Damn... maybe crypto/blockchain isn't so bad

I'm going to keep this short but I just fell down the rabbithole of crypto again and maybe it isn't as bad as I thought. Many of their ideas are very similar to the fediverse's. The idea of decentralized finance using a stablecoin sounds awesome to me. (though i'd much prefer to live in a world where money isn't needed) Maybe the technology is actually good but the techbros and scammers ruin it with their false promises and complicated words. Hopefully, in a few years after the rest of those scammers have moved on to scamming with AI this tech could be truly used for meaningful purposes.

Anabriated,

The actual idea of crypto is reaaallly cool: a decentralized trust system that enables incredibly difficult to fake transactions and records without the need for a trusted third party.

Unfortunately a lot of the implementations relied on 'capital' as the proof of trust - GPU work (money) and number of controlled instances (money) are two big ones. Which really all led them down the path of ____coin which is fundamentally incompatible with the ideal of 'no third party can govern trust' because suddenly whichever party that has all the proof of trust is now the third party that can govern trust and approve transactions. Someone can own a ___coin.

Crypto could have been a decentralised system that can keep public records, documents, ideas, etc. - it can guarantee authorship and date if a user is willing to submit identity information. Lots of actually useful functions!

king_dead,

Nah man, crypto was built in the circles of libertarian goldbugs in an attempt to privatize the dollar. Ultimately the aim of crypto is the opposite of the fediverse: to take away (theoretically) popular control of the dollar and throw it into corporate hands.

metaltoilet,
@metaltoilet@beehaw.org avatar

Can I have a source for that? That doesn't seem to be the case.

king_dead,

The source is me. I've been following through somethingawful's buttcoin thread since 2011 and then on and off through political subreddits. One of the biggest things is that they HATED government-backed "fiat" currency and saw bitcoin as a replacement for the dollar (Even though bitcoin is also fiat and had notorious stealing issues and was just as unstable then as it is now)

doodimus,

well, fiat money is issued by a central authority and its value depends entirely on the faith people have in that central authority. Compare that to monetary systems based on the gold standard, where a unit of currency has a fixed value in terms of gold. When the dollar followed the gold standard, it was technically possible to exchange dollars at the bank for a fixed amount of gold. While with fiat, you could say that the market decides how much gold one dollar is worth.

Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are more like gold or silver than they are dollars or euros or whatever other fiat currency. The value that gold itself has is determined by a lot of things, but ultimately it comes from its rarity. You can if you want go out into the hills and spend time and energy digging up gold. Likewise, you can if you want spend time and energy mining bitcoin. This is why people often say bitcoin is digital gold - it's rare and it takes time and energy to find.

yozul,
@yozul@beehaw.org avatar

Gold is a fiat currency. There are things that are far rarer and harder to extract that are worth far less. Sure, the metal itself has some intrinsic uses, but that's not where most of its value as a currency comes from. It's just pretty and lasts a long time, so we decided it made a good currency. That's still an arbitrary decision, and if we collectively decide we don't care about that anymore its really not worth much more than copper is for its usefulness and rarity. It's valuable because it is the original fiat currency.

Foidi,

As an idea it is real good, but problems come when it meets reality sadly

Foidi,

Yea idea of it is awesome, but sadly unrealistic

metaltoilet,
@metaltoilet@beehaw.org avatar

Maybe i'm naive but I have some hope that after a couple years the whole thing will be forgotten by the techbros and could be used by normal people.

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