Surreal

[12DrinkMore]

2 minutes ago, mjnaus said:

The current problems are of technical nature and therefor, can be solved.

 

Not only are there technical problems, you are neglecting to mention the legal and regulatory environment that the world requires to function.

 

Sure the technical problems can be solved with enough effort.

 

But that doesn't even begin to address the human decisions that would still have to be made, involving many interested parties, emotions and big money.

 

You could build the fastest, sleekest, most fuel efficient aircraft ever, but without FAA approval it would never get off the ground.

[12DrinkMore]

2 minutes ago, Brunolem said:

 

There is no way that governments are going to relinquish the monopoly of money.

 

 

Hmm, actually they have and given it to the bankers......

 

[Brunolem]

1 minute ago, 12DrinkMore said:

 

Hmm, actually they have and given it to the bankers......

 

Nowadays it is difficult to make a distinction between banks and governments...see bailouts, too big to fail, too big to prosecute, and Goldman Sachs all over the US administration...

Also Macron, in France, is a former Rotschild banker, while the ECB is run by an ex Goldman Sachs...

Revolving doors are not even necessary anymore...the doors have simply been removed!

[mjnaus]

4 minutes ago, 12DrinkMore said:

You could build the fastest, sleekest, most fuel efficient aircraft ever, but without FAA approval it would never get off the ground.

It would get off the ground just as well as any other craft, with or without FAA approval. The only difference would be a hefty fine once it touches ground again. 

 

It might seem pedantic to make the point I just did, however it clearly indicates how innovators think as opposed those standing on the sidelines handing out critique. Every innovator knows it takes the authorities a long time to catch up and come up with regulation. Therefor, innovation is always ahead of regulation. If Bitcoin is going to actually live up to it's purpose and potential, the problems you are referring to are not Bitcoin's to solve. It will be up the authorities to work out how they want to regulate it. And, at that point, all they can regulate is Bitcoin's interaction with the conventional economy which won't prevent it from solving the problems it set out to. 

[lkn]

22 minutes ago, mjnaus said:

However does not imply it's a scam and we should abandon it.

By all means, continue the research. AI research in the seventies didn’t get us any closer to artificial intelligence, but it did produce other useful results.

 

The current problem with cryptocurrencies, while not a scam in itself, is that it is being used as a vehicle for a lot of actual scamming: https://www.buzzfeed.com/ryanmac/heres-how-scammers-are-using-fake-news-to-screw-with-bitcoin

 

Some see altcoins like betting money on the race track, as long as they understand that, fine by me. But a lot of people do not understand this, they do not understand that it’s a zero-sum game, how much manipulation goes on when a market is unregulated, and that buying a bitcoin or participating in an ICO is *not* an investment, it is just paying for somebody else who cashes out.

 

[mjnaus]

5 minutes ago, lkn said:

The current problem with cryptocurrencies, while not a scam in itself, is that it is being used as a vehicle for a lot of actual scamming: https://www.buzzfeed.com/ryanmac/heres-how-scammers-are-using-fake-news-to-screw-with-bitcoin

 

Some see altcoins like betting money on the race track, as long as they understand that, fine by me. But a lot of people do not understand this, they do not understand that it’s a zero-sum game, how much manipulation goes on when a market is unregulated, and that buying a bitcoin or participating in an ICO is *not* an investment, it is just paying for somebody else who cashes out.

 

Following that very same logic, should we ban all stocks as well? Since they are a vehicle of scamming as well? How about banning corporations all together, since there are so many of those scamming God knows how many people?

[12DrinkMore]

15 minutes ago, mjnaus said:

If Bitcoin is going to actually live up to it's purpose and potential

 

Hold on.

 

I seem to remember more than a post or two stating that bitcoin is already outdated and cannot solve its inherent difficulties.

 

This why the craptos are advancing to the next generations?

[lkn]

11 minutes ago, mjnaus said:

Following that very same logic, should we ban all stocks as well? Since they are a vehicle of scamming as well? How about banning corporations all together, since there are so many of those scamming God knows how many people?

There is a ton of regulation about publicly traded companies, securities exchanges, financial institutions, consumer protection agencies, etc.

 

A lot of what happens in cryptoworld is just not legal in the real world.

Edited January 21, 2018 by lkn

[mjnaus]

2 minutes ago, 12DrinkMore said:

I seem to remember more than a post or two stating that bitcoin is already outdated and cannot solve its inherent difficulties.

 

Right. Newer coins like Ether seem to have better tech at the moment, however that does not guarantee they'll be ending on top. Who knows... If Bitcoin can work out it's issues, I'd say they still stand a chance.

[Brunolem]

34 minutes ago, mjnaus said:

 

Following that very same logic, should we ban all stocks as well? 

Not at all the same!

Stocks are shares of companies, they are backed by tangible assets.

Cryptos are backed by nothing, not even the full faith of the government as in the case of fiat currencies.

 

[mjnaus]

5 minutes ago, Brunolem said:

Not at all the same!

Stocks are shares of companies, they are backed by tangible assets.

Cryptos are backed by nothing, not even the full faith of the government as in the case of fiat currencies.

I never said they were the same.

 

Another poster argued coins are bad because some are scamming people. Applying that same logic, stocks and virtually anything that can be used to scam people should be banned as well.

[lkn]

16 minutes ago, mjnaus said:

Another poster argued coins are bad because some are scamming people

I did not argue that coins were bad nor that they should be banned.

 

I wrote that coins are currently a vehicle of many scams, do you agree?

 

Do you agree that this is a problem?

 

If so, how do we solve this problem? Certainly not by hyping up cryptos and calling sceptics fools for not joining the party.

[mjnaus]

56 minutes ago, lkn said:

I did not argue that coins were bad nor that they should be banned.

 

I wrote that coins are currently a vehicle of many scams, do you agree?

 

Do you agree that this is a problem?

 

If so, how do we solve this problem? Certainly not by hyping up cryptos and calling sceptics fools for not joining the party.

 

I don't know if I agree. I be happy to agree that there's a lot of crap coins out there that serve little purpose; however I'd be reluctant to calling them "scams". It's a slippery slope. How would this differ from crap companies selling bullshit stories in order to attract investment? The libertarian in me would argue to just let it play out. More government interference is definitely not the solution. Sometimes you've just got to let things run their course. People loose money on a daily basis... I have made bad investments as well in the past, you suck it up and move on. 

 

If you're dumb enough to take out a second mortgage in order to buy crypto currencies, you're bound to get burned no matter what. If it's not crypto currencies, it'll be the next Enron or MLM scheme. 

 

You can't save greedy people from themselves; it's a futile exercise...  

[lkn]

On 1/21/2018 at 11:25 AM, lkn said:

We still have not had anyone give a clear explanation of 1) what problem does cryptocurrency solve, and 2) what value is being created to justify the price of bitcoin going up?

This just got repeated by Paul Krugman:

 

[lkn]

21 hours ago, mjnaus said:

I don't know if I agree. I be happy to agree that there's a lot of crap coins out there that serve little purpose; however I'd be reluctant to calling them "scams".

It is a scam when coin offers promise things that the founders know not to be true. This could be guaranteed returns, products/services that they have no intention of creating, or straight up ponzi schemes. Examples that comes to mind are BitConnect, PlexCoin, and Fantasy Market, but I am sure there are many other.

 

Then you have the unethical behavior, like front running, insider trading, or pump and dump schemes supported by spreading fake news. There are several documented cases of pump and dump groups, see e.g. my previous link to the BuzzFeed article about this, and for insider trading, look e.g. at how the price of Bitcoin Cash went up *before* Coinbase announced they would start to trade BCH.

 

And lastly you have wash trades and spoofing. In the case of Mt Gox it seemed this activity was actually being done by the exchange operators themselves, driving the price of bitcoin from $150 to above $1k.

Maybe you think that a free market should be completely free of regulation, and that the smart cheating the less smart is just a consequence, I personally would not like such market, though it is another discussion; what I was saying above was simply that scamming goes on in the world of cryptocurrencies. If you disagree with this, I can only assume that you don’t follow the news very closely.