As the AI market continues to balloon, experts are warning that its VC-driven rise is eerily similar to that of the dot com bubble.

  • Devccoon@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    All I ever see around crypto is this vague notion that it could someday be acknowledged and used widely as real money is. But so could bottle caps. I don’t see the mechanism for how it realistically happens. It’s no less a moonshot than it was 3 years ago, IMO.

    Just because a lot of people are buying into crypto doesn’t make the underlying inefficiencies in its design (depending on the coin) disappear and make way for common usage. As it stands now, cryptocurrencies are basically glorified ponzi schemes. The people nonstop defending them deserve to be treated with constant skepticism because they have skin in the game and know there’s nothing preventing them from losing it all. It’s in their best interest to believe in it and spread that belief.

    • Freesoftwareenjoyer@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      You are forgetting that cryptocurrency has real uses. You can send money to people without using a bank or PayPal. I use it to pay for things online anonymously and being able to do that is very valuable to me and to other people. You can use crypto to buy a gift card for any store if they don’t accept crypto directly.

      I have nothing to gain by saying this, since I don’t keep any significant amount of money in crypto. I don’t care what the price of Bitcoin or another coin is. It’s irrelevant and doesn’t affect my ability to use this technology.

      Cryptocurrency is not a scam. It’s just a distributed ledger.

      • Sludgeyy@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Anonymous…

        Distributed ledger…

        It’s not really anonymous.

        John Smith or 253832893 means exactly the same thing without more context. The only way you can tell you have the right John Smith is because we have 253-83-2893 as a social security number (lol social security system).

        But if I see 253832893 on the Crypto ledger, I know 253832893 made a transaction. It could say John Smith and I’d be basically in the same spot of figuring out who it was.

        Now, if 253832893 wallet paid a home mortgage for John Smith with Crypto, then I’d be closer to figure out who owns 253832893 wallet.

        The whole point to Crypto is the block chain and the fact that they are very traceable.

        Crypto can be anonymous if you’re smart and you don’t link yourself to your wallet. But once you are linked to a wallet, it is far from anonymous.

        If John Smith wanted to sell me cocaine. Handing him cash is basically untraceable and anonymous. Sending him Crypto ties my wallet to his wallet with a transaction. If the cops seized his wallet and somehow figured out my wallet, they could tell every single time I purchased cocaine from him.

        Yes, you can do your best to keep your name unlinked to your wallet number. But it’s not foolproof. For example, if I was buying cocaine I wouldn’t use my main Crypto wallet but a side wallet. If you only used it to pay for cocaine and filled the side wallet in an untraceable way. It’s pretty anonymous.

        But to those people that fill their Crypto wallets with their bank account and just think they are anonymous, they have another thing coming if someone wants to trace them.