
Cryptocurrencies: They Will All Die - kowabit
https://www.kowabit.de/cryptos-they-will-all-die/
======
topmonk
Nothing new here, same complaints as in 2011. I know people think there is a
time limit for cryptocurrency to establish itself, but there is literally
nothing else happening in finance.

~~~
moralsupply
Actually there's a lot happening in finance:

* Massive corporate debts

* Stock markets bubble fed by QE1-QE3 and now the "no-QE"

* Debt orgy circulated between pension funds, crap stocks, central banks, rating agencies, banks and governments

* Yet another housing market bubble

* and the list goes on...

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rdbell
More of the same arguments that have been going around for 10 years. Meanwhile
adoption and price continues to increase over time.

[https://99bitcoins.com/bitcoin-obituaries/](https://99bitcoins.com/bitcoin-
obituaries/)

~~~
Nextgrid
> adoption [...] continues to increase over time.

Is it? Outside of the crypto bubble I still don't see a reason to hold
cryptocurrency, and in fact, even as a tech guy I don't hold any.

I still can't use it anywhere, especially not in the physical world. The best
I can do is sell it for fiat (with a hefty commission) using some of those
Bitcoin ATMs and most of them have complicated ID verification procedures (so
you need to carry a form of ID and it isn't as fast as a normal ATM) and then
use _that_ fiat to buy my morning coffee or breakfast. I could just use my
normal payment card directly and bypass the whole process.

The community is plagued by fragmentation about minor technicalities (Bitcoin
Cash being the "one true Bitcoin" and then Bitcoin Cash _itself_ splitting
into yet another variant called Bitcoin SV (Satoshi Vision) that _again_
claims to be the One True Bitcoin) instead of solving the main blockers behind
cryptocurrency adoption which is the user experience for the masses (the
common arguments in favour of crypto like decentralisation, trust-less-ness,
etc aren't actually compelling for the majority of people, so it has to be
_better_ than their day to day bank account for them to use it, and from a UX
perspective it's definitely not).

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wslh
> An alternative would be the creation of a stable crypto-currency, with which
> the basic needs of the people can be paid. Worldwide.

First, the author has not studied the field enough to make these bold claims.
Stable coins do exist, there are many of them, some of them are clearly
regulated in some jurisdictions (e.g. USDC) and many central banks are working
on "digital money" that is not purely a cryptocurrency. Stable coins are not
either since they are somehow centralized.

Returning to the general topic, I think they worst case is not that they will
all die but they will be marginal and successful for some niches. In the same
way BitTorrent is a successful protocol, but not as convenient as Netflix and
other players.

~~~
DennisP
There's also Dai on Ethereum, which is largely decentralized. Instead of being
backed by off-chain collateral, it's backed by ETH and other tokens in a
derivatives contract, and uses the median of a bunch of price feeds.
Basically, you get stability by selling volatility to speculators.

The author also ignores Ethereum's scaling. ZK rollups on today's Ethereum can
get it to several thousand transactions per second without usability
compromises or centralization, and if the ETH2 plans work out then that'll be
multiplied by the number of shards in a year or two.

~~~
wslh
Dai is centralized in the sense that it relies on oracles to work.

~~~
DennisP
Yes, I mentioned the price feeds. That's why I called it "largely
decentralized" rather than decentralized full stop. But the price feeds aren't
run by any one organization, but by about a dozen different ones.

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croom
Some readers seem not to have understood the article.

The author thinks the technology is good. So do I.

The author wants to use it to pay for his coffee, his donut (if that exists in
Germany) or his car. Or to fill up his car.

Unfortunately this is not possible because the Crypto Community is a
subculture.

And I agree 100% on that.

Everyone wants to get rich on crypto currency. So gamble. But no instance
wants to give it universal validity and distribution.

That's too bad, actually.

The last sentence of the article would have been a nice utopia.

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maitredusoi
Title should have been : in the next years to come crypto will either take the
place or burst. I would be has pessimistic as the author, but if China forbid
crypto selling and try to create its own, also if Benoît Cœuré want ECB to
create a crypto, for me it is a good smoke for: there is something here to
deal with ...

For the last point, telling that bitcoin should avoided because it can't
handle more than 5 tr/s is not understanding that blockchain is all about
create A TRUSTED MEDIUM TO EXCHANGE. Dev will always prefer uncorruption of
data over speed when their choose a database that should scale, it is the same
for money...

~~~
ben_w
We already have trust. We already have good ways to prevent corruption.

Blockchain only adds trust in a situation where the government has failed, and
when that happens, you can find your secret keys extracted by the well-known
and currently unpatchable wetware exploit known as “rubber hose”.

Given all that as a precondition, the limited transaction rate is a meaningful
limitation.

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verroq
They've died many times now :)

[https://99bitcoins.com/bitcoin-obituaries/](https://99bitcoins.com/bitcoin-
obituaries/)

~~~
idclip
I dont know why that made me laugh

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chank
We're one massive financial disaster from crypto currencies being the the main
currency.

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ykevinator
Everyone has regular currency wallet, the super majority of people don't have
a crypto wallet. Until there is an incentive for the super majority to learn
what crypto is and start using it, it's doomed to being a niche.

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endorphone
One observation I will make about cryptocurrencies is that it is a field that
does have a lot of technical excellence.

Binance is a _dramatically_ better platform than Questrade, for instance. It
just blows my mind how superior the former is than the latter, despite the
former dealing in imaginary money.

Tried my hand at cryptocurrency trading for a bit -- had $300 USD worth of
free stellar coins that I got for filling out a form years ago and had
completely forgotten about until recently. So zero of my own dollars, might as
well have some fun.

Did deep analysis, trading strategies, used a DNN to analyze every possible
trading input.

But it's all bullshit. The crypto trading market has zero correlation with any
logic or rational behavior. To the point that the bizarre fluctuations seem
like nothing more than manipulation.

Lost those stellar freebies. Ah well.

