• Sloogs@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    10 months ago

    In-spite of its potential for liberation and independence.

    When it shows that potential, maybe more people will get on board. Until then there are a host of problems that make a ton of people not want to touch it including but not limited to:

    • a) Capitalists and scammy chucklefucks are already exploiting it the way they do with traditional currencies, except in sometimes new creative ways because of either the lack of regulations or because the technology inherently makes it impossible to trace. I don’t see that changing in a fully crypto world either, because people are always going to need financial services like loans and insurance on their savings and the banks will always have the imbalance of power.

    • b) The currencies mostly benefit people with a ton of capital to handle consensus, which further entrenches the power imbalance found in (a).

    • c) Insane amounts of resources are needed to reach consensus in a way that is not good at all for the environment. Sure we already use a lot of power to make our society run. But crypto is asking for more ON TOP of that, compounding the issues.

    • d) Relying solely on crypto leaves people destitute if their wallets got hacked.

    • e) Chucklefucks are using the technology to commodify and break the best part of the digital world which is the ability to have bit for bit reproducible copies of information.

    Fix all of that and you surely would get people on board but I have yet to hear compelling solutions by cryptobros.

    • TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      Fix all of that and you surely would get people on board but I have yet to hear compelling solutions by cryptobros.

      I actually completely agree with all of your points. I also hold out hope for the decentralization of power, which is something I still think block chain and crypto have a role in. Its the same hope I have for the fediverse, that we can all ‘own’ or be a part of a broader solution through self hosting, development, and funding the projects we care about or think will make a difference.

      I thought crypto had that potential, but because its looked at as ‘money’, the worst of the worst kinds of people steered its coarse. I still think the principals have this potential, and in more mature versions, I expect them to be realized. And arguably, they are being realized. In-spite of all of the shitcoins and scamcoins, bitcoin, the OG, is still extremely strong. I have no reason to believe that a bitcoin purchase made today wouldn’t still be considered as good of an investment as SPY was 8 years ago. I also think the generally dismissive tone of the case against digital currencies as scam is a little hilarious, considering that literately 90%+ of stocks admitted to the NYSE end up with a similar if not worse fate than the majority of (major) coins from the big boom we saw through 2020. A few stocks stay valuable throughout time, but that’s rare. Most end up valueless and eventually are delisted.

      I think criticisms of digital currencies, especially decentralized ones, need to be put into the broader context of all financial vehicles that exist and are available. Likewise, crypto has potential outside of just digital currencies, and the insistence that its bad for the environment, well that’s largely solved outside of bitcoin, and likely will never be solved for bitcoin. I still think its a neat technology with some interesting use cases. I’ve enjoyed watching it evolve and grow so far and I’m excited to by the belief that there is some potential for interesting things to come from that space in the future, especially if they support a more decentralized, anonymous, and democratic internet in the future.