Current Events > Is Crypto dead?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Or just its career?

It feels like the SBF/FTX situation set it back several years. People kept saying crypto was a scam and ponzi scheme and well FTX happened proving those people right.

FTX was like 2% of all of cryptocurrencies, I remember when Bitcoin was $3 so these type of threads always crack me up. In crypto we have a saying, not your keys, not your crypto.

Everything in Crypto is a scam. Everything. Binance, FTX, etc. They're all unregulated and run by scam artists.
When Binance goes, liquidity goes. Then the real volatility begins.

DarkRoast posted...

Everything in Crypto is a scam. Everything. Binance, FTX, etc. They're all unregulated and run by scam artists.

smdh. This guy is saying Binance is a scam. smdh you can say anything you want with no proof lmao

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]


A bunch of Youtubers went into more detail. This guy is my favorite one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTFhnpf-IE0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVrMpk4lGjA

They used clients funds for their own purposes which is never alright. People who invested in crypto on it are SOL in getting their money back.

Eramir posted...

smdh. This guy is saying Binance is a scam. smdh you can say anything you want with no proof lmao

You know why there's no proof?
For the same reason there was no proof FTX was a scam until it was too late.

They're not regulated. They lie.

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]

No, it very much was a scam. Having the scam run deeper does not mean it wasn't a ponzi scheme.

And crypto is dying but not dead. So long as people shovel more money into the fire its death will continue to go by slowly and Libertarians are known for their gullible nature in that respect. Unless some other big scandals happen soon I would not expect it to die in the near future.

Youll see fewer and fewer new participants in the scam. That will accelerate the decline since the scammers (crypto holders and hucksters) still want to realize profits or at least minimize losses.

Remember, crypto is a zero sum game.

Crypto won't die until all the major exchanges are gone and liquidity becomes problematic (especially for Bitcoin).

In the end, though, pure speculative investments always always crash eventually.

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]


Exactly. But some other people are uneducated.

it's not dead and it's not going to die given its fundamental utility

but it will endure the sweet purifying flames of an extended bear market because there's way too much trash with a lack of pmf or even real use cases if there's even a service to begin with, unsustainable economics, and a network of opaque and overleveraged custodial institutions that need to go bye-bye for the good of the industry.

TheMikh posted...

it's not going to die given its fundamental utility

???

Lol.

You cannot kill what never existed.

COVxy posted...

???

Lol.

its first generation's foundational primitive was a mechanism for incentivizing consensus on ordered events and state mutations between untrusted parties. bitcoin was the first mover.

its second generation's foundational primitive was verifiable general purpose computation secured by the first generation's primitive. ethereum was the first mover.

its third generation diversifies into credibly neutral distributed utility services utilizing the second generation's primitive, particularly in the way of data and communication services. first movers here include middleware like chainlink, and the graph. layer 2 blockchains like polygon, and basic defi technologies/protocols also fall in this generation.

its fourth generation marks a return to harder cryptography, entailing the utilization of [non-interactive] zero-knowledge research to reduce the need for trusting protocols or relays, or relying on redundant validation, as well as further compressing the amount of information needed to prove computation or changes in state. in layman's terms, the implications of this are more cost-effective, "portable", and secure computation that can be easily verified by end users. this generation also includes more privacy-minded research for use cases like identity, sensitive data, and voting.

TheMikh posted...

its first generation's foundational primitive was a mechanism for incentivizing consensus on ordered events and state mutations between untrusted parties. bitcoin was the first mover.

its second generation's foundational primitive was verifiable general purpose computation secured by the first generation's primitive. ethereum was the first mover.

its third generation diversifies into credibly neutral distributed utility services utilizing the second generation's primitive, particularly in the way of data and communication services. first movers here include middleware like chainlink, and the graph. layer 2 blockchains like polygon, and basic defi technologies/protocols also fall in this generation.

its fourth generation marks a return to harder cryptography, entailing the utilization of [non-interactive] zero-knowledge research to reduce the need for trusting protocols or relays, or relying on redundant validation, as well as further compressing the amount of information needed to prove computation or changes in state. in layman's terms, the implications of this are more cost-effective, "portable", and secure computation that can be easily verified by end users. this generation also includes more privacy-minded research for use cases like identity, sensitive data, and voting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ac7G7xOG2Ag

https://www.wired.com/story/ftx-hack-theft-crypto-tracing/

Aristoph posted...

to put it in plainer english for non-computer-science folk:

gen 1: proves things happened, and when they happened. no one can change it.
gen 2: proves programs ran, when they ran, and their inputs and outputs, based on gen1.
gen 3: services built using gen2.
gen 4: gen 2 and 3, but cheaper, more compact, and private.

the goal is to end dependence on trusted middlemen for computation and coordination.

the alternative is taking corporations and institutions on their word. protip: trusting corporations is precisely why ftx happened.

TheMikh posted...

Perhaps I wasn't clear enough.

The crypto industry is infested with corruption and scams and is completely irredeemable. The reason people like you spew such intentionally obtuse and indecipherable buzzword-filled bullshit backed by massive doses of arrogant condescension is because that's all the industry is: bullshit. It's a scam, just like that intentionally poorly written Nigerian prince e-mail. You only want the dumbest, most gullible people to fall for it because they're the only ones that you can easily steal money from. If they're actually intelligent, they're just going to waste your time.

Fuck crypto. Anybody still involved in the industry at this point deserves to be treated like a pariah. There's no place for them in this society, and they should be both shunned and laughed at.

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]


Nice to see some fans still exist.

I use a different PC just to hold my wallets lol

TheMikh posted...

to put it in plainer english for non-computer-science folk:

lol

Aristoph posted...

The crypto industry is infested with corruption and scams and is completely irredeemable.

so i said in a thread the other day, crypto's stigma stems from its allowing anyone and their grandmother to create and peddle unlicensed securities with virtual impunity. the only difference between these schemes and the valueless dotcom startups pumped and dumped two decades ago is the ability to sidestep the institutional intermediaries that orchestrated such schemes back then. i don't personally condone either.

99% of every low-capital industry is crap. crypto is the only one where the long tail is out in the open because of the above reasons.

The reason people like you spew such intentionally obtuse and indecipherable buzzword-filled bullshit backed by massive doses of arrogant condescension is because that's all the industry is: bullshit. It's a scam, just like that intentionally poorly written Nigerian prince e-mail.

i really did my best to summarize the sector's more important developments - minus the financial madness that gets all the attention - without writing an entire book. i'm not trying to be obtuse or condescending, but it's not exactly trivial subject matter you're speaking so authoritatively about.

i was thinking about and tinkering with a lot of the non-financial engineering/coordination problems that the crypto industry is actively working on for years prior to actually getting involved precisely because i thought crypto was a novelty at best and a den of scammers at worst. but it's the only sector tackling a lot of these problems outside pockets in academia and natsec, and laid out a lot of the technological groundwork i was previously stumped by, so i gravitated towards it.

You only want the dumbest, most gullible people to fall for it because they're the only ones that you can easily steal money from. If they're actually intelligent, they're just going to waste your time.

you couldn't be more wrong in your assumptions about me or my work in this sector.

i spent 3-4 years building a network concept explicitly designed to prevent profiteering or value extraction. i provide pro bono data analysis services and consultancy to a major project at zero marginal cost to myself or the project beyond my personal time in return for their goodwill and connections, which also started as a hobby project. the company i am currently moonlighting with is a data and communications service provider, and does not need to peddle a token to retail investors.

Fuck crypto. Anybody still involved in the industry at this point deserves to be treated like a pariah. There's no place for them in this society, and they should be both shunned and laughed at.

and here's where you're finally honest: you're not interested in understanding the technologies or their applications; you just want to spew vitriol based on a sweeping generalization of everyone involved in the sector.

TheMikh posted...

so i said in a thread the other day, crypto's stigma stems from its allowing anyone and their grandmother to create and peddle unlicensed securities with virtual impunity. the only difference between these schemes and the valueless dotcom startups pumped and dumped two decades ago is the ability to sidestep the institutional intermediaries that orchestrated such schemes back then. i don't personally condone either.

99% of every low-capital industry is crap. crypto is the only one where the long tail is out in the open because of the above reasons.

i really did my best to summarize the sector's more important developments - minus the financial madness that gets all the attention - without writing an entire book. i'm not trying to be obtuse or condescending, but it's not exactly trivial subject matter you're speaking so authoritatively about.

i was thinking about and tinkering with a lot of the non-financial engineering/coordination problems that the crypto industry is actively working on for years prior to actually getting involved precisely because i thought crypto was a novelty at best and a den of scammers at worst. but it's the only sector tackling a lot of these problems outside pockets in academia and natsec, and laid out a lot of the technological groundwork i was previously stumped by, so i gravitated towards it.

you couldn't be more wrong in your assumptions about me or my work in this sector.

i spent 3-4 years building a network concept explicitly designed to prevent profiteering or value extraction. i provide pro bono data analysis services and consultancy to a major project at zero marginal cost to myself or the project beyond my personal time in return for their goodwill and connections, which also started as a hobby project. the company i am currently moonlighting with is a data and communications service provider, and does not need to peddle a token to retail investors.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5nKk_-Lvhzo

TheMikh posted...

and here's where you're finally honest: you're not interested in understanding the technologies or their applications; you just want to spew vitriol based on a sweeping generalization of everyone involved in the sector.

If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck...

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/4/4/0/AAeEwGAAD6G4.jpg

Badness is happening

EDIT:

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/4/4/2/AAeEwGAAD6G6.jpg

ooooookkkkkkk

EDIT:

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/4/4/5/AAeEwGAAD6G9.jpg

Thats a nice line u got there

Quick, throw your life savings into the fire!

hodl

Throw your imaginary friend into the fire!

Bernie Madoff had a scam on Wall Street. That means all of Wall Street is a scam.

Crypto is still fun for what it was originally made for: gambling. I know theres absolute shoe-size IQ morons who thought it was an investment or a real currency and tried to avoid the government or some shit but you cant help those people. Theres also people who put their life savings into a slot machine thinking they will get rich.

Kloe_Rinz posted...

Crypto is still fun for what it was originally made for: gambling.

anything with its volatility necessarily attracts gamblers, and gamblers attract enablers and scammers, but that was not its original motivation.

a number of the publications and other papers that informed bitcoin's whitepaper had authorship associated with the cypherpunks, a group of oft-anarchist activists who have advocated the use of cryptography and software as a political tool since the 1980s. its members included everyone from "satoshi" (bitcoin), to julian assange (wikileaks), to marc andreessen (netscape and more recently a16z), to rms (free software, gnu/linux).

i do not believe it was a coincidence that the protocol was released amidst the fallout of the late 2000s global financial crisis. it was a catalyst for a lot of different politically dissident movements: occupy, tea party, etc.

I know theres absolute shoe-size IQ morons who thought it was an investment or a real currency and tried to avoid the government or some shit but you cant help those people. Theres also people who put their life savings into a slot machine thinking they will get rich.

while at least 99% of crypto is trash without a use case or a revenue model, any software platform with developer traction, active use, and paying customers is nigh indistinguishable from a software business aside from a different org structure, and an investment class provided due diligence. but the broader software sector - crypto and traditional - seems to be overvalued and is either getting beaten down by macroeconomic conditions or eaten by larger companies, and extremely risky as such.

through this lens, most crypto - legitimate projects, even - is not currency because shares in software companies are not currency. however, some are institutionally recognized as currency, such as circle's "usdc", which visa settles transactions for. makerdao, a decentralized organization, issues "dai" which is backed not just by crypto (ether, usdc, etc.), but also united states treasury bills and dealings in real estate and traditional banking.

buying crypto with the expectation of getting rich is gambling and really a fool's errand. everything onchain is transparent and can be audited, so the government can't be "avoided" - except with privacy networks like monero, the choice of the criminal underworld and north korea, but it's useless for anything but peer-to-peer transfers.

however, the demand for expertise in software, devops, business, and management expertise in the sector - even during economic turbulence in the economy at large - means there's opportunity for those willing to help build software systems and platforms, and i'd go so far as to say it's a far more welcoming, accommodating, and inclusive sector than the traditional software industry.

proud to be a shoe-size iq moron engineer working closely with the world's finest business strategists, cryptographers, mathematicians, engineers, and lawyers.

Kloe_Rinz posted...

Crypto is still fun for what it was originally made for: gambling. I know theres absolute shoe-size IQ morons who thought it was an investment or a real currency and tried to avoid the government or some shit but you cant help those people. Theres also people who put their life savings into a slot machine thinking they will get rich.

you never heard of litecoin have you?

Clone2022 posted...

you never heard of litecoin have you?

Always post the time-lapse when you talk about older alt-coins:
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/9/1/4/AAEv3mAAD6OS.png

Clone2022 posted...

you never heard of litecoin have you?

with all due respect, litecoin is kinda obsolete by virtue of lacking both smart contracts and a flourishing developer ecosystem. only useful for low-fee exchange-to-exchange value transfers.

ltc/btc spikes are a time-tested red flag for the market, and it loses strength against bitcoin every cycle.

ellis123 posted...

Always post the time-lapse when you talk about older alt-coins:
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/9/1/4/AAEv3mAAD6OS.png

fun fact the entire globe is in a recession. crypto isnt immune. also i was referring to the posters claims that crypto couldnt be used as currency. it can. dash, litecoin, and bch were almost exclusively created to function as currency with its small gas fees and transaction speed.

Clone2022 posted...

fun fact the entire globe is in a recession. crypto isnt immune. also i was referring to the posters claims that crypto couldnt be used as currency. it can. dash, litecoin, and bch were almost exclusively created to function as currency with its small gas fees and transaction speed.

fair enough, though as far as onchain payments use cases go, using reputable stables on cheap layer 2 networks seems to supplant it - lower fees, no price volatility, and immediate access to defi services.

but yeah, everything's competing with a united states dollar strengthened by relatively high-interest rates right now.

I feel like when it comes to true believers and skeptics to some extent there's a bit of talking past each other on things like this and bOtH sIdEs tend to conflate two groups of people together in favorable ways for their own points.

There's nothing about e.g. white paper Bitcoin that's inherently "fraudulent" while most of the structures built around it (especially ones centered on speculation/investment) are scammy. There are of course various other coins where the fradulence is built into the protocol, but that's a different issue. As long as mining remains profitable enough to secure the network, it doesn't matter if Bitcoin is worth $5k or $500k if you "believe in the tech". In a very broad view, you would expect Bitcoin to reach its "true" price and then essentially follow inflation.

Some skeptics underestimate the number of people who are in it for the tech/anti-censorship aspects. But I also think that some true believers underestimate how much crypto support is made up of people who don't care about the tech at all. Like I'm not sure most people holding crypto care about the centralization. The thing that makes all of this look like a big bubble (whether that's a bubble over $0 over a bubble over e.g. $5k) is that it's not clear how much longer even a stagnant price of various cryptos can last without people pulling their money out.

All this to say, is crypto dead as a speculative asset? Still a lot of question marks there depending on what happens with FTX fallout, Genesis, etc. but I think that if a bunch of major exchanges fail you're going to have downward pressure on the price because despite the often parroted claims of "not your keys, not your crypto", a world where most people's crypto sits in a wallet is not likely to be one where Bitcoin is quickly going back to $60k because I don't think exchanges will find it profitable to just be an on/off ramp.

You can say "crypto has always rallied back" but the last bear markets didn't have crypto ads during the Super Bowl. You might think that's a silly point but the more general public is aware of things, the more stink sticks to it.

Crypto seems like it was great for the predators that got in early and were able to actually cash out. Now that its gone on for so long its time to pay the cost which is never the early adopters.

How many times have you heard of these Crypto Billionaires that only have that money in actual Crypto? Thats not liquid assets but up until this year alot of banks treated it like that. It was just a lot of money on paper. It seems all really fishy to me which is why I stayed away from it.

I also dont buy into Trust the Tech, the tech will be powering things in the future. Just because the blockchain exists doesnt make it good or valuable. It actually has to do something. Look at Amazons Alexa department thats on track to lose 10 billion dollars. No one is using Alexa in a way thats profitable I.e buying things with it.

ToadallyAwesome posted...

I also dont buy into Trust the Tech, the tech will be powering things in the future. Just because the blockchain exists doesnt make it good or valuable. It actually has to do something. Look at Amazons Alexa department thats on track to lose 10 billion dollars. No one is using Alexa in a way thats profitable I.e buying things with it.

I feel like profitable and valuable overlap in some ways but I think the distinctions are relevant. Alexa isn't profitable because Amazon sold them at a loss in hopes of dominating market share and with the expectations that they could make them profitable from post-sale services. As to whether Alexa provides a valuable service, even though it isn't really my cup of tea I know many people where it adds convenience and functionality to their lives.

I think crypto/blockchain infrastructure is far more overvalued compared to its functional purpose right now, but I think in theory it can bring functionality to justify its existence. I just don't think that functionality is in the medium time frame going to actually be worth $16k/btc and most of the loud people in the space are trying to come up with use cases that are inherently "profitable" which is what leads to scams, rug pulls, etc.

Anteaterking posted...

I think crypto/blockchain infrastructure is far more overvalued compared to its functional purpose right now, but I think in theory it can bring functionality to justify its existence. I just don't think that functionality is in the medium time frame going to actually be worth $16k/btc and most of the loud people in the space are trying to come up with use cases that are inherently "profitable" which is what leads to scams, rug pulls, etc.

Nail on head.

Frankly trying to conflate cryptocoins and the blockchain are *exactly* the reason that it's basically almost all a scam. The blockchain as a technology is neat and has real uses, but 0% of that will ever be for a viable currency. Throwing more wood on the fire in the form of new "features" doesn't change that the entire point of the blockchain as a viable thing comes entirely from validation purposes, something already present in normal transactions a lot of the time (and the times that it is not the problem is absolutely not that there is regulation).

This is why the common chud response to complaints levied at crypto is to immediately try and conflate the two as while the blockchain has little value in crypto, the blockchain has actual application and thus there is actually substance there to defend with. Crypto cannot defend itself because literally its only "value" is being decentralized but that is obviously not good to anyone with even the most simple of glances.

ellis123 posted...

The blockchain as a technology is neat and has real uses

what real uses does it have

No. Well, probably not. That said the entire crypto/digital asset sector has been begging for a harsh wake up call with how fraught the whole industry is with scams and con artists. Especially since almost no influential people in the space seem to think its a big deal and call it out when they see it.

Anteaterking posted...

Anteaterking posted...

well said, thank you.

AceMos posted...

at its heart, a blockchain network is just a big git repository with rules governing its management by complete strangers.

its original use case was tracking financial transactions and states, but it can store and operate on any kind of information, permanently and in a tamper-proof manner. messages, files, software, data, business/org/legal processes, etc., and track changes to all of them over time.

so, anything downstream from all that.

Solid_Snake07 posted...

No. Well, probably not. That said the entire crypto/digital asset sector has been begging for a harsh wake up call with how fraught the whole industry is with scams and con artists. Especially since almost no influential people in the space seem to think its a big deal and call it out when they see it.

it's like asking web developers to warn internet users about malware. they can write about security and cook warnings into software, but at the end of the day people skip the onboarding and keep clicking on "click here to download your free ipad" links.

if anything, platforms like twitter and discord need to do a better job of filtering out scammers and bots, and the press needs to exercise discretion in who they run ads and puff pieces on behalf of. i get hit by like a dozen scambots on a daily basis.

it's objectively difficult to procedurally audit for scams though, so the sector runs on conventional wisdom about best practices. but again, people jump in and fall for them without learning anything first.

"influential people" have generally given up on complaining about scammers beyond what has already been said and written ad nauseam, and are quietly building solutions to reduce the damage they can do. hardware wallets, clients that summarize what contract interactions do, flagging malicious entities in block explorers, etc. are all a part of this work.

lol claiming crypto is dead because of one corrupt jackoff is like claiming capitalism was dead after the enron scandal.

AceMos posted...

what real uses does it have

It is quite solid as a validation service that can be used internally. You can hash with it to, say, keep good tabs on commits in confidential stuff that you don't want it to be possible to have something like logs tampered with.

The key thing, however, is that it is a valuable thing for internal stuffs or things that will not be modified constantly (and if it will the whole thing will be restarted constantly), not for external things. Or at least not non-professional services like crypto.

Clone2022 posted...

lol claiming crypto is dead because of one corrupt jackoff is like claiming capitalism was dead after the enron scandal.

Can you just take your bans and shove off?

ellis123 posted...

Can you just take your bans and shove off?

im sticking around and handing out hot takes buddy. get used to it. use that block feature if you need your safe space