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Why cryptocurrency and NFTs are horrible (lemmygrad.ml)
submitted 4 months ago by ahriboy@lemmygrad.ml to c/comradeship@lemmygrad.ml
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First of all, the hype of different blockchains has garnered attention. People who fall into the hype hasn't learned about the financial literacy and the risks of investing into those.

When Axie Infinity became popular in my country, influencers have started promoting the game and so-called scholarship, which is to refer to a new player. Within a few months of playing, people lost money. Influencers haven't spoken about the players losing money.

Remember, investment into such blockchains carries a risk. Those are called the digital Ponzi scheme by some people.

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[-] bunbun@lemmygrad.ml 8 points 4 months ago

I AM NOT SHILLING CRYPTO IN ANY WAY OKAY THANK YOU

With that out of the way, those are not intrinsic qualities of either. The fundamentals on which every shitcoin and the bored ape garbage were sold to the public are still very strong. This is like saying "online shopping is horrible" in 2004 - technically not incorrect, but very shortsighted. While the proof of work protocol (mining for it to function and who mines more is the truth) is unsustainable, proof of stake (who holds more is the truth) and mixed ones are fundamentally amazing. Imagine stablecoins pegged to indexes of international currencies. BRICS coin, for example. With smart contracts (rules built into the transaction itself) and being practically legitimate international currencies it opens up so many possibilities. Transparency and easy comparisons in payments - salaries, rents, goods and services. Immutability - you can't just whack a person and steal the deed to their house. The "chain" part of blockchain - clear history of ownership of assets, no more "I accidentally bought a stolen car/house". And eventually the contracts can be made complex enough to cover most interpersonal transactions.

And the same thing for nfts. Especially now, in the rapidly exploding era of unethical AI art, music, etc. Artists could easily sell/lease rights for their work, including for it to be a basis for generative models. It's not limited to digital products - whatever you want to to confirm ownership of can be tagged with one-way encrypted signatures baked into nfts.

So both are great technologies that can still be improved on a lot. But it's just that the ways in which they're used today are almost exclusively rugpull bubble dogshit.

[-] lil_tank@lemmygrad.ml 20 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

I thought the same as you about the exciting technological fundamentals before realising that it was unfortunately also very overblown.

Basically Blockchain technology is a solution in search of a problem. It was invented by someone who was convinced that decentralised currency would realise the ancap utopia. In order make it mainstream, people have been trying very hard to find better use cases and it turns out that you always end up concluding that the centralised approach is always better.

Proof of stake could make the thing not too environmentally damaging but it's been years that major blockchains are saying they will implement it the next year. And again, the use cases would remain weak in the end

There are other cryptographic mechanisms at play, which are amazingly interesting but it is not going to revolutionise the internet since it's already being used everywhere (for example asymmetrical keys).

[-] bunbun@lemmygrad.ml 4 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

I gave a number of real life use cases where it would solve real problems. There are so many more, especially "boring" ones like official documents, research, and medical records that would benefit from it tremendously. Blockchain does not equal crypto, but they complement each other really well.

Proof of stake could make the thing not too environmentally damaging but it's been years that major blockchains are saying they will implement it the next year

What do you mean, Ethereum is pos.

[-] HakFoo@lemmy.sdf.org 4 points 4 months ago

I sort of understood the premise for chain-of-custody style use cases, but the other side of the coin is that these usually, or always, have a final arbiter of validity. Typically it's a court system or an end purchaser who decides if the data is valid.

For example, an obvious use case is "record a will or deed on the blockchain, cryptographically signed and timestamped, to eliminate any disputes about ownership." Except the same problem is trivially solved by a scheme where I could register my will/deed with the legal system itself, which is already pretty good at storing documents, and no need to cart around a big, heavy blockchain. Most of the problems in that space come from spotty, inconsistent record keeping (why aren't these documents centrally registered in the US?) and more centralization solves them.

That's why the fixation on decentralization is often a waste. I suspect the real appeal is fear of human institutions. A banking or legal system subject to laws and social norms might refuse to honour the documents you file, but soulless decentralized code will dance as it's told to. For example, I could imagine wiring a smart contract triggered to irrevocably pay on the event of someone's death, while writing "hitman fees" in the memo of a paper cheque probably raises a few eyebrows at the bank.

[-] lil_tank@lemmygrad.ml 3 points 4 months ago

What do you mean, Ethereum is pos.

I guess I wasn't up to date. That's cool actually!

There are so many more, especially “boring” ones

Interesting! I will do more research then.

[-] ButtBidet@hexbear.net 2 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

There are so many more, especially "boring" ones like official documents, research, and medical records

I doubt this. With crypto, the ledger needs to be repeated multiple multiple times, it's incredibly wasteful. There's no improvement over a central server.

What do you mean, Ethereum is pos.

I think it's super dangerous to take the developers' word on their product. Probably it's literally POS, but I'm not gonna believe all the hype without a disinterested confirmation.

[-] sevenapples@lemmygrad.ml 5 points 4 months ago

I think it’s super dangerous to take the developers’ word on their product. Probably it’s literally POS, but I’m not gonna believe all the hype without a disinterested confirmation.

If you believe a coin on the scale of Ethereum can lie about whether it's proof of stake or work, you have no idea what you're talking about.

[-] amemorablename@lemmygrad.ml 6 points 4 months ago

Would be helpful to explain why you think deception is impossible in that context. Crypto and NFTs have a lot of con artistry going on and it's reasonable for people to be skeptical.

[-] sevenapples@lemmygrad.ml 2 points 4 months ago

It's a fundamental part of the blockchain. In PoW you have to constantly run a mining program on your computer. In PoS you designate an amount to stake (by smart contract, if I'm not mistaken) and that's it. How would the ethereum devs (or whoever else) run PoW without telling anyone? Who would pay the electricity bills?

People should be skeptical, but within reason. No investigation, no right to speak and all that.

[-] amemorablename@lemmygrad.ml 3 points 4 months ago

(by smart contract, if I’m not mistaken)

No investigation, no right to speak and all that.

You don't sound very confident on the details. I do appreciate the explanation and I am not trying to be snarky or dismissive here. But if you are trying to hold people to a standard of no investigation, no right to speak, I would expect a little more than this for being the one who has done investigation.

Here is part of the quote:

You can't solve a problem? Well, get down and investigate the present facts and its past history! When you have investigated the problem thoroughly, you will know how to solve it. Conclusions invariably come after investigation, and not before. Only a blockhead cudgels his brains on his own, or together with a group, to "find solution" or "evolve an idea" without making any investigation. It must be stressed that this cannot possibly lead to any effective solution or any good idea. In other words, he is bound to arrive at a wrong solution and a wrong idea.

There are not a few comrades doing inspection work, as well as guerrilla leaders and cadres newly in office, who like to make political pronouncements the moment they arrive at a place and who strut about, criticizing this and condemning that when they have only seen the surface of things or minor details. Such purely subjective nonsensical talk is indeed detestable. These people are bound to make a mess of things, lose the confidence of the masses and prove incapable of solving any problem at all.

The full thing can be found here for discussion: https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-6/mswv6_11.htm

My takeaway as relevant to this is that it's more about people who hypothesize and invent wildly from nothing and resist going among the masses to learn what they need and how it can be done rather than being about people who are skeptical in the year 2024 in encountering anonymous claims made to them about technology on the internet.

I've been in situations before of having investigated something quite a bit and facing stubbornness from people who haven't. I can empathize on that level. It's frustrating when you've done the work to learn and people act like their knowledge is equal to yours in spite of having spent little to no time on it at all. But I think there is a line we can cross where it's going to sound like we're saying "turn your brain off and take my word for it" instead of "let's educate the masses so they are better informed."

In this context, for example, how are we defining what "within reason" is for skepticism? Skepticism is more or less a kind of wariness. I'm having trouble working out where you'd draw the line for reasonable or unreasonable skepticism if we're starting from the premise that the whole reason a person is being skeptical is because they lack the information to confidently draw a conclusion.

I don't ask a detailed reply here, just consider it as food for thought and if you want to dig into it, you're welcome to of course.

[-] sevenapples@lemmygrad.ml 1 points 4 months ago

I will not spend hours of my time researching and writing a detailed reply for someone that thinks PoW can be masked as PoS. I know the fundamentals of software engineering and blockchains, and those are enough to explain why you should take the devs word about ethereum being PoS. How the staking mechanism works is irrelevant for this discussion.

Maybe I should've included the small explanation in my first reply, but given the other commenter's attitude I doubt it would matter.

[-] ButtBidet@hexbear.net 4 points 4 months ago

Rule1: No capitalist apologia / anti-communism.

Rule 3: Be respectful. This is a safe space where all comrades should feel welcome; this includes a warning against uncritical sectarianism.

[-] sevenapples@lemmygrad.ml 1 points 4 months ago

It's capitalist apologia when I correct you on something? Give me a break.

I stand by my original tone, I stated that you have no idea what you're talking about, which is true, without attacking you with names, expletives etc.

[-] ButtBidet@hexbear.net 3 points 4 months ago

Defending a capitalist projects without evidence or justification is pretty much capitalist apologia.

If you believe a coin on the scale of Ethereum can lie about whether it's proof of stake or work, you have no idea what you're talking about.

I didn't say that they lied about pos. I said it's probably pos but we needn't take them on they word about everything, and you're continuing to insist I said that. And being "you have no idea what you're talking about".

[-] sevenapples@lemmygrad.ml 1 points 4 months ago

You didn't downright say that they lie about being PoS, but you said that a third party must confirm it, which is an equally bonkers statement. You can check my reply to the other commenter for a small explanation on why that's true.

[-] ButtBidet@hexbear.net 2 points 4 months ago

I think it’s super dangerous to take the developers’ word on their product. Probably it’s literally POS, but I’m not gonna believe all the hype without a disinterested confirmation.

Asking for second party to confirm something is "equally bonkers". Great job with the ableist slut. Comrade, you went to personal insults after the first comment.

[-] sevenapples@lemmygrad.ml 1 points 4 months ago

you're asking a third party to confirm the equivalent of 'water is wet'

[-] gila@lemm.ee 3 points 4 months ago

How are you elucidating Satoshi's intent? The Bitcoin white paper doesn't say anything to indicate it would predicate a utopia. It puts forward decentralisation as meaningful. If you don't think it is, chances are it's because the existing centralised systems cater to you. That's great, but there are millions in the global south for whom that isn't the case. For whom those systems serve to restrain and restrict. For whom there is no reason for a "better use case" than simple and fair value transfer they don't have access to. IMO, that empowerment alone justifies the means, by which I mean proof of work. As real value transfer always has a cost, whether or not it's realised by the transactor at the time of the transaction. And under any non-anarchical system of government, someone is realising that cost. PoW doesn't worsen that cost, it is more transparent about it.

[-] radiofreeval@hexbear.net 5 points 4 months ago

Why use a blockchain for that if you are tying it to a fiat currency? If you have a 1:1 fiat to crypto link then you have just made a more annoying to maintain that could have been a database.

[-] Finiteacorn@lemmygrad.ml 5 points 4 months ago

bruh it is literally just a write only ledger + wasted energy, there is nothing about crypto that is innovative aside from a new coat of paint for all the same old scams.

[-] Kultronx@lemmygrad.ml 7 points 4 months ago

the DPRK would disagree 😎

[-] SadArtemis@lemmygrad.ml 4 points 4 months ago

This, I'd say that the fact crypto has a clear role to play in subverting and undermining the west's totalitarian chokehold on trade and finance (particularly between nations) fully redeems it.

[-] Finiteacorn@lemmygrad.ml 6 points 4 months ago

exept it doesnt, all crypto markets are almost entirely controlled not only by the west but by the exact same people and institutions that controlled similar thing before. crypto is completely and utterly useless except as vehicle for speculation, there does not exits a use case where better technologies didnt already exits.

[-] Kultronx@lemmygrad.ml 3 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)
[-] Finiteacorn@lemmygrad.ml 1 points 4 months ago

even if thats true laundering money isnt a use case for the technology its a flaw in it. its not exactly cool when sex traffickers and the like do it, is it.

[-] D61@hexbear.net 6 points 4 months ago

Unless you're trying to avoid a legal obligation or get around paying for something that its illegal for you to purchase there really isn't any point in messing with crypto currency.

NFT's and crypto currency speculation are just high risk gambles. Either the assets are being flipped in pump n dump schemes or money laundering and if you're seeing ads about "get in now and get rich quick!" that NFT/crypto market is just looking for bag holders to pay off early "investors".

Blockchain is a very brute force attempt to make an anonymized customer transaction system somewhat more trustworthy but its slow, expensive, and once a mistake is made it is transmitted to every ledger in the system. "Realize something's wrong and want to go back and fix it?" Well, too bad, either the mistake is now permanent or you fork that particular blockchain ledger and hope there aren't any more mistakes.

Smart contracts are dangerous as fuck. Write a contract wrong? Welp, its permanent now. Does it have executable code? Well... we hope its not malicious because the only way to get rid of it is to kill that whole blockchain project and start from scratch... which nukes everything, not just poorly/maliciously written contract. The law of the land is "enter into a contract at your own risk" with no oversight and no way to recover damages if you're a legitimately wronged party.

In the end, all of the problems that crypto speculators and blockchain proponents try to solve just winds up bringing them back to a centrally governed non-digital currency system that removes much of the anonymity that made it easier to pay for things that are designated as "illegal". The original point of crypto currency.

this post was submitted on 15 Jun 2024
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