this post was submitted on 20 May 2024
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It is a Ponzi scheme. Very clearly one. How that garbage is legal, I will never know. I could have gotten into crypto from the ground floor eons ago and made tons of money but I didn't because I knew it was illegal and figured the whole thing was going to collapse as soon as governments found out about it. Imagine my shock when most legitimized the damn thing. Still wouldn't bother even if I could go back and do it again knowing the brain dead, money-greedy idiots are going to legalize a literal Ponzi scheme because I have values and morals.
Yeah, it's relatively easy to make good money in crypto if you understand investing. There are a lot of things that are illegal in regulated securities markets that are not yet illegal with crypto.
I intentionally don't invest in crypto, because it doesn't produce anything. Any money you make is just taken from another investor, usually because they don't know what they're doing. When you invest in a company, you make products and sell them to customers. Something is created and rarely are people cheated.
The people investing in crypto are intentionally cheating uninformed investors in a way that is not possible in regulated securities markets.
You mean, executives with "fiduciary responsibility" take extremely irresponsible actions to "maximize shareholder profits" and gut the company that produces those products such that the product is minimally viable, borderline shit, and might even kill the end user (Boeing, Tesla, GE, etc etc). Oh and jobs and the economy are on the line too, so that's great.
All of that is way more productive than crypto because something actually gets produced. Crypto is literally only gambling and scams, plus it's bad for the Earth. And I have nothing against gambling, it's the fact that vulnerable people lose tons of money thinking it's an investment.
Plus actual gambling is way more fun.
You're not making the gambling more productive, you're making the production worse.
That's why you need to think about the company you're going to invest in.
Your critique is accurate for too many companies, yes. But by far not for all.
Isn't that the same as investing in any currency?
It’s investing in currencies that very little people actually use as currencies.
Their value is determined almost exclusively by hype rather than how well they function as online cash.
No one is investing in regular currencies. You’re supposed to use it to buy stuff.
No, people absolutely do invest in currency. It's quite a big thing actually.
https://www.investopedia.com/financial-edge/0412/the-basics-of-currency-trading.aspx
Forex traders are shocked.
See, the real crypto people are not in it for the number go up. They are in it for the technology and the human freedom that it can bring. So we don't like those people either.
Then it's weird how they keep telling me how much money they've made (and even sometimes ridiculing me for choosing not to participate).
I mean, hell, I would like you to participate too. But I understand that may not be your thing. And that's okay. I don't want you to participate for some number go up mad gains stock casino thing. I want you to participate because I seriously believe that Monero can help move human freedom forward by eventually replacing government money.
I don't have a problem with government money. If the government money no longer has value, I'm fucked regardless.
I mean fair enough just that another money could get you out of that situation before it gets that bad. If nothing else than through bribes.
Good luck bribing someone with something that requires an electronics and communications infrastructure if things get that bad. I'd keep chickens if that was your worry.
No power or infrastructure required.
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Casascius_physical_bitcoins
Not exactly apocalypse-proof.
While the ones that do exist still exist, and that's not to say that somebody couldn't create other things that were similar. Just as long as the private key is not peeled away, then you know it's actually got the value it says. And you don't need the internet to verify that.
Okay, so let's say the country's economy has collapsed. People are fleeing for the border. I go up to a border guard with one of those and hand it to him... do you really think he's going to believe that has value?
Really depends on the country. If you are fleeing somewhere like the United States, there's about a one in four chance that it would be recognized. If you're fleeing some other place that has had currency issues in the past, then it's probably quite a bit higher.
That is utter nonsense. You show me where you got that figure from.
Or do you just mean the Bitcoin symbol? Because I doubt someone would assume a metal coin had value just because it had a Bitcoin symbol on it.
https://monero.town/comment/4613276
Edit: You are right. My bad. It's more like a one in five. Not a one in four.
I'm not sure what you think that proves about whether or not a border guard would accept a metal coin that the briber claims has a value in Bitcoin. The guard could have $100 million in a Bitcoin wallet and still say, "this is some kind of bullshit trick." Why wouldn't someone try to trick a border guard like that if they were desperate.
So basically, you'd have to hope this border guard would either be one of the very small number of people (hardly a quarter of Americans) who would look at a metal coin with a Bitcoin symbol on it and decide it has value to them.
Again, seems like chickens would be a better bet.
Well, there aren't many of those around. So if it's recognized, then the person would know to look for a QR code on it. And if it has not been destroyed by peeling the hologram off, then they will know it's good. Seems like bribing a border guard with chickens would be kind of difficult. Just for the noise they would make and the space they would take up. You might be able to pass them an ounce of gold or something. That might be a possibility.
Yes, this is my point. It almost certainly won't be.
Put chicken in car, drive to border, take out chicken, give to guard.
So this is a societal collapse where chickens are made illegal?
Hey, 1/5 to 1/4 arent terrible odds. Even if they haven't used it, there's a damn good chance they've heard of it. If they've heard of it, then they know it has value.
Again, your '1/5 to 1/4' is based on people who understand what Bitcoin is, not based on people who would see that coin and think it has value. Stop being dishonest.
You show me evidence that these metal coins, which, again, are no longer available for purchase, are something even most people who own Bitcoin know about and think has value.
Also, I'm guessing more than 1/4 of the people who are food insecure because society has collapsed know the value of a chicken.
That 1 in 5 to 1 in 4 is the amount of people who have actively used crypto in some form. Everybody almost has heard about it and knows it has value, even if it's to give it to somebody else.
Yet again, that doesn't mean they think these metal coins have value.
Stop conflating the two. It's dishonest.
The metal coin has a private key embedded underneath a hologram. The private key has never touched the internet. And so if you throw it away, that value is lost forever. So the metal coin in and of itself does have value. As long as you can physically see that the hologram has not been peeled away and the private key exposed, which would be a dead giveaway, that it has been swept and is no longer of any value.
And you think you have a one in four chance of a border guard realizing that?
Because, again, if society is collapsing, food will be insecure, and far more than one in four people know you can eat a chicken. In fact, I would say four in four people know you can eat a chicken.
Well, if the average intelligence level I see around me... They might not know a chicken is edible. LOL. However, only more serious note. It doesn't seem like it all goes down at once. I mean, people in Venezuela have issues for sure, but they just take their money as soon as they get it and put it into something else that will retain their value. So we won't go from an ordered stable society to Mad Max where everybody's stealing chickens from preppers in one day. It would take years to get there.
Ah, so this is a societal collapse where you have to bribe a border guard to get out of the country but where food is secure. I see. I'm pretty sure that's not how it works in Venezuela, so can you give an actual example of such a situation?
At least from what I understand, Cuba.
Can you provide an example of someone getting out of Cuba by bribing a guard with a metal coin representing a certain Bitcoin value?
Because, believe it or not, I've met plenty of Cubans who just got on an airplane.
Admittedly, I have very little actual information on their situation, and it's more just hearsay. So if you've met them, then you would have more information than I do.
How many people got in early, made some money, lost it all getting scammed or just making bad choices, and will spend the rest of their lives chasing that dragon? How many drunks are at some bar right now talking about how much money they could have made if they had waited to sell, or how much their nft portfolio is gonna be worth when the market rebounds?
I actually had the same thing happen to me because I discovered Bitcoin in 2011 and dismissed it as crazy and that the governments would never let it exist. And then several years later heard about it again in a news article and was like, wait, the government hasn't shut that down yet and started doing some reading and really understood