• Jiral@lemmy.world
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    14 days ago

    "A developed country is not a place where the poor have cars. It’s where the rich use public transportation.”

    • JasonDJ@lemmy.zip
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      14 days ago

      Public transit is generally faster than driving around in big cities, especially places like NYC and Boston (at least when the T is actually operating as-intended).

      Hell I live 45 miles away from my office and most days it is faster to do train–>subway–>half mile walk.

      To these types of people, especially…time is money. You would think they would prefer public transit just for the time efficiency…or at least invest in it just to reduce the amount of traffic they have to deal with on the roads.

      You don’t even see Musk riding around on a goddamn Segway. Which actually turns out to be a somewhat common Mandela effect, because I had to look it up to find out he didn’t actually invent/start Segway.

    • Flames5123@sh.itjust.works
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      14 days ago

      I’m so lucky that my work gives me a free public transport pass. It’s 25 mins from my door to the office with 10 of that being walking. I still have a car, but I dont need it for most days. Plus it would cost me like $180/month for parking at my work’s building. Hard pass.

    • ChaoticNeutralCzech@feddit.org
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      13 days ago

      I met a former mayor and the previous cabinet’s department head on a train recently. Second class, 1970s rolling stock with just the seats and other furnishings modernized, not even Wi-Fi. Cool dude

  • Mika@piefed.ca
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    14 days ago

    Saddens me that crypto is now about investment/gains instead of being improved as a fair, decentralised, convenient, fast, secure money system.

    Looks like we will have to stick to the banks and their bullshit yet after all.

      • Mika@piefed.ca
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        14 days ago

        There were more honest attempts to spread it and use it in physical/online stores back when BTC was under 1000 than now, and it’s not like we got higher exchange rate fluctuations. If anything, it becomes more stable.

        • nilloc@discuss.tchncs.de
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          14 days ago

          Naw, we all talked about the once in a while pizza purchases that were reported on Reddit, but then a week later the $20 pizza was worth $100 in bitcoin. Right from the start.

          • Mika@piefed.ca
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            14 days ago

            On no, someone used money to buy food instead of hoarding money and only thinking about how much return they could’ve made if they invested money instead of buying food.

            Crypto-as-invement midset is a poison to the real crypto adoption - ability to buy things with crypto effortlessly.

    • jaycifer@lemmy.world
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      14 days ago

      I remember the moment it clicked for me that this was the case. In early 2018 I overheard my roommate listening to a Bitcoin podcast hosted by people I understood to be prominent members of the community. They were trying to justify why it was a good thing Steam no longer accepted Bitcoin to purchase games. I couldn’t see a single upside to a currency, whose purpose is to be exchanged for goods and services, no longer being accepted for a good. I thought about the large amount of crypto the podcasters likely held and how they were probably trying to keep other people in to keep their own crypto worth more. But if the people near the helm were no longer able to admit when something is wrong, then the dream was dead, crypto was dead to me, and I stopped getting more.

    • John@lemmy.ml
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      14 days ago

      I loved the idea of crypto. There was even a niche but growing Crypto Leftist movement, creating tech/apps to help the working class (Breadchain), but in 4 years they built basically nothing. Then just fucking everything else got captured by VC money, big tech, and institutions. It’s just capitalism 2.0 now. It’s such a shame.

      • explodicle@sh.itjust.works
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        14 days ago

        IMHO the problem crypto leftists have had is that our implementation choices generally ignore the “decentralized” requirement to avoid difficult economics problems. We try things like having nonprofits checking IDs, or creating yet another money supply so we can pay the devs from it, or recreating treasury bonds because it looks greener.

        What we need isn’t “open source money, but generous”. We need to build a new economy outside the old one, and what we’re selling won’t shoot to the moon overnight. While we can contribute useful tools, we aren’t the architects of that future and can’t be in charge even for now.

        • John@lemmy.ml
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          14 days ago

          IMO the goals of leftists within crypto is:

          1. protect the unbanked, underbanked, and even banked from the exploitative financial system: we’re making progress. There’s is demonstrable proof of this. Even just the base protocols (Bitcoin, Ethereum) offer real relief from tradfi. A very simple example is sending aid to Gaza.

          2. remove US hegemonic power by undermining the dominance of the US dollar: we’re making progress, but some things like USDC are actually reinforcing American dominance. The influx of institutions into the crypto space has really undermined this.

          3. move away from capitalism and asset speculation to collective ownership (governance tokens), trade of useful goods (digital or physical), and savings protocols: we’re not making very much progress and are actively moving against this. This is where Breadchain / Bread Coop comes into play. There’s so much potential, and some things have been built … but overall it’s been slow and big disappointment as we watch Capitalists actively co-opt crypto. The amount of scams, VC vaporware, rugpulls, casino games, etc seems to grow by the day. I truly believe there’s genuine use cases out there, but crypto right now is mostly just ultra-capitalist speculative garbage.

          It’s been sad to see crypto leftists like Joshua Davila (author of Blockchain Radicals) move away from crypto and pivot into AI. sigh

    • Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works
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      14 days ago

      Yeah I too like Blockchain stuff until it just turned into an investor bro space.

      Like this whole argument about how to prove someone owns a game could be a really good blockchain use case.

    • foggy@lemmy.world
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      14 days ago

      The real value Bitcoins tech brought us is immutable ledgers. We need our money to go through immutable ledgers.

      There would be no “release your tax returns,” itd be public domain.

      We need that shit.

      • Kangae_Hishiryo@scribe.disroot.org
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        14 days ago

        Yea, that’s one of the few good things that cryptostuff and the Blockchain.

        That and the fact that you could, theoretically, do implementations that are actually progressive (instead of regressive), and where the ones that actually deserve rewards are the ones who get that (sort of a “Proof of Contribution” or a “Proof of Value”: if you actually add value and contribute to make things better, yoy get rewards, but if you’re only a leecher, then you get punishments, sort of torrent now that I think about it; but if you’re poor, you don’t have to contribute that much or nothing at all, because any difference is acceptable only if it favors the least advantaged, and favoring them is precisely what it means to contribute and add value).

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      14 days ago

      fair, decentralised, convenient, fast, secure money system

      Can’t believe the scam money for scammers isn’t about the core principles of equity, efficiency, and security anymore.

      What has become of the Mt. Gox’s of yesteryear?

    • qwerty@discuss.tchncs.de
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      13 days ago

      Monero is about to upgrade it’s anonymity set from 15 decoys per tx to 100k with FCMP, improve how view keys work with carrot, as well as lower sync time and improve performance, chain throughput and security for node runners with a rust based node implementation called cuprate.

      Ethereum is about to activate the glamsterdam upgrade that will allow it to process 3x times more tx per second (~240tps, aiming for 10000tps by 2030) and lower tx fees by 80% on the main chain, while maintaining the chain growth at ~130GB/year. Allow parallel transaction execution, trustless, protocol native block building to make tx censorship more difficult, increase max smart contract size, make nodes easier to run.

      In 2027 it will undergo the Hegotá upgrade which aims to make producing block that omit eligible transactions impossible, effectively killing tx censorship, allow paying tx fees in any token, not just eth, switch from Merkle to Verkle trees which will reduce state size by ~90% and allow stateless clients, so everyone can run a node on their phone with just a few GB of storage, lower block time from 12 to 10 seconds, allow for native shielded transfers with a protocol level privacy pools for eth and ERC20 tokens, 3x the gas limit again after the Glamsterdam upgrade, simplify receipt data.

      These days you can pay for 99% of things with crypto, if not directly then via gift cards, crypto debit cards or proxy shops. For online payments that’s often the only way for regular people to remain private and anonymous.

      We don’t have a company that can promote p2p crypto payments or lobby the government, quite the opposite, every bank and financial institution is against it because it threatens their businesses model. This is a grass roots movement, it will take a lot of time and unpaid volunteer work to make it happen but we will get there. All things considered, cryptoanarchy movement has become far more successful and influential than it had any right to be. From 3 dudes sending numbers to each other over the internet in 2009 to a multi trillion $ industry that threatens to undermine the financial, economic and legal status quo of the world and there are no signs that it will slow down any time soon.

      I use arch btw.

      • Mika@piefed.ca
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        14 days ago

        Stability comes from popularity. Its already way more stable than before - $100 BTC fell into sub $20. We don’t have x5 swings now.

        Bitcoin would be way more popular if it actually delivered the decent tech that everyone is using to do purchases.

        BTC ran into speed & scaling issue, and eventually made Lighting Network. So now we have 2 different currencies, one stable and decentralized and one fast and centralised. This is not what was promised originally.

    • Frettchen@lemmy.world
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      14 days ago

      It is used as a decentralized convenient secure money system. States use it for bribing, sanctions, online crimes, laundering. There are so many use cases. It’s not what people think it is. You will never ever buy your bread with it but at the same time it is not going away as it is so useful as a shadow currency that there will be always billion transactions

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      14 days ago

      That is why I was sp excited about XRP replacing SWIFT, it just made sense as a better method of Payments. I was heavy into XRP, and I got off the ride last year after 7 years of treading water

    • klankin@piefed.ca
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      14 days ago

      But it needs regulation like any other currency.

      It was a gov backed choice to pump and dump it, cause apparently thats peak economic strategy these days.

    • its_kim_love@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      13 days ago

      Bitcoin was never going to do any of those things. It’s infrastructure was always too demanding, and no amount of adoption was going to fix that.

      • Mika@piefed.ca
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        13 days ago

        I said crypto, not bitcoin.

        I don’t care which tech would deliver that, as long as it delivers.

      • marcos@lemmy.world
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        14 days ago

        Yes, it’s much better to stop right in the middle of a road…

        (But also yes, I know it’s photoshop.)

          • ManInTheBox@lemmy.zip
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            13 days ago

            The longer you look, the worse it gets. 3 stripes between 0-20, 20-40. But then 60-80 gets only 2. And after 140 km/h? Instantly jumps to 260 km/h. Which actually isn’t that bad of an idea… anything over 140 is too fast anyway unless you are in the right parts of Germany.

      • CrimeIsLegalNow@ani.social
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        For the people who jumped on it in 2018, sure, as long as they didn’t hold it in any of the failed exchanges, didn’t buy anything but BTC or ETH unless they were the rug pullers instead of the honest folks, and as long as you don’t think too much about how that curve is supported by sanction evasion.

        • skribe@piefed.social
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          14 days ago

          I had a mate go all in. He bought a bunch of crypto (plus set up mining machines) in 2018, just before the bottom fell out. Instead of hodling he sold and lost tens of thousands.

          • Rothe@piefed.social
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            14 days ago

            Curious how something so heavily marketed by cryptobros as a modern currency alternative to big banking is almost always only being talked about as an object of investment. As if it is really nothing but yet another speculative scheme for people who are the rich to get richer.

            • imeansurewhynot@sh.itjust.works
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              14 days ago

              Curious how something so heavily marketed…as modern currency…is almost always only being talked about as an object of investment.

              Nothing strange about basic marketing.

              yet another speculative scheme for people who are the rich to get richer.

              Like the bosses at your job? Yeah, it’s kind of like that.

              You don’t have to understand the chemical properties of gold to buy and sell it.

              You don’t like investments, fine. That works out well for those who do. Most complain while standing still, some act.

              • deHaga@feddit.uk
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                14 days ago

                It’s not a decentralised currency though is it.

                And stable coins are just another way for the US to issue debt

                • imeansurewhynot@sh.itjust.works
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                  14 days ago

                  Bitcoin? Yes, it is fundamentally decentralized.

                  If you don’t know something ask questions and learn. You’re wasting so much time arguing against your own assumptions.

            • imeansurewhynot@sh.itjust.works
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              14 days ago

              No, a higher return results from basic math. If i invest $1 24 months in a reinvesting account before you do, I’ll have 24 more months of compound interest on that dollar than you will. I started earning returns first.

      • ElChinchilla@lemmy.world
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        14 days ago

        A lot of people try to swing trade, they actually panic swing trade and end up FOMO top buying and Stop Loss bottom selling

        • imeansurewhynot@sh.itjust.works
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          14 days ago

          … right. They did not make money on Bitcoin or get scammed by a different cryptocurrency…

          We can check with them if they got scammed by a Nigerian prince while we’re at it. If you think you’re making some sort of point.

          Maybe we should check if they got scammed because their computer had a bunch of viruses.

          Or if they were selling something online and the buyer sent them a confirmation code.

          There are lots of things they didn’t do.

  • Pacattack57@lemmy.world
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    14 days ago

    For every person that gets a payday from crypto there’s probably 50,000 that lost money. It’s just gambling.

  • pedz@lemmy.ca
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    14 days ago

    Cars are for people with money. Poor people are taking the bus. Nobody should be taking public transit unless they’re poor, or have a DUI or something. If you’re sitting in a bus, you’re obviously a loser.

  • dropdrip@lemmy.ml
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    14 days ago

    Crypto grift still grifting? Still waiting for the blockchain to change the world. Any minute now… the only people I’ve seen use a terminal to buy bitcoin have been senior citizens.

    • inari@piefed.zipOP
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      14 days ago

      I’m used to taking buses in Brazil and that looks pretty standard to me

      • Hiro8811@lemmy.world
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        14 days ago

        I guess I’m not used to seeing such busses, usually the ones I been into are as low to the ground and the chairs are placed around parts like wheels and what not like this 100369

        • 0x0@infosec.pub
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          14 days ago

          I expected you to post an image of a bus with actual seats that doesnt make you sore if you ride for more than one station, but no, you just posted another prison bus but slightly lower lol

    • MBech@feddit.dk
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      15 days ago

      Well they enjoyed a historical return off of the people who bought too late. It’s not like their money spawned out of nothing. They sold their bitcoin to someone who hasn’t been as lucky, because they bought when the price was at its highest, ind the hopes that the price would continue to climb.

      It’s pretty much a zero-sum game. For someone to earn something on crypto, someone else has to be left either losing something, or holding onto something in a desperate hope that the price will explode again.

      • imeansurewhynot@sh.itjust.works
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        14 days ago

        No, they enjoyed the return of investing in a new asset class that is growing larger every week, month and year.

        Cryptocurrency is a currency and a resource. It’s as much a zero-sum game as gold, stocks, real estate or credit cards, and all those sums are dynamic as he’ll.

        • iknewitwhenisawit@fedinsfw.app
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          14 days ago

          Stocks in principle are used to represent ownership of a company. Companies sell things, and should provide returns, if nothing else as their assets grow due to profits.

          Real estate, while it does not grow exactly, is needed for almost everything else. People need places to live, places to grow food and other crips, places to build schools and factories and restaurants and so on.

          You’re right that gold is the same as crypto currency though. It’s valuable because we have all decided that it is valuable.

          I have no idea what you mean by credit cards. That is not an investment. 😅

    • glibg10b@lemmy.zip
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      14 days ago

      Money doesn’t grow on trees. In the case of crypto, it came from the people who lost, or the people who are still in it

      I don’t think there’s any hope for the people who are still in it. This 4-year cycle has already been quite disappointing than the previous ones, and there’s no reason for things to improve from here

      • imeansurewhynot@sh.itjust.works
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        14 days ago

        It came from the people who lost, or the people who are still in it…

        What are you talking about? You think gold or silver had to be “lost” in order to have value? No, that’s not where value comes from. All of you are speaking like you’ve never heard of an economy.

        Cryptocurrency is an expanding currency market.

        Just like gold, just like credit, just like stocks and bonds forex and futures.

        As the market gets bigger and more people believe/invest/rely on it, the share one owns of a more valuable market gains value.

        This 4-year cycle…no reason for things to improve from here.

        More gibberish; there are plenty of reasons for crypto currency to continue to gain value.

        1. National governments are creating digital cryptocurrencies.

        2. Adoption of cryptocurrency is growing constantly.

        3. Governments are investing heavily in existing cryptocurrencies.

        4. There’s no functional difference, other than more recent and having more capabilities between cryptocurrencies and the “credit” system that everybody accepts as “normal”.

        There’s every reason for a successful market to continue being successful while it has adoption, investment, development and use.

        Yes, even a new market(as all markets once were).

        • CrimeIsLegalNow@ani.social
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          The fundamental insight that created capitalism and, in turn, socialism is that gold is not wealth, gold is what you use to trade wealth, which is ultimately the eponymous means of production.

          BTC didn’t make a single penny of wealth. It’s just a different currency in a world with thousands. BTC actually decreases the wealth of the world by wasting effort and production on a solved problem.

          You’re literally 250 years behind the curve set by The Wealth of Nations. It can be individually profitable to stick your wealth into BTC just as it can be individually profitable to trade 4X, but at the end of the day all the people with real money own businesses and land.

          Not that they were right to think “money” is a zero sum game. You’re ultimately just both arguing that trading the shiny rocks is what creates value.

          • imeansurewhynot@sh.itjust.works
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            14 days ago

            “You’re literally 250 years behind the curve set by The Wealth of Nations…”

            You’re then if I am, since you’re repeating my point.

            As for the rest of your crap, you’re conflating and reducing several comments from several people and misunderstanding mine as a result.

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              That you don’t like the assumptions behind your own words when they’re pointed out doesn’t stop them from existing, and that comment is pretty rich considering the context.

              • imeansurewhynot@sh.itjust.works
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                14 days ago

                You’re debating your own assumptions rather than directly addressing my comments or clarifying what you don’t understand.

                You’re going to find it very easy to argue against things you made up, but that won’t make your presumption relevant.

        • PepperoniNipple@lazysoci.al
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          14 days ago

          Who cares? You and all cryptobros are still people who will never have even a quarter of what the average baby boomer had at their age, like 7+ children, a home at 19 years old, economic stability, or at least a happy family of four without a college degree. Why? Are they smarter, work harder, or what?

          And if they do, they’re just holding them warm for when the Mexican Cartels and bigger countries like China come to take everything they have. Rightfully so too. They suck, they deserve it for supporting a currency that empowered organized crime the most.

          • imeansurewhynot@sh.itjust.works
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            14 days ago

            Are they smarter…

            Holy crap no, that’s the point.

            The baby boomers have more because they had to invest less up front in their generation.

            Investors of all kinds have more money because they invested less by investing early. Circumstances change as time passes, and time is always running out.

            you and…will never have even a quarter of what…

            Speak for yourself, not for others.

            You don’t have to be a genius, you have to pay attention to opportunities.

            • PepperoniNipple@lazysoci.al
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              Is that really why you think they have more? Lol. You are funny.

              Are you also saying you do have what the average baby boomer had at your age, and this is how you spend your free time? Talking online like this? Damn that’s fucking sad. The world is truly bleak, man. I tell you.

              Hold them warm for the cartels. You helped them get armed after all. They love Bitcoin and people like you, because you give them a lot of power. You are like their little slaves, their cookie clickers, building up their future wealth to harvest. What a nice lad you are.

              You will never have real power or change in your life. You will never know what it was to live the “American Dream”. Keep sleeping, though. Maybe someday :)

              • imeansurewhynot@sh.itjust.works
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                14 days ago

                Aw, look, you’re projecting. Guess your life didn’t turn out so well.

                Only an American wants to be burdened with the American nightmare. Have fun commiserating in despair with your fellow inmates.

                • PepperoniNipple@lazysoci.al
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                  12 days ago

                  So, you are not American, yet you talk and behave like a MAGA? Why?

                  You also support the currency “my fellow inmates” used to cripple your country with drugs and more. And it’s still ongoing, because we just get replaced by a new batch of 12 year-olds you forced into that violent environment with your relentless support for the Jeffrey Epstein Class and the currencies they use to do human trafficking and rape behind our backs. That’s the people you empower and support, that’s what you were born for and exist: to please pedophiles and murders.

                  All that blood is in your hands. My life did not turn out well thanks to mentally-ill monsters like you who value money over human beings. No matter which country you are from, the Mexican Cartel is there, and you are empowering them. Keep it up. I am the only one raising awareness to help you, but it seems you don’t want to be helped. You want to live in a removed.

                  So a removed it shall be. One where you will never experience even a quarter of the joy the average baby boomer experienced at your age no matter how lucky you get with crypto, gambling or stocks. Petty fuck. I value art and a good sense of humor over money, by the way. You got none, so. You are nothing but a waste of time to me.

        • FrowingFostek@lemmy.world
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          14 days ago

          Yes, more financialization, more speculation, more debt leveraging. Fuck anyone who comes after my initial investment.

          As long as I get mine amirite? We’re all doing it. Right?

          • imeansurewhynot@sh.itjust.works
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            14 days ago

            Those are several different ideas, so no, you’re wrong.

            Money isn’t bad and making money isn’t immoral, which is the fundamental misunderstanding that many of you have. If you don’t like money, okay, but if Sandwich Guy 1 sells more sandwiches than Sandwich Guy 2, he makes more money.

            There’s no moral judgment beyond your projection. He just has more dollars in his pocket because he sold more sandwiches.

            Investor 1 invests before Investor 2, Investor 1 makes more money.

            If you get a 50% head start in a race, you’re probably going to win.

            • kestrel7_7@lemmy.world
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              14 days ago

              So did the money come from investing, or selling sandwiches? You’re not even being internally consistent here.

              There are certainly immoral ways to make money, and crypto is one of them.

              • FrowingFostek@lemmy.world
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                14 days ago

                It plays very much to your headstart line at the end of your comment.

                It goes something like; You’re one passenger on a plane. The plane crashes. You and another person survived the plane crash. This is a deserted island with it’s only resource being coconuts.

                This other person has awake from the crash much before you’ve awoken. This person has had the time to collect all available coconuts on the island and has secured them for themselves.

                You’re dehydrating rapidly and plead for a coconut from this person to satisfy your thirst. The person offers a coconut, in exchange for some sloppy toppy.

                You gonna show them what that throat do? 🌴🥥

                This sound like a fair system?

        • glibg10b@lemmy.zip
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          14 days ago

          We’re talking about Bitcoin (which has no intrinsic value/usefulness) here. I didn’t realize that wasn’t clear, so I have now edited my comment to clarify that

          More gibberish; there are plenty of reasons for crypto currency to continue to gain value.

          Yes, cryptocurrency in general. Not Bitcoin specifically, the most antiquated, slowest, least sustainable one there is (you know, given that it was the first, unlike newer cryptocurrencies which were able to learn from its mistakes and make technological advancements, such as not requiring the power of an entire nation just to run them, and not taking some multiple of 10 minutes before the cashier can finally give you your coffee)

          • imeansurewhynot@sh.itjust.works
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            14 days ago

            We’re talking about Bitcoin.

            You were stuck on a single cryptocurrency, not me.

            There are plenty of reasons for cryptocurrency to gain value.

            Yes, cryptocurrency in general.

            Great work.

        • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
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          14 days ago

          National governments are creating digital cryptocurrencies.

          This matters a lot more than all that other shit.

          Once something gets government backing there’s a guarantor of value for the currency because there will always be an entity that will accept it as payment (taxes, fees, fines, etc). That same entity is also capable of incredible amounts of violence, and can kidnap or even kill people who don’t pay those taxes, fees, fines, etc etc.

          The problem with Bitcoin, or any independent crypto that isn’t created by a government backer, is that it only has value because people agree that it has value - they can change their minds whenever they want, and they can’t really enforce the value at the end of a gun.

          When a government says a currency has value, they aren’t likely to change their minds and can shoot you if you disagree.

      • imeansurewhynot@sh.itjust.works
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        14 days ago

        Are you…no, I guess you’re serious.

        And wrong. Some people get scammed in cryptocurrency, the same as some people get scammed with their insurance or family members or, literally, everything else.

        This does not mean Bitcoin has gone down in value.

        Those are very different situations.

        If someone tricks you into giving them your wallet, it doesn’t mean that a fiat dollar is worth less.

        You just lost your wallet.

    • kestrel7_7@lemmy.world
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      14 days ago

      There are two types of people who invested in btc. People who knew it was a pyramid scheme, and those who didn’t. AKA, scammers and people who were about to get scammed. Whether they made money or not, neither group’s motivations should be celebrated.

    • belochka@lemmy.world
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      13 days ago

      There’s an implication of having the same amount of property while doing both. A Mercedes worth of difference.

  • Lovable Sidekick@lemmy.world
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    14 days ago

    Pro Tip: build a time machine, travel back to 2009, buy $100 worth of bitcoins at $0.00076 each, sell in 2013 at $1000 ea (roughly $130 million).

    • JcbAzPx@lemmy.world
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      14 days ago

      If you travel back that far, there’s no need to buy them. Just start mining them. It was super easy at the beginning. I kinda wish I hadn’t been so lazy back then and done it myself.

      Besides, I’m not sure there even was $100 worth out there available to buy at that price.

      • Lovable Sidekick@lemmy.world
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        14 days ago

        Good point, but the $100 was just a number I pulled out of my ass. I think mining bitcoin in 2009 was harder than spending a little money now and then when some was available.

      • Nurgus@lemmy.world
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        13 days ago

        We don’t want to spend any time in 2009 when we could be in 2026 being flithy rich.