Yes, I know that it still exist, and yes, decentralized currency which utilizes distributed, cryptographic validation is not actually a strictly bad idea, but…
Is the speculative investment scam, which crypto substantially represented, finally dead? Can we go back to buying gold bars and Pokemon cards?
I feel like it is, but I’m having a hard time putting my finger on why it lost its sheen. Maybe crypto scammers moved on to selling LLM “prompts?” Maybe the rug just got pulled enough times that everyone lost trust.
I’m a fan of cryptocurrencies, and I would dearly love for the “speculative investment scam” aspect of it to be dead. It’s been a massive drag on the technology’s reputation for many years, preventing it from being used for all kinds of applications that would really benefit from some form of cryptocurrency integration. Unfortunately even if the “speculative investment scam” aspect dies the bad reputation will linger, so hopefully those applications will find ways to sneak it in where useful without drawing too much attention.
It’s been 13 years and the only applications found have been in fraud.
Over and over, blockchain is a solution to a question nobody asked.
Hey. Biplanes are actually much more relevant in today’s world than crypto. They aren’t common, but there are still new biplanes made because they are a valid solution for certain problems. Unlike blockchain.
It’s nice-to-have if shit really did hit the fan economically and hyper inflation took over. Glad the hype is over though.
I’m not actually interested in the value of the tokens, I only own a few tens of dollars’ worth myself. I’m interested in the application-related aspects of it.
For example, something applicable to the Fediverse that comes to mind is the Ethereum Name System. That’s a blockchain-based mechanism that allows for DNS-like “domain names” to be claimed by users. Something like it could serve as a way of registering a username for the Fediverse and then having it be completely portable between instances without the need to rely on any centralized authentication provider. Since they do cost a small amount of actual money to register they’d make for a good spam prevention method - a regular user only needs to register a name every once in a rare while, but a spammer needs to register a new one each time their existing name gets blocked. It’d get expensive real fast for a spammer.
Unfortunately this adds some complication to the registration process that the Fediverse really can’t afford right now. And worse, it has the dreaded “NFT” label hanging around its neck because technically a username registration is indeed an NFT if you want to categorize it like that. So I can only sigh and watch a perfectly useful technology go unused due to the bad name it’s been given.
Oh well. Someday the usefulness will overcome the perception.
The one SIMPLE trick crypto bros HATE: Blockchain -> “Distributed Ledger” NFT -> “Unique Identifier”
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People already can’t handle signing up for an account. You think having to get a crypto wallet, figure out how to use it, and pay money into it before you can even start actually signing up for a social media account is ever gonna fly? Not in a million years.
NFTs truly are the best imaginable example of a solution in search of a problem.
I explicitly said in my comment:
Unfortunately this adds some complication to the registration process that the Fediverse really can’t afford right now.
You don’t appear to have actually read it all the way through, just triggered a standard anti-NFT rant off of the fact that the word “NFT” was present in it. Which is ironically exactly the problem I was complaining about.
Have you heard of hashcash, it’s POW precursor to bitcoin. It stops spam, was originally developed for email but could be incorporated into Lemmy eventually on sign up. Principal is similar to what you suggest.
@shipp Ethereum switched to Proof-of-Stake consensus nine months ago, it no longer burns a significant amount of energy to operate. I’m primarily interested in Ethereum because it’s got smart contracts, allowing a huge variety of applications that older, simpler cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin can’t handle.
It’s a small foot print for a real user and expensive for bots who are generating enmasse. It worked on Windows 98 PCs so isn’t really an issue like you describe.
@Senseibu PoW should just be straight up illegal everywhere. It’s a plague on the planet.
It’s nice-to-have if shit really did hit the fan economically and hyper inflation took over. Glad the hype is over though.
Yeah i guess you’re right, a biplane would be pretty useful in that scenario.
Technology rarely advances for reasons that benefit the majority. It advances to make a few people rich, kill people very efficiently, or to increase profit margins on porn sales (see item 1, I guess).
If you think about the really good applications of things like crypto, NFTs, blockchain, etc., you quickly realize that they are things that aren’t marketable or profitable for the entities that would need to implement them. If all the banks and credit companies bought into something like blockchain or NFTs, then transaction fraud and identity theft would disappear overnight… but what would THEY get out of it? The only way it’s ever going to happen is with coordinated government mandates, and nobody running for office has the faintest idea of what crypto tech is other than “dumb way for the nouveau riche to waste their money”
I don’t think transaction fraud or identity theft would disappear overnight, they would just take on different forms.
I think a big part of why cryptocurrencies don’t take off as actual currencies (beyond speculative investors ruining everything), is the fact that there are a lot of clear benefits to a centralized system that blockchains have yet to adequately replace.
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Scale. The amount of processing power it would require for all McDonald’s global credit card transactions on a blockchain is many orders of magnitude greater than that of using Visa or Mastercard. Even when you account for proof-of-stake coins like Ethereum.
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Reversibility. If I buy something from a stranger on the internet and use my debit or credit card, my bank can issue a chargeback if said stranger tries to screw me over. This is fundamentally impossible on a blockchain without relying on some kind of middleman to hold funds in escrow, at which point you’re basically back to using big centralized banks to do all the heavy lifting.
On top of that, one of the big problems that blockchain solves can be solved through centralized systems as well. The big one that people bring up is credit card fraud, but what a lot of people don’t realize is that credit card fraud is a lot less common outside the US than within. This is because places like the EU have mandated security measures such as chip-and-pin (the US only requires the chip part). Smartphone-based contactless payment systems like Apple Pay also provide effective 2-factor authentication at the point of sale. And while blockchain is theoretically more secure, in practice these mechanisms are “good enough” for everyday use.
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How does crypto stop identity theft or transaction fraud? Crypto does nothing for credit, which is basically what identity theft is, and if you’re missing how widely there’s transaction fraud on crypto you haven’t been paying attention.
I don’t know why NFTs ever took off
The Beeple sale got a lot of press. That was the extent of the novelty, but then the money-eyed scammers figured they had a new grift in the making. But it started with the media surprise and interest over how big the Beeple sale was.
Idiots saw the explosion of speculation on crypto and a few people got lucky and got rich. They jumped on the next new buzzword in tech expecting it to have an equivalent speculative boom, which obviously never happened.
@Silviecat44 @peanuts4life they really didn’t, no normal person bought them. It was just venture capitalist pushing it. It was the complete opposite of grass roots, which is why it crashed 97% when VCs pulled out. Very normal!
Negative interest rates do funny things to capitalism.
- P2P is the new hotness
- LAMP is the new hotness
- Ruby on Rails is the new hotness
- Big data is the new hotness
- Machine Learning is the new hotness
- Crypto is the new hotness
- AI is the net hotness
None of these died, none of them were the new hotness for very long. Oh by the by, our company is looking for anyone with fifteen years experience in ChatGPT (/s). But in all serious, there’s always a very vocal group that’s chasing the hype. No idea how big they truly are, but they sure do bang the gong the entire time.
Spoiler alert: AI is ML is Big Data.
Also, ML is just statistics and calculus.
It’s true, and it’s not much like real intelligence, all the hype notwithstanding. On the other hand, statistics and calculus are pretty powerful tools and so are the ML systems that use them.
there is a group of influencers in tech that seem to jump from topic to topic, re-selling peoples projects and poorly written training/success classes. its sometimes shocking how quickly some of them change. Ive been doing AI on and off for 6 years now and I know a number of these people could not spell “neural network” a couple years ago.
I have worked with these people. They are very good at skimming the surface of every new thing and convincing others they are experts. Meanwhile, the really smart people are often busy with the projects they’re already deeply immersed in, so they can’t turn on a dime like this, nor do they want to.
I find this one hilarious as I tend to add techs to my portfolio as they begin to break mainstream. Bascially I build what my customers want.
last year they wanted blockchain games, now they are asking for AI. Some want AI Blockchain games, some want Blockchain AI games. Others, like influencers, just want you to build whatever they think will get conversions.
It mainly lost it appeal as crashes, arrests, lawsuits, and thief keep happeneding. It was shown to be scammy with scammers scamming.
And yeah the new hotness of LLMs also helped. The tech bros who use to be pushing “X but with crypto” are now looking to push “X but with AI”.
Yeah this, mainstream big players in financial markets already figured out crypto is useless, so IT firms switched to selling AI to corporates instead.
yes, everyone likes to talk that USD/EUR is risky, you have inflation, you have banks closing and stock market crashing, but so far it seems crypto is much much riskier. I feel much safer having my money in bank than having it on some blockchain, accessible only if I know private key and if I loose it there is 0 change I will ever see any of my money.
Crypto won’t ever die, too many people have too much money invested in it for it to die.
But it’s going nowhere. If I can’t buy groceries with a bitcoin, then it’s worthless. It got popular because people used it to trade drugs. I don’t even think you can do that on tor anymore.
You could not be more incorrect about that last point
Yeah. It might put me on a watchlist or something but, I’ve went on the Dark Web. I’ve never purchased anything or went too deep into it, but the only things I found are:
some privacy services,
some crypto “cleaning” (whatever the phrase is) services,
some Tor mirrors of regular websites,
a Luke-Smith-esque (only taken even further to the extreme) privacy related blog,
a porn website (all of it legal, and it was all just indexed from clearnet porn sites, not even pirated, funnily enough)
And there seemed to be a lot of drug websites. When I say a lot, I mean a LOT. Like, all of the websites listed above (can we even call them websites if they’re not on the worldwide web?) times 2 would be a lower number than the websites related to drugs that were listed on the various versions of the Hidden Wiki. And all of that by just using a page that acts as an indexer of the more popular pages. I didn’t even use a dark web search engine. So, yeah. Who knows what else might be hiding there? Some guys on YouTube go on the dark web, like this guy, John Hammond, and find some fun stuff there, like ransomware gangs. That is to say there is more serious stuff on there, but I haven’t looked for it.
You probably saw some (mostly fraudulent) ads. Dread is where most of Tor’s public content can be found; but, yeah, crypto (specifically Bitcoin and Monero) are the standards there.
Without practical uses it’s nothing but a Ponzi scheme, which is why every thread about crypto has a few true believers urging others to “invest”.
Fuck, let’s pray it is
but I’m having a hard time putting my finger on why it lost its sheen.
One aspect might be, that the scam stories are much more popular and easier to circulate on social media than are actual usages. It’s a strong online virality bias. Scams and phishing also happen a lot in fiat and cash (albeit relatively lower), but since most of it is so secret and banks really don’t want to get bad media, then try to keep such things hidden.
Look at Monero (privacy coin) for example. There is no news on whales, scams etc. there, because it’s private so there is no attention given to that. That makes is easier to simply use it and not get an overly negative news bias.
At the same time, cryptos were successfully used during Ukraine for quick money Donations. This was also reported in news, but it doesn’t stick so long into the minds of the people as the controversial scams/ftx etc.
Finally, at least with Ethereum there is still around 10 years of development in front of it with exciting new capabilities. Until a few years from now, we’ll finally have a system with scalability ans high security as well.
However, until then ethereum will grow slowly.
Also, unfortunately I think the focus of many people has shifted from p2p currency and adoption to money making and investment - which isn’t too bad, but adoption still sucks and makes it less useful for now.
Oh boy, wait until you find out about CBDC (Government’s version of cryptocurrency with dypotian spin on it such as deleting your money if they don’t like you.)
They wouldn’t delete your money just because they don’t like you.
They’d “arrest” your money for some crime that may or may not be legit. Paperwork and people getting their cut would be involved.
I mean, this already happens. Most states can easily freeze domestic assets when crimes are suspected
Well they can delete your money for not liking you, just look at how Republicans have been treating the LGBT community lately. if they have the chance to, they would absolutely love to delete all money owned by LGBT people.
If you think about what side is more tech-savvy, more likely the gays find a way to delete anti-gay money first lol. Even if they are less likely to use it
You mean the thing that was a blue sky research effort? From that website it doesn’t even sound like anything exists, it’s just a thought experiment to see if it would make sense. How is that in any way dystopian or nihilistic or whatever tone you appear to be going for?
This is how public policy should work. It would be foolish and irresponsible not to investigate if a new technology has a valid and useful application.
This is like noticing that the Army has plans for a Zombie invasion without applying any of the context and then using that as evidence that zombies are real and the gubment is covering it up. Instead of applying a tiny bit of actual research and finding out it’s a common way that the military plans for politically unsavory possibilities like Canada invading the US. Also known as doing their actual job in a professional and not-at-all-suspicious way.
That’s a reasonable response, but the other guy’s concerns are absolutely not meritless. Tech platforms demonstrating and offering up these kinds of currencies or tokens do explicitly talk about ideas such as limiting certain currencies from being spent on certain things, or enabling/disabling from a central authority.
China is already rolling out this type of currency albeit with limited success, and while I haven’t heard anything about the e-CNY being tied to their social credit system, or punishments being inflicted in the shape of limiting access to funds, it’s absolutely a possible option.
The concern in concept is totally valid, yes, but presenting it as if something that is being actively pursued for nefarious purposes is just misleading.
The problem with CBDC is that they are actively developing it in a way they intended on rolling it out to the public (they are trying to set up campaign to roll it out) and we would be very screwed if it ever goes live, because it is not decentralized, there is going to be no due process and the authority is controlled by the government which historically have screwed people over repeatedly, just look at civil forfeiture surpassing robbery in USA, they could just do it with a mouse click in CBDC.
Even Yermack points out the risk of political abuse of CBDC and yet they are still going for it.
Why does the US even need crypto though? What problem is that solving? All they need to do is make a government version of Zelle that every bank in the US has to use (in addition to any private tools they like) to settle electric funds transfers and do it for free to the end user and bam, everything from digital cash, with none of the crypto overhead.
You’re asking the right question, this is something they don’t need and yet they have been pushing this for years.
I guess I thought it was just because of hype, and to say re China - look, we’re doing it too. We’re not falling behind. I.e. entirely optics and eventually it’ll fade away as one of those things that no one cares about.
The phrasing I like is “crypto is a solution searching for a problem”.
Crypto enthusiasts start with the existence of crypto and try to fit it as a solution to some problems rather than trying to solve those problems without already having chosen the solution. The reasoning is often flimsy as a result. They’re not actually trying to solve a problem and thus won’t consider things like “how is this better than a centralized system?”.
Ok, so how would you purchase something like something from Wakfu MMO or other services when at the time they were blacklisted by credit card or payment processing gateway? Literally the only way at that time is to purchase crypto like dogecoin so that you could actually buy something on those services. It still happen today where other services are classified as “high risk” depending on what they offers, where they are, and so forth. They get blacklisted by credit card company and payment processing company, so they literally have to resort to using crypto to work around this problem, because what else are they supposed to do?
But go ahead and make up crap about crypto like how it solve nothing. I am honestly tired of people whining about “muh energy efficiency”, if you cared that much about energy efficiency, why don’t you use the same energy protesting the crypto and instead protest the billionaire flying in their private jets or even better, why not ban computer games altogether? Stop being a hypocrite, I am honestly tired of this.
@TheTrueLinuxDev @peanuts4life Have you not heard of a bank account before lol. They can already freeze your assets at will.
And we have the option to use the paper dollars, by depreciating that, you have no safety net during a bank run. GG.
@TheTrueLinuxDev I haven’t used cash in ages lol
That’s good and all, but if you haven’t diversify your assets, equity, and capitals, then you are still putting all of your eggs in one basket.
@TheTrueLinuxDev you can’t do any of that with cash. Where are you investing with cash?
- You can purchase certain kind of assets that appreciate in value over time.
- Back in the day, people actually purchase/exchange bitcoins/crypto in cash before crypto exchange is around, those are still going today.
- Exchanging currency is still a thing even if it’s in person, one currency can drop in value faster than the other during an inflation.
I could go on and on, you absolutely can with cash and people do it all the time.
We almost had a bank run in America a few times now, cash is good to have if you’re in the middle of a bank run in America and you have to buy things now.
Well, the irony is hard to miss, right? Crypto was born out of this grand idea of decentralization, but then everyone just rushed over to these centralized exchanges. Kinda sounds like a death knell to me. Seems like the original spirit of crypto got lost in the rush for profits.
I do think the tech and the concept will keep evolving, and eventually, it’ll morph into something new, get a new name or something. Here’s hoping that when it does, people will get that it’s better to trust the collective ‘us’ instead of just a select few. After all, these are often the same folks messing things up. But, what can you do, huh?
Weak hands got shaken out, and the economy is teetering on recession. When inflation stops and interest rates fall, and quantitative easing starts back up it’s gonna come roaring back. The SEC and CFTC aren’t trying to kill crypto, they are just trying to decide who’s jurisdiction it falls under. The crypto industry will benefit from regulation, it will get safer, and you’ll feel like an idiot for asking this question instead of buying while it’s cheap. Hit me up in 2025!
I am not sure if you are actually drinking the Kool-Aid or if this is some top tier shit posting. If it’s the latter, kudos to you!
Haha, it’s funny how people think centralization will do any good for something that was designed to be decentralized from the ground up. I swear, it’s like folks have totally forgotten what crypto was initially intended to solve.
I find it odd people who want their social media decentralised but are disgusted when money is decentralised.
Too many scams. Too many ads advertising companies who ended up being scams as well. The pivot to NFTs was short-lived (because they were scams). The high-profile exchanges (FTX et al) going belly up, and the their founders in jail.
Mid-bear-cycle. It’ll be back in a year or two.
Dear god, I hope so
I hate watching so many people get scammed
Well, are MLMs dead? Audible book spamming? The nigerian prince scam? Hell, mail scams are still running to this day.
As long as there’s a hook, I doubt cryptomoney scams are going to be leaving any time soon. It is rare we’ll see scams of the same magnitude as before, but they’ll always be around in those sorts of communities. Just a matter of principle, whenever money’s involved.
You could probably go back to buying pokemon cards, though. The fact that crypto’s greatest investors have a vested interest in not having their cash vanish into thin air, it’s best used for it’s purpose-- as currency-- unless another FTX fumbles the bag.
Those whales likely still have reserves to dump, too. Hell, they can probably create reserves. For a long time it will still be worth it for them to keep marketing crypto to dumb victims.
I don’t think it is dead, but the hype certainly seems to be over. It is important to realize that as long as the crypto value trend is strongly linked to value of other commodities, it is still being treated as an investment, rather than a currency. Increasing the places where crypto can be actually used to pay will allow for unlinking crypto from being an investment to a currency. I guess there most people are currently not interested in that as much, which I think is unfortunate.
