| ▲ | earnesti 2 days ago |
| I've never understood crypto, however I'm long term Bitcoin fan and user, and don't consider it "crypto". I think Bitcoin is pretty much opposite what the typical crypto project is. |
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| ▲ | kanbankaren 2 days ago | parent | next [-] |
| It has proven neither to be a store of value nor medium of exchange though it is being used extensively for criminal activities. |
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| ▲ | atomic128 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | Monero is used for criminal activities, not Bitcoin. How do I know? I monitor crime, mostly but not exclusively drug crime, on Tor's hidden services: https://rnsaffn.com/zg4/ Monero is the cryptocurrency of choice. | | |
| ▲ | lokar 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | Not all crime is drugs. Most of it is tax and sanctions evasion. | |
| ▲ | rjdj377dhabsn 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | What is that hidden service scanner showing with regards to monero? | | |
| ▲ | atomic128 2 days ago | parent [-] | | The majority of the criminal activity on the Tor darknet is mediated by hidden services listed by that scanner. You can visit those services (using the .onion URLs) and see that Monero (XMR) is the preferred cryptocurrency. Bitcoin is sometimes used for hosting, etc., but Monero exists to avoid Bitcoin's security weaknesses and the criminals are well aware of this advantage. |
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| ▲ | leftouterjoins 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | This is the same, nonsensical argument against monero that is used against end-to-end encrypted messaging. "app of choice for criminals" "makes enforcement harder" etc. It completely ignores the benefits of Monero. Crime exists. Its not going anywhere. It is not societies job to make the crime fighter's job a walk in the park. Crimninals use cars to commit crimes, we don't outlaw cars. They use masks, the store sells masks. The benefits of a global, decentralized and truly private and free medium of value exchange would be massive to the average person, but deterimental to those in power so they must use FUD to squash it. |
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| ▲ | jobs_throwaway 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | How has it not been a store of value? | | |
| ▲ | thefringthing 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | It's a store of value in the sense that it has a non-zero price at any given moment, but when people say that one of the functions of money is to be a store of value, they mean that its value must be reasonably stable so that its future usefulness is predictable. | |
| ▲ | VHRanger 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | A store of value is an asset with as close to 0% volatility in price as possible. Bitcoin is a speculative asset: it has very high price volatility. It is not a store of value in the proper term. | | |
| ▲ | tgsovlerkhgsel 2 days ago | parent [-] | | By that standard, over the past year, Bitcoin would be a better store of value than gold... | | |
| ▲ | kanbankaren 2 days ago | parent [-] | | Over the past year, Bitcoin lost 10.8% Gold gained 60.0% | | |
| ▲ | listenallyall 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | > A store of value is an asset with as close to 0% volatility in price as possible. You just proved his point. In this example, bitcoin's volatility is closer to zero than gold's. Thus, by the quoted definition of "store of value", then in this particular time frame (it would be very different going back 5, 10, 15 years), bitcoin is the better store of value. | |
| ▲ | tgsovlerkhgsel 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | qed |
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| ▲ | outside1234 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | It has an extremely volatile profile. You might as well stick your money in the SP 500 and call it is a currency. | | |
| ▲ | psunavy03 2 days ago | parent [-] | | Except the S&P 500 will give you a return. The stock market is not gambling, much as some people want it to be. | | |
| ▲ | lxgr 2 days ago | parent [-] | | It does go down by double-digit percentages from time to time though, which is really inconvenient if you want to, say, buy a house today or tomorrow. There's a reason people still use USD, EUR etc. and not fractional ETFs to pay and get paid. | | |
| ▲ | psunavy03 2 days ago | parent [-] | | And when it goes down the answer is to buy the dip. If you have funds needed for other things, they should be in lower-risk investments. As people get older, they should be moving large amounts of equities into bonds to lock in their gains. There is a reason people still have things like checking and savings accounts and CDs. | | |
| ▲ | lxgr 2 days ago | parent [-] | | > If you have funds needed for other things, they should be in lower-risk investments. That’s exactly my point. |
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| ▲ | jadbox 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I worked in crypto for five years, and this resonates. Sure, you can make money hustling some hype coin, but chances are you are more likely to lose money/time in the process. Outside of very specific supply chain blockchains, 99% of the actual value I see in order of value: 1) Stablecoins [faster than ACH!], 2) Bitcoin, and in certain places, 3) Ethereum has its uses. Even Bitcoin though is not a panacea though, as without REAL transactional use-cases, it is also prone to sudden major drops. Until people in your home state can buy a car, house, and groceries using bitcoin directly (WITHOUT a Visa bridge), the real value will be highly subjective to the whims of the market. |
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| ▲ | 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
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| ▲ | alternatex 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| How is it opposite. In my mind they all fall under the same libertarian fantasy umbrella. The post mentioned the idea of casually sending a billion dollars. Was that ever possible with Bitcoin? AFAIK it's less ergonomic to send money using Bitcoin than it is using traditional banking. |
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| ▲ | efnx 2 days ago | parent [-] | | It pretty easy. I personally think it’s much easier than in traditional banking. The hard part is that for day to day things you still need an on ramp and off ramp, but that is changing as merchants accept crypto directly. | | |
| ▲ | daveguy 2 days ago | parent [-] | | Messing with crypto is in no way easier than traditional banking. And traditional banking has guarantees that crypto does not. |
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| ▲ | TZubiri 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] |
| Ethereum seems useful as well. But that's about it |
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| ▲ | theplatman 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | the problem with ETH at its peak is that the gas fees made cost of doing anything real too costly if there was a real use case it would have manifested itself at this point i think the abstraction needs to be much higher to end user for this stuff to have value. having to manage your own wallet doesn't make sense. | |
| ▲ | amrocha 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | Tell me a single useful real world use case that Ethereum is being used in today, a decade after its creation If I can solve that problem with another simpler, older technology it doesn’t count as useful. I don’t care if you can pay for things using ethereum when I can just use my credit card instead. | | |
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