Posted by Tiberium 14 hours ago
Note that I was one of the folks early on that bought into the idea (but not as much of the coins sadly) and I still think the Bitcoin white paper is a beautiful intellectual exploration (as is the concept of blockchains).
But the centralized entry and exit points in practice mean all the theoretical benefits aren't really in play.
If governments ban crypto then they will without fail ban cash as well.
Edit: For additional context, I live in a country where fees and transactions related to government and regulated services (including telecom) are required by law to use our national payment system exclusively, and it is hell for people who fall through the cracks (e.g. problems national ID that blocks payment systems). I've seen first-hand on multiple occasions people standing outside government buildings begging others to pay their fees in exchange for cash so that they can get unblocked from the payment system.
Whether through malice or incompetence, human institutions can never and will never be perfect. Cash and cash-like systems (inc. crypto) must remain or a lot of innocent people will get hurt, even if it enables criminals.
it is wild to me that people expect that crypto is supposed to solve a problem that is as old as currency.
For me bitcoin opened up the idea that we could maybe do money better. That idea still lives, but not in practice. Yet.
That said, it’s got to be one of the funniest moments in modern history.
Glad it turned out to be Michelin-starred bollocks.
When so much money is at stake (almost) everyone will have a price including insiders.
P.S. If you're really paranoid don't use a network-connected printer.
And yes, this is somewhat absurd. But so are online transactions that can be hacked with no backsies.
Stealing anything is easy, escaping and converting to cash is the hard bit, and crypto makes it easy to vanish with your money in literal seconds.