Tell HN: We have a responsibility to speak out against blockchain technologies

Re:Tell HN: We have a responsibility to speak out against bl... by nus07 on Friday January 28, 2022 @04:45PM (#30120788)

I mean I graduated top 5% of my class and make early 6 figures. My friend who graduated bottom 5% is now a crypto millionaire living in Dubai. Meanwhile I can write complex Scala code but I have no idea what blockchain , NFT , crypto is all about apart from the fact that it made my friend rich and made early adopters rich . How , why , when I don’t know . What’s the gain, purpose of it - I don’t know . Then again I don’t know what’s the purpose of data processing for ad-tech ML models and how it helps humanity either . The world is a Ponzi scheme . Can I go back to 1995?

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Re:Tell HN: We have a responsibility to speak out against bl... by dqpb on Friday January 28, 2022 @11:43PM (#30123855)

Ah, so you’ve learned how meaningless it is to graduate top 5% in your class.

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Re:Tell HN: We have a responsibility to speak out against bl... by fasteddie31003 on Friday January 28, 2022 @04:56PM (#30120940)

If you had millions why would you pick Dubai to live in?

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Re:Tell HN: We have a responsibility to speak out against bl... by nus07 on Saturday January 29, 2022 @12:00AM (#30123937)

My friend first moved to Hong Kong since they had a strong crypto community and something to do with regulations. After the recent issues with China in HK he moved base to Dubai . He told me it’s something to do with regulations of crypto - I don’t understand too much of it tbh.

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Re:Tell HN: We have a responsibility to speak out against bl... by jpgvm on Saturday January 29, 2022 @03:25PM (#30130043)

Probably moved there before selling said crypto assets so they wouldn't need to pay capital gains taxes.

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Re:Tell HN: We have a responsibility to speak out against bl... by heckerhut on Friday January 28, 2022 @10:42PM (#30123570)

It’s become a fancy place for rich people with no taste or ethics.

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Re:Tell HN: We have a responsibility to speak out against bl... by rozularen on Friday January 28, 2022 @04:48PM (#30120819)

survivorship bias?

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Re:Tell HN: We have a responsibility to speak out against bl... by kriops on Friday January 28, 2022 @04:55PM (#30120904)

None of the people I know involved with crypto, including miners, daytraders, and HODLers, have not crushed the market in the last nine years.

Also, if mainstream crypto is a Ponzi scheme, how is fiat currency not?

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Re:Tell HN: We have a responsibility to speak out against bl... by arcticbull on Friday January 28, 2022 @04:59PM (#30120977)

> None of the people I know involved with crypto, including miners, daytraders, and HODLers, have not crushed the market in the last nine years.

This is what we call survivorship bias.

> Also, if mainstream crypto is a Ponzi scheme, how is fiat currency not?

This is utter nonsense.

Fractional reserve lending means that money enters the supply on loan. It has to be returned to the issuer, and once its returned, it blinks out of existence. The demand for repayment of the loan is what backs every dollar out there. Each dollar is fully backed by the demand to repay the loan that issued it and the social and institutional mechanisms that enforce this including the courts.

The attributes of a Ponzi scheme are:

1. People invest into it because they expect substantial profits, and ...

2. ... that expectation is sustained by such profits being paid to those who choose to cash out. And...

3. ... there is no external source of revenue for those payoffs. Instead...

4. ... the payoffs come entirely from new investment money, while ...

5. ... the operators take away a large portion of this money.

Go ahead and explain how that maps to the world's reserve currency. After all category (1) is patently invalidated because nobody holds USD expecting a return in USD. They expect to lose 2% on average to inflation.

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Re:Tell HN: We have a responsibility to speak out against bl... by ancientworldnow on Friday January 28, 2022 @05:10PM (#30121118)

Should let forex traders know that they can't make money on USD.

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Re:Tell HN: We have a responsibility to speak out against bl... by arcticbull on Friday January 28, 2022 @05:18PM (#30121218)

They're not making money on USD.

Forex is a highly-leveraged speculative zero-sum game where you're betting against a different trader. It's provably zero-sum like futures trading. Negative sum if you include the rake. The total supply of both sides of that trade remains the same, it's simply a redistribution of wealth from the losing trader to the winning trader.

It's also strictly a pair trade meaning that you're buying one currency and selling a different one at the same time, on the anticipation that you can unwind that for more than you spent to enter it. Forex trades are never just "USD" it's always "USD/YYY."

This is completely different than expecting to earn money by holding USD.

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Re:Tell HN: We have a responsibility to speak out against bl... by dandanua on Friday January 28, 2022 @04:55PM (#30120918)

You're implying that other people have lost the equivalent amount of money. But the net effect is not zero. The society is losing badly if everyone is just playing in a casino.

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Re:Tell HN: We have a responsibility to speak out against bl... by adam_arthur on Friday January 28, 2022 @07:22PM (#30122373)

If you make money, it means you were right

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