Sat what you will, crypto paid off my student loans and helped me buy a house
fuzzywombat@lemmy.world 2 days ago
People keep saying $30k was stolen by malware. No, that did not happen. Malware did not reach into someone’s bank account and withdrew $30K. Here is a simple fact. Crypto is not money. If your brain says something like “it works just like money, or it’s worth just as much as money so it’s basically money” then you’re most likely to get scammed at sometime in the future by putting your actual real money into crypto. It’s that simple.
TheJesusaurus@sh.itjust.works 2 days ago
sonalder@lemmy.ml 1 day ago
Then what is money? State approved piece of paper backed by oil, weapons, war and slavery?
funkless_eck@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
I mean down that road you end up at “what is anything? does anything exist? does free will exist?”
sonalder@lemmy.ml 1 day ago
And that’s a real question!
Nibodhika@lemmy.world 2 days ago
What is your definition of money then?
Lumisal@lemmy.world 2 days ago
A form of relatively stable currency that is accepted to have value for the trade of goods and services by the majority of locations.
Memecoins from pump fun that are less stable than Trump’s mood and vent be used to buy pretty much anything are definitely not that
Nibodhika@lemmy.world 1 day ago
By that definition the Argentinian Peso is not money because it’s not stable, nor is the dollar since the majority of stores in the world don’t accept it (mostly just the ones in the USA do, and a couple of others here and there, but definitely not the majority worldwide). And if you’re going to start randomly limiting locations, I’m fairly confident you can find a specific neighborhood or city where more stores accept Bitcoin than dollars, and worldwide I’m fairly confident more stores accept Bitcoin than Tuvaluan dollar, does that mean that that is not money?
Lumisal@lemmy.world 1 day ago
You crypto heads always bring up the Argentinian Peso even though it’s still actually more stable than even Bitcoin. People aren’t buying Argentinian Pesos thinking they might become rich one day, because it’s an actual currency, not a speculative asset, which is what crypto is. It won’t spike in value over 3 months or dive off a cliff by multitudes of thousands.
But ignoring that, most of the world does actually accept US dollars - it’s the most traded currency in the world. It’s also safe to say in nearly every country you can probably exchange USD to the local currency fairly easily.
If you can find me a city where more stores accept Bitcoin rather than the designated currency, then sure. I’m not sure a single one exists.
And that’s bitcoin, which actually is well known and traded. What the person in the article lost wasn’t even that, not any other well known crypto like Ethereum.
prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 days ago
So would you consider a stable coin like USDC (fully backed by USD, and audited) to be “money” then?
Lumisal@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Do the majority of locations that offer goods and services accept USDC in it’s designated region? Can you buy groceries at basically anywhere with it, watch a movie, pay for a gym subscription etc with it? Can you buy a home or other shelter with it?
If no, then no, I don’t, since it didn’t meet that criteria.
nuggie_ss@lemmings.world 2 days ago
You’re an actual dipshit.
winkerjadams@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 days ago
If a collective of people say its worth something then it’s worth something. That’s literally what money is and how it works
TheObviousSolution@lemmy.ca 2 days ago
Trust and regulations that are lacking in crypto make it what it is. If a collective of people are willing to offer something in exchange for something else, even just because it is a crowdsourced confidence scam, it doesn’t really ethically exonerate what you are supporting. Every person who participates in crypto is also holding up its underground international market. It was bad enough under normal markets, but the difference is between night and day with crypto. Crypto is far too easy to turn into a bunch of excuses and anonymous pseudonyms.
TheJesusaurus@sh.itjust.works 2 days ago
Do you realize the scale of illicit trade in us dollars is like 10 orders of magnitude more than crypto?
TheObviousSolution@lemmy.ca 1 day ago
Only because the trade power of US dollars is like 10000madeupbagillionzillioninternetnumber0000 order of magnitude more.
Mr_Dr_Oink@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Isnt the difference that money is valued against something tangible. Like gold, oil or data. The strength of a countries currency is based on how much of these things it has.
Whereas crypto isn’t valued against anything other than thoughts and prayers. If people think it has value then it has value. Until people no longer think it does, at which point it tanks and you are no longer rich. It’s the same as those NFTs.
Sure you can make money in crypto, you can exchange it for traditional money if you play the game well. But that doesnt mean crypto has any inherent value.
ogy@lemmy.zip 2 days ago
No. It used to be fixed against a physical asset but it hasn’t been for a long time now.
HereIAm@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Most currencies today are fiat currency. They only got value because they are the official currency of a nation and their government says so and people have the belief it has value. The US dollar used to be backed by gold but was stopped in the 70’s.
prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 days ago
The USD is backed only by the “full faith and credit of the United States government”. Nothing tangible whatsoever. It’s fiat.
mathemachristian@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 days ago
in that case money itself is tangible and can be valued against itself. You are confusing exchange value and use value. Money has an exchange value, so does gold, oil or any other commodity. But unlike money they also have a use value.
sonalder@lemmy.ml 1 day ago
1 USD is worth 1 USD because you can pay 1 USD of taxes. It is backed by political promises, oil, weapons and war. This can’t end well.
Crypto means cryptography. Cryptocurrencies are a variety of things from stablecoin (digital token backed by fiat money often by a private company ), company shares, community projects, scams, scams, ponzi, scams, cool technical experiments and technically bad experiment. In the other hand there is Bitcoin (and Monero to some extent) that is owned by humanity, no foundation, no company, no state. It is backed by a proof of past energy brining the most innovative security system in the history of IT, not based on restricted access and opacity but by economical incentive to play fair with others in a big game theory peer-to-peer network.
Andreas Antonopoulos