• Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Someone had imaginary money on a computer and someone else stole the imaginary money and that’s bad because the imaginary money has value in real money and I hate this timeline.

    • jarfil@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Someone had real gold in their coffer full of gold coins, then someone convinced them that credit written down as a number on some slips of paper had the same value, that they could trust the bank’s computers with keeping track of the total value, and everyone clapped.

      • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Banks are usually backed by federal governments, which can control trade. I’d say that’s a huge difference. Money deposited in banks is also often the product of skill or labor. It takes neither to generate crypto. I feel sorry for whoever lost their money, but right now, this is a get-rich-quick scheme for most people involved in it.

        • jarfil@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Banks are allowed to use fractional reserve to lend several times more than they are required to warrant themselves, governments only force banks to have an entity who will pinky swear to write down up to a certain amount in everyone’s accounts in case the banks can’t. Neither skill nor labor produce money, central banks produce money as a loan with a repayment obligation, skill and labor only shift around the fractional obligations created by banks from thin air. Crypto is actually generated as an effect of the skill and labor required to secure its own ledger. People use golf courses to claim carbon offsets they sell in get-rich-quick schemes, or stamp collections, or digital collectibles, or natural gas extraction plants, or a thousand other schemes; everything can be, and is being used to scam someone somewhere at every moment, doesn’t mean everything is a scam.

        • Linkerbaan@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Banks are a giant scam. Have you learned nothing from 2008? It’s not that long ago.

          Your fiat money is way faker than crypto.

    • fosforus@sopuli.xyz
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      1 year ago

      Well, it’s Monero. It has clear value in buying drugs safely. Almost all darknet sites support it… I’ve been told.