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[+] -46 points 1 year ago* (5 children)

paying in crypto is nice partly for this reason

But a lot of uneducated people will spam "crypto is a scam"

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  • [–] 28 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    What reason are you referring to?

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  • [–] 12 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    I imagine the part in the article where OPP destroyed the vps and cancelled the domain because he realized he paid for the vps with his credit card?

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  • [–] 23 points 1 year ago (6 children)

    Crypto is not anonymous, the entire concept of how it works is to be the worlds most public and distributed transaction ledger. It is more difficult to track than credit card transactions, but that's a very big difference from being impossible to track. There have been multiple papers published at this point on how you can de-anonymize any crypto purchase.

    People really need to get over this idea that using crypto to buy things makes you anonymous.

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  • [–] 29 points 1 year ago

    Some crypto, like Monero, is anonymous. Bitcoin/Ethereum is not.

    In any case, if you use anonymous crypto, make sure to first sent it to a wallet (preferably with a subaddress in case of Monero), and then send it elsewhere.

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  • [–] 13 points 1 year ago

    Crypto can be anonymous, if you use the right cryptocurrency and do things correctly. "Crypto" is a very broad term. Different cryptocurrencies have different functions and purposes.

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  • [–] 6 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    You know, except for Monero. Really sucks that real private anonymous internet money is getting pushed out of all places possible, while crap like Bitcoin freely exists.

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  • [–] 6 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    Exactly. That's why you had to fill out all the KYC paperwork when you create your Bitcoin wallet.

    Oh, you didn't?

    Crypto is not hidden, but it can be anonymous. You can't hide that you got money from X account and spent it at Y account. But there's no name tied to the transaction.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Where did the coin come from? Unless you mined it yourself, you've left a trail that may eventually lead to you. Even using crypto ATMs, you're still on surveillance and hoping the tapes/drives roll over before someone comes knocking (which is a very likely bet to win), and even then, you still have a real world location to tie the wallet to because of where the transaction originated.

    Anything that interacts with the real world can anchor your identity to your wallet. Travelling out of state can help obfuscate that to an extent, but a high level adversary will be able to correlate travel with that transaction as well.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    People really need to get over this idea that using crypto to buy things makes you anonymous.

    And people should also know that there are privacy coins and mixers

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    I might be mistaken, but isn’t using a mixer considered money laundering in the US?

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  • [–] -1 points 1 year ago

    USA also claimed they owned all BTC that went through dark net markets. I don’t care what they think about X or Y thing

    But yea that would be considered ML in many countries because you’re hiding the links and making it seem like normal money, which it should be imo

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  • [+] -7 points 1 year ago (1 child)
  • [–] 6 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    The whole point of the blockchain is it for it to be traceable, though. There's only the illusion of anonymity with crypto

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  • [+] -6 points 1 year ago*

    That's complete misinformation.

    The point of blockchain is not to be traceable but not alterable or tamperable with unauthorized or false data. A distributed database that can't easily be faked.

    Some cryptocurrencies, like Monero, achieve high anonymity. While not perfect, good opsec will fix its flaws. Just like anything. That's not the case with the majority of cryptocurrencies though, but saying anonymity is but an illusion is just false.

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  • [–] 23 points 1 year ago (2 children)
  • [+] -12 points 1 year ago* (2 children)

    Breaking news! Criminals (but not only) use crypto, and people get scammed. This happens as well with fiat, so that must surely mean fiat is a scam!

    Flawless logic, really. You people impress me with your thinking.

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  • [–] 6 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    if you sell something for $1 at 10am your $1 still buys $1 at 10pm.

    in crypto, it's easily manipulated, and that's by design. it's a scam because the only people who have that control are the wealthy.

    If I sell 1BT worth of something at 10am, it could be worth 2BT at 10pm, but it could also be worth .1BT equally.

    the purpose of a Fiat currency is economic supremacy that is backed by the governing body and the economy that uses it.

    tell me, what governing body or economy is crypto backed by?

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  • [–] -1 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Your $1 has absolutely changed in value by 10pm. What do you think inflation is? It might not be enough change for the store to bother changing prices but the value changes constantly.

    Watch the foreign exchange markets, your $1 is changing in value compared to every other currency constantly.

    The only difference between fiat and crypto is that changing the prices in the store is difficult, and the volume of trade is high enough to reduce volatility in the value of your $. There are plenty of cases of hyperinflation in history where stores have to change prices on a daily basis, meaning that fiat is not immune to volatility.

    To prevent that volatility we just have things like the federal reserve, debt limits, federal regulations, etc that are designed to keep you the investor (money holders) happy with keeping that money in dollars instead of assets. The value is somewhat stable as long as the government is solvent.

    Crypto doesn't have those external controls, instead it has internal controls, i.e. mining difficulty. Which from a user perspective is better because it can't be printed at will by the government.

    Long story short fiat is no different than crypto, there is no real tangible value, so value is what people think it is. Unfortunately crypto's value is driven more by speculative "investors" than by actual trade demand which means it is more volatile. If enough of the world changed to crypto it would just as stable as your $.

    Not saying crypto is a good thing just saying that it isn't any better or worse. It needs daily usage for real trade by a large portion of the population to reduce the volatility, instead of just being used to gamble against the dollar.

    Our governments would likely never let that happen though, they can't give up their ability to print money. It's far easier to keep getting elected when you print the cash to operate the government, than it is to raise taxes to pay for the things they need.

    The absolutely worthless meme coin scams/forks/etc are just scammers and gamblers trying to rip each other off. They just make any sort of useful critical mass of trade less and less plausible because it gives all crypto a bad name. Not that Bitcoin/Ethereum started out any different but now that enough people are using them splitting your user base is just self defeating

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  • [–] -1 points 1 year ago

    if you sell something for $1 at 10am your $1 still buys $1 at 10pm.

    This is untrue for pretty much everything, even fiat. Everything is a market. A good example of this: stocks.

    in crypto, it's easily manipulated, and that's by design.

    Now this is just false. You’re just inventing fake facts here. You clearly know nothing of the history of crypto.

    If I sell 1BT worth of something at 10am, it could be worth 2BT at 10pm, but it could also be worth .1BT equally.

    Uhh no? 1 BTC will always be 1 BTC. Its value compared to other assets will change though. And in that case it would have less value indeed. You’re just allergic to high variations and high risks assets. Stocks is exactly the same. Some assets vary more than others. Let me assure you the value of BTC will never do a +/-10x in a day

    tell me, what governing body or economy is crypto backed by?

    Emission (POW, POS…) (or total stock), demand and offer and perceived value, just like everything on earth?

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  • [–] -1 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    None of that is "by design" its just the result of an unstable system. Crypto sucks for a long list of different reasons.

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  • [–] 0 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    it is by design for a lot of them.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago

    The instability?

    You're giving it too much credit, especially the altcoins that didn't look beyond "existing". I know, I made one like 7 years ago or so and I ain't proud of it.

    The instability of the worth of these crypto coins is just inherent to the instability of it, and actually not that different from currency fluctuations. You don't think the entire world works with US dollars, no?

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  • [+] -10 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Don't even bother. You'll never get through to these drones.

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  • [–] -4 points 1 year ago (1 child)
  • [–] -4 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    You won't convince anyone one here that crypto isn't a scam. These people are set in their ways.

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  • [–] -1 points 1 year ago

    And stubbornly entitled

    Their uncle must’ve been rug pulled when buying a shitcoin or something and now they believe crypto is nothing but a scam

    But yea there’s nothing to do. If you can’t educate them then let them stay in their ignorance if they like it. I just don’t feel that letting them spread their misinformation is a good thing

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    Crypto is not a scam, it's just plain stupid.

    The entire idea behind it is what a third grader might come up with and think it's a great idea. It's not.

    It literally requires every connected wallet to process the same transactions as everyone else. Can you imagine doing billions of transactions per day this way? It is extremely inefficient and yes, this is one of the reasons why even the relatively low amount of transactions that Bitcoin processes costs more electricity than a small modern country.

    It's in a way comparable to a cpu doing 6+7 in a single CPU cycle whilst AI needs to burn down a forest to answer the same question

    Crypto is stupid.

    I get what its trying to replace and i agree that the current system sucks as well for a long list of reasons, but crypto is NOT the solution. A fundamentally different system must be designed to be able to solve the issues that crypto is trying to solve

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  • [–] 0 points 1 year ago

    You don’t understand how crypto works it seems

    It literally requires every connected wallet to process the same transactions as everyone else

    That’s misleading. Your wallet scans blocks for transactions that goes to your wallet, but this is super fast for many cryptocurrencies. Wallets usually sync in seconds.

    this is one of the reasons why even the relatively low amount of transactions that Bitcoin processes costs more electricity than a small modern country.

    No. The main reason is block size and block emission period. Also, you’re completely forgetting the fact that non Proof Of Work cryptocurrencies exist, and have close to 0 electricity cost

    The entire idea behind it is what a third grader might come up with and think it's a great idea. It's not.

    If they do they’re pretty much a fucking genius for their age

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  • [–] 0 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Yes, doing illegal things secretly is a valid use case for crypto. So far, it's also the only one

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

    What about donating money to people online without giving away your name and privacy? What about avoiding scams for P2P transactions? What about boycotting the banking system? What about avoiding international payment fees?

    These all seem valid use cases to me

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

    donating online

    Yeah i suppose any form of payment that you have to keep secret for some reason is a reason to use crypto, though I struggle to imagine needing that if you're not doing something dodgy

    avoiding scams for p2p transactions

    Wat. Crypto is not good at solving that, it's in fact much much worse than traditional payment methods. There's a reason scammers always want to be paid in crypto

    boycotting the banking system

    What specifically are you boycotting? The money that backs your crypto (i.e. that you bought it with) still sits in a bank account somewhere and continues to support the banks. All you're boycotting then are payments, but those are usually free for consumers (many banks lose money on them) so you're not exactly "sticking it to the man" by not using them. Evem if you were somehow hurting banks by using crypto, if you think the people that benefit from you using crypto (crypto exchange owners and billionaires that own crypto etc.) are less evil than goverment regulated banks, you're deluded.

    What about avoiding international payment fees?

    You'll spend more money using crypto for that, not less

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  • [–] 0 points 1 year ago

    Yeah i suppose any form of payment that you have to keep secret for some reason is a reason to use crypto, though I struggle to imagine needing that if you're not doing something dodgy

    imagine you’re a YouTuber and want to accept donations: that will force you to give out your name to them, which they could use to get your address and phone number. There’s always someone that hates you, and I rather not have them knowing my personal info

    Wat. Crypto is not good at solving that, it's in fact much much worse than traditional payment methods. There's a reason scammers always want to be paid in crypto

    if you’re the seller then it’s a lot better. With the traditional banking system, with enough knowledge you can cheat both sides: stolen cards, abusive chargebacks, bank accounts in other countries under fake name/fake ID…

    Crypto simplifies scamming when the seller, and pretty much makes it impossible for buyers

    What specifically are you boycotting?

    Card payments, international tranfers, national transfers taking days to complete, money being seizable at all times

    many banks lose money on them

    Their plans are basically all focused on the card you get. Pretty sure they make money with it, else many wouldn’t offer cash back (selling infos and getting a fee from card payments?)

    if you think the people that benefit from you using crypto (crypto exchange owners and billionaires that own crypto etc.) are less evil than goverment regulated banks, you're deluded.

    Banks are evil anyways, does it really change anything? The difference is that it technically helps everyone using crypto, not only the rich.

    Plus P2P exchanges are a thing

    You'll spend more money using crypto for that, not less

    That’s just factually false. Do you know the price of a swift transfer? Now compare it to crypto tx fees, with many being under $0.01

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