain, America's influence in the world deteriorates, trade volume breaking down, a less smart military will have to deal with more conflicts.
The only question in that turmoil is going to be what constitues a winner. Right now, everybody is buying crypto like lottery tickets, and it becomes self-fulfilling. Mid-term it might be Florida real estate. Long term? Who knows.
I'd actually like for somebody to really paint this picture and fill in the details. Stopping at the first inflection point that is somewhat scary is unproductive, we've been reading those takes for a year now.
Among average Americans, the biggest advantage for promoters is the widespread susceptibility to scams. FartCoin, $TRUMP, and BitCoin are equally buoyant unless you know just a little about the technology and culture. Demographics might change this before education does. That’s the second inflection point.
The third inflection point is how the politically-connected holders will manipulate hard forks, say due to a quantum breakthrough in Grover. Once we start seeing forged signatures, will we roll Ethereum back to last June? Or back to Tuesday?
National bailouts going into an international fund are going to be a global power readjustment. Fun times.
My personal guess for an inflection point is civil unrest. Doge are already tightening the belts for the lower class. Nobody has really figured out how far they can take it. Police has been arming itself for the last decade or two, that started way before Trump, and they have been ready to thwart any uprising. But I am wondering if something is going to happen regardless. Civil war is only a bad idea as long as there are other options.