this post was submitted on 09 Mar 2024
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I think it's funny how most lemmy users are pro open source, pro privacy, pro digital rights; but once it comes to money all that is thrown out of the window and they happily get on their knees for paypal and the few other large players.
Yes, the current state of crypto is a mess. People are attracted by the promise of the big payout, rather then seeking an alternative payment system, making them ripe for scammers that promise the world, but in the end only rug "investors". Even "functional" cryptos are often highly centralized, making them as bad as banks in terms of reliability. Almost none implement any privacy features, and if they do, its typically a tacked on afterthought.
But this does not make the original idea invalid. Will it ever live up to the promise of alternative money? Maybe. Maybe not. Only time will tell if the issues that exist right now will be fixed.
If making payments in crypto back to FIAT was free it would be more popular. For me it's mostly useless since the fee to spend crypto is more than the (often free) fee for using my credit card.
New needs to be better and cheaper to be picked up.
It would also be popular if the entire crypto landscape wasn't replete with late stage capitalist-douche tech bros trying to scam literally everyone.
In my experience it works extremely well for everything online and digital content. The instance I'm on? 100% crowd funded with microdonations and the hoster directly accepts it without conversion back to fiat. I pay my email and VPN also like this, and on mullvad you even get a 10% discount.
But yes, for everything physical it's a long way ahead to become widely accepted.
There's attempts at having payments with 0 fees, that is, if you don't involve exchanges or payment service providers, who obviously charge a fee for fiat conversion.
Using Nano you have 0 fees for the transaction and ideally as little as 0.25% fee at an exchange for fiat conversion.
It's not only without fees, it's very fast (ideallly sub-second confirmation) and eco-friendly (requiring no special hardware, because there is no mining and using very little energy overall).
What's lacking is places where you can actually pay for things with Nano, but that's the classic chicken and egg problem.
Crypto is a liberterian capitalist's wet dream.
Tax-free, anonymous, with no accountability. Perfect for white washing corporate gain.
Just because it is "open-source" doesn't mean it will be used for good.
Crypto is not anonymous. Even monero, the most private cryptocurrency, has a feature called "view only wallets", so 3rd party auditing is possible, if not easier then auditing today. Will individuals use it to avoid some taxes? Sure, it gets easier for them. Will corporations avoid more taxes then they already do? Doubtful.
A view only wallet doesn't trace anything that doesn't get received directly by that view only wallet. If we had two wallets that didn't interact with that wallet, it couldn't do shit to trace or audit my transactions.
If you are a company and run a webstore, it could be mandatory that all funds must go through a wallet where the tax authorities have a view key. This would be trivial to enforce with penalties whenever for publicly using addresses that point to other wallets. Peer to peer transactions (for eg. used goods or produce from your garden) are already except from taxes in my jurisdiction, so these transactions can be private.
Ahhhh I see what you mean now that's true but would be dependant on the legislation of the area like you said.
Currency is a pretty sound idea, whether it will ever get (back?) to a usable place is it's own discussion.
A lot of the conversation about blockchain as a technology though involves the ones that store additional information as a distributed database, which comes with problems.
It's also 'neat', but they all depend on trusting the validation method for putting info into the database, which largely defeats the point of having a "trustless" database once the data is in there. There's the occasional proposed use case that seems vaguely useful, but they mostly boil down to replacing legal contracts with a database that's distributed "somewhere".
Just because it's open source doesn't mean it's good. Also not every situation is the same. Using Linux instead of windows has advantages/disadvantages very different than using crypto instead of fiat.
I can think of thousands of reasons to pick Linux, thousands to pick windows and thousands to pick fiat. I'd have to think real hard to even think of a single reason to pick crypto over fiat.
I prefer free software not for its price, but for the freedom it gives me. Naturally I donate to these causes roughly what I'd have spend on a commercial one. They however do not need to know who I am, so I exclusively use crypto for that. I made one exception for an organization using paypal, and promptly they pulled address and name from that, gave it to a 3rd party which then send a postcard to me. You could see it as a nice gesture, but I think it's just rude to use data in ways I did not explicitly consented to. Just take your money and leave me in peace.
In a similar manner I like to use it to pay for email, vpn, hosting and other online stuff. In fact this lemmy instance is 100% paid for by microdonations from its users, and because the provider accepts it directly no conversion was needed.
Open source has nothing to do with it. All the things you've mentioned is made for the good of the people. Crypto is not. Crypto is for the rich to get richer and exploit the poor.
Anonymous payments is not a good thing and throws any sort of fraud protection out the window. It's just for libertarians trying to avoid taxes, and criminals trying to launder money. It's not beneficial to hide from the government that you bought a extra fatty pizza.
Also nothing about Crypto is grass roots whatsoever unlike what you listed before. Crypto took off because it was inorganically and heavily pushed by very rich people knowing they can make a large profit.
Your instance is literally an archaic PoW token that causes a tremendous amount of harm to the environment and wastes energy so you can hide buying drugs. That's not including the fact either that you have to go through exchanges who require identifying information to withdraw into non monopoly money.
Centralization is not always bad, this is libertarian logic.
Do you what to know the best part about xmr? You can kick and scream and bitch about me using it, but you can't do jack shit about it. Maybe you can lobby at the side of paypal for more regulations, until the enshittification eventually catches up with you. glhf
It's too late for you. As soon as you want to turn that monero into cash, you're going to be asked a lot of questions by the exchanges and the tax man.
But I don't want to exchange is back to fiat, that's the entire point.
I don't think anybody likes paypal, Visa, Mastercard or any of the other major players. It's just that blockchain "currencies" are much, much worse.
The idea of "Alternative Money" is a silly idea. Money has always been, and will always be connected to a state. The taxing and spending of the state is what gives money its value.
With cryptocurrencies, the "value" is only "greater fool" value. Someone is willing to pay 70k in dollars for a bitcoin because they think someone else is going to be willing to buy it from them for $71k at some point in the future. If it were a legitimate currency people wouldn't bother checking its value in dollars because it would be useful in its own right. The only legitimate demand for cryptocurrencies is to pay ransom, and even then, the people who get the ransom immediately transform it back to a useful "fiat" currency.
Lemmy users are knowledgeable about open source, privacy, digital rights and knowledgeable enough to know that cryptocurrencies are a scam.
The idea that money is tied to the state is silly. Many things have been used as money, way before the concept of a "state" existed. Undeniably the money that lasted best across the passage of time is gold. Up until very recently it was the standard to settle cross country currency exchanges with. The value does not come from the state, but from people willing to exchange it for goods and services. Todays fiat money is created at will by a few select people that are not democratically elected. They get to decide how much they debase your savings for the "greater good", while the ones that profit the most are those who control the source.
Most people do not care about their open source, privacy and digital rights, so they only hear and care about crypto when the price jumps or when it is used for crime. Everything else is simply not newsworthy. So you end up with a bunch of "investors" looking to make a quick buck and people who believe to solve crime with more laws (requesting ransoms is already illegal, has existed before crypto and currently gift cards are scammers favorite form of payment).
I never mentioned the price nor suggested investing, because quite frankly, I don't care. What I do care about is giving the few big companies that control the internet as little data and influence as possible, and not processing payments through them is a really important step. So I keep about as much crypto as I keep cash in my wallet, and use it preferably when buying or selling.
No, it's not. It's historically accurate. All money is state money, always has been, always will be.
Nope. Sorry, that's wrong.
Gold isn't money. Gold is a commodity. Gold was used for jewelry, and as a bright shiny thing that didn't tarnish had value because of that. People would sometimes exchange gold or things made of gold, but not gold coins. But, they'd also exchange other useful things: food, tools, cloth, etc. Gold coins were created by various states.
Never happened. Sure, there were gifts or donations, but it wasn't X amount of gold for Y amount of grain. There were debts, but debts weren't listed as a certain amount of gold, or a certain amount of money. Debts are old, money is new. Trading one thing for a certain "price" didn't happen until coins existed, and coins didn't exist until there was a state.
Oh, blah blah blah. "Fiat money" is the only kind of money that has ever existed or will ever exist. It doesn't much matter whether the government is "democratically elected" or not, currencies are created by and backed by a state and their ability to obtain a monopoly on the use of force within their area of influence. Most states with currencies are currently democratic, even if the structure of the US federal reserve is confusing to you.
More blah blah blah crypto nonsense.
Look, do some research on this stuff. Debt is a good place to start.
This is literally what you do every day. You exchange something for goods and services. This something is money based on it's functional role, not some obscure definitions. To be money, it must be used as money. To be used as money, a group of people must agree that the item is worth exchanging for. This something does need to fulfill additional properties to be useful, notably it must be fungible, durable, portable, recognizable, divisible and have a stable supply. Gold does fit this description, but so does fiat.
What you are describing is a government issued currency, which has some overlap with money, but is not the same thing. Maybe you should research on this stuff.
Yes, now that there's money it's what happens. Prior to money there were debts, but no exchange of "X" for a set amount of goods or services.
To be money it must meet all the definitions of money. It must be a store of value, it must be a unit of account and a medium of exchange. There was no real money until there were states.
Government issued currencies are the only real currencies. Everything else is valued by what someone will pay for it in government issued currency.
Gold being a commodity because its shiny and therefore has value is no different than "I want to use this coin to better protect my data and privacy". Both are values attributed to a commodity. Also, "It may have intrinsic value (commodity money), or be legally exchangeable for something with intrinsic value (representative money), or only have nominal value (fiat money)."
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_money
You are wrong that money has always existed as state issued. That isn't true
It's completely different. Gold is a commodity because it is inherently useful in itself. If someone invented a way to create gold out of thin air, people would continue to want gold because it's pretty and shiny, and because it's a very good electrical conductor that doesn't tarnish. Crypto coins are only useful because everyone thinks that a greater fool will come along and pay as much or more. Everyone knows they have no inherent value, but so far there has always been a greater fool.
Sure it is.
Hey by the way, after we had that discussion bitcoin surpassed silver to become the 8th most valuable asset by market cap on the entire planet More than coca cola and Pepsi combined.
Also no, money has existed outside of States and Countries before you should look into the Theory of Money and the history behind it
It's not an asset. A bubble doesn't prove anything. Tulips were once as valuable as houses... until they weren't.
The theory of money is a theory. The fact is that money has always been associated with a state.
Fixing issues like energy consumption, confirmation time, fees?
Just in case you haven't heard of Nano, allow me to tell you it's an attempt at creating a peer-to-peer digital currency with minimal energy consumption, 0 fees, 0 minimum account balance, very fast confirmation (ideally sub-second, sometimes a bit slower) and 0 supply inflation.
It focuses on doing one thing and doing it well: transferring value efficiently, sustsinably and without middlemen.
It's around since 2015 and still kicking, getting better and better with each release, ironing kinks out.
It might sound too good to be true, but it's worth a look; make up your own mind.
This is what I learnt on Lemmy. Not all people who agree with your position have arrived there logically. (In my case, this position would be leftist ideals). People who you share the same values with are not exempt from being illogical.
New tech leads to scammers pouncing on it to make a quick buck. However, just because scammers pounce on it doesn't make the tech bad inherently.
See Lemmy's hate for AI for instance. The advancements in the field of machine learning are mind boggling. Lemmings unfortunately fail to disassociate the tech from the scammers who talk about this tech. It's disappointing, but oh well... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
AI has the potential to become a tool which strongly favors and benefits the ruling class. Us peasants get the locked down version, while government agencies get to use the full power for cyber warfare and disinformation campaigns, and large corpos get to manipulate ("advertise") to you in most manipulative way to act in their best interest.
The way I see it good people shy away form using AI, leaving only the assholes wielding their new would powers. Those with ill intentions will find ways to use it, no matter how many laws you put up to prevent it. To defend yourself the best approach would be to learn how to use AI yourself, so that you can detect and react when AI is used against your best interests.
Does this make me pro or con AI? I honestly don't know. Maybe complex things are never that black and white to begin with.
Agreed completely. Usage of AI is a political issue. The tech can be used both for the good and bad. However, just because it can be used for the bad doesn't make the tech bad.
Development in nuclear science made a bomb that could end civilisation. It also gave us a pathway to solve climate change. How we use the tech should be an issue. The tech itself shouldn't be.
You're either arguing in bad faith or just ignorant if you think those are the actual issues with crypto and AI.
Most people dislike crypto due to the severe negative environmental impact it has on the world. We are literally on the precipice of global warming fucking everything up for us and some greedy motherfuckers decide they need to reinvent something that isn't broken, and has yet to show a single viable use case that can't be matched with traditional methods.
As for AI, are you defending the plagiarism machine or the art theft machine? I just fail to see how stealing writer's and artist's livelihoods to create a dystopian society where creative expression is replaced by soulless machines is a good thing. There is a world where this isn't a negative, however in this late-stage capitalism world we live in, artists and writers are being layed off in exchange for AI.
Honestly the real disappointment here is you.
I dislike cryptocurrencies for the same reason. I never said I support them. However, I like the tech behind blockchains. I believe that there are legitimate use cases for blockchains. There are many different implementations of blockchains that circumvent proof of work (the environment damaging thing).
Again, I agree with you. Capitalism sucks. AI and capitalism combined suck even more. However, this does not make the tech behind AI inherently bad. As you said, there is a world where this isn't bad. There is a world where advancements in AI can be put to very very good use. I want to see that world. This is why I support (and have contributed to) the development of open sourced AI models. I want public ownership over models. While open sourced doesn't exactly mean this, it's the closest that we can get to it.
Sick burn brah... I need some ice for that burn brah
I don't use AI to copy other peoples work. I use AI as a better search engine for obscure topics where I don't know the right keywords. Describe your issue in cleartext, and out comes enough info to migrate to a better search. I've also used AI to modify my own works, ie. "blur out the background of this image" or "remove object from image".
When people argue in favor of traditional banking because they are more "environmental friendly", I really have to ask who is arguing ion bad faith. Aren't credit cards a thing because banks know that given the chance people will consume more then they can afford? They are the one complicit in our consumerist culture, which arguably places a much higher burden on the environment. But the calculation is much broader then comparing the power consumption of ATMs with crypto networks, so it's easy to sweep that part under the rug.
Well technically you could also have crypto banks which pull the same shit. The advantage of blockchains is better security and integrity.
Well their can not be uncapped fractional lending as it is right now. The bank could offer a credit card equivalent, but it would need an equal amount of deposits. The current system works by essentially crediting the merchant an IOU, whose value does not have to be real. With crypto merchants get to choose, would they rather have native crypto, or an IOU with strings and contracts attached? Obviously the latter is more risky, and therefor the seller has to factor it into the price/ transaction fee.
Maybe that can be somehow circumvented too. But it certainly is more difficult then the meddling that happens right now.
Yeah I guess u'r right. Fractional lending rn is very important for monetary policy. And monetary policy is VERY IMPORTANT. But I could see a completely digital currency having good monetary policies without interest rates and fractional reserves. Perhaps, a simple gas fee increase/decrease could work. I dunno, I'm too tired rn lol