Wow that's might be an record for worst analogy ever. A cult needs a figurehead and leader which is the exact opposite of this technology is trying to accomplish, here a suggestion, don't use the word "believe", it's technology, go read the white paper and the science behind it.
Poorly worded on my part, I meant
> as long as new investors contribute new funds, and as long as most of the investors do not demand full repayment and still believe in the non-existent assets they are purported to own.
As mentioned this happens a lot with shitcoins and yield farmers, its rather easy to setup, but is not indicative of the industry, and the main source to blame for this misconception is the media, because you certainly cannot justify it if you understood the technology.
That's not how decentralized blockchains work, you participate in staking or as a validator, there are no "companies", it's open source and decisions ar3 made from the ground up, meaning your are a participant. Also to say every node needs a full copy is about 5 years behind what's currently happening in the space.
MetaMask is a wallet, its not ingrained into any blockchain, your free to use alternatives, and many protocols don't support it. The centralized aspect of a chrome app and marketplace like opensea is very well know issue and talked about a lot in crypto, the problem of course comes down to lack of education, which is apparent in this very post.
By definition something with a finite supply cannot be a pyramid scheme, in fact in most cases there are no parallels whatsoever to crypto and pyramid schemes. There are some pyramid schemes within the shitcoin scam and yield farmer communities, but to think that's represents the industry is highly ignorant.
It's not gate-kept by two centralized entities at all, there are a lot of alternatives many completely decentralized. This author is clearly new to the space and hasn't really done much research, outside 5 minutes of google.
Your wrong. BTC is the 100$ in your wallet because it's literally in your digital wallet, your solely responsible for it. On the other hand a digital custody provider (which now has legal banking status in several countries) is much more like an insured bank.
Yes actually it is, because the analogy is your storing your fiat in your house or in your pocket, which can of course be robbed, have you even insured cash stored in your house or pocket, I highly doubt it.
Just like fiat you can store your crypto with an insured custody provider (and still own your own keys), which is the norm with smart people who have a decent amount of crypto assets.
This is so wrong it's astonishing, web 3 is build build using principles and designs that are decades in the making, literally 30-40 years of cryptography, zero knowledge proofs, game theory, and advanced mathematics. It's incredible that these ideas and academic papers are finally becoming real. The web 3 movement is very inclusive, but technology moves forwards not backwards.
I'm old enough to remember web 1, web 2, and web 3 , thinking web3 is a casino is ridiculously immature, it's how get rich quick moonboys and the mainstream media view blockchain, without actually spending the time researching the technology and understanding basic economic principles.
First off no one is guessing your key, do the math, it's ridiculously impossible. Secondly if someone finds your key that's your problem, its the same as any real life key, it's not magic. 3rdly no leap in computing, even quantum is going to change the fact that no one is guessing your keys. And bitcoin does not require the internet, it only needs to communicate with other nodes, there is even a blockstream satellite you can use right now without internet access. This level is technical ignorance is pretty astounding.
Don't assume they don't. Most platforms not only enable multiple forms of security, you even get rewards if you choose better security. I use an exchange the uses double security, meaning you have 20 seconds to verify via email and 2FA, and on top of that the logins, withdrawals and transfers all have sperate passwords..and your able to rate limit them based on time periods.
Most of the knew jerk reactions in here really don't see to know very much about how this actually works and how it's actually the users responsibility at the end of the day.
Are you not aware of cold storage? Do you think people store millions on their laptops? Smart people use traditional means to store their crypto, literally paper in banks, custodians with insurance, actual vaults, etc, etc.
You're never going to get away from regulation on centralized exchanges. Have a look at injective , its a decentralized derivatives exchange, afterall crypto is meant to be decentralized.
This isn't new, nor is it only related to China. Mexico, Russia, many middle east countries, and whole slew of other places has poured billions of cash into Canadian real estate. It's done via regulated banks who turn a blind eye because there nothing illegal about how it's being done. The are skyrises being built in every major city in which 95% of the tenants are not Canadian, and they sit practically empty. Some city blocks are a virtual ghost town of empty buildings the most Canadians can't even afford.
As an outsider who speaks both french and english, and has been to both countries, it always stuck me how similar Americans and French people are. Both sides would rather die than admit they are so similar in terms of spirit an attitude, and this brotherly hate is the main reason they are so similar. It's pretty funny.
It's not a class issue, at least in some Countries. People I've met in the industry who don't have a comp/eng degree are typically more entrepreneurial ( and really smart), the education system was slow and boring and VERY outdated, they felt more effective not wasting time. I've worked with some really bad programmers who had masters degrees, after 2 decades I found that a degree really had no bearing on how effective someone was, it really came down to the actual person.
The problem as someone noted is HR doing the vetting, HR is in most cases filled with administrators, not problem solvers. I don't have anything good to say about HR.
Rats tend to be complete sociopath's and in many cases psychopaths, the police need to be held more accountable for onboarding these personalities instead of covering their own asses. There are several cases in Canada in which paid informants lied for years (decades) causing massive harm, and 2 cases which ended in mass murder, while still on police payroll. Yet the police somehow wash their hands of it all.
> Whether it's useful is not important, only whether we can make money off of it
I never said that.
Emotions, morals, and use cases have no place when you look logically at what blockchain is, at it's very heart it's pure math. People certainly make money using math, but that not the point.
No matter how much people try to add their own bullshit on top of blockchain, it's human nature to measure value and use economic agents. Both math and blockchain have to same primary function, ascertaining truth, which is the most important factor in economics.
Yes exactly, use cases are not important. This is how wall street works, giving the same features to citizens instead of large financial firms is an important distinction, and the reason why, unlike tulips, it will not fade away.
Crypto is a tradable asset, and like any other tradable asset you can make money with it. In other words you can make money with money, just like a bank, only decentralized. It's not about the technology of the banks or crypto per se, but the primary function of what banks actually do, which is save or lend money (really both).
If you think crypto currency was created to buy hamburgers, or make your energy bill more efficient to pay, as the saying goes " you can't see the forest for the trees". When was the last time you used bond certificate to pay for dinner?
The fact that people are making money and lots of it in crypto using traditional financial instruments is all the proof you need to know that it has a use case.
Well it is when you realize the main feature of crypto is a decentralized bank and not a centralized one. A concept which makes it truly revolutionary in the time scale of humans using banks, but also very challenging as a technology.
The speed and security is constantly being worked on, there are other protocols like Solana which has a peak of 65k transactions per second.
Crypto is still a baby, saying it's slow short sighted to say the least.