<story><title>Yes, Crypto Is All a Scam</title><url>https://www.stephendiehl.com/blog/crypto-is-a-scam.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>fredley</author><text>&amp;gt; The fallacy in this argument is that there&amp;#x27;s something special in crypto that makes this more likely to happen.&lt;p&gt;I think this goes without saying: money and financial systems are regulated—to some degree—everywhere in the World. They are regulated by Governments, and there are real penalties for evading those regulations and getting caught. Many of these regulations were put in place to prevent the kind of shenanigans that is commonplace in crypto.&lt;p&gt;In crypto, by design, there is no regulation, nor is it really possible. This is the something that&amp;#x27;s special about crypto.</text></item><item><author>jillesvangurp</author><text>You don&amp;#x27;t need crypto to run a scam. Financial scams are as old as money is.&lt;p&gt;The fallacy in this argument is that there&amp;#x27;s something special in crypto that makes this more likely to happen. There isn&amp;#x27;t. In fact, you could argue that the enormous activity of scammers in this space actually points to some inherent qualities that might be useful beyond just running ponzi schemes and other scams.&lt;p&gt;One of these qualities is that scammers are unusually aware and mindful that they might get robbed by people equally untrustworthy on the same platforms that they use. So, the notion that that isn&amp;#x27;t happening on popular blockchain platforms is useful to them, and others. Tamper proof ledgers are useful for all sorts of things. The history of money is basically increasingly elaborate measures to prevent theft, forgeries, and other abuse. People trying to abuse the system are a constant.&lt;p&gt;Blockchains and other cryptographic tools are just that: tools. I expect banks to gradually incorporate these tools into what they do. That&amp;#x27;s already happening. E.g. China rolled out the the e-yuan currency last year. Not a decentralized blockchain but it obviously incorporates some of the technology. Other countries are doing similar things.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jillesvangurp</author><text>Crypto can also be regulated and it probably will get regulated.&lt;p&gt;Regulation always comes after the fact. The history of the &amp;quot;modern&amp;quot; banking system is that merchants at some point got bored getting robbed of their gold while traveling from A to B. Also, moving around tonnes of gold is actually expensive and tedious. So, they started sending each other bank notes underwritten by bankers who kept the gold in their vaults. Out of that modern banking and eventually central banks emerged. The notion of keeping gold in a vault became optional some time later. The regulation we have resulted from robbery getting more sophisticated. Initially all of this was unregulated. Regulation just happened as a reaction to all the inevitable bad stuff that happened.&lt;p&gt;What&amp;#x27;s a bank: a ledger of value denominated in currencies and a promise to account those ledgers correctly. Why do banks need regulation? Because ledgers are manipulated by people that can and will cheat if they can get away with it.&lt;p&gt;What&amp;#x27;s a blockchain: a tamper proof, shared ledger. If that sounds like a useful tool to have in a bank that would be because it is. You need a bit less regulation to keep the ledger correct. But you still need some regulation to ensure bankers use them properly and appropriately. Technology doesn&amp;#x27;t fix their tendencies to not do that.&lt;p&gt;Using an unregulated blockchain is not a whole lot different from using bank accounts in dodgy jurisdictions to evade taxes and oversight. Popular with the same types of people for the same types of reasons.</text></comment>
<story><title>Yes, Crypto Is All a Scam</title><url>https://www.stephendiehl.com/blog/crypto-is-a-scam.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>fredley</author><text>&amp;gt; The fallacy in this argument is that there&amp;#x27;s something special in crypto that makes this more likely to happen.&lt;p&gt;I think this goes without saying: money and financial systems are regulated—to some degree—everywhere in the World. They are regulated by Governments, and there are real penalties for evading those regulations and getting caught. Many of these regulations were put in place to prevent the kind of shenanigans that is commonplace in crypto.&lt;p&gt;In crypto, by design, there is no regulation, nor is it really possible. This is the something that&amp;#x27;s special about crypto.</text></item><item><author>jillesvangurp</author><text>You don&amp;#x27;t need crypto to run a scam. Financial scams are as old as money is.&lt;p&gt;The fallacy in this argument is that there&amp;#x27;s something special in crypto that makes this more likely to happen. There isn&amp;#x27;t. In fact, you could argue that the enormous activity of scammers in this space actually points to some inherent qualities that might be useful beyond just running ponzi schemes and other scams.&lt;p&gt;One of these qualities is that scammers are unusually aware and mindful that they might get robbed by people equally untrustworthy on the same platforms that they use. So, the notion that that isn&amp;#x27;t happening on popular blockchain platforms is useful to them, and others. Tamper proof ledgers are useful for all sorts of things. The history of money is basically increasingly elaborate measures to prevent theft, forgeries, and other abuse. People trying to abuse the system are a constant.&lt;p&gt;Blockchains and other cryptographic tools are just that: tools. I expect banks to gradually incorporate these tools into what they do. That&amp;#x27;s already happening. E.g. China rolled out the the e-yuan currency last year. Not a decentralized blockchain but it obviously incorporates some of the technology. Other countries are doing similar things.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>qsort</author><text>The fact that crypto people will tell you with a straight face that the irreversibility of transfers is a feature and not a bug should be enough of a tell...</text></comment>