Do they hope they'll be useful in the future because they think they're great technology that everyone should benefit from... or do they want them to be useful because they bought in early and want to get rich?
Crypto is more like the invention of electronic cryptographically secure beanie babies with a semi-fixed supply.
We get a lot of obviously not-ready-for-prime-time stuff hitting production because it's too lucrative (see any number of DAO and smart-contract schemes that imploded), and there's a systemic allergy to input from the outside world as to what normal consumers want (things like reversability and systemic backstops), because the current system appeals to speculators.
I'd see the case for "useful in the future" if there were more efforts to answer the no-breakthrough-tech-required "faster horses" problems people have with mainstream finance. FedNow is coming in months and will give me settlement in minutes for pennies, and likely very solid legal backing. This is faster horses. Crypto might offer similar settlement speeds, but I understand it depends on the particular chain I choose, and to an extent, how much I'm willing to pay to push the transaction through. I'd also wonder how reliably the courts will accept a crypto paper trail if there's ever a dispute on a payment. (Not necessarily because the trail is bogus, but simply because it's not a well-established precedent of who and what can be trusted)
Then Elon and the second Doge wave happened... Mutant Ape NFTs getting hyped by people like Paris Hilton and Jimmy Fallon... Sam Bankman's clear deception and FTX buying sports stadiums... the same centralized actors that we were working to get away from completely hijacked the platform, seized the narrative, and basically tarnished all the fun aspects. It felt like when Facebook no longer required .edu emails and a flood of parents and spammers took over the website.
Those that held pre-2017 are the ones that got in early.
The rest could probably make better returns speculating in the US markets.
>Anyone that's bought in during the past few years isn't early.
>Those that held pre-2012 are the ones that got in early.
>The rest could probably make better returns speculating in the US markets.
Ethereum was a better deal during this time, but you'd have to know to buy it. And some people really made bank on altcoins, but again, right time to buy, right time to sell.
There's a limit on how much the crypto market can be worth with people still able to use it as a currency to buy things. Logarithmically we're closer to the top than to the original bottom, though like all markets timing can still yield very good returns, especially if everyone else is hodling like Fort Knox.
I still believe Ethereum is poised for a fair amount of growth in the long-term, though likely nothing near the rise it's enjoyed in it's last run. I say that only because it's an on-ramp to so many other cryptocurrencies.
This strikes me more like a buyer's club than a stock.
You could say that about any investment surely? Or do we assume all VC funded companies are altruistic endeavours only?
It’s scammers, ramsomers, speculators and illicit drugs all the way down.
this Other ponzi scheme, is the USA economy: it's fiat.
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I'm over 30 years old and this underlying truth is still haunting me. no wonder I went insane trying to decide which was it.
The US economy has problems, but I don't see how that's supposed to be one of them.
I don't think it's even (in 2023) a good model for BTC, although the adverts I saw for it when I first heard about it around the $250 price absolutely were that, and there are plenty of clone-coins that still do today.
You just described how Social Security in the USA is funded. Its billed as government-run social insurance, but funded as a ponzi.
2. If Social Security were to fail, the US government would be free to decide between canning it (or reducing it) or funding it from more taxes (or delaying retirement age, which is kinda both); in none of these cases is this itself going to threaten the USA economy or the USD currency.
Non-society is everyone who sets themselves apart.
Central banks often carry reserves of various currencies to help with those international settlements and to manipulate currency values.
The US claimed to invade Iraq because they were holding WMD.
US led NATO forces claimed to liberate Libya because, checks notes, they were mistreating rebels in a “civil war” orchestrated by the CIA.
Yet both Iraq and Libya had the nerve to try and trade their oil in currencies other than USD. Coincidence?
How about militarydollar or imperialismdollar or neocondollar.
Per Investopedia the petrodollar system was established in the mid-1970’s [0]
Per Wikipedia, the Vietnam war lasted from 1951-1975 [1]
In any case the argument wasn’t that the US only invades countries that try to sell oil in currencies other than USD.
It was that anytime a country tries to sell oil in a currency other than USD they automatically become enemies of the US and get invaded.
I agree. It's not a good look for self-proclaimed democracy heroes. Saddam was our friend, until he wasn't.
Current batch of neocons are splitting the world for endless cold war spending.
The legalization movement started well before crypto, and the consumer laziness to anything except online shopping has also been around a long time. It's a pretty "natural" development. Also, it's not available everywhere.
People were not buying crypto in mass for any other reason to make a quick dollar.
And it went that far down the rabbit hole that totally untechnical people like Logan jumped on it to with the notion of making money.
And still on TikTok and co that's how it's marketed.
The claim that the only reason the US dollar is the reserve currency of the world is because the US military would invade anyone who uses something else is so often repeated on HN and reddit that is has become canon.
It would be interesting to read something that goes deeper into that topic.
In the mean time someone should tell European pension funds that they should not be betting what amounts to the combined GDP of several nations on just the S&P500.
No, it isn’t. Nobody said this, certainly not GP.
What is canon is that US military might gives its economy a level of stability not enjoyed by any other country, and when combined with the size of the economy, makes the dollar an important asset for nearly everyone.
Most countries in the world don’t use the dollar, and yet the dollar remains hugely important to those economies. Who is suggesting the US is going to invade those countries?
Even if we assume that Western led single market / contract arbitration regime is the way to go, threat of alternatives like crypto is the best way to get its rulemakers to behave, like to not cut off businesses that don't appeal to their sensibilities or devalue dollar with unreasonable speed. It is currently possible to order cannabis with credit card over a cell phone app. Without understanding that people would otherwise just use crypto and also evade taxes and any regulations, I am not so sure that would be the case.