The volatility, in one direction, is a bread and butter argument for the crypto skeptic. Most people investing in crypto know the risks, that’s exactly what draws them in, because it comes with huge potential upsides. No one is better at pointing out scams and schemes than other people in crypto.
What the skeptics fail to realize is that they often occupy just as much, if not more of a ‘team mindset’ than those engaging in the space. Their skepticism becomes more like the failed D.A.R.E. program to reduce adolescent drug use by exaggerating the virtues of abstinence and the worst case scenarios. And ironically, they can’t even articulate the worst parts, because they never engaged enough to have a deep understanding.
If you really want to find the deep dark secrets of crypto, no group will do it better than devout followers or developers of competing projects. I have read far more useful takedowns and warnings from people heavily engaged with and passionate about crypto currencies than the cynics are even capable of.
There's a reason the mostly unsavvy crypto skeptic hates the idea of crypto improving: they cannot financially capitalize on it.
Every new crypto project claims to be the second coming. There are no stable heuristics which don't get exploited by the next wave of marketing. The only way to make good bets in crypto is to deeply understand what teams are working on and make intelligent judgements.
What broad crypto skeptics don't understand is that every alt-coiner shares their critical point of view, but has the know-how to attempt (or pretend to attempt) a solution to those problems.
Crypto speaks to aspects of humanity which people hold near and dear.
Crypto no doubt harbors shady characters, ponzi schemes, scams. You also can't deny that there are ideas which threaten state control, monetary policy, nationalistic ideals, religion its self. Just look at the magnitude of the conversation.
Its easy to dismiss me as the ramblings of somebody caught up in the scam. But when has it been a good idea to completely dismiss ideas which can shake the bedrock of society? I'm sure dinosaurs never thought an asteroid would cause them to go extinct either.
I ask the skeptics to take a Bayesian approach to skepticism. If you think in absolutes you can never accept new information. Move your skept-o-meter from 100% to 99% and allow yourself a fraction of a sliver of consideration. It might just be one of the most important things you have done.
I don't think you realize how much the laughably obtuse skeptic and the crypto die-hards have in common. Both agree that 98% of the space is a scam (though not in market cap terms), its just some people actually look in to find the pockets of progress and value, while others ignore it all and stay poor and resentful. I hate using the term "stay poor," but when I continually see these forever skeptics less versed in blockchain space and current progress than those who simply read and make a moderate effort its hard to conclude that these skeptics are drawing conclusions from their deep understanding of what is going on; it must be something more shallow, like missing out.
well if you think about it, there aren't very many people who are fully on-board with any given cryptocurrency, conceptually, who don't also have literally vested interests in said cryptocurrency. when you have literally vested interests in something, you're going to be defensive about your investment, possibly to the point of emotional irrationality. this makes conversation between the invested and the skeptics pretty useless most of the time—if a skeptic were to convince an investor that their cryptocurrency is bad, then they would pull out of investing in it. if an investor were to convince a skeptic that their cryptocurrency is good, then they would likely also become an investor.
put another way, there are broadly four possible types of people who would discuss cryptocurrencies on a website like this:
A) crypto fans who have invested in crypto
B) crypto fans who have not invested in crypto
C) crypto skeptics who have invested in crypto
D) crypto skeptics who have not invested in crypto
for obvious reasons, you aren't going to find many—if any—people in categories B and C, so that leaves categories A and D arguing with each other, and largely unlikely to change each others' minds—especially category A, because, again, they are literally invested in the thing they're a fan of.
There's a difference between being anti crypto and being a crypto skeptic. It would make sense for technologists to be skeptical about a technological service during its massive ramp-up among laypeople, because the acceleration in demand isn't driven by fact-based reasoning. I see a lot of herd mentality, coupled with easy money and no real returns elsewhere.
This seems to be one of the better responses to my comment. Thanks. Some thoughts in reply:
1) People should be more hesitant to speak in absolutes. Unfortunately it’s possible that having a nuanced take is inversely correlated with the tendency to post noisy comments online. Maybe, regardless of the underlying stance of “most” skeptics, some more honest dialogue is warranted. Point conceded.
2. Hm. If that’s the case, the author’s assertion that most people who have been scammed are the kinds of people who fall for scams is fair, but not going to change many minds.
3. This is discussed ad nauseam below, so I’ll just add a reminder that we’re debating the author’s statement that “big crypto projects are very rarely scams” as evidenced by his google search. He goes on to say that “Crypto is a few hundred interesting projects, plus a long tail of thousands of scams.” So, most crypto projects are safe if you just ignore most crypto projects and only consider the most dominant. Realized losses vs unrealized market cap aside, the dynamics that incentivize that long tail of scams are worth worrying about in my view.
Informed skepticism is the opposite of “blindly anti-crypto”: hawkers have had years to make the case for their systems but most of them have failed to produce anything of value. If you can talk knowledgeably about a system and a real problem which it solves, you won't have a problem.
The people who are the most enthusiastic about cryptocurrency are typically the least informed.
"You know nothing, your opinion is invalid" is a classic "crypto" talking point.
"You don't understand Bitcoin," they shriek while failing to comprehend the precarious position their beloved asset is in. "Bitcoin can't have bubbles, it's mathematically impossible," yell their cheerleaders.
Hmm. It’s interesting to note that skeptics seem much more invested in being right about crypto being a scam than proponents are in it being here to stay.
The more time passes, the shriller the cries of skeptics become, leading me to believe that skeptics are emotionally invested to the extreme in the failure of crypto. I rarely see any carefully considered, informed opinions just tulips and drugs and money laundering lol. You know what is used for drugs? Cash. You know how money is laundered? Banks. You know what is worthless? Venezuelan currency. Sure, crypto, just like any fungible asset, is used in these ways... but none nearly as much a fiat is.
I’m becoming convinced that naysayers are more and more afraid of having been wrong and missing the boat as time goes on.
Every day Bitcoin fails to go to 0, it gains legitimacy as a store of value and means of payment.
I guess that is pretty nerve wracking if you made a hasty decision early on to pretend it wasn’t happening, and now it seems like you’re being left in the dust, still preaching from your soap box.
It’s been more than a decade. It’s here to stay. It will get better, but it’s not going anywhere.
I think it's because it is both hard to understand and hard to explain cryptocurrencies at the moment. It's like discussing email or social networks based on papers and ideas without really ever having seen it in action. We tend to get a bit aggressive or impatient when we find it hard to explain something.
Also, crypto skeptics realise that the crypto fans literally have money at stake so they are not unbiased. Maybe crypto skeptics are also a bit worried that perhaps there is something they didn't get. Perhaps they miss out on the next big thing.
> appeal to those that have a vague idea of what their money is most-physically represented by?
It attracts people who want to make money easily. A crazy amount of people who have no idea about the tech aspect of crypto are "investing" and active in crypto social groups. Just go on the major subreddits and read a few threads, it won't take long to see that a very large portion of them are kids/teenagers who invested a few hundreds or less in the hope of a 1000x pump, these are the people who get scammed.
Everyone says they're here for "the project", "the future of currencies", &c. most of them are here to make a quick buck
One of the most tiring retorts is that if someone is negative about cryptocurrency then that means they don't understand cryptocurrency. I assure you many of us do understand it and still think it's an absolute scam and pure wealth distribution from the naive, to the slightly less naive, to the scammers.
Not really related to the article but just a musing on crypto is that I personally find the good thing about crypto to be the hope that people believe in being able to change their financial fate through it.
But the annoying thing about crypto is the mass delusion that seems to take place with people making non-sensical claims and being stuck on past performance of a coin as if past performance is a predictor of future returns.
I'm not anti-crypto per-se and my guess is most people like me aren't opposed to the ideas behind it but the reality is there is massive fraud(-adjacent) stuff happening and while some of the ideas might be ethically noble, most of them aren't. The result being (for me at least) that skepticism is best.
What the skeptics fail to realize is that they often occupy just as much, if not more of a ‘team mindset’ than those engaging in the space. Their skepticism becomes more like the failed D.A.R.E. program to reduce adolescent drug use by exaggerating the virtues of abstinence and the worst case scenarios. And ironically, they can’t even articulate the worst parts, because they never engaged enough to have a deep understanding.
If you really want to find the deep dark secrets of crypto, no group will do it better than devout followers or developers of competing projects. I have read far more useful takedowns and warnings from people heavily engaged with and passionate about crypto currencies than the cynics are even capable of.
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