Crypto is like stamping your thumbprint on every bill that passes through your hands. If they can ever link you to your crypto wallet(s), the blockchain lets them trace every other transaction you have conducted, every wallet you have ever done business with, even decades later.
Maybe the statute of limitations has run out on something from years ago, and they can’t charge you for something you did in the past. But there is no statute of limitations on intelligence gathering. Maybe they run a suspect’s trail backward 15 years, find where they did business with your old wallet, then follow that trail forward until they find what you’re doing today.
Don’t know what to tell you, but crypto is constantly being used for illegal activities, and I have yet to hear of any big busts resulting from the use of crypto.
From what I can see actual blockchain didn’t find anyone who used the website or bought drugs. The only listed arrests (unless I missed some) were the webmaster himself, who was found using a honeypot, an Australian who had their drugs found and then their silk road account was found, and the only bitcoin was from someone who hacked the silk road and had it later seized by the government.
not able to use it anywhere except in like, 5 niche ATM locations
can’t even mine it for value and have to go by proof-of-stake for any useful amount of money
can make a random shitcoin to pull the rug under cryptobros and NFT shills
only legitimate use case was to buy drugs via The Silk Road
Yeah, cryptocurrency is a fuckin waste of the tech lmao. You could theoretically prevent identity theft with blockchain tech and it could also theoretically replace SSNs, but instead we used it for a fake currency and jpegs of bored apes.
EDIT: Should also mention that you literally cannot trade crypto in some states of the US because those states require crypto institutions to have physical assets that equal their digital assets, which is actually pretty smart. Because people can’t buy shit with their 0.2 BitCoins and 50k DogeCoins, this means that those institutions don’t operate or allow trading from these states.
And you have a terrible list of reasons all separated out into single comments for some reason :)
you keep conflating cryptocurrency and blockchain and bitcoin. are we talking about bitcoin here?
Any cryptocurrency because it works off the blockchain. You have the transactions committed on a wallet that exists on the blockchain, which is how you get the public transactions in the first place.
what backs turquoise?
Literally any fiat currency, or you could even barter with it if somebody wanted it. It has tangible value because it has a physical demand.
have you tried mining any other money? you can’t mine dollars at all, and proof of stake is a great way of explaining the compound interest system.
Actually, if you work a job, you get paid in money. Crazy, I know - you don’t have to speculate and hype on a fake currency :)
that has nothing to do with bitcoin.
But we’re talking about cryptocurrency, no? Unless you’re saying BitCoin is not a crypto?
In practice it’s happening multiple times a day. All it takes for one is to snoop the private key to get full control over a wallet.
True, and there’s also that 51% majority control thing too. Nothing can get rid of social engineering either, but perhaps there’s a chance to develop better security for blockchain-based tech.
there are a lot of vendors that do or have in the past accepted bitcoin. where can you spend turquoise? or confederate dollars?
Physically or online? Because you can spend crypto at like Microsoft online, for example, but could you go to a bar or a restaurant and pay with crypto?
Any cryptocurrency because it works off the blockchain. You have the transactions committed on a wallet that exists on the blockchain, which is how you get the public transactions in the first place.
you don’t seem to understand that most cryptos don’t work on the bitcoin blockchain. bitcoin has its own blockchain.
Actually, if you work a job, you get paid in money. Crazy, I know - you don’t have to speculate and hype on a fake currency :)
this is distinct from mining, the process by which new bitcoins are actually put into circulation. you can’t MAKE dollars: the cia are the only people allowed to do that.
Literally any fiat currency, or you could even barter with it if somebody wanted it. It has tangible value because it has a physical demand.
you don’t seem to know this, so i’m going to explain it to you: turquoise was the currency of indigenous people in the northeast of the so-called united states. it’s not money now. what backed turquoise? nothing. the point was its ubiquity.
Yeah, cryptocurrency is a fuckin waste of the tech lmao. You could theoretically prevent identity theft with blockchain tech and it could also theoretically replace SSNs, but instead we used for a fake currency and jpegs of bored apes.
you keep conflating cryptocurrency and blockchain and bitcoin. are we talking about bitcoin here?
EDIT: Should also mention that you literally cannot trade crypto in some states of the US because those states require crypto institutions to have physical assets that equal their digital assets, which is actually pretty smart. Because people can’t buy shit with their 0.2 BitCoins and 50k DogeCoins, this means that those institutions don’t operate or allow trading from these states.
that doesn’t change whether bitcoin is real. it only changes whether crypto exchanges can operate legally in arbitrary jurisdictions.
that doesn’t change whether bitcoin is real. it only changes whether crypto exchanges can operate legally in arbitrary jurisdictions.
Reason I brought that fact up is because those states are saying that crypto needs to backed by something physical instead of an intangible hype and speculation factor.
What makes BitCoin worth $42k? Or Ethereum worth $2.2k? Like, what is physically driving the worth of these cryptocurrencies? Some fiat currencies moved away from precious metals, sure, but they’re back by at least the economies of each country. From what I can tell and have seen, crypto is backed by… hype and speculation. There’s no tangible thing that can back crypto, hence why it’s a fake currency because it’s more or less arbitrarily at a price point just because it is.
Electricity has physical properties. It is energy. Mining Bitcoin requires the use of energy. To the miner, the value of Bitcoin is equal to the cost of acquiring the electricity used to mine it.
Bitcoin is a fungible store of value used to convert KWh into commodities and services.
Oh, come on. That is a really simplistic, and unfortunately, inaccurate view of value.
I ask: what makes anything valuable? Let me pose some examples:
Suppose I have a gold bar. That’s clearly valuable and it’s value is very “real”, isn’t it? Gold can be used in many industrial applications and can be made into jewellery. But why is it specifically worth what it is? Why not infinity or zero? Because (1) gold is scarce, and (2) that’s what people are willing to pay for it.
Now suppose instead I have a mint condition first-edition base set Charizard. That’s also valuable, and it’s value is also “real”, isn’t it? But the way it derives its value is a bit more abstract than the gold bar. It doesn’t do anything and the card isn’t even legal to be played in the actual Pokemon card game. But yet, it has value. Why? Because the card is (1) scarce, and (2) people are willing to pay money to have it, even though it doesn’t do anything.
Let’s get a bit more abstract. Suppose I hold the copyright to a popular book series. The copyright is also valuable, isn’t it? But also at the same time, “copyright” is not a physical thing; it is a creation of law and is a fictitious thing that we have all agreed is worth something. Now, if we all suddenly agree that copyright is meaningless, then my copyright instantly becomes worthless. Worth even less than the Charizard, because the Charizard at least has some nominal value as firewood or an art piece! Yet, copyright is still valuable, because we, as a society, agree that it is worth something, and this is also backed by the power of the State.
If you get even more abstract than that, think about shares of a company that is not only unprofitable but is completely underwater in debt. Is that company still valuable? Well, Uber is an example of a company that fits that description. If you think about it logically, that company should have a value of zero; it’s not making anyone of its owners money and it owes more money than it has. It’s backed by a “something”, but that “something” is a pile of debt that outweighs its assets. Whereas a copyright has the backing of the State, shares in a company don’t. But then, why is Uber worth something? Again, because (1) there is only one Uber, and (2) people are willing to pay money for it thinking that its value will increase in the future.
The final step of abstraction is a digital currency. I’ll use Bitcoin here, because Ethereum does actually have “real” usage (you can use it as “gas” to perform computations on the Ethereum Virtual Machine). Bitcoin is backed by diddly-squat and has only nominal usage. But why it is valuable? The same reasons as everything else on this list—because (1) it’s scarce, and (2) people are willing to pay money for it with the expectation it might increase in value in the future.
Whatever reasoning you use, whatever rebuttal you have for my argument, unless you’re actively cherry-picking and straining your logic just so you can not be wrong in this instance, you’ll find that any reasonable argument for why Bitcoin has no value will also apply to argue what I think you’ll see is an uncomfortably large number of “real” things are worthless as well.
From what I can tell and have seen, crypto is backed by… hype and speculation.
bitcoin is a network protocol. cryptographic tokens are issued within it. what backs it is the security of the cryptographic system and the combined hashing power of the network. if you think it doesn’t have value, that’s ok: value is subjective. some people do think it’s valuable to be able to control these cryptographic tokens. and that’s ok, too: value is subjective.
No government backing, and I can’t use it anywhere. The only way for me to use Cryptocurrency as money in 99.9% of the places I shop is to exchange said crypto for real money.
Money doesn’t predate governments, governments have been around since the earliest tribes, and bartering was the most common way to exchange goods until large governments started issuing currency.
And no, there aren’t. I can’t walk into any store anywhere I have been and buy goods with bitcoin, nor can I use bitcoin on any of the online shops I have ever been to.
bartering was the most common way to exchange goods
you clearly haven’t been keeping up with anthropology in the last 20 years. i recommend reading Debt: The First 5,000 Years. i also suggest pirating it if you can: the author is dead. he won’t mind.
You think that governments didn’t exist thousands of years ago? Governments predate debt and money, by a long shot because guess what, ever since we’ve been tribes we’ve had governments. A tribe is a government.
That tribes have governments? Yes, it’s called tribal governance. Literally any power structure dictating the lives of a group of people is their government.
Why do you think modern governments are the only type of government there has ever been? Tribal governments, elder councils, feudal governments, republics, pharoahs, god-kings, etc… Ever since people have lived in groups they have followed some sort of governance.
Sounds like BitCoin to me.
It’ll probably be safer for criminals to use real money than bitcoin. As they say the block chain don’t lie
People have been using crypto for drugs since it was created, so I don;t know what to tell you, seems plenty safe for that purpose.
Crypto is like stamping your thumbprint on every bill that passes through your hands. If they can ever link you to your crypto wallet(s), the blockchain lets them trace every other transaction you have conducted, every wallet you have ever done business with, even decades later.
Maybe the statute of limitations has run out on something from years ago, and they can’t charge you for something you did in the past. But there is no statute of limitations on intelligence gathering. Maybe they run a suspect’s trail backward 15 years, find where they did business with your old wallet, then follow that trail forward until they find what you’re doing today.
Don’t know what to tell you, but crypto is constantly being used for illegal activities, and I have yet to hear of any big busts resulting from the use of crypto.
That says more about your hearing than anything else.
Cool. Do you have any sources of blockchain being used to nab drug dealers? Would love to read into that.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silk_Road_(marketplace)
From what I can see actual blockchain didn’t find anyone who used the website or bought drugs. The only listed arrests (unless I missed some) were the webmaster himself, who was found using a honeypot, an Australian who had their drugs found and then their silk road account was found, and the only bitcoin was from someone who hacked the silk road and had it later seized by the government.
what makes it any less real than any other money?
Yeah, cryptocurrency is a fuckin waste of the tech lmao. You could theoretically prevent identity theft with blockchain tech and it could also theoretically replace SSNs, but instead we used it for a fake currency and jpegs of bored apes.
EDIT: Should also mention that you literally cannot trade crypto in some states of the US because those states require crypto institutions to have physical assets that equal their digital assets, which is actually pretty smart. Because people can’t buy shit with their 0.2 BitCoins and 50k DogeCoins, this means that those institutions don’t operate or allow trading from these states.
In practice it’s happening multiple times a day. All it takes for one is to snoop the private key to get full control over a wallet.
have you tried mining any other money? you can’t mine dollars at all, and proof of stake is a great way of explaining the compound interest system.
this is a terrible list of attributes to use to establish whether any currency is “fake money”
And you have a terrible list of reasons all separated out into single comments for some reason :)
Any cryptocurrency because it works off the blockchain. You have the transactions committed on a wallet that exists on the blockchain, which is how you get the public transactions in the first place.
Literally any fiat currency, or you could even barter with it if somebody wanted it. It has tangible value because it has a physical demand.
Actually, if you work a job, you get paid in money. Crazy, I know - you don’t have to speculate and hype on a fake currency :)
But we’re talking about cryptocurrency, no? Unless you’re saying BitCoin is not a crypto?
True, and there’s also that 51% majority control thing too. Nothing can get rid of social engineering either, but perhaps there’s a chance to develop better security for blockchain-based tech.
Physically or online? Because you can spend crypto at like Microsoft online, for example, but could you go to a bar or a restaurant and pay with crypto?
your other issues with crypto have nothing to do with bitcoin.
to keep ideas separate. it helps prevent a gish gallop and walls of text.
you don’t seem to understand that most cryptos don’t work on the bitcoin blockchain. bitcoin has its own blockchain.
the comment i responded to said bitcoin.
you’re moving teh goalposts.
this is distinct from mining, the process by which new bitcoins are actually put into circulation. you can’t MAKE dollars: the cia are the only people allowed to do that.
you should respond to the person who actually left this comment. i’m not a part of that conversation.
you don’t seem to know this, so i’m going to explain it to you: turquoise was the currency of indigenous people in the northeast of the so-called united states. it’s not money now. what backed turquoise? nothing. the point was its ubiquity.
there are a lot of vendors that do or have in the past accepted bitcoin. where can you spend turquoise? or confederate dollars?
what backs turquoise?
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oof, found out you were wrong too late, eh?
that has nothing to do with bitcoin.
you keep conflating cryptocurrency and blockchain and bitcoin. are we talking about bitcoin here?
where do you use turquoise?
that doesn’t change whether bitcoin is real. it only changes whether crypto exchanges can operate legally in arbitrary jurisdictions.
Reason I brought that fact up is because those states are saying that crypto needs to backed by something physical instead of an intangible hype and speculation factor.
What makes BitCoin worth $42k? Or Ethereum worth $2.2k? Like, what is physically driving the worth of these cryptocurrencies? Some fiat currencies moved away from precious metals, sure, but they’re back by at least the economies of each country. From what I can tell and have seen, crypto is backed by… hype and speculation. There’s no tangible thing that can back crypto, hence why it’s a fake currency because it’s more or less arbitrarily at a price point just because it is.
Electricity has physical properties. It is energy. Mining Bitcoin requires the use of energy. To the miner, the value of Bitcoin is equal to the cost of acquiring the electricity used to mine it.
Bitcoin is a fungible store of value used to convert KWh into commodities and services.
Oh, come on. That is a really simplistic, and unfortunately, inaccurate view of value.
I ask: what makes anything valuable? Let me pose some examples:
Whatever reasoning you use, whatever rebuttal you have for my argument, unless you’re actively cherry-picking and straining your logic just so you can not be wrong in this instance, you’ll find that any reasonable argument for why Bitcoin has no value will also apply to argue what I think you’ll see is an uncomfortably large number of “real” things are worthless as well.
Lmao
those states aren’t authorities on what money is
money existed before dollars. the dollar value of any asset is not determinate of whether that asset is money.
bitcoin is a network protocol. cryptographic tokens are issued within it. what backs it is the security of the cryptographic system and the combined hashing power of the network. if you think it doesn’t have value, that’s ok: value is subjective. some people do think it’s valuable to be able to control these cryptographic tokens. and that’s ok, too: value is subjective.
lots of currencies have never had a physical backing.
No government backing, and I can’t use it anywhere. The only way for me to use Cryptocurrency as money in 99.9% of the places I shop is to exchange said crypto for real money.
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money predates governments, and there are vendors who will sell goods for bitcoin.
Money doesn’t predate governments, governments have been around since the earliest tribes, and bartering was the most common way to exchange goods until large governments started issuing currency.
And no, there aren’t. I can’t walk into any store anywhere I have been and buy goods with bitcoin, nor can I use bitcoin on any of the online shops I have ever been to.
you clearly haven’t been keeping up with anthropology in the last 20 years. i recommend reading Debt: The First 5,000 Years. i also suggest pirating it if you can: the author is dead. he won’t mind.
You think that governments didn’t exist thousands of years ago? Governments predate debt and money, by a long shot because guess what, ever since we’ve been tribes we’ve had governments. A tribe is a government.
can you cite a source for any of your claims?
That tribes have governments? Yes, it’s called tribal governance. Literally any power structure dictating the lives of a group of people is their government.
any tribe may have a government but a tribe is not the same as a government.
Why do you think modern governments are the only type of government there has ever been? Tribal governments, elder councils, feudal governments, republics, pharoahs, god-kings, etc… Ever since people have lived in groups they have followed some sort of governance.
the impression i’m getting is that bitcoin isn’t money to you, but bitcoin is money to some people, so it’s real money.
Yeah, drug dealers. But even they convert it back to real money when they need to buy things.
you haven’t been to every store on earth, nor visited every online vendor.
Yet I have been to thousands, and not a one has taken bitcoin.
Just because some drug dealers like to use it, does not make it real money.
actually, anybody using it as currency makes it money.
Ah, cool. So weed is money. Understood.