I wasted years of my life in crypto

I've never understood the initial arguments about Bitcoin, no matter how many times they've been explained to me.

The block chain is, and always was, an extremely inconvenient database. How anyone, especially many intelligent people, thought it was realistic to graft a currency on top of such a unwieldy piece of technology is beyond me. Maybe it goes to show how few people understand economics and anthropology and how dunning-krueger can happen to anyone.

Now the uninformed gambling on futuristic sounding hokum? THAT is easy to understand.

That being said, I'm sorry the author had to go through this experience, the road of life is often filled with unexpected twists and turns.

It's an ingenious solution to achieve a "trustless" currency that prevents double-spending without a central authority. Unfortunately, this solves the wrong problem. Spending money usually involves getting a good or service in return, which inherently requires "trust" (as does any human interaction). Your fancy blockchain is not going to help you if you order something with Bitcoin and no package arrives.

> Unfortunately, this solves the wrong problem. Spending money usually involves getting a good or service in return, which inherently requires "trust" (as does any human interaction). Your fancy blockchain is not going to help you if you order something with Bitcoin and no package arrives.

That problem already has solutions. The problems cryptocurrency is supposed to solve are, I want to buy subversive literature from someone I already trust not to rip me off, or for an amount I'm not worried about losing, without anyone requiring me to give them a government ID. Or I want to sell it to people without requiring them to give anyone an ID. I want to donate money to Wikileaks. I want to commission art or software from someone in South America who doesn't have access to US banks. I have the same name as someone on a list and I want a way to move money without the government ruining my life. I live in an oppressive country and I want to finance the rebellion, or buy contraception or some other thing which is banned by the baddies when it ought not to be.

It's for doing the things where the existing system fails you, not the things where it works. But it can do those things too. Cash works the same way. You're not worried about a restaurant stealing your money because by the time you pay them you've already eaten. You're not worried about Newegg sending you a brick with "lol" written on it instead of a GPU because they're a well-known company and if they did that it would cost them more in damage to their reputation than they'd gain from the theft and people would sue them independent of payment method.

You don't always need your trust in other people to come from the payment system when it can come from a dozen other things instead.

> I want to buy subversive literature from someone I already trust not to rip me off

Subversive literature printed on blotter paper.

Outside of buying sex and drugs the only uses for cryptocoins are, and always has been, ransoms, scams and gambling.

Okay, tell me how I buy something over the internet without tying the purchase to my government ID.

Your argument seems like "only criminals want privacy" which is a no.

No, the argument is crypto is primarily used for crimes. Which is true.

Also, if you want privacy, don't use crypto.

> No, the argument is crypto is primarily used for crimes. Which is true.

The argument is right here:

> Outside of buying sex and drugs the only uses for cryptocoins are, and always has been, ransoms, scams and gambling.

It doesn't contain the word "primarily" which indeed makes it false, and the rebuttal to your different claim is this one:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46190260

> Also, if you want privacy, don't use crypto.

Can you tell me another way of buying something over the internet without tying the purchase to a government ID?

>> Also, if you want privacy, don't use crypto.

> Can you tell me another way of buying something over the internet without tying the purchase to a government ID?

Isn't the real question more, does crypto actually allow you buy things without tying the purchase to a government ID?

I'm no expert but I regularly see articles about de-anonymisation. This leads me to be sceptical about claims to privacy, certainly given enough time and motivation by a government actor.