All industries around finance attract shady actors. In Vietnam, you get the best exchange rate for VND, by going to the gold dealers. Paypal doing shady things is par for the course. Banks going under because 97% of their deposits are over the FDIC limits is normal behavior.
Simultaneously ignoring the benefits of cryptocurrencies and the problems they are trying to solve, while only looking at the negative edges that are covered by mainstream media, seems short-sighted at best. That's the inconsistency.
Yes, all industries attract bad actors. But the cryptocurrency space seems to be largely run by bad actors. Not everyone, of course, but a disturbingly large percentage.
> Simultaneously ignoring the benefits of cryptocurrencies
I don't actually see a lot of that happening here, though.
> Yes, all industries attract bad actors. But the cryptocurrency space seems to be largely run by bad actors. Not everyone, of course, but a disturbingly large percentage.
Source? Seriously. I mean, we have CEX going down with SBF and Molly White posting anti-web3 stuff. I'm sorry, but that isn't the core fundamental technology that we're talking about here.
> I don't actually see a lot of that happening here, though.
Again... media focuses on the failures and not on the successes.
ETH moving to proof-of-stake was a massive technological advancement that only happened after many years of development, and has gone off without a hitch.
While, at the same time literally decimating all of the GPU based proof-of-work mining in a single day. Not only that, but they were able to MVP release the code without even implementing withdraw! People have trusted the developers with 0.40T dollars worth of value [0]. It is not insignificant.
Next up is some really interesting work being done with zero-knowledge proofs, which will enable the scaling phase of blockchain to happen.
Please try to get past the HN trope of 'crypto has zero purpose other than number goes up or down and bitcoin mining is destroying the planet' and look at what is actually happening in the industry.
No specific source, just how it looks to me based on what I hear pro-cryptocurrency people say (mostly here).
> media focuses on the failures and not on the successes.
By "here", I meant HN, not the larger mediasphere.
> Please try to get past the HN trope of 'crypto has zero purpose other than number goes up or down and bitcoin mining is destroying the planet' and look at what is actually happening in the industry.
This comment is mis-aimed. I'm not on that trope (I see one legitimate use), and I do loosely follow the industry. I don't follow it deeply because it's not a field that is technically interesting to me, but I am interested in the ramifications to society at large.
All I'm saying is that a rather large percentage of people I see advocating cryptocurrency are not making cryptocurrency look good.
It was anecdata the first time. The second time, it became hand-waving.
> I do loosely follow the industry
You follow it closely and care enough to comment here. 'disturbingly large percentages' and 'rather large percentages'... all say it is the big bad cookie monster... but it is just that... all anecdata.
You're trying to spread a myth, without anything more than anecdata, which is the whole point of this thread. I'd love to see less myth and more research.
> You follow it closely and care enough to comment here
Yes, because I'm concerned about the societal effects of it. What I don't follow closely are the implementation details.
> You're trying to spread a myth
No, I'm simply reporting what I personally observe. I even stated where I've observed it (mostly here on HN). My observations can, of course, be incorrect -- but describing it as "trying to spread a myth" is misleading. I'm not trying to spread a myth at all. I'm explaining why it is that I view the cryptocurrency space as having a lot of sketchy things in it.
> I'm explaining why it is that I view the cryptocurrency space as having a lot of sketchy things in it.
I asked you for a source of the 'why' and you couldn't give me anything concrete. Therefore, my only other recourse is to assume you're spreading a myth. Burden of proof.
I have been very clear that I'm expressing an opinion, not stating a researched fact. You are trying to treat my statements as assertions of fact and are holding me to a burden of proof? Is it no longer possible to express opinions in the absence of conducting a research project? You are also expressing your opinion, but have offered no evidence either.
In any case, since you brought up burden of proof, it's the cryptocurrency world that is presenting the new thing, so it's on them to prove that what they're offering is an adequate substitution for what we currently have. I am the potential customer that has to be assured about it. So, in the larger sense the burden of proof is on the cryptocurrency people.
> Is it no longer possible to express opinions in the absence of conducting a research project?
What I'm reacting to is your inability to quantify your opinions. Specifically, 'disturbingly large percentages' and 'rather large percentages'.
> it's the cryptocurrency world that is presenting the new thing, so it's on them to prove that what they're offering is an adequate substitution for what we currently have.
"for what we currently have". See, that's the thing, we had newspapers and tv before we had the internet. The internet came along and gave us an entirely new medium. It took a while for people to get used to that. You're in that phase now.
While millions of other people are off experimenting with these new things (and effectively using as part of their daily lives). Nobody forced anyone to use the internet. People gravitated to it because they found value in it.
Just because you have come to the opinion that it has 'large percentages' of grift, doesn't make that opinion true.
> People have trusted the developers with 0.40T dollars worth of value
And that's the thing that causes the most cognitive dissonance. If you're going to trust someone, why not trust entities that have had hundreds of years to work out the kinks?
> that's the thing that causes the most cognitive dissonance.
The road is literally being paved and is being done so iteratively. I'm ok with that as that is a standard way to develop things over time.
> why not trust entities that have had hundreds of years to work out the kinks?
Simple. Because they are not acting in your best interest. We've been sold on the idea that money is scary and we shouldn't touch it ourselves. We should put it into 401k's and forget about it until we retire. We should 'trust' people who know these complicated finance things better than us. It is a self fulfilling prophecy.
> We've been sold on the idea that money is scary and we shouldn't touch it ourselves. We should put it into 401k's and forget about it until we retire. We should 'trust' people who know these complicated finance things better than us.
For 95% of the population (including me) crypto is the same trust system. I can't audit a smart contract and the underlying virtual machine it runs on. I would have no clue whether my transactions can be front-ended by bots that take all of the gains I expected, and then some.
I do have a general idea what happens when I use a credit card to make a purchase, and what to expect. I also have a general idea that if I put money into an investment account what fees will be deducted, and what stocks and bonds are being bought and sold.
And if I make the horrible mistake of sending money or NFTs to the wrong account, I know it can at least theoretically be reversed in non-crypto systems (and that often the reversal costs will be eaten by the bank, not paid by me). Whereas with crypto I have no expectation that the validators care about me to do a MakerDAO reversal on my behalf.
You obviously have some understanding of the system if you can speak about bots and front running. Fact is that front running exists in all markets, not just crypto.
As for reversible transactions, that's something done with smart contracts and escrow services. We are not there yet in terms of development, but it will happen eventually. Today, people actually appreciate the immutability of transactions. It enables the effective store of infinite wealth as a basis.
Credit card companies are providing the reversal business, which is paid for by the people who are borrowing money at insane interest rates... no reason why it can't be replicated once there is enough demand for it, but honestly, I'd rather move to reverse the model.... over collateralized loans. This is what is done in countries without the whole bogus credit rating systems.
We did not have an alternative to electricity for all of the things electricity could power. For some of the things alternatives to electricity continue to be used (e.g. oil, gas, or wood heated homes; windows for light; combustion engines and fuel cells for automotive power).
> You obviously have some understanding of the system if you can speak about bots and front running.
What I've read on crypto skeptic blogs. So basically my understanding is equivalent to the understanding that anyone gets from reading news articles written by content-expert journalists. From what I understand the front-running in crypto can have pretty egregious effects, and can occur with simple monetary transactions, not just the crypto equivalent of stock market transactions. (Yeah, sure, front running can occur in currency exchanges in non-crypto, too, but as an individual, when you go to a currency exchange, or make a purchase overseas, you know the exchange rate before you trigger the exchange.)
> Today, people actually appreciate the immutability of transactions.
I don't. And I don't see how this follows: "It enables the effective store of infinite wealth as a basis." Infinite wealth cannot exist. And how does immutability facilitate this? And how is a blockchain that can technically be rewritten at non-infinite cost immutable (i.e. the MakerDAO rewrite, or any Sybil/51% attack)?
> Credit card companies are providing the reversal business, which is paid for by the people who are borrowing money at insane interest rates... no reason why it can't be replicated once there is enough demand for it, but honestly, I'd rather move to reverse the model.... over collateralized loans.
From what I understand, the interest rates go to the issuing banks, and the credit card companies take their profit from fees. Credit cards (and payday loans) exist for people who lack the collateral for a non-signature loan (without having to collateralize their freedom, aka debtor's prisons or endenturing). The only way to do this in crypto is to trust a third party lender such as Voyager or Celsius.
Front running a transaction is essentially a sandwich attack. It primarily happens in illiquid markets where someone sees a transaction in the mempool, does a large flash loan borrow to affect prices, then your transaction executes at a poor price point, and the loan is paid off. All in a single block. 1) Typical transactions are not front run. 2) There are ways of preventing front-running. This is not really an issue for the majority of users or a design flaw.
> you know the exchange rate before you trigger the exchange
You know this in crypto too. The issue is that the market depth might not be large enough to support your transaction. That will change over time, or you just stick with the basics... BTC/ETH/Stables and ignore the rest of the stuff.
> how does immutability facilitate this?
If you know that it is impossible to double spend, you can trust the math.
> And how is a blockchain that can technically be rewritten at non-infinite cost immutable
This is well covered in Andreas Antonopoulos videos on YT.
> Credit cards (and payday loans) exist for people who lack the collateral for a non-signature loan.
In Vietnam, there is no credit reporting agency. You don't get a credit card from a bank, but you can get a MasterCard/Visa "credit card". The thing is, they are effectively debit cards because you have to time deposit collateral in order to use them. People still get to shop online, but they are limited. This is honestly a far better system because it encourages people to spend what they have, not what they don't have. I also prefer to cut out the middleman who's generating all those fees for both the merchants and the end users.
> The only way to do this in crypto is to trust a third party lender such as Voyager or Celsius.
Bad examples given that Celsius was a ponzi. There are decentralized lending protocols. AAVE is a good example.
> We've been sold on the idea that money is scary and we shouldn't touch it ourselves.
We have? I guess I was passed over when that sales job happened.
> > We should 'trust' people who know these complicated finance things better than us.
That's not how I look at it. How I see it is that when I'm operating in the established monetary system, I have some amount of protection and recourse available to me if/when things go wrong. With cryptocurrency, I have none.
To me, that's a really significant difference, and is in the top 3 reasons why I avoid cryptocurrency.
It has nothing to do with "trusting" financial institutions, or feeling like money is too complicated to understand.
> I have some amount of protection and recourse available to me if/when things go wrong.
We just literally witnessed several banks fail in the last few weeks, along with a litany of startups freaking out about how they were going to pay their staff. The government had to step in to prevent things from going totally ape shit and we are still on the edge of things getting worse by the day. All because people had some sort of belief like you do.
> We just literally witnessed several banks fail in the last few weeks, along with a litany of startups freaking out about how they were going to pay their staff
We did, and those startups got into the state they were in because they chose to avoid getting insurance on their deposits that exceeded the FDIC limits. That's not the fault of of the financial system. And the financial system protected them well over and above what it had committed to do.
> All because people had some sort of belief like you do.
Not at all. If I had a large deposit like them, I would have actually used the services that would have protected my deposits.
> That's not the fault of of the financial system.
Hilarious. On one hand, you're saying that cyrpto is this big mess full of bad actors and on the other hand, placing no blame on a financial system that can just blow up in a week because of poor design and oversight.
Just like it isn't the fault of cryptocurrencies that there are bad actors. It is just intrinsic that there will be issues in any functioning system.
> What protection is there?
You said none, but I can provide you with at least 3 different decentralized insurance protocols with proven track records. Here is one: https://nexusmutual.io/
More will come over time and demand. DeFi is still quite new.
> On one hand, you're saying that cyrpto is this big mess full of bad actors and on the other hand, placing no blame on a financial system that can just blow up in a week because of poor design and oversight.
You've taken my stance on both counts to an extreme that mischaracterizes them. I never said cryptocurrency was a "big mess", and I never said that the established financial system is some paragon of virtue and perfection.
What I said is that the financial system did what it promised to do for those people who were affected by the bank failures.
> You said none, but I can provide you with at least 3 different decentralized insurance protocols with proven track records.
And yet, until now, you didn't actually mention any of them. I can't read your mind.
The one you link to doesn't seem to cover the most important protection (to me), though. I could be wrong -- the website isn't exactly clear. Does it offer the same coverage as I can get through chargebacks on a credit card? Does it cover me if I accidentally send money to the wrong destination?
> What I said is that the financial system did what it promised to do for those people who were affected by the bank failures.
Wait, there is a law that says that when a bank fails, the government has to step in and bail them out? Wrong. Otherwise, all banks would get bailed out.
> Does it offer the same coverage as I can get through chargebacks on a credit card? Does it cover me if I accidentally send money to the wrong destination?
No. You're asking for a credit card product. I don't believe that crypto has to be a credit card to be effective and useful. A good analogy is Zelle, which allows you to transfer money, but they don't bail you out. I'll tell you... even with bank wires, you send money... it is gone. Our finance department got phished last year. They didn't get the money back.
I'm curious when the last time you accidentally sent money to the wrong destination though. Is that really a common use case?
> I'm curious when the last time you accidentally sent money to the wrong destination though. Is that really a common use case?
With crypto it doesn't matter whether it's you sending the money to the wrong address, someone who has hacked your account sending the money to the wrong address (and if you have insurance to protect against this, you'll have to prove it wasn't you), or a smart contract that someone slipped you without your knowledge sending money to the wrong address. You're out the money regardless. The last case isn't possible in non-crypto, and in the middle case you're protected by depositor's insurance in the US.
And yeah, I'm not using Zelle or a wire transfer unless I know who it is and what it's for beforehand.
It is almost like people think that crypto's whole purpose was to solve their inability to protect themselves from theft and that it has somehow failed in this regard and should be cast off as a worthless toy as a result.
For this reason, the choice is to only use credit cards where merchants have to pay exorbitant fees and end users have to pay massive APYs for borrowing.
If only someone could at least try to come up with a better system.
> If only someone could at least try to come up with a better system.
Payday loans and cash purchases? We have a variety of "systems", each with pros and cons. And hopefully that kind of diversity will continue into the future. For daily consumer purchases most crypto systems seem to have more cons than pros. For investment purposes I really don't know. And as a store of large chunks of value, maybe crypto will have an important role at some point.
