> I’ve often wished there were a way to organize against crypto
How about we rally to completely ban crypto. Talking about this isn't going to solve anything.
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Since when has banning new technology been a good idea? I can't believe how many "technologists" want to take the same policy stance as the CCP on decentralization.
I don't see this 'new technology' working for the intended purpose it was created for:
Paying someone in instantly with less fees in a decentralised P2P manner with an energy efficient and stable blockchain.
I see no cryptocurrency that can do this above legitimately. Most of them are owned by questionable foundations, crypto scammers and power hungry VCs.
> I don't see this 'new technology' working for the intended purpose it was created for
Just because you don't doesn't mean nobody does.
It's not just me though, almost everyone can see for what it is right now.
A digital Las Vegas casino, where everyone is 'hodling', trying to get rich by losing their money while not using it for payments at all.
Okay. That doesn't change the fact that some of us do see it and use it as more than just gambling - and if we're doing so in a way without negative externalities (e.g. via proof-of-stake or literally anything other than proof-of-work), then it seems entirely irrational to want to ban it on the sole basis of "I don't like it therefore nobody should use it".
> Okay. That doesn't change the fact that some of us do see it and use it as more than just gambling
Still doesn't change the fact that it's all a house of cards based on waste and still exhibits a ponzi scheme (Proof of Stake is still bad) with no value.
I can't think of any other usecases out there other than scams, ransomware, money laundering and illicit trade on darknet markets. Is that what you mean by other usecases?
What does crypto do better that the current system can't do? I cannot think of any in crypto that the current system already does better.
I can see that Monero is a complete success story where Bitcoin failed in its original vision. But then again it can't get out of being used outside of darknet markets, so it is generally unusable and banned by most companies, exchanges and fiat off-ramps.
It is possible for this to go to ALL cryptocurrencies.
> Still doesn't change the fact that it's all a house of cards based on waste
That ain't a fact; again, proof-of-stake exists and is used for no less than 3 of the top 10 cryptocurrencies.
> and still exhibits a ponzi scheme [...] with no value
Just because you refuse to see the value in something doesn't mean it's "a ponzi scheme with no value".
> Proof of Stake is still bad
Care to quantify how?
> I can't think of any other usecases out there other than scams, ransomware, money laundering and illicit trade on darknet markets.
Really? You're incapable of thinking how it might be used for licit trade? Or for decentralized finance applications? Or for arbitrary computing, in the case of e.g. Ethereum and Cardano? The technology has already been used for these things.
> What does crypto do better that the current system can't do?
Sending and receiving money electronically with minimum fees, maximum speed, and no limitations on how much or how little of your money you can send or receive. No, I ain't talking about Bitcoin; I'm talking about the countless other cryptocurrencies that have made transaction costs and speeds an actual priority - you know, almost as if blockchains are a new technology and not done evolving.
Hell, even if we do talk about Bitcoin in that context, its "slow" transaction settlement time is still considerably faster than those of credit card networks; I'm sure you've noticed that when a credit card transaction is "accepted" it still takes a day or more to actually move out of "pending" status and fully reflect on your card statement, whereas with Bitcoin the same level of assurance (if not more) happens within 10 minutes on average.
> It is possible for this to go to ALL cryptocurrencies.
It doesn't need to; not every single cryptocurrency needs to succeed at its goals for the concept of cryptocurrency to be useful or beneficial to society.
Bitcoin does this with the Lightning Network.
While certain implementations of crypto are certainly a problem, rallying to ban it seems to imply there are no redeeming qualities and no path forward that addresses the downsides.
Is that your position on this, or am I missing something?
My position is that after 13 years of Bitcoin and Ethereum and all cryptocurrencies I still cannot go to my local shop and buy anything with it.
That’s an anecdote, but is your position that because of that, crypto should be banned?
In 1999, you probably couldn’t use a Discover card in your local shop either, 13 years after Discover was founded. It took many years and many lawsuits to make headway against Visa/Mastercard.
Universal acceptance isn’t the right measuring stick here.
There's more to that, I would expect Bitcoin and Ethereum to be everywhere in the real world by now. I still don't see any shop around be accepting it, because the majority of people are only holding / investing in cryptocurrency. Not even PayPal is using it for payments [0]
Even if a shop uses either of these cryptocurrencies, it is comically slow to be used as such anyway rendering them useless. Not to mention the volatility impact.
So please tell me retail shop I can make a purchase using cryptocurrency that is fast, truly decentralised, eco-friendly and doesn't have exorbitant fees.
None of what you said is a valid reason for "banning" crypto.
I only scratched the surface.
We both know the obvious reasons that cryptocurrencies enable rampant ransomware [0], multiple rug pull scams [1], pointless NFTs [2] and is totally unregulated, I'm seeing crypto bros heralding 'we need decentralisation and web3' when this is all owned by VCs [3] And don't get me started on the Tether fraud [4].
I was being _generous_ in seeing if cryptocurrencies passes the 'retail shop test' and it can't even do that without burning the planet up making useless computations.
[0] https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/us-treasury-warns-c...
[1] https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2021/12/17/defi-rug-pull-sc...
[2] https://www.vice.com/en/article/y3dyem/investors-spent-milli...
- Phone scammers are running rampant. We don't ban phones.
- Spam has been a problem since the inception of email, and the majority of email is spam. We don't ban email.
- Baseball cards are similarly pointless. So are in-game cosmetic items. We haven't banned those.
The problems you're describing are mostly unrelated to crypto, have existed, and will continue to exist whether crypto remains.
This doesn't mean there are no valid criticisms of crypto - energy concerns are real, and need to be addressed - but if you wish to ban crypto for the reasons you've cited, you need to widen the scope of what you hope to ban.
There are many shops that either accept Bitcoin or host an ATM that takes Bitcoin, and have been for several years. There are also several "credit" cards that will spend Bitcoin by turning it into a local currency -- just like when using USD cards in Europe and having them automatically convert to EUR. Last, the number of such ways to spend Bitcoin and other coins is consistently growing.
I have a crypto.com card that I top up with crypto to buy things with.
While I don't directly pay with crypto, I still use it to pay for things at my local shop.
You pay using a Visa card with a Bitcoin sticker stuck on it. I am not sure why you think you pay with cryptocurrency
Because I do pay with cryptocurrency.
It would seem easy enough to ban proof-of-waste and encourage people to get on with deploying the alleged better technologies that never arrive. And many places have blanket KYC requirements which using crypto does not exempt you from.
The UK has banned crypto derivatives: https://www.fca.org.uk/news/press-releases/fca-bans-sale-cry... and Binance. I suspect further action is coming against unregistered crypto outfits marketing to UK consumers.
> and encourage people to get on with deploying the alleged better technologies that never arrive
If you're referring to proof-of-stake, that technology has already arrived, seeing as how multiple of the top 10 blockchains by market cap (Solana, Cardano, Terra) use it - and consequently do not have the negative impact on the environment that e.g. Bitcoin and Ethereum currently have.
Now there's just the matter of their ponzi scheme structure
It’s had, what, 13 years? And it’s still a solution in search of a problem.
It’s not fair to say that crypto is not solving any problems, or isn’t likely to solve any problems.
Thinking specifically about the identity space for a moment, it certainly brings a new approach to solving a set of problems that still has yet to be solved well.
Should something be banned on the grounds that it’s not ready yet, or hasn’t evolved fast enough?
Plenty of tech on the cutting edge will appear this way before it has matured.
Asbestos solved an actual problem, as did freon. Both also created larger problems and were eventually banned. We could have given them some more time, I guess. Maybe, if given another fifty years, the freon industry might have (waves hands) fixed its issues with the ozone layer. Or maybe not. That wasn’t the trajectory, anyway.
Back in 2022, we’re now looking at a technology that has not, for all its promises of a glorious future, has not produced anything but centralized Ponzi-as-a-Service platforms, a way for organized crime to move money, and smokestacks. At least asbestos and freon had some utility.
> Asbestos solved an actual problem, as did freon. Both also created larger problems and were eventually banned.
I'd argue there's a bit of false equivalence in this paragraph, but for sake of argument:
Leaded gasoline also solved an actual problem, and the industry innovated/evolved beyond that.
Facebook solved an actual problem, and created many more. I still recognize its value even if I refuse to use it myself.
I'm sure there are edge cases, but history is not generally on the side of those who have pre-emptively banned things before they come to fruition.
The problem I see with this current line of discussion is that most proponents of banning throw the baby out with the bathwater, and pretend this is all a single product called "crypto".
Banning "crypto" would be like banning insulation because of the issues with Asbestos.
In all fairness, I don’t think “crypto” should be banned as such. Partly because it’s a loose and descriptive term, unlike asbestos, which is well defined and tangible. So a blanket ban wouldn’t work.
And also because it’s not necessary; existing regulation will get us most of the way:
- if you are, in effect, selling a security, let this be regulated this like any other security
- if you are, in effect, running a bank, etc.
- if your coin X acts like an intermediary for transferring money to hostile jurisdiction Y, then regulate transfers to X like transfers to Y. Forbid these if necessary.
- if your manufacturing process is needlessly wasteful then forbid this manufacturing process (globally) under threat of forbidding your product
Etc
It also took 13 years from the first splitting of the atom to Hiroshima.
Should Nuclear power be banned? I'm not sure what point you're trying to make.
I love how the tech bros who are so fast to consider banning cryptography absurd for being math, are frothing at the mouth to ban cryptocurrency.
Why? is it working?
you could only drive it into the underground where it sprouted from in the first place, it would inevitably return. the only way to stop this form of crypto is to invent a better one
It was never a product of the underground — from the initial launch of Bitcoin it was a public project with a strong political vision. Some people tried to use it for underground activities but the claim was that those could be done anonymously on the public network, which is trivially blocked.
If punishments for being discovered were severe enough, I think we could pretty much kill it off.
Would you risk life in prison?
that's an escalation - I would risk my life to fight against a state that threatens life in prison to control something like crypto
I feel like people sometimes say things like that, but it always ends up sounding naive.
The state has tanks and drones that rain death and destruction from the sky. What could the crypto people possibly do to counter that?
How did all those tanks and drones work out for us in Afghanistan? Or Iraq? Or all of the other places where insurgents tend to win out over slow and bureaucratic militaries.
That was a foreign occupation, very different. The US didn't have popular support in either of those and was seen as the invader.
It would be very different if some crypto fanatics started an insurgency over wanting to have their computer money. I definitely would side with the state over them and I have a feeling most folks would.
> That was a foreign occupation, very different.
Do you think a domestic occupation would somehow go better?
> I definitely would side with the state over them and I have a feeling most folks would.
In order for a cryptocurrency ban to actually have any real effect on the actual crypto fanatics (i.e. the ones who would be willing to take up arms to defend cryptocurrency), the US would have to pull some very draconian online censorship measures that would absolutely peeve the average American. Short of that, it would be comparable to the US' existing "ban" (via the DMCA) of digital piracy: pretty much ineffective, without pirates needing to take up arms as outright insurgents to defend it.
crypto fanatics are still just civilians operating a network, the state can and should regulate by setting policy (eg by making it not so lucrative to waste electricity mining crypto that it threatens the environment)
Are you seriously saying that you would be ok with using the army to violently murder civilians because they use some computers that you think use too much energy and don't provide enough value?
It sounds like you want to take the War on Drugs textbook, and apply it to crypto. I expect it'll work about as well, and have similar collateral damage.
Often the difference between having money and having no money is life or death. So it's common for people to risk life in prison, or even death, as an alternative to having all their possessions confiscated; and that's what Bitcoin is in many cases.