As the AI market continues to balloon, experts are warning that its VC-driven rise is eerily similar to that of the dot com bubble.
As the AI market continues to balloon, experts are warning that its VC-driven rise is eerily similar to that of the dot com bubble.
NFTs yes but crypto is absolutely not a bubble. People are saying that for decades now and it hasn’t been truth. Yes there are shitcoins, just shitstocks. But in general, it’s definitely not a bubble but an alternative investing method beside stocks, gold etc.
Crypto is 100% a bubble. It’s not an investment so much as a ponzi, sure you can dump money into it and maybe even make money, doesn’t mean it doesn’t collapse on a whim when someone else decides to dip out or the government shuts it down. Its value is exactly that of NFT’s because it’s basically identical, just a string of characters showing “ownership” of something intangible
Whatever man, used electricity will become valuable someday, I just know it.
Being able to pay for things anonymously is very valuable to me and to many other people. That’s just one example of what this technology can be used for.
Bitcoin isn’t anonymous yet it’s the most valuable crypto. Monero is barely used. Most crypto people just want to get rich, they don’t actually care about using it.
100% a bubble
I could go to the local ATM and buy Bitcoin anonymously right now. So, unlike a credit card, it can be used anonymously. Monero is better of course and it doesn’t matter how many people use it. Even if a store doesn’t accept it directly, you can use it to buy gift cards for any store.
I don’t care what most crypto people do, it’s irrelevant, just like the price is irrelevant and doesn’t affect my ability to use this technology.
The ATM has a transaction time and your bitcoin transaction record. There are enough cameras in the cities near ATMs (for this very reason) that you can be tracked if the government found you as interesting as you think you might be.
This person probably thinks venmo is anonymous too.
You’d be better off going to the ATM and getting cash and then using that cash for your purchase if you wanted to remain anonymous.
Bitcoin keeps a transaction log that’s integral to the technology behind it, and is retained longer than fucking Chase Manhattan transaction logs.
That’s called ‘cash.’
And for online payments?
Mail cash in an envelope if you’re that concerned about it.
I know of only ProtonMail which lets you mail money.
It’s not even a ponzi scheme, it’s just a good old fashioned bubble.
It’s digital tulips.
The only way for someone to make money in crypto is for someone else to lose it.
Crypto is a scam.
Reminds me of money.
What is that even suppose to mean in this context?
So what’s the difference to money, stocks or every other investing option? There’s has to be someone who loses so someone different can win. We’re living in a capitalistic system, that’s how it works.
Money isn’t an investment, it’s a currency. Of course it’s a bad investment and investing in forex is barely a better investment than crypto (purely because there’s less risk of a sovereign currency devaluing to 0).
Investing in capital, like stocks, property, equipment etc does not require someone to lose money for the capital owner to profit. If I invest in a stock, each year I’m paid a dividend based on the profits of that organisation - no losers required. I could later sell that stock at the exact price I paid for it and come away with profit from those dividends. What determines whether it’s a good or bad investment, is the ratio of profit to the capital owner to cost of the asset. Crypto generates 0 profit, so it has 0 value as a capital investment.
Sooooo, the exact same premise with ehmmmm… Stocks.
You don’t understand how stocks work.
How is distributed ledger a scam? It’s nothing new and we know exactly how it works. It has nothing to do with making money. If I use it to pay for things online how am I getting scammed? I’m sorry, but it seems you don’t fully understand what this technology is.
The blazing fast technology that allows for up to 7 transactions a second worldwide? Amazing.
Don’t forget to pay your capital gains tax when you sell your butts online to buy your pizza.
The slow transaction speed is a valid criticism, but it doesn’t make this technology a scam. Different cryptocurrencies have different speeds. With Litecoin I think it takes me 40 minutes to pay for something. I still prefer that over being tracked by my bank or having to use PayPal. I think you can pay instantly with Dash, but I haven’t used it.
I don’t sell anything online, so what are you talking about?
I think people are using the word scam not in it’s strictest sense - that is to say, I don’t think Satoshi personally invented BTC to defraud everyone who bought it so in that sense, no, it is not a scam technically. A better way to describe it would be via the greater fool theory: the only way to make money is to find someone even more foolish than yourself to buy it.
Crypto as it is currently implemented is inefficient, riddled with problems, and is deflationary which you can argue about but most economists would say deflationary currencies are bad as they lead to shrinking economies and do not encourage investment.
There also aren’t that many problems that it ‘solves’ that aren’t already solvable by existing tech. And even in the case of things it’s useful for, if it were to be widely adopted the ‘benefits’ would be overshadowed by the massive new problems that would be created.
I think crypto will always have a niche, especially for black markers. I don’t think anything similar to currently existing crypto currencies will ever be adopted for widespread use as legal tender.
And as the other commenter pointed out, the tax situation is a nightmare. Even if you don’t sell online yourself, that’s a big hurdle to crypto achieving what many supporters claim it can do.
Cryptocurrency is not about making money. It’s a distributed ledger. Technology like that could maybe be a scam if it didn’t do what its creators claim it does. But it’s been around for a long time and we know exactly how it works.
It has problems, but like every technology it keeps improving. I choose to use it despite its flaws and will probably use it even more in the future.
It gives me privacy and anonymity when paying online. No other online payment technology does. It also doesn’t require trust, since it’s decentralized. I’m not aware of any other technology that solves those problems.
That’s possible, but over time it is accepted by more and more stores. So it keeps growing. But even if it didn’t, you can use crypto to buy gift cards for any store. It doesn’t have to be popular.
When someone wants to invest in crypto, I can see how that could be a problem. I just use it to pay for things online.
I would venture that the majority of people see it as an investment of one sort or another. I think the insane market cap, and the devestating effect the recent crash had on its reputation and use, are evidence of that.
Most cryptos have fundamental problems that I don’t see being fixed, eg it’s deflationary properties, BTC’s wasteful PoW, ETH skirting/crossing the boundary of being a security, etc.
This is like the one thing they are good for, and Monero is the best at it. This is an arguable point though, others may say that this is a negative due to the implications and governments have cracked down on privacy enhancing tools like Tornado Cash for this reason. I personally value privacy to an extent, but do not see the need in my life to use Monero. I certainly wouldn’t fault you for using it, though.
I think adoption has stagnated. And look at El Salvador, they basically had to force crypto on the populace and they use their own proprietary wallet, nullifying privacy benefits. And again, it is treated as an investment by the government there who are buying BTC to speculate.
Yeh this is dependant on your country. Here in Australia every crypto transaction is a capital gains event 🙄
You are right, but it doesn’t matter what most people think. I mean we should educate them about it, but their opinion is irrelevant.
Etherum has already switched from proof of work algorithm to less wasteful proof of stake. So it seems that at least that problem can be solved.
You should be able to buy any of the popular cryptocurrencies anonymously. They won’t make your payment history private like Monero does, but you will still be anonymous when paying.
I don’t know exact stats, but it’s bigger than I expected before I started looking into it. There are a lot of crypto ATMs now in cities, which you can see at https://coinatmradar.com. There are also some stores and restaurants that accept crypto, especially in the US (https://coinmap.org/view). You can also find some online services on https://cryptwerk.com. El Salvador is certainly messed up. Bitcoin probably isn’t even a good choice, because of its big transaction fees. Other cryptocurrencies are faster, can handle more transactions and have smaller fees.
Damn, that’s crazy. So you can’t even buy something without paying an extra tax?
Line goes up
That video is probably the biggest piece of misinformation about cryptocurrency on YouTube and it’s sad to see that so many people have been fooled by it. Most people are so bad at understanding modern technology that they will believe a random youtuber who has no idea what he is talking about :(.
Cryptocurrency is just a distributed ledger. NFT is just a certificate of ownership. Those technologies have real uses and nothing about them makes them a scam.
This is being disingenuous. They are more than just distributed ledgers or certificates of ownership. You are ignoring that crypto is proposed as a viable alternative to the financial system. They are both often promoted as ‘investments’, when there is rarely any underlying value behind them.
Your response is exactly the kind of handwaving that commonly pervades tech companies and led to crypto being popularized as a financial product. The reality is a lot more complicated, and for that reason there are a lot of problems that stop them being as useful or valuable as people want them to be.
If you have specific arguments against the Line Goes Up video I’d be interested to hear them, as I thought it was quite a good take.
Cryptocurrency has properties that are valuable to its users. It can let you pay online anonymously. It’s decentralized and doesn’t require trusting a bank or some company. I use it for those reasons. So it is useful, but the author of the video doesn’t even know that.
But that’s not what they are made for. People can use them as investments if they wish and gamble with their money, but that says nothing about this technology, since it’s not its purpose. If you want to warn people about the risks of such investment, I approve. But calling cryptocurrency or NFT a scam is wrong and doesn’t make any sense.
So what do you want to criticize exactly? The technology? Fine, but then you need to understand how it works and you probably should use it at least once. Or do you want to criticize people gambling with their money? That is also fine, but then it has nothing to do with the technology itself. In that case naming the video “The Problem With NFTs” would be misleading.
I rewatched a few chapters just now, but let’s focus on the Bitcoin chapter. The video contains a few valid criticisms, but they are mixed with a lot of incorrect information, invalid comparisons, false statements and author’s personal opinions. He omits a lot of facts, which makes it clear he doesn’t understand the subjects he is discussing.
Chapter 1 - Bitcoin (07:09)
08:35 He says that talking about cryptocurrencies requires discussing technical details and terminology, which is partially created to be “deliberately obtuse to make them difficult to understand and thus appear more legitimate”. The author seems to believe that there is some kind of conspiracy of programmers to often make it difficult to understand technology on purpose, but he fails to provide even one example of this. It’s a ridiculous accusation. Modern technology is just complicated and takes time to understand for non-technical people.
10:25 He claims that the only commercial use for Bitcoin is black markets, which is false. There are stores that accept Bitcoin and if they don’t, you can use Bitcoin to buy gift cards for any store (there are websites that sell them). People who actually buy illegal things online don’t even use Bitcoin, because of its public transaction history. They use Monero. The author is stuck in 2009.
11:08 “Bitcoin was never designed to solve the problems created by the banking industry” - it’s a trust-less system, so it has already solved at least one problem - the problem of trust when handling transactions. I can send money to anyone in the world without an intermediary.
11:30 “change of the guard is an illusion” - he is listing some rich people who use cryptocurrency. This it not an argument for anything. It’s irrelevant who uses cryptocurrency and what their beliefs are.
12:35 He says that some of the larger institutional holders of cryptocurrency are the same investment banks, which created the market crash. He doesn’t explain why this is relevant, but I suspect he means that because of this it’s not safe to keep any significant amount of money in crypto. In that case it might be a good point, but having large amounts of money in crypto is not required in order to use it.
15:30 Proof of work algorithm makes it difficult for poor people to mine Bitcoin. That is true, but mining is not the only way to get Bitcoin. Other than buying it with cash, people could also receive crypto as payment for their work.
16:45 He is comparing the energy consumption required for global usage of Bitcoin to local energy usage of a small country. This is not a valid comparison. He should have compared it to other global industries like banking or gaming.
17:10 He says that banking also requires a lot of power, but can handle more transactions. That is true, but Bitcoin is probably the slowest cryptocurrency. The other ones are still slower than VISA, but he should have mentioned that other coins are better in that area, because it’s not 2009 anymore and technology keeps progressing. So his argument is correct here, but he forgot to mention other relevant facts.
17:45 He calls cryptocurrency users gambling addicts, which shows his bias. He doesn’t understand that this technology can be used for online payments or for sending money to your friends. Bitcoin does use a lot of electricity, but so does gaming and that’s just entertainment. That doesn’t mean we should get rid of it.
He also completely forgot to mention in both his Bitcoin and Etherum chapters that proof of work is not the only used algorithm. Etherum doesn’t use proof of work anymore, so it doesn’t use as much power. This shows that the problem of power usage can be solved. Bitcoin is not the only cryptocurrency and technology keeps improving. But this didn’t stop the author from saying that Etherum doesn’t solve any problems with Bitcoin at the end of Etherum chapter (24:17). The switch to proof of stake algorithm happened after the video has been released, but he knew it was gonna happen, which he mentioned at the end of chapter 8 (1:31:29). Yet he refused to believe that it would happen, because of his bias. His prediction has failed, since it did eventually happen.
Chapter 8 “There Is No Privacy On The Chain” (1:25:36) is equally ridiculous. The author apparently hasn’t heard of Monero. He also doesn’t even understand what it means that something is decentralized.
Thanks for the reply, just wanted to let you know I did see it but I’m at work atm so can’t address it. But I will come back and give a proper response, just wanted to say thank you for your effort 👌 I appreciate good discussions!
No problem, take your time :).