Originally published at: "It is based on faith" TDS on Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies | Boing Boing
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We’re still in the phase of this distributed Libertarian grift that Cory Doctorow would call the “bezzle”: “the magic interval when a confidence trickster knows he has the money he has appropriated but the victim does not yet understand that he has lost it”.
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They should trade in things that are more tangible like late 90’s pokemon cards instead
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Yes in fact, Cory did a whole article on this:
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All Ponzi/pyramid schemes come to an end.
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Amway is still around after almost 60 years of solid grifting. 
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Technically he’s correct. Amway’s supposedly “free”-market founder Rich DeVos bribed the Ford administration to officially declare that, legally speaking, the company is not a pyramid scheme.
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Cryptocurrency: computer scientists figured out how to turn electricity directly into US$.
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so let me see if i have this straight: take your real, recognized money and exchange it for invisible pieces of internet and just have faith that enough other people will also do that and magic electric-coin-jesus will turn that all back into even more real, recognized money? sorry, i am a boomer, desperate to understand.
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Bonani Jones had a nice piece all about the crypto scam.
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About all this ok_boomer can offer as “explanation” is to quote a recent edifying comment on another (even more nerdy) bbs:
“…seems like a really strange thing to pay for, unless you’re convinced someone else might pay more.”
Which just seems like yet another definition of a pyramid scheme [profound shrug emoji]
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That decision should be revisited. It was 45? years ago.
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It only takes ten minutes to make your own cryptocurrency?
(checks web)
Yep. Sure enough, “asscoin” and “turdcoin” are already taken.
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That toxic family has re-upped so many times that it’s inseparable from the GOP.
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Also apparently just as insecure as any other computer controlled system. Blockchain is only useful if social engineering attacks (you know, the stuff most hackers use to break into systems) start failing. And since people are involved, that’s never going to happen.
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What is real money if not invisible pieces of data? What is the financial value of anything except that for which others will trade? Real money is pretty esoteric: its value is based on faith too.
I’m no fan of crypto, but to me it is no different than any other medium to hold and exchange value.
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It is, but it’s based on faith in something, namely the issuing government. When you treat a US dollar as valuable you are expressing faith that the US is still going to be around accepting these long enough for you to spend it, which isn’t really that much of a leap.
Whereas right now cryptocurrency is based entirely on faith that particular cryptocurrency will remain popular among cryptocurrency enthusiasts.
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Other than the whole “regulated by the government, monitored, reimbursed if damaged, etc, etc, etc,” part. With crypto, you get all of the convenience of regular electronic currency, and none of the assurances your money will still be worth money tomorrow.
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Of course not. It is those assurances that make western fiat currencies relatively stable and crypto to appear volatile. Nonetheless, the perception that real money has a bedrock value isn’t really real. It just seems that way if all you use is one currency in a stable domestic market.
Enough out of me: I gotta go earn some Canadian Pesos then go spend USD on California produce. Yikes!
