
As Bitcoin Bubble Loses Air, Frauds and Flaws Rise to Surface - IntronExon
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/05/technology/virtual-currency-regulation.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Ftechnology&action=click&contentCollection=technology&region=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=1&pgtype=sectionfront
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agorabinary
Surely a lot of frauds but where are the flaws?

Instead we have:

\- Open source flexibility: Hundreds of competing coins seeking to optimize
upon an original design

\- A decentralized payment system: Beyond the reach of currency-manipulating
state actors

\- Programmable money: The key ingredient for trustless and automated next-gen
services and products

\- Working as designed: 9 years strong

\- And soon: Scalability to global volumes

[https://twitter.com/bramcohen/status/959973688035631105](https://twitter.com/bramcohen/status/959973688035631105)

~~~
bb88
> Working as designed: 9 years strong

and

> And soon: Scalability to global volumes

Wait, what? It's working as designed but can't scale to the "global volumes"?
Isn't that a bug?

~~~
slededit
It was never designed to scale that large. The theoretical limits to
transactions were known at creation time it wasn't much of a surprise. Nobody
expects to solve every problem on a 1.0 release.

~~~
bb88
You are incorrect. The best kind of incorrect: factually.

Satoshi said otherwise.

[https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=149668.msg1596879#ms...](https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=149668.msg1596879#msg1596879)

~~~
fastball
slededit is not wrong: the original code _did_ have a block size limit which
limits tx per second. It required an update ("hard fork") to actually change
this "feature". However, there was disagreement when the time for the fork
came, which is why you now have Bitcoin Cash, which _does_ support far more tx
per sec and cheaper tx fees.

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keyle
As much as I don't buy into the full craze of crypto myself, you have to read
this article with a grain of salt.

8 out of the 10 articles he's published recently are about crypto and most in
a very negative way.

And this article is misdirected.

> Hackers draining funds from online exchanges. Ponzi schemes. Government
> regulators unable to keep up with the rise of so-called cryptocurrencies.
> Signs of trouble have appeared at nearly every level of the industry, from
> the biggest exchanges to the news sites and chat rooms where the investment
> frenzy has been discussed.

If you've been following the recent developments, most of the downfall can be
attributed to Chinese money exiting the market as their government is flat out
banning owning cryptocurrencies and trading them, in and out of China (...for
now... give it a few years and they might flipflop).

The prices shrugged off the bitconnect joke that it was, the other bad ICOs
since they don't apply, and the Japanese NEM wallet hack (which was mostly due
to the exchange being reckless).

So yes, cryptocurrencies are a dodgy world, full of scam, odd things and you
can paint it red all day every day. But you'd be silly to not look at it, the
blockchain approach can have very good applications and there is a lot of
interesting work and partnership forming, sometimes in unexpected ways.

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gaetanrickter
Good and hopefully they'll be cleaned out so we can have decent investments in
quality cryptocurrency startups.

~~~
IntronExon
Smash cut to a barren wasteland with no one and nothing left. Maybe
cryptocurrency has a bright future, but I’m skeptical that any of the extent
ones fit that bill. PoW is obscene, Lightning impractical, and it may just be
that the whole thing is fatally flawed.

~~~
agorabinary
How is Lightning impractical? I encourage you to try it out on testnet right
now, it works great. It also solves your PoW concerns.

~~~
IntronExon
...By requiring you to keep your computer up 24/7, no?

~~~
dpc_pw
Not really true. You can offload monitoring blockchain to "watchers"
(privately), and if you have a pay-only wallet you don't have to watch for
anything anyway.

On top of that LN is very practical for heaviest blockchain users, that do run
full node 24/7 anyway.

~~~
IntronExon
That sounds like a semantic distinction; a computer working for you has to
watch the network 24/7\. Besides, Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Hiring a
watcher sounds tricky if you want it to be really trustless, it sounds
cumbersome, and frankly I can’t find any good info on how it works.

~~~
dpc_pw
AFAIK it can be done anonymously, for a tiny price and a bit bigger bounty (if
found). Since the state of the channel is private, watcher has no information
about anything anyway. On top of it - it's only a secondary defense. Your
wallet still can do the monitoring by themselves and other party can't know
that you dissapeared from the internet and won't appear in next 24 hours in
advance. Other party risks reputation and their own funds if they get caught
by you or your watcher(s). Because of that attacks like that are very
infeasible.

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CyberDildonics
"When the tide goes out you see who is swimming naked" \- Warren Buffet

~~~
ilamont
So true.

I worked in Asia in the 90s, and it was remarkable the frauds, scams, and
unsustainable loans that would surface when the local stock or real estate
markets dropped sharply.

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yashksagar
Don't worry keep HODLing!
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rg2oukQZ6dg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rg2oukQZ6dg)

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miralabs
as if above never happens to traditional markets. FYI --2008 where the
financial markets almost collapsed and has destroyed lives of millions of
individuals.

