Just got very lightly flamed by another user for making fun of crypto and was told that Lemmy and crypto have “the exact same advantages and disadvantages”. Now I disagree heavily there, since even if it shares some principles I’d argue that the scale of the problems change when you’re talking about a global finance system versus a social media platform filled with beans. But it did get me curious- how many of you are crypto supporters?
I appreciate the philosophy, resilience, resistance to censorship, and individual control that both types of decentralization provide.
Crypto has many scams only because it is intended to be traded or used as currency. Bitcoin, Ethereum, and a few others have held their value over time because of the network effect: more people use it to transact, so it maintains it’s worth as a means of transaction. All those shit coins and alt coins were absolute scams because there was no way to use them (you can use Bitcoin to actually buy products and services).
Decentralized platforms that promote beans are also cool, but their currency is lulz. There’s not much value for that outside the platform.