
Rusty Russell: The Corrosion of Ethics in Cryptocurrencies - JepZ
https://medium.com/@rusty_lightning/the-corrosion-of-ethics-in-cryptocurrencies-f7ba77e9dfc3
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ggm
I certainly found my own state of mind deleteriously affected. The decision
logic of buying and selling in a market of pure speculation is very strange. I
wanted to believe it was at worst amoral but I am more and more convinced it
has a corrosive immoral effect on me (at least) and I am glad I stopped. Every
time I note that I got out ahead, it implicitly means somebody came out
behind.

~~~
sshine
I bought in at $800 and sold at $2000. It paid my rent and living expenses for
half a year, getting a driver's license, and a trip to the US. A bigger idiot
than me paid for that. Most importantly my early exit vaccinated me against
FOMO. Now I feel bad for saying anything positive about cryptocurrencies when
friends ask how they can buy in. If you're asking now, you're too big of an
idiot to ever gain from it.

I look forward to the day where cryptocurrencies are more commonly understood
(and thus feared) and the technology isn't chronically lagging behind the
hype.

~~~
3pt14159
It's not idiotic to buy something with a 95% chance of failure if the 5%
chance has a 1000x return.

I bought at $3 and I started selling at $200. I sold a ton at $1000. Then a
little at $5k and the rest at around $15k.

The entire time I held them I thought "the government will either ban or
regulate this and they'll probably ban it" and you know what? It doesn't stop
you from making money anyway.

Now that's a fun story right? Look at smart 3pt14159. What you don't see is
the other 7 things I did with 0 payoff whatsoever. I bought a ton of emoji .ws
domains. Why? I dunno, I stupidly thought they'd be the only TLD that would
render as emojis. I hindsight, of course not, and once the others came out I
reduced the number of domains I controlled. Nobody sees the lost weeks and $$
there, unless I happen to bring it up in a comment like this.

But the core idea behind both of those actions was this: Look for the low
probability, high payoff investments. Unless you have $100m+ it's usually
worth your time and most people don't have an intuitive grasp of inelastic
supply curves and their impact on price.

~~~
Retric
I think you misunderstood the parent.

At 2,000$ each they can't have 1000x returns. So the person buying at 2000$ is
more likely to be a sucker than someone buying at 3$, but less likely than
someone who buy's at 15,000$.

~~~
toomim
Sure they can: [https://imgur.com/ag2kNr9](https://imgur.com/ag2kNr9)

~~~
Retric
That is pointing to 200 not 2000. Can it be worth significantly more than all
the worlds checking accounts... no.

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jgowdy
In my humble opinion, burning fossil fuels to create electricity to “mine”
this “currency” is unethical because it literally has no net gain to society,
not even entertainment. The same goes for the manufacture of the electronics
used to mine. You hear a lot of condemnation for businesses willing to pollute
to create wealth, but many of those same people don’t see that cryptocurrency
mining is exactly that.

~~~
cal5k
Okay, let me pose a question to you then - how much electricity do banks
consume in their data centres, their offices, etc. etc.?

How is that any different?

~~~
HappyRobot
Banks are very different from cryptocurrency. The economic value of banks is
through loans, not monetary transfer. Through loans, and regulations/backing
of a central bank, money is created. This economic effect is what enables
economic growth. The money created by banks likely offsets the
energy/overhead. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractional-
reserve_banking](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractional-reserve_banking)

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ebbv
The entire crypto coin world including BitCoin is totally awash in scams and
heists. I know some devs like Rusty have the best of intentions and are true
believers, but they are so vastly outnumbered it's not even funny. Being
unregulated and so anonymous and transactions being largely irreversible, it's
a utopia for bad actors.

I was never a true believer, but even being skeptical things are worse in the
cryptocoin world than I even thought they would get before the hype died down
and it turned into whatever kind of niche hobby thing it's gonna be in the
long term.

~~~
Finnucane
System designed to turn lead into gold attracts charlatans. Act surprised.

~~~
freejulian
Bonds, stocks, and real estate are all collapsing as we speak. Have fun with
that mindset. I've happily holding my bitcoin I've had for years, even buying
more.

~~~
GhostVII
Which has collapsed more in the last month or two, Bitcoin, or the stock
market?

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thisisit
While people agree on most of ICOs being scammy what is really disheartening
to see is that many big names in cryptocurrency space end up being featured as
"advisers". I have been told that these many of these guys are given lot of
ICO coins for free or charge up to 10 btc.

~~~
bitcoinmoney
it's called market signaling. I just read it from a previous HN
post/commentary. Example: Once they use VB as their adviser everyone just
thinks the coin will go to the moon. 99% of these ICOs really don't need a
blockchain and are just selling a prepaid discounted giftcard where the
discount is not determined until a maturity date and you don't even know if
the company is there for you to redeem your giftcard.

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AstralStorm
The real question is actually... who will lose?

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lawn
Absolutely.

Just take a look at the developers behind Bitcoin Core. It's difficult to
ignore the obvious conflicts of interests of doing everything to block on-
chain scaling while their company's business model is off-chain solutions.

