this post was submitted on 19 Jun 2023
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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.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 years ago (14 children)

No. Bitcoin is the future of money. It really is the best form of money humanity has invented so far. People just need to stop trading shit coins.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 years ago (3 children)

Do you use Bitcoin in real life?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Do you use and gold in real life to pay for stuff?

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 years ago

No, just virtually.

spoilerit's_a_joke

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 years ago (4 children)

Bitcoin is still around 30k a pop, so I wouldn't say it's dead yet. But I foresee a big crash in the months or years to come: the hype has passed, and the real uses of crypto are very few. It's also not a good investment since the expected returns are 0. Once people finally realize that, I see the price falling to 1k or even less.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 years ago (1 children)

You know that this was being said multiple times in the last 10 years?

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 years ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 years ago

No, it'll never go away, fortunately or unfortunately depending on your perspective.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 years ago (1 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 years ago

Crypto is dead, long live bitcoin.

[–] Pyrozo007 8 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

Crypto scams burnt up all their market, i.e. pretty much everyone who was going to get into the crypto bubble, did. You can tell because crypto went mainstream, buying stadiums and advertising through Matt Damon.

So when the bubble burst that time, there's no one left to start a new bubble with.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 years ago

Maybe crypto scammers moved on to selling LLM “prompts?”

The A.I. "Grift Shift" is Underway

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 years ago (9 children)

I use crypto for its real intention, as money. I buy my groceries with crypto and pay most of my bills in crypto on a monthly basis. Crypto itself is not a problem. Its the FTX's and Mt Gox's of the world trying to graft old banking norms onto crypto that is the majority of the problem. "not your keys, not your coins." Exchanges are like gas station bathrooms, you go in, do your business, and get the heck out. You dont just hang around.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 years ago (2 children)

In the US each time crypto is traded it needs to be reported.

I got free crypto from Coinbase. Then sent it to a wallet, then sold it. So each transaction needed to be reported. It’s too troublesome to be worth it.

Also, if I buy crypto, they have a week hold before I can move it. My idea was to buy crypto in country A and sell it in country B to quickly transfer money between the two countries I live in. Also it would help me beat the bank fees.

But the 7 day hold kinda defeats the purpose of quickly transferring money.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 years ago

It's definitely not dead. Market cycles come and go. It's just a matter of time until the next round.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 years ago

Cryptography? Not it's not, any more than math is dead.

Cryptocurrency? I don't know.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 years ago

Most existing cryptocurrencies have no inherent value, they might make sense as a currency, but having a cell in a distributed spreadsheet assigned shouldn't be considered a growth investment and it's absurd how many treated it that way. The only way that sort of thing works is with an endless supply of greater fools, and evidently they ran out.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 years ago

as long as there are suckers out there, crypto will live.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 years ago

There are always some new people who believe they can get rich quick by investing in stocks, crypto, NFTs or something else. Why don’t we just write numbers on ping pong balls, throw them in huge transparent plastic sphere, shuffle the balls a few times, pull out a few and give some money to anyone who guessed the right numbers. Oh, wait we’ve already invented the stupidity tax centuries ago.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 years ago

it should be

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 years ago

I think really it just hit some kind of critical mass where people lost interest. Like streaming services: at first there was one (Netflix) and everyone wanted it, then there were a few and there was one for everyone, then there were too many and people just got sick.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 years ago

This is good for Bitcoin.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

as long as there are easily accessible networks with money on them there will be scammers to try and exploit them, this is no different than what we have seen with fiat, the biggest difference being that usually you have to use cash only to put out a shingle and be shady. Crypto allowed anyone to "look" legit and have easy access to settlement.

if anything people are learning WHY you want to at minimum control the ramps and ensure there are channels through which there can be trade using strong identity systems. next phase of crypto will look a bit more grown up as it will very likely be coming to the party as an enabler of multiple VRF style auth systems, helping break dependance on social login systems.

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