The anti-crypto thread

[BFG10K]

Great news, crypto's collapsing across the board: https://www.techpowerup.com/282380/...ions-in-less-than-24-hours-did-the-bubble-pop

Also China's banned crypto, though individuals can still have it: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/chinese-financial-payment-bodies-barred-122712260.html

The sooner this cancerous parasite is wiped out, the better.

 

[DisarmedDespot]

Masterworks has already been successful. Yes? So replace rare artwork with a classic car. Or any other collectible. This is not rocket science here. Do you think the owners of the fractions care they can't show it off their fractions in person?

Making physical collectibles more accessible to purchase (or invest in if we are talking fractions) thus increasing demand for a finite supply item is not a pyramid scheme. But since you felt the need to bring it up anyway: I already mentioned there will also be NFTs that are functionally redeemable, 1:1, for lowered valued collectibles. Such NFTs could be described as transferable receipts that are to be redeemed only when wanted. There's a lot of convenience to be had there for that - for many people (actually, most people on this planet) without stable living conditions, safe homes, etc. Still a pyramid scheme?!

It's up to the companies to figure out sustainable business models. Any company that does a poor job like you mentioned, will not last long in the space.

I'd argue first that Masterworks is still hasn't proven the business model is sustainable, and that if anything it's proven there's no reason to shoehorn crypto into it.

So, this is basically the exact same as the monkey jpegs, but instead of containing a URL to an image the smart contract can't control, it has a sentence saying you own 0.01% of something that the smart contract can't control. You can say it's totally different, but it has almost all the same problems as the monkeys. Just off the top of my head:

• How does this NFT actually convey ownership of the thing? What entity actually controls it and maintains the thing?
• How do you stop someone from minting fractionalized NFTs of something they don't own?
• How do you enforce royalties (or whatever nonsensical claims this thing uses to promise profits) when not all exchanges enforce them?

I also have to highlight the bolded. Er, what? Congrats, you're re-invented vouchers! There's no reason for that to be an NFT besides you desperately wanting more uses for crypto, no matter how nonsensical it is. How would these NFT vouchers work, you use a magic decentralized vending machine?

 

[njdevilsfan87]

• How does this NFT actually convey ownership of the thing? What entity actually controls it and maintains the thing?
• How do you stop someone from minting fractionalized NFTs of something they don't own?
• How do you enforce royalties (or whatever nonsensical claims this thing uses to promise profits) when not all exchanges enforce them?

1. An entity like Masterworks holds and maintains the artwork, and thus are the ones that issue the tokens.
2. You don't. If you trust a minted NFT from a random because it's cheaper instead of going with a more expensive entity that's audited and abides by the rules and regulations in of their jurisdictions, then it's your fault for gambling buying from that random who minted the NFT.
3. You can enforce royalties by programming in non-native ERC20 tokens: i.e. USDC. It's not ideal because of heavily increased gas fees on Ethereum by doing so, and it may break compatibility for many NFT markets (of which they can resolve just by updating themselves to allow for the use of ERC20 tokens), but on newer blockchains gas fees are not a problem. So yes, it can be done. But it doesn't come free (for now) if you're sticking with Ethereum.

 

[Meghan54]

Crypto would be better than the Yuan?

No.

 

[DrMrLordX]

Who uses money orders anymore except old people without a smartphone or computer who aren't exactly a market to use ponzi coins.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remittances_from_the_United_States

*cough*

There are more-modern "debit instruments" that can be emailed, but they still have fees attached and are essentially money orders. Or you can try various apps/sites that offer similar services, again for a fee:

5 Best Ways to Send Money Internationally - NerdWallet

You can send an international money transfer in person, by phone, website or mobile app. Pay by bank account, debit card, credit card or cash.

www.nerdwallet.com

1% is usually the best you can get. Western Union can do it for a flat ~$45 or so. It's a big business, either way.

 

[Heartbreaker]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remittances_from_the_United_States

*cough*

There are more-modern "debit instruments" that can be emailed, but they still have fees attached and are essentially money orders. Or you can try various apps/sites that offer similar services, again for a fee:

5 Best Ways to Send Money Internationally - NerdWallet

You can send an international money transfer in person, by phone, website or mobile app. Pay by bank account, debit card, credit card or cash.

www.nerdwallet.com

1% is usually the best you can get. Western Union can do it for a flat ~$45 or so. It's a big business, either way.

I'm noticing you never acknowledge your mistakes.

Like an attacking a computer security expert, claiming he didn't properly characterize Ponzi Crypto Coins as a Zero Sum game, when he did, and you don't seem to get what a Zero Sum Game means.

Like not understanding why blockchain based coins are a poorly suited for currency usage (computationally high transaction cost, unsuitable for high volume), and giving an example in defense that isn't even blockchain based.

So now what are you on about here? OFX in your own link has extremely negligible fees as in .03%.

No transfer fees. Unlike some other money transfer providers, OFX doesn’t charge transfer fees, regardless of the sending amount. Like other providers, OFX makes money off an exchange rate markup. But for transfers to the countries we surveyed, its markups above the mid-market rate tend to be around 0.03% or lower. Other providers mark up rates to those countries as much as 0.04% for bank-to-bank transfers.

Don't forget that you pay exchange markeup fees for your Ponzi-Crypto-Coins as well, which seem to be .1% when I checked.

.1% > .03%. So exactly why would I need Ponzi-Crypto-Coins again?

 

[beginner99]

What's crypto backed by? Tether.
What's tether backed by? Crypto.

Imaginary things..."backing" imaginary things.

This is simply wrong for the core reason we do not know what tether is backed by. Which of course is bad as it could be tons of bad things regarding Chinese real estate. But the core point is: we don't know so saying it's crypto is pure speculation.

We do know they had at least 10 billion in liquidtiy as that is how much got redeemed in the last 1-2 weeks. Given there track record that is actual surprsing it worked so flawless for such a huge amount. But yeah. I would keep as far away from tether as possible.

 

[igor_kavinski]

1% is usually the best you can get. Western Union can do it for a flat ~$45 or so. It's a big business, either way.

I can attest to that. The amount of money they make, especially in regions where there's a lot of tourists/expats is ridiculous. Hell, if it weren't for all the crazy hard financial/compliance regulations (as always, meant to stifle the little guy from coming on top), I would open up my own remittance business.

 

[biostud]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remittances_from_the_United_States

*cough*

There are more-modern "debit instruments" that can be emailed, but they still have fees attached and are essentially money orders. Or you can try various apps/sites that offer similar services, again for a fee:

5 Best Ways to Send Money Internationally - NerdWallet

You can send an international money transfer in person, by phone, website or mobile app. Pay by bank account, debit card, credit card or cash.

www.nerdwallet.com

1% is usually the best you can get. Western Union can do it for a flat ~$45 or so. It's a big business, either way.

How often do you have to do international transfers?

When I have to transfer money to my sister in Paris I just log into my internet bank and do an Iban bank transfer. The bank probably earn a small amount in exchange fee, but they also provide a service to me they need to earn money on.

 

[DisarmedDespot]

1. An entity like Masterworks holds and maintains the artwork, and thus are the ones that issue the tokens.

Then why is this an NFT? This is just Masterworks, but with a crappier backend stapled to it and all the security problems that come with vomiting your customer's information on a blockchain for no reason.

3. You can enforce royalties by programming in non-native ERC20 tokens: i.e. USDC. It's not ideal because of heavily increased gas fees on Ethereum by doing so, and it may break compatibility for many NFT markets (of which they can resolve just by updating themselves to allow for the use of ERC20 tokens), but on newer blockchains gas fees are not a problem. So yes, it can be done. But it doesn't come free (for now) if you're sticking with Ethereum.

So tokens magically now know the difference between being transferred between a single person's hot/cold wallets and being sold at auction? Because the choice is a) take royalties every time the token is transferred, whether it's sold or not or b) pay out royalties from the sales contract, which platforms like nfttrader specifically don't enforce. This is a community damn near united by dodging taxes every step of the way, they're damn well gonna dodge the stupid smart contract's royalties as well.

 

[njdevilsfan87]

Then why is this an NFT? This is just Masterworks, but with a crappier backend stapled to it and all the security problems that come with vomiting your customer's information on a blockchain for no reason.


So tokens magically now know the difference between being transferred between a single person's hot/cold wallets and being sold at auction? Because the choice is a) take royalties every time the token is transferred, whether it's sold or not or b) pay out royalties from the sales contract, which platforms like nfttrader specifically don't enforce. This is a community damn near united by dodging taxes every step of the way, they're damn well gonna dodge the stupid smart contract's royalties as well.

Because a blockchain like Ethereum is open to the entire world, secure and anonymous, whereas Masterworks is just the secondary Masterworks market where anyone who wants to join needs to register and KYC/AML. Ethereum is a huge liquidity upgrade, for both buyers and sellers.

If you transfer at 0 value, there's no royalties (in let's say USDC, which you can force unlike the native token) paid . You might call this a loop hole, except nobody is going to risk exchanging at 0 value to avoid royalties unless they're moving around their own wallets or to their trusted friends. Which I would be fine with anyway since a bulk of those exchanges aren't actual sales.

 

[igor_kavinski]

Because a blockchain like Ethereum is open to the entire world, secure and anonymous,

Anonymity in transfers makes it perfect for terrorist (read: Russian) / illegal war financing, no?

 

[njdevilsfan87]

Anonymity in transfers makes it perfect for terrorist (read: Russian) / illegal war financing, no?

It still happens on a huge scale even without crypto: https://www.businessinsider.com/russian-oligarchs-sanctions-movement-money-hawala-ukraine-war-2022-4

Ransoms are about the only real problem with crypto, imo. So now I see that despite a clear good use cases of crypto (note, it doesn't have to be a good for YOU, just people in general and that's what separates VCs who get rich versus the mob that goes nowhere), people will always come back to the dated 2014 arguments of terrorists, ransoms, etc. Which had a lot more weight when crypto didn't really offer much use aside from exchanging crypto. I'm not up for going back to those. I'm happy to discuss the use cases though, like I have been for the past few pages in regards to physical NFTs.

 

[igor_kavinski]

Yeah but a crypto world will create more wars without traceability of funding sources. Imagine all the Trumpians funding Trump to wage an all-white American war to deport all immigrants.

 

[njdevilsfan87]

That's a fallacy. Bitcoin actually is traceable. Drug dealers don't like using for that reason. When I mention anonymity, I mean with whoever you're exchanging with. Nobody is going to spend the time, means, and resources to try to figure who you are behind some public key, unless you're really high up on some wanted list. Things like mixers exist, but look at how uninformed (or screw it - just ignorant at this point since its now 2022) the general population is when it comes to crypto. The same fortunately seems to extend into that world too. Not to mention the same risks that apply to every day users (loss of keys, coins, etc) also apply to drug lords too. Not to mention it's not as easy as some people must believe, to simply just onramp and offramp millions of dollars through crypto.

 

[DisarmedDespot]

Because a blockchain like Ethereum is open to the entire world, secure and anonymous, whereas Masterworks is just the secondary Masterworks market where anyone who wants to join needs to register and KYC/AML. Ethereum is a huge liquidity upgrade, for both buyers and sellers.

If you transfer at 0 value, there's no royalties (in let's say USDC, which you can force unlike the native token) paid . You might call this a loop hole, except nobody is going to risk exchanging at 0 value to avoid royalties unless they're moving around their own wallets or to their trusted friends. Which I would be fine with anyway since a bulk of those exchanges aren't actual sales.

Dodging KYC laws isn't a killer feature for anyone who isn't already sucked into the cryptosphere. 'Registering' isn't some massive barrier to entry you make it out to be. Crypto only makes sense when you need trustless immutable transactions. You pay a lot in more than just computational efficiency to get those perks. You don't need them in this setup and it just exposes you to the security risks inherent in unpatchable smart contracts, exposes your users to the gloriously stupid crypto user experience, removes any hope of reversing fraud and doesn't give any advantages except trying to pump the crypto price up.

Are these royalties actually working out in the wild, or are they yet another proof-of-concept that doesn't work?

 

[njdevilsfan87]

Dodging KYC laws isn't a killer feature for anyone who isn't already sucked into the cryptosphere. 'Registering' isn't some massive barrier to entry you make it out to be. Crypto only makes sense when you need trustless immutable transactions. You pay a lot in more than just computational efficiency to get those perks. You don't need them in this setup and it just exposes you to the security risks inherent in unpatchable smart contracts, exposes your users to the gloriously stupid crypto user experience, removes any hope of reversing fraud and doesn't give any advantages except trying to pump the crypto price up.

Are these royalties actually working out in the wild, or are they yet another proof-of-concept that doesn't work?

Dodging KYC's feature is maximum liquidity. That benefits buyers, sellers, and businesses in the middle. That absolutely makes it, a killer feature.

NFT exchange smart contracts are basic. There's little risk outside of pure negligence (i.e. OpenSea not destroying year old contracts allowing attackers to purchase NFTs for last year's price - which they paid back to users btw).

Registering is not a massive barrier... in the US where every major service that launches will accept me by default based on where I live. It's an easy KYC for that service. Which... would be nice to just not have worry about or do that if I'm a business. Since KYC's main purpose is anti-fraud against you. Half of the KYC laws are moot with blockchains, whereas the other half don't apply to token issuers and everyday users (but may still apply to those facilitating exchanges, i.e. NFT marketplaces, Coinbase, etc).

The royalties I mentioned require custom code, and gas fees are high and marketplaces don't support it because of the additional complexity. But... let's not forget blockchain technology is still evolving. What's clunky today may be seamless in another 2-3 years. If not on Ethereum, than on another blockchain better suited for NFTs. But for now, you get a point here. But don't forget stuff like this wasn't even possible a few years ago.

 

[DisarmedDespot]

Dodging KYC's feature is maximum liquidity. That benefits buyers, sellers, and businesses in the middle. That absolutely makes it, a killer feature.

NFT exchange smart contracts are basic. There's little risk outside of pure negligence (i.e. OpenSea not destroying year old contracts allowing attackers to purchase NFTs for last year's price - which they paid back to users btw).

Registering is not a massive barrier... in the US where every major service that launches will accept me by default based on where I live. It's an easy KYC for that service. Which... would be nice to just not have worry about or do that if I'm a business. Since KYC's main purpose is anti-fraud against you. Half of the KYC laws are moot with blockchains, whereas the other half don't apply to token issuers and everyday users (but may still apply to those facilitating exchanges, i.e. NFT marketplaces, Coinbase, etc).

The royalties I mentioned require custom code, and gas fees are high and marketplaces don't support it because of the additional complexity. But... let's not forget blockchain technology is still evolving. What's clunky today may be seamless in another 2-3 years. If not on Ethereum, than on another blockchain better suited for NFTs. But for now, you get a point here. But don't forget stuff like this wasn't even possible a few years ago.

What part of these contracts are basic? How do royalties from each NFT sale go and how do proceeds from sales of the thing itself get sent back to the token holders? Or are we skipping that second part and making these just monkey NFTs without the monkeys, meaningless tokens only good to speculate on? How does this scheme work?

No, no, dodging KYC is not a killer feature. If it was, crypto would not have withered on the vine back around 2017 back when companies like Dell dropped it quietly after picking it up to much fanfare. This is just the old and failed 'bank the unbanked' but with a terrible coat of new paint slapped on it . You're gonna need to show your work if you want to claim there's a bunch of people in sub-Saharan Africa eager to yeet their savings into this nonsense. 'Bank the unbanked' at least promised something halfway to reasonable, even if it ignored things like M-Pesa or the infrastructure issues.

You're not talking about technology, you're talking about magic and handwaving away fundamental issues as you shoehorn a tech into a role it does not fit. I'm cynical about crypto, but there's a sliver of hope that someone will find a way to actually take advantage of trustless immutable transactions and carve out a niche. NFTs? They're a dead end whose time has come and long since gone. You acknowledge they failed for art, there's a massive backlash against them in gaming, and I don't see any reason why fractionalized NFTs loosely connected to some physical thing will be any different.

 

[DrMrLordX]

I'm noticing you never acknowledge your mistakes.

Like an attacking a computer security expert, claiming he didn't properly characterize Ponzi Crypto Coins as a Zero Sum game, when he did, and you don't seem to get what a Zero Sum Game means.

It's like talking to a brick wall. Honestly. If you want to remain blind and cite only the blind then go right ahead. It's impossible to deal with anyone that wants to relegate all blockchain projects to the status of "Ponzi Crypto Coins". It's staggering how narrow-minded people can be. Including, apparently, computer scientists with 30+ year backgrounds in relevant fields of research.

OFX requires a $500 minimum per remittance. There are other limitations. You'll find the fees variable.

Anyway 0% is better than >0% so your complaints are a bit moot. If you're unbanked you'll be paying more either way. Also OFX is slow. Unless you're using something awful like Bitcoin, blockchain transfers take less than an hour. Usually a few minutes.

How often do you have to do international transfers?

1). I don't
2). Many of these remittance services I mentioned are for the unbanked.

In case you didn't click the link, let me remind you that yearly international remittances from the United States alone amounted to $148 billion in 2017. What I personally do or don't do is irrelevant.

 

[biostud]

It's like talking to a brick wall. Honestly. If you want to remain blind and cite only the blind then go right ahead. It's impossible to deal with anyone that wants to relegate all blockchain projects to the status of "Ponzi Crypto Coins". It's staggering how narrow-minded people can be. Including, apparently, computer scientists with 30+ year backgrounds in relevant fields of research.

OFX requires a $500 minimum per remittance. There are other limitations. You'll find the fees variable.

Anyway 0% is better than >0% so your complaints are a bit moot. If you're unbanked you'll be paying more either way. Also OFX is slow. Unless you're using something awful like Bitcoin, blockchain transfers take less than an hour. Usually a few minutes.



1). I don't
2). Many of these remittance services I mentioned are for the unbanked.

In case you didn't click the link, let me remind you that yearly international remittances from the United States alone amounted to $148 billion in 2017. What I personally do or don't do is irrelevant.

Personally I don't believe anything is ever free of charge. So where in the system is someone making money from a transfer? Or will be in the future?

 

[DrMrLordX]

So where in the system is someone making money from a transfer? Or will be in the future?

If you really want to dig into it, you can read more here:

Buy Cryptocurrency with Credit or Debit Card Instantly | Currency.com

The best place to buy and store your crypto. Buy cryptocurrency instantly and start building your portfolio now!

currency.com

I'm not a Nano/XNO fanboy or investor. It's just one of those projects that is simple enough in what it attempts that it more-or-less just works and potentially adds value by making remittances easy + cheap. Only downside I can see to it right now is that XNO is traded on exchanges, so you can incur fees if you obtain XNO there. Also this causes XNO's value relative to USD/EUR/etc. to be volatile. There was an effort called nos.cash to build a stablecoin on top of Nano, but it seems to have failed.

 

[biostud]

If you really want to dig into it, you can read more here:

Buy Cryptocurrency with Credit or Debit Card Instantly | Currency.com

The best place to buy and store your crypto. Buy cryptocurrency instantly and start building your portfolio now!

currency.com

I'm not a Nano/XNO fanboy or investor. It's just one of those projects that is simple enough in what it attempts that it more-or-less just works and potentially adds value by making remittances easy + cheap. Only downside I can see to it right now is that XNO is traded on exchanges, so you can incur fees if you obtain XNO there. Also this causes XNO's value relative to USD/EUR/etc. to be volatile. There was an effort called nos.cash to build a stablecoin on top of Nano, but it seems to have failed.

And isn't that still one of the core problems, you still need to exchange to real currency to actually buy anything. Even places where they accept crypto, there is just a middleman who is paid in crypto and then pay the store in real money.

 

[beginner99]

And isn't that still one of the core problems, you still need to exchange to real currency to actually buy anything. Even places where they accept crypto, there is just a middleman who is paid in crypto and then pay the store in real money.

Yeah but currency (cash) just didn't get released on day 1 and everyone used and accepted it immediately. In fact it took several centuries to become as prevalent as it is now. What do you expected with a system replacing an existing one? Why should that just happen in 1 decade? it won't obviously.

You can also argue even with classic currency you need to exchange all the time. Especially in international business. So it's not like that exchanging is such a huge or uncommon thing. it's like a european company making business with US company and then say the dollar is just a middlemen to get euros.

 

[biostud]

Yeah but currency (cash) just didn't get released on day 1 and everyone used and accepted it immediately. In fact it took several centuries to become as prevalent as it is now. What do you expected with a system replacing an existing one? Why should that just happen in 1 decade? it won't obviously.

You can also argue even with classic currency you need to exchange all the time. Especially in international business. So it's not like that exchanging is such a huge or uncommon thing. it's like a european company making business with US company and then say the dollar is just a middlemen to get euros.

My point was just that crypto currency is not going to solve the problem with exchange rates in international trade, and it adds an extra step when trading local, as the system is now.

 

[Heartbreaker]

It's like talking to a brick wall. Honestly. If you want to remain blind and cite only the blind then go right ahead. It's impossible to deal with anyone that wants to relegate all blockchain projects to the status of "Ponzi Crypto Coins". It's staggering how narrow-minded people can be. Including, apparently, computer scientists with 30+ year backgrounds in relevant fields of research.

You need to examine your zealotry, when you start attacking experts who clearly understand the technology better than you do.

Ignorance, bluster and insults are not impressive.

Anyway 0% is better than >0% so your complaints are a bit moot. If you're unbanked you'll be paying more either way. Also OFX is slow. Unless you're using something awful like Bitcoin, blockchain transfers take less than an hour. Usually a few minutes.

You aren't remotely capable of honest debate are you. You just ignore all the valid counter points to your argument, and pretend if you don't acknowledge them, they don't exist.

It's not 0%, and you know it. You have to convert your ponzi-coins into real currency, and when you do that you pay even higher fees.

Plus you still haven't even acknowledged the basic fact that your Pet Coin: Nano doesn't even use Blockchain.

Disingenuous ignorance is no way to win a debate. You might be convincing yourself, but you aren't convincing anyone else.

 

[VirtualLarry]

2. You don't. If you trust a minted NFT from a random because it's cheaper instead of going with a more expensive entity that's audited and abides by the rules and regulations in of their jurisdictions, then it's your fault for gambling buying from that random who minted the NFT.

I thought blockchains were "trustless".