I don’t know if I’ve ever heard the quote IRL, but I’ve known libertarians and they’ve seemed fine. If all you disagree about is the particulars of economic theory it’s not really worth getting worked up about.
I imagine this person being young and male, and possibly liking cryptocurrencies.
I have. Most people who say this IRL are very Libertarian and very not libertarian. If they like cryptocurrency, it’s something new so they can feel smart.
Bitcoin? It’s a first prototype that unnecessarily guzzles computing power, and has no privacy features whatsoever. We don’t drive the Model T anymore.
They’re all p2p, I don’t know what you’re talking about there.
That computing power is necessary to secure the network, without introducing security holes or economic rent. And the rate of production gets cut in half every 4 years. The alternatives you’ve been told about are inferior.
The Lightning Network has onion routing like Tor, and drug dealers have been using mixers for literally a decade. If there’s an inflation bug in Monero (like the value overflow incident), then that will be invisible too.
We still use steam power quite a bit, and aren’t replacing it simply because it’s old. Most new cryptocurrencies are like a Tesla, solving problems they didn’t care to understand.
If you think every cryptocurrency is peer-to-peer, then I am literally begging you to slow down and look at how they actually work before investing more. They frequently have centralized issuance, security, development, governance… you name it. It only takes one centralized part to bring down a project.
I haven’t been “told about” shit. I actually have a math background and know cryptography, and I’ve read more than a few whitepapers.
Monero does it better with actual privacy. Ripple does it with the least overhead of all. Eth changes so much I’m not even sure what all they have going on.
Mixers give a very false sense of security, relative to actual cryptography. People seem to think if you mix enough it’s the same, but actually there’s like a million holes in that, not to mention the trust in whoever’s doing the mixing.
They frequently have centralized issuance, security, development, governance… you name it. It only takes one centralized part to bring down a project.
So? Anything worthy of the title is open source, so if someone goes evil it just forks. Monero itself started as a fork of something else IIRC. The actual algorithm isn’t centralised in any of the big cases I can think of, not counting vapourware scams.
I believe that you’re extremely qualified in math and cryptography. But thinking that cryptocurrencies are all p2p, and that Bitcoin dominates the market because they don’t know this one simple thing, are both telltale signs of a novice. They’re mostly centralized scams, and the concerns you’re bringing up have been discussed to death.
Monero is a great example.
You’re correct that it was originally forked off of Bytecoin, which had a premine. So Bytecoin was not peer-to-peer, because one user (the issuer) had a different set of rules than everyone else. If you had invested in centralized Bytecoin, you would have lost money because it was not p2p. They had to start over!
The problem with relying on “actual cryptography” for privacy is auditability, like I mentioned above. When there was a bug in Bitcoin that allowed someone to give himself a bazillion BTC, we were able to catch and revert it immediately. If there is a bug like that in Monero, we won’t know until after it’s circulated as much as the premined Bytecoins did.
I mean, Satoshi mined his ~1000000BTC, but from a functional perspective I don’t see how that’s different from just having it hardcoded in the genesis block (or equivalent in another system). It definitely doesn’t make Ripple BitConnect, or one of those janky “stablecoins”.
The problem with relying on “actual cryptography” for privacy is auditability, like I mentioned above. When there was a bug in Bitcoin that allowed someone to give himself a bazillion BTC, we were able to catch and revert it immediately. If there is a bug like that in Monero, we won’t know until after it’s circulated as much as the premined Bytecoins did.
It’s a problem, sure. If you want auditability at the expense of any guaranteed privacy, again, Ripple. It’s is totally transparent, assuming you keep a backup of all the old closed ledgers. And uses computing power more comparable to an old-fashioned bank account than to Bitcoin.
But thinking that cryptocurrencies are all p2p, and that Bitcoin dominates the market because they don’t know this one simple thing, are both telltale signs of a novice.
It’s never been my main squeeze, but I’ve dabbled since the early days. Do with that what you will.
I don’t know if I’ve ever heard the quote IRL, but I’ve known libertarians and they’ve seemed fine. If all you disagree about is the particulars of economic theory it’s not really worth getting worked up about.
I imagine this person being young and male, and possibly liking cryptocurrencies.
I have. Most people who say this IRL are very Libertarian and very not libertarian. If they like cryptocurrency, it’s something new so they can feel smart.
Public service announcement that crypto isn’t intrinsically dumb, but that the most popular cryptos are, and most of the fans definitely are.
The most popular crypto is one of the few that’s p2p and well-tested.
Bitcoin? It’s a first prototype that unnecessarily guzzles computing power, and has no privacy features whatsoever. We don’t drive the Model T anymore.
They’re all p2p, I don’t know what you’re talking about there.
Yes.
That computing power is necessary to secure the network, without introducing security holes or economic rent. And the rate of production gets cut in half every 4 years. The alternatives you’ve been told about are inferior.
The Lightning Network has onion routing like Tor, and drug dealers have been using mixers for literally a decade. If there’s an inflation bug in Monero (like the value overflow incident), then that will be invisible too.
We still use steam power quite a bit, and aren’t replacing it simply because it’s old. Most new cryptocurrencies are like a Tesla, solving problems they didn’t care to understand.
If you think every cryptocurrency is peer-to-peer, then I am literally begging you to slow down and look at how they actually work before investing more. They frequently have centralized issuance, security, development, governance… you name it. It only takes one centralized part to bring down a project.
I haven’t been “told about” shit. I actually have a math background and know cryptography, and I’ve read more than a few whitepapers.
Monero does it better with actual privacy. Ripple does it with the least overhead of all. Eth changes so much I’m not even sure what all they have going on.
Mixers give a very false sense of security, relative to actual cryptography. People seem to think if you mix enough it’s the same, but actually there’s like a million holes in that, not to mention the trust in whoever’s doing the mixing.
So? Anything worthy of the title is open source, so if someone goes evil it just forks. Monero itself started as a fork of something else IIRC. The actual algorithm isn’t centralised in any of the big cases I can think of, not counting vapourware scams.
I believe that you’re extremely qualified in math and cryptography. But thinking that cryptocurrencies are all p2p, and that Bitcoin dominates the market because they don’t know this one simple thing, are both telltale signs of a novice. They’re mostly centralized scams, and the concerns you’re bringing up have been discussed to death.
Monero is a great example.
You’re correct that it was originally forked off of Bytecoin, which had a premine. So Bytecoin was not peer-to-peer, because one user (the issuer) had a different set of rules than everyone else. If you had invested in centralized Bytecoin, you would have lost money because it was not p2p. They had to start over!
The problem with relying on “actual cryptography” for privacy is auditability, like I mentioned above. When there was a bug in Bitcoin that allowed someone to give himself a bazillion BTC, we were able to catch and revert it immediately. If there is a bug like that in Monero, we won’t know until after it’s circulated as much as the premined Bytecoins did.
I mean, Satoshi mined his ~1000000BTC, but from a functional perspective I don’t see how that’s different from just having it hardcoded in the genesis block (or equivalent in another system). It definitely doesn’t make Ripple BitConnect, or one of those janky “stablecoins”.
It’s a problem, sure. If you want auditability at the expense of any guaranteed privacy, again, Ripple. It’s is totally transparent, assuming you keep a backup of all the old closed ledgers. And uses computing power more comparable to an old-fashioned bank account than to Bitcoin.
It’s never been my main squeeze, but I’ve dabbled since the early days. Do with that what you will.