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681 points Anon84 | 3 comments | | HN request time: 0.459s | source
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mozarella ◴[] No.46189252[source]
https://vitalik.eth.limo/general/2024/01/31/end.html#section...

Vitalik touched upon this briefly in an other-wise long and wide-reaching essay. I think its a good treatment of the topic that the author is talking about. He categorizes the ecosystem broadly into 4 cohorts- [token holders] (which includes investors, speculators, etc.), [pragmatic users] (actual end-users who spend crypto to buy stuff), [intellectuals] (who give the vision and ideology), [builders] (of blockchains, apps, etc.) - These 4 groups come together but with different motivations and there is a gap in understanding between them. Indeed, there is even resistance against trying to reach an understanding - one which plays out in the comments section of every crypto-related post on hn. The author of this twitter-post clearly falls under [intellectual, builder] and has been disillusioned by the speculators from [token-holders]. Yet the [token-holders] are a vital component (as are the other groups) as they fund most of the development and adoption. Ultimately these 4 groups have more in common than not. The challenge going forward is to balance the occasionally conflicting needs of all the 4 groups, which includes checking the excesses of each group, while try to achieve a consensus. (Vitalik provides a nice diagram that maps out what that would look like). Crypto is an experiment in economics and economics is a science as well as a social-science. Anyone looking for a good solution must seek to understand and address the psychology of all the actors involved.

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1. TZubiri ◴[] No.46194801[source]
That's a very nice categorization, but it seems orthogonal to the categories of: [scammers and hackers that want an untraceable and unrefundable payment method], [scammers that use cryptos themselves to scam and rugpull], ...
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2. mozarella ◴[] No.46202324[source]
He was talking about actors who contribute to the system. See my other reply : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46202319
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3. TZubiri ◴[] No.46215193[source]
I don't see how the article you linked is relevant at all to the OP and the topic of scams in general.

If anything it just shows how the leadership and allegedly well-meaning leadership chooses to ignore the issue.

Isn't it very likely that the malicious actors are part of the ecosystem and they contribute with funding? I'm not convinced that the scams and the casinos are an entirely separate fifth group (as opposed to a spectrum pyramid which might place say the Eth or Sol devs at the top). But even if they were, it's possible that the whole ecosystem and developers are benefitting from it?

It seems that the very nature of banks is associating and trading deposits and debts, so if more than half of the ecosystem consists of scams and theft, the other 'good' half is both benefitting and enabling the 'bad' half. Legislation is very clear on this, which is why we have KYC, money laundering laws, which are curiously enough the very social features that the supposedly "technological" innovations seem to do without.

In any case just ignoring the issue as a whole is a bit damning by itself, ignorance at best.