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.

  • FaceDeer@kbin.social
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    39
    ·
    1 year ago

    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.

    • s_s@lemmy.one
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      27
      ·
      1 year ago

      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.

      • kestrel7@kbin.social
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        8
        ·
        1 year ago

        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.

      • Senseibull@feddit.uk
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        1 year ago

        It’s nice-to-have if shit really did hit the fan economically and hyper inflation took over. Glad the hype is over though.

        • FaceDeer@kbin.social
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          12
          ·
          1 year ago

          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.

          • androogee (they/she)@midwest.social
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            6
            ·
            edit-2
            1 year ago

            Tons of people already can’t handle signing up for a simple 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. Every single use case I’ve ever heard someone pitch is something that already exists and works. But like… what if your hotel key was an NFT, bro? Whoa.

            • FaceDeer@kbin.social
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              3
              ·
              1 year ago

              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.

              • androogee (they/she)@midwest.social
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                2
                ·
                edit-2
                1 year ago

                I read it. And I disagree.

                It isn’t that it can’t handle it “right now.” It will never handle it. Nobody wants it.

                But I bet “you can’t read, you’re just triggered by a word” is way easier to fantasize about than actually paying attention to reality.

          • coolin@beehaw.org
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            4
            ·
            1 year ago

            The one SIMPLE trick crypto bros HATE: Blockchain -> “Distributed Ledger” NFT -> “Unique Identifier”

            Like and share with your friends

          • Senseibull@feddit.uk
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            2
            ·
            1 year ago

            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.

              • FaceDeer@kbin.social
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                7
                ·
                1 year ago

                @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.

              • Senseibull@feddit.uk
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                2
                ·
                1 year ago

                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.

        • androogee (they/she)@midwest.social
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          4
          ·
          1 year ago

          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.

    • dreadgoat@kbin.social
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      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”

      • beefcat@beehaw.org
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        14
        ·
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        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.

        1: Scale. The amount of processing power it would require to process all McDonald’s daily 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. Maintaining a single large centralized database will always be more energy efficient than maintaining many large decentralized databases, especially when the latter comes wrapped in a dozen layers of cryptography.

        2: 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. Sellers may view this as a positive aspect of using a blockchain, but they can’t realistically force buyers to use a payment processor more amenable to their desires. If they could, PayPal would have vanished years ago.

        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.

      • jmp242@sopuli.xyz
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        5
        ·
        1 year ago

        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.

        • dreadgoat@kbin.social
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          1 year ago

          It’s not the cryptocurrency itself that prevents fraud, it’s the surrounding technologies such as blockchains and NFTs.

          Using NFT to own the address to a PNG is hilariously stupid and worthless, but what it’s actually great for is receipts. If I buy a donut and get an NFT proving that I now own the donut (along with metadata about where and when I purchased the donut) and months later I am on trial for murder, I can prove to the court with absolute mathematical certainty that I couldn’t have killed anyone at that time because I was eating a donut halfway across town.

          Using blockchain similarly is great for proving your transaction history. Maybe I somehow faked that NFT about the donut? Well, I couldn’t have, because it was months ago and blockchain history is cryptographically impossible to spoof.

          These are obviously contrived examples, but when applied at scale it becomes an extremely powerful way to verify truth. Yes, I did in fact buy those tickets, here’s my NFT, now let me on the plane. No, I did not spend $3000 on knock-off accessories, here is my blockchain. The odds of someone being able to fake these is extremely low.

          But, again, this will never come into practice, at least not in the near future. As @beefcat pointed out, implementing these systems would be expensive for the established financial institutions, and would present new challenges for them to create new processes for handling. An awful lot of work to create something that is stronger and safer when there is little motivation for them to do so.

          • jmp242@sopuli.xyz
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            2
            ·
            1 year ago

            I don’t know, this sounds a lot like DNA evidence. Sounds great in theory, but doesn’t actually mean what TV implies it to mean. In terms of a receipt, you still need to tie that to a person, or the wallet to the person. Given how easily people have lost their wallets, it’ll be a similar issue to “My credit card was used at that time”. Yes, the wallet / CC was used at a place at a time, but who was the person using it? In either case, they’ll want to use the security video or clerk witness testimony to tie it together.

            I’m not even sure what situation you’re thinking that the airline would not accept their own printed ticket or shot of the ticket PDF or whatever they send you today, but the NFT would make all the difference. Again, either the Airline system reads your ticket data, whether it’s NFT, barcode, or traditional digital and can tie it to a sale in their system or they can’t. They can lose the NFT link just as well as the barcode link, and the gate agent isn’t going to understand or care that you have an NFT that cryptographically proves “blah blah blah”. They’re already checking ID. For someone to fake the barcode version, they would also need a fake ID or Passport to match it.

            I sort of see what you’re saying if you went to court, and the airline wouldn’t do discovery or purposefully shredded their records of your ticket for some reason, but we already have receipts and bank statements and the like that do the same thing, and an NFT doesn’t change needing to prove you bought it in this case, presumably via linking a wallet rather than a bank account, though wallets don’t have the ID requirements bank accounts do, so in court that could actually be rather harder to do.

            • dreadgoat@kbin.social
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              edit-2
              1 year ago

              Looking at each piece in isolation it’s hard to see the real world value. You have to put it all together. Let’s do the airline ticket example.

              Real world today, the information involved in purchasing a ticket is controlled by three parties: The customer, the airline, and the financial institute (assuming you didn’t walk up and pay cash). Anybody involved here screw up or be malicious. You lost your ticket. The airline had a database malfunction. The bank/creditor improperly recorded the transaction. All parties are aware of these potential failures, so there are contingencies in place in case of a missing ticket, a ticket that can’t be found the system, a bad or missing financial transaction. But these backup plans also open the door to fraud, so there need to be even more plans on top of the backups: How to verify the integrity of a seemingly real ticket, protocol for re-verifying a financial event, etc.

              It’s simple because it’s familiar, but it’s really ridiculously complicated and error prone.

              Let’s introduce NFTs and blockchain.
              You buy the airline ticket and the following things happen:
              The bank performs the transaction and records it to the blockchain, which is decentralized and owned by no one, so it is verified by all parties before anything else happens. Bank errors are now impossible.
              You and the airline perform a mutual authentication, which generates an NFT proving existence of the ticket and attaches it to your identity. From your perspective, this would be unlocking your phone and clicking “approve.”

              Now you approach the airport kiosk and there’s a problem.
              Airline has no record of purchase - well, the blockchain does, so it’s their fuck up and they have no reasonable argument. You win.
              Airline can’t match your ticket to their database - You show them your NFTicket, which their system verifies is a valid, unspoofable, immutable ticket for what you say it is. Again, it’s their fuck up and they have no reasonable argument. You win.
              Conversely, you say you have a ticket for today, they say it’s for tomorrow. You inspect the ticket, it is in fact for tomorrow. You fucked up, no further argument.

              The only way any of this goes wrong is one of the following:
              Multiple forms of your identification are stolen - phone, password, biometrics. Obviously a lot harder than nabbing a CC number.
              Multiple parties lose their records at the same time. Possible but unlikely.
              State-level villains sabotage the entire system. Possible, sure, but this is an apocalypse-level event and probably an act of war.

              It’s effectively impossible for someone to steal or fake a ticket or transaction in this system, and because of that, anybody who has receipts is automatically proven right and you don’t need to jump through any more hoops or threaten to sue anybody. It’s complex behind the scenes but it makes life for businesses and consumers braindead simple. There are so many layers of trust in action that no individual party can reasonably claim something did or did not happen just because THEY messed up.

            • beefcat@beehaw.org
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              1 year ago

              I don’t see why a distributed blockchain is actually necessary to solve this problem though. Basic public-key cryptography is enough to sign and validate documents like real estate titles, without all the overhead incurred by NFTs. Our problem is that we aren’t even making effective use of technology we’ve already had for decades to solve this.

  • davehtaylor@beehaw.org
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    38
    ·
    1 year ago
    • As an actual currency, it’s functionally useless. Even if every retailer on the planet were to accept it, the overhead for making the transaction is just a non-starter

    • Because of that, it’s entirely just funny money. Even further, since it’s entirely a virtual asset, if the power goes out, your wallet goes with it

    • The environmental impacts are horrifying. This fact alone means that it should all be eradicated. Destroying the planet for Internet funny money isn’t an acceptable proposition

    • For a decentralized currency, people sure do love centralizing under large exchanges, and the massive losses, thefts, fraud, etc. have shown that no matter how “decentralized” it’s supposed to be, it’s still susceptible to the same bullshit as any other currency

    • Its high profile association with grifters, scammers, malware, and dark web shenanigans has completely soured its image in the public mind

    • It’s entirely a speculative investment scam now. There’s no way to decouple it from that.

    • liminis@beehaw.org
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      13
      ·
      1 year ago

      Correct me if I’m wrong, but since ETH moved to a proof of stake model rather than proof of work (i.e. “mining”), isn’t its environmental footprint now a fraction of the wasteful behemoth it was previously?

      (Though I 100% agree given the ‘gas fees’ (transaction costs), it’s still absolutely useless as an actual currency.)

        • nii236@lemmy.jtmn.dev
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          0
          ·
          edit-2
          1 year ago

          Not recommended though, RPIs aren’t really suited for production, plus I think only Nimbus runs well on RPIs?

          • Schooner@lemmy.ml
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            0
            ·
            1 year ago

            I think he’s confusing a validator with a node. You can easily run a node on a Pi.

            • nii236@lemmy.jtmn.dev
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              1 year ago

              Ah that would be make sense, but most people wouldn’t see the point in running a node. People automatically think of “mining” or “validator”

      • xenos@kbin.social
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        You’re right about the environmental footprint - proof of stake dropped the energy consumption by 99.95%

        Ether (ETH) was never intended to serve as a digital currency. it was only meant to be the fuel or incentive for computational tasks on the Ethereum network. An L2 like Optimism or Arbitrum runs on top of Ethereum and facilitates transactions that are significantly faster (tens of thousands of transactions per second), for a fraction of the cost (pennies or fractions of pennies)

    • I have a few bitcoin that I got when it was new, and I was playing around with it; then I forgot about my coins until it exploded and made it into the public (non-tech) news. I luckily still had my wallet, and I bought a quite expensive watch with Bitcoin when it was near its price peak. The transaction was no more difficult than using Paypal. I could have bought a lot of things; at one point, I could have bought a car with it. There are many vendors who’ll accept Bitcoin even today. So, regardless of your other points, saying that it’s funny money that you can’t buy anything with is simply false. It’s worth what people will pay for it, just like the American dollar, or gold, or the artificially inflated price of blood diamonds.

      I don’t think promoting falsehoods helps any argument. If that one is obviously wrong, what about your other points? Lots of people want cryptocurrency to fail. Lots of people want to maintain the hegemony of the US dollar. Some people even have valid criticisms of proof-of-work cryptocurrencies, and the giant farming installations. It’s certainly something to discuss, as long as it’s kept to facts.

      • davehtaylor@beehaw.org
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        16
        ·
        1 year ago

        The issue with retail is how long it takes for a bitcoin transaction to be confirmed. The overhead simply isn’t feasible. A vendor isn’t going to sit around an wait an hour for confirmation that payment has been received. A private seller might not care. But a company that processes millions of transactions per day isn’t going to deal with that. It has nothing to do with the belief in it and its worth.

        And yes, let me be perfectly clear: I absolutely do want cryptocurrency to fail. That’s not about being a shill for government hegemony. It’s about there being literally no inherent good in it, either in principle or in practice. From the fact that it consumes more energy than entire countries and pumps more CO2 into the atmosphere than entire major industries, to the environmental impact of increased mining for rare earths, increased manufacturing strain, and supply chain disruption due to the demand for the chips to drive the miners.

        Also I really don’t appreciate your passive aggressive way of calling me a liar

        • Your position was clear.

          I’m not sure how else you’d prefer someone to call out untruths that you’ve posted. It’s either calling you a liar, or some version of saying you’re talking out your ass, or what not. But you’re right, that’s what I was saying. FWIW, I don’t think it’s lying the way Trump lies; I think there’s just a lot of uninformed knee-jerk reactionism. For example, you talk about processing times; have you ever heard of Lightning? It’s a crypto used a lot in Nostr and which has instant transfer times.

          My point is that I you’re arguing a point that is easily refuted, when you have other points that are reasonable and justifiable. I could argue against the other points, too; for example, I could bring up proof-of-stake crypto-currencies which do not have huge energy use, and which haveno more energy footprint than the SSL transactions that you’re using constantly, every day. But it would be a harder arguement for me to make because the original cryptocoin, Bitcoin, is proof-of-work and has had a huge eco impact.

          And I might not try to argue that unless I thought you were open to discussing the topic in good faith. Which I don’t believe you are; I think you’ve already made up your mind on the topic, and now all that’s left is evangelism.

          I do have a question, though: do you understand how blockchains work, and the what the various kinds of proofs are? Not in the “could you program it” sense, but in general, like could you describe how they work to someone over beer? Or have you just read a lot about how bad they are? How much of your opinion is based on your social media filter biases?

          • Dymonika@beehaw.org
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            7
            ·
            1 year ago

            That’s exactly what I was gonna say: @davehtaylor must have no idea of the nearly-cost-free Layer 2 network.

            Additionally, how much money does it take to power banks? All the staff, the electricity, the Brinks armored cars, the accounting for all that cash, the safety deposit boxes and all of their contents and insurance… Does he think ACH transfers or, worse, checks or money orders, are free on an environmental level? How is USD with all of its nonstop-growing debt safe in any long-term way?

        • arbitrary@lemm.ee
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          1 year ago

          Also I really don’t appreciate your passive aggressive way of calling me a liar

          They’re not wrong to do so when most of your points are outdated or crap:

          the overhead for making the transaction is just a non-starter

          Outdated

          if the power goes out, your wallet goes with it

          Bullshit

          For a decentralized currency, people sure do love centralizing under large exchanges, and the massive losses, thefts, fraud, etc. have shown that no matter how “decentralized” it’s supposed to be, it’s still susceptible to the same bullshit as any other currency

          Privacy coins are the best way to live the dream of fungible secure currency, which is why they’re being suppressed. All the others are an experiment in how to monitor transactions more deeply.

          Its high profile association with grifters, scammers, malware, and dark web shenanigans has completely soured its image in the public mind

          If I may don a tin foil hat, likely left rampant by design. The proof of concept has been done, the tech works and has been in the hands of the public long enough that it’s normalized. This may be to pave the way for countries to replace their currency with “legit” crypto versions in the next decade or two, which requires putting a bullet in the head of the rest.

          It’s entirely a speculative investment scam now.

          If you talk in absolutes you’re destined to be wrong.

          The issue with retail is how long it takes for a bitcoin transaction to be confirmed. The overhead simply isn’t feasible. A vendor isn’t going to sit around an wait an hour for confirmation that payment has been received.

          Outdated.

          And yes, let me be perfectly clear: I absolutely do want cryptocurrency to fail. That’s not about being a shill for government hegemony. It’s about there being literally no inherent good in it, either in principle or in practice. From the fact that it consumes more energy than entire countries and pumps more CO2 into the atmosphere than entire major industries, to the environmental impact of increased mining for rare earths, increased manufacturing strain, and supply chain disruption due to the demand for the chips to drive the miners.

          At some point PoW will probably die a death and PoS will be all that remains. PoS is cheap.

        • fiah@discuss.tchncs.de
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          0
          ·
          1 year ago

          there are decentralized currencies that work perfectly well without wasting tons of energy, although I agree that none have yet achieved the necessary scale to actually replace current centralized money systems. These currencies might find a niche that doesn’t need the capacity to handle thousands of transactions per second, or perhaps one of the many many different ways to scale these currencies that are currently being worked on will end up being good enough (they aren’t, yet)

    • Sodis@feddit.de
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      9
      ·
      1 year ago

      Some of these points are not inherent properties of cryptos, like the environmental impact and the transaction overhead.

      • goatmeal@kbin.social
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        1 year ago

        it’s not even just that. if you count the number of transactions across all cryptocurrencies that are confirmed by mining, they are absolutely dwarfed by the number of transactions that are not confirmed by mining. same thing with volume of money moved. the environmental complaint applies to a minority of the total activity.

        • limelight79@lemm.ee
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          3
          ·
          1 year ago

          And shouldn’t the environmental cost of “real” currencies be compared as well? It’s not like printing and minting all those bills and coins is zero energy. Even treating it virtually (direct deposit, etc - we rarely handle cash) has some overhead.

          I don’t have a horse in this race, but comments that are obviously trying to grind an ace are suspicious to me.

          • HER0@beehaw.org
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            2
            ·
            1 year ago

            On the tech side of things, the environmental impact of running traditional, centralized services is inherently lower than running any cryptocurrency off of a blockchain. To overcome the technical limitations would be to create another centralized service.

            But yeah, there are almost certainly ways that traditional currency can reduce their environmental impact, too.

    • The Doctor@beehaw.org
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      1 year ago

      I’ve found that the same folks who crowed the loudest about cryptocurrencies being decentralized were working the hardest behind the scenes to build the first generation of exchanges and online wallets.

    • Aetherion@feddit.de
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      1 year ago

      Funny how people are creating bullshit by taking about things they don’t know.

      Hint: Blockchain is more than just currency and when your centralised e-mail server is taken down with all of your e-mail’s, than you will think back at people who did the switch to decentralisation.

      Another hint: Ethereum did lower its CO2 emissions by 99%, just by changing its code. Can your 100% virtual currency, parked at your favorite bank in a country like sweden, where there is no cash anymore, do the same?

    • miss_taken@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      As an actual currency, it’s functionally useless. Even if every retailer on the planet were to accept it, the overhead for making the transaction is just a non-starter

      New technologies such as the lightning network will fix this.

      Because of that, it’s entirely just funny money. Even further, since it’s entirely a virtual asset, if the power goes out, your wallet goes with it

      If the power goes out, your local ATMs and card readers will stop working as well. It’d have to take a global power outage to bring a crypto network down, and at that point we probably have more important issues to deal with.

      The environmental impacts are horrifying. This fact alone means that it should all be eradicated. Destroying the planet for Internet funny money isn’t an acceptable proposition

      This is fixed by proof-of-stake.

      For a decentralized currency, people sure do love centralizing under large exchanges, and the massive losses, thefts, fraud, etc. have shown that no matter how “decentralized” it’s supposed to be, it’s still susceptible to the same bullshit as any other currency

      True, but it’s a personal choice. You don’t have to have to store them centralized if you don’t want to. The same cannot be said about traditional currencies, as it’s not feasable to have stacks of cash lying around.

      Its high profile association with grifters, scammers, malware, and dark web shenanigans has completely soured its image in the public mind

      Also true, but that has nothing to do with the actual currencies. The public image will improve once people learns how it works.

      It’s entirely a speculative investment scam now. There’s no way to decouple it from that.

      Maturity will make it decouple from that.

    • arquebus_x@kbin.social
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      10
      ·
      1 year ago

      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.

    • Valdair@kbin.social
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      7
      ·
      1 year ago

      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.

    • IHeartBadCode@kbin.social
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      19
      ·
      1 year ago
      • 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.

          • floofloof@lemmy.ca
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            5
            ·
            1 year ago

            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.

      • manitcor@lemmy.intai.tech
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        1 year ago

        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.

        • floofloof@lemmy.ca
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          3
          ·
          1 year 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.

    • manitcor@lemmy.intai.tech
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      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.

  • swnt@feddit.de
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    24
    ·
    1 year ago

    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.

  • PixelPioneer@beehaw.org
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    23
    ·
    1 year ago

    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?

    • SuperSpruce@vlemmy.net
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      6
      ·
      1 year ago

      This almost sounds like what could happen to the Fediverse. It’s decentralized just like crypto, but the majority of people won’t know or care about how the Fediverse works, they will just want to communicate online.

      • nii236@lemmy.jtmn.dev
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        4
        ·
        1 year ago

        I mean, most Lemmings (lol) hang out in Beehaw anyway, so centralised fediverse is already here

    • geoffervescent@kbin.social
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      Now say it again but replace crytpocurrecy with Website aggregation. Its honestly not that different from leaving the big centralized reddit for the Fediverse… only to mostly end up in a few relatively huge alternatives in the name of decentralizing. Its just… human nature.

  • borkcorkedforks@kbin.social
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    20
    ·
    1 year ago

    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”.

    • aacid@beehaw.org
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      1 year ago

      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.

    • lolpostslol@kbin.social
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      1 year ago

      Yeah this, mainstream big players in financial markets already figured out crypto is useless, so IT firms switched to selling AI to corporates instead.

    • P1r4nha@feddit.de
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      Metaverse came first to replace the crypto hype, but yeah, LLMs definitely gave the crypto hype the rest.

  • Calcharger@kbin.social
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    20
    ·
    1 year ago

    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.

      • theshatterstone54@feddit.uk
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        5
        ·
        1 year ago

        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.

        • trent@kbin.social
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          3
          ·
          1 year ago

          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.

    • floofloof@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      7
      ·
      1 year ago

      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”.

  • Ebuall@programming.dev
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    19
    ·
    1 year ago

    Maybe people understood, that instead of freedom as advertised, crypto brings out even more oppressive forms of capitalism.

    • Contend6248@feddit.de
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      1 year ago

      I’m not a crypto-bro, but how are they oppressed? It’s just a infinitely more volatile Gold replacement and you don’t have to sell on the big places

      • The Doctor@beehaw.org
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        “Infinitely more oppressive forms of capitalism,” not “Bitcoin users are oppressed.”

  • negativenull@negativenull.com
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    18
    ·
    1 year ago

    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.

  • Mars@beehaw.org
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    17
    ·
    1 year ago

    It’s just another kind of MLM right now. It always has been. The superbowl Larry David add was the swan song for crypto mainstream appeal.

    And you are right, most of the people that were telling you to buy cryptocurrency for reasons, now are into the “prompt engineering” fad.

    Por metaverse, only the really unicorn-chasing and completely clueless about technology marketing “gurus” got into it.

  • Wander@yiffit.net
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    16
    ·
    1 year ago

    Nope. I use it on a weekly basis to pay for stuff on the internet. It’s got its uses and the concept is sound. What you’re talking about is the hype train that happens ever so often.

        • JackbyDev@programming.dev
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          1 year ago

          “Did you know if you ask me if I’m a cop that I legally have to answer you truthfully if I’m a cop? So relax! What do you spend it on?”

      • Wander@yiffit.net
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        5
        ·
        1 year ago

        Servers, VPN, domain names and recurring donations. Mostly donations every week. Servers and VPN on a monthly basis.

        • SaintLunatic@midwest.social
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          1 year ago

          Thanks for the response. Aside from the fed responses lol I was wondering what people actually used it for since we can’t deny there is a lack of products you can buy with crypto. I will def start using it for donations and VPN

          • Wander@yiffit.net
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            2
            ·
            1 year ago

            Actually I’ve had really good success in paying for privacy services with it. I wouldn’t do it any other way, especially for things like a VPN where you don’t want the provider to have to keep your name and address due to legal requirements.

            Another great use case is sending money abroad, especially to countries where there’s other sorts of financial restrictions.

      • Geo_bot@dataterm.digital
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        Look up crypto wallets and use the ones you can use on your local computer (don’t bank your coins in exchanges)

    • Geo_bot@dataterm.digital
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      1 year ago

      I’m glad to see that paying for things is still an option. What I really hope for is that the future of crypto is all payments and the investors fuck off

  • TheTrueLinuxDev@beehaw.org
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    14
    ·
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    Oh boy, wait until you find out about CBDC (Government’s version of cryptocurrency with dystopian spin on it such as deleting your money if they don’t like you.)

    • QHC@kbin.social
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      7
      ·
      1 year ago

      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.

      • Anomandaris@kbin.social
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        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.

        • QHC@kbin.social
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          1 year ago

          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.

      • TheTrueLinuxDev@beehaw.org
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        More fact info

        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.

        • jmp242@sopuli.xyz
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          1 year ago

          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.

          • TheTrueLinuxDev@beehaw.org
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            2
            ·
            1 year ago

            You’re asking the right question, this is something they don’t need and yet they have been pushing this for years.

            • CoderKat@kbin.social
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              1 year ago

              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?”.

              • TheTrueLinuxDev@beehaw.org
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                1
                ·
                1 year ago

                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.

            • jmp242@sopuli.xyz
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              1 year ago

              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.

    • borkcorkedforks@kbin.social
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      7
      ·
      1 year ago

      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.

      • TheTrueLinuxDev@beehaw.org
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        1 year ago

        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.

        • lolpostslol@kbin.social
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          1 year ago

          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

          • TheTrueLinuxDev@beehaw.org
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            4
            ·
            1 year ago

            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@beehaw.org
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                3
                ·
                1 year ago
                1. You can purchase certain kind of assets that appreciate in value over time.
                2. Back in the day, people actually purchase/exchange bitcoins/crypto in cash before crypto exchange is around, those are still going today.
                3. 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 squeeze.

                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.