I Wasted 8 Years of My Life in Crypto

Re:I Wasted 8 Years of My Life in Crypto by globular-toast on Sunday December 07, 2025 @08:48AM (#46181665)

To understand Bitcoin you need to forget the technology and first understand the problem. You need to understand what caused the 2008 financial crisis and how it resulted in us collectively funnelling more value into the hands of useless bankers. You need to understand that there are people who are literally spending their days playing games with each other, trading bits of paper and making silly deals and bets. If you don't understand the word "literally" or don't believe it, read more, study harder. If you don't understand a zero sum game or how this nonsense fucks up the lives of regular people, read more.

Read The Big Short by Michael Lewis. You could even start with the film by Adam McKay who also gets it. Then read Other People's Money by John Kay.

Only once you understand the problem can you begin to understand why a trustless digital cash would be good for us. Bitcoin is simply the first viable solution to the problem. If you can come up with a better one you'll change the world.

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Re:I Wasted 8 Years of My Life in Crypto by geremiiah on Sunday December 07, 2025 @08:55AM (#46181706)

OK, suppose the whole world used a trustless digital cash. Now you cannot do monetary policy. Now booms are booms and busts are busts and we are back to the early 1900s. Great.

Actually what would likely happen is that people would be incentivized to opt-in a digital currency with a monetary policy knob, and this would again become the de facto currency that everyone uses.

The problem with 2008 was corruption not monetary policy.

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Re:I Wasted 8 Years of My Life in Crypto by globular-toast on Sunday December 07, 2025 @12:36PM (#46183438)

No solution is perfect. Come up with a better one. More regulation, however, is not what we need. We need to decide what we want the financial sector to actually do, and that probably doesn't involve a bunch of children playing games.

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Re:I Wasted 8 Years of My Life in Crypto by bawolff on Monday December 08, 2025 @01:13AM (#46188967)

Just because no solution is perfect doesn't mean we should adopt a solution worse than the status quo.

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Re:I Wasted 8 Years of My Life in Crypto by globular-toast on Monday December 08, 2025 @01:32AM (#46189098)

The thread is "I don't understand Bitcoin".

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Re:I Wasted 8 Years of My Life in Crypto by bawolff on Monday December 08, 2025 @03:28AM (#46189782)

Or you know, people understand bitcoin fine they just disagree.

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Re:I Wasted 8 Years of My Life in Crypto by npoc on Monday December 08, 2025 @05:27AM (#46190679)

"Monetary policy" in reality simply means printing more money than is ever destroyed. It's human nature and always will be.

This means bitcoin's average price will go up forever when priced in fiat tokens. Or anything else for that matter - even gold's above-ground stock doubles every 35 years. How's that for an incentive?

The largest amounts of value will always settle in the best store of value for large amounts of value. Show me one with better fundamentals than bitcoin.

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Re:I Wasted 8 Years of My Life in Crypto by KellyCriterion on Monday December 08, 2025 @06:50AM (#46191211)

>>The largest amounts of value will always settle in the best store of value for large amounts of value. Show me one with better fundamentals than bitcoin.

Thats Gresham's Law

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