Was a fan of Bitcoin, until found out about this.
this post was submitted on 07 May 2024
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Privacy
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I always find these breakdowns to be a little bit disingenuous. Like, you could do this same analysis on the whole email system, or on the whole world wide banking system, including ATMs, or on the energy usage of all DNS queries or even on global ActivityPub activity, not to mention shopping on Amazon or browsing Facebook. People DO do these kinds of breakdowns on generative AI, for exactly the same reasons, and reach the same kinds of conclusions.
Having a global computer network is INCREDIBLY energy intensive, with a massive carbon footprint. It's not shocking that a given application of that network is energy intensive, with a massive carbon footprint. These kinds of analysis are put together by people who already don't like cryptocurrencies (for all kinds of reasons both valid and ridiculous) who then go cherry picking MORE reasons not to like them.
A better comparison would be energy utilized per user, in which case the energy requirements for Bitcoin are miles and miles ahead of what the average person produces using a computer in the same amount of time. Even a gamer, playing 4k 120fps ray traced games 12 hours a day would use a fraction of the energy of someone mining bitcoin.
Also the fact Bitcoin is essentially a pyramid scheme. Get more people into it to artificially inflate its value, take the profits, leave everyone else with diminished value, build it up again, get rich, repeat forever.
Crypto should be illegal.
Crypto IS usable as an alternative to regular card payments though. If it gets illegal - what do we have left for online payment? Bank system, which is very hard and illegal to use anonymously, and is subject to sanctions/seizures/whatever. There is cash by mail, which is not always feasible. GNU Taler looks interesting, but seems like it not implemented much yet.
Sounds like you want to buy drugs. There's not a lot you buy online that you do so anonymously. Sure, there's a few things, but for the most part it's for goods and services that require your information in the first place. So what's the point?
The best idea is just money cards that you can buy at brick and mortar stores for things. Advocating for a literal pyramid scheme isn't worth it.
I think some of the arguments are quite flawed. Bitcoin itself has most of the properties it is said to have, but it lives in a world that doesn't and so some only really apply if you manage to stay inside the system. Like, your Signal chats are private as long as you don't copy-paste them to Facebook.
Regarding self-custody/decentralization and using custodial services: The problem here is not that those properties don't apply to Bitcoin, but that some people just choose to give away control over their wallets or not use Bitcoin itself for certain transactions. Can't blame that on the currency, unless you think it can't be done any other way.
Regarding privacy: I don't think any serious "Bitcoiner" advertises Bitcoin as private. The message has always been that it's "pseudonymous", that you have to take extra steps in order to make it anonymous, and that it's transparent instead of private by design.
Regarding transparency/inclusion: These paragraphs actually argue about privacy again. One is trying to spin the existing transparency into a negative, which is a valid opinion but not something "Bitcoiners" are wrong about. The other circles back to the idea of staying inside the system. Bitcoin transactions are inclusive, but ofc you can still get into trouble if you have to fear external repercussions and can't stay anonymous.
Monero doesn't have most of these problems...
Bitcoin was both a massive failure and success - a failure because it ended up not accomplishing its biggest goal of being a bank killer, but a success because it demonstrated not only the demand but that such a system wasn't a complete moonshot.
/circlejerk
XMR 2 da moon!!!!
Monero ftw
but Bitcoin does nothing to prevent custodial exchanges, in the way something like Monero does
In what way does Monero prevent that?
imagine if all the huge amount of support and effort that gets put into a nonfungible traceable system (btc) got put into monero. we wouls have such a strong community of cypherpunks
I've been dumping btc for xmr
XMR exists