ICE Hunts Down Immigrants by Spying on Their Wire Transfers
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ICE Hunts Down Immigrants by Spying on Their Wire Transfers
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Investigators traced the remittances an immigrant was sending from Hawaii to Mexico to figure out his location.
Five
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Why bitcoin is worse than a Madoff-style Ponzi scheme by Robert McCauley

Brazilian computer scientist Jorge Stolfi is one voice who has contended this. His view is based on the following observations:

  1. Investors buy in the expectation of profits.
  2. That expectation is sustained by the profits of those that cash out.
  3. But there is no external source for those profits; they come entirely from new investments.
  4. And the operators take away a large portion of the money.

All of this rings true true. But in calling bitcoin a Ponzi scheme, critics are arguably being too kind on two counts. First, bitcoin doesn’t have the same endgame as a Ponzi scheme. Second, it constitutes a deeply negative sum game from a broad social perspective.

AmbiguousProps
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Bitcoin = Monero in your mind. They aren’t the same, not even close.

Five
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Bitcoin = Monero in your mind. They aren’t the same, not even close.

LOL. I understand they are very different entities.

Bitcoin Monero
Proof of work Proof of work
Uses a blockchain ledger Uses a blockchain ledger
Extremely volatile exchange rate Extremely volatile exchange rate
Unregulated Unregulated
Price easily manipulated by wealthy investors Price easily manipulated by wealthy investors
“HODL” - unrealistic expectation that the endgame is general use as currency “HODL” - unrealistic expectation that the endgame is general use as currency
Heavily driven by FOMO Heavily driven by FOMO
Uses obscene amount of energy per coin Aspires to use an obscene amount of energy per coin to prevent another 51% attack
Ledger has become so large it is unwieldy to store and transfer Ledger 200+ GiB, constantly expanding
Represents an ecological catastrope A currently smaller part of the ecological catastrope
Most popular currency used to facilitate human trafficking Has features that should make it more attractive for use in human trafficking
Difficult and annoying to use Even more difficult and annoying to use
Available on most cryptocurrency exchanges Available on fewer exchanges
Claimed by early proponents that transactions were ‘anonymous’ but now frequently the subject of blockchain analysis Proponents claim transactions to be anonymous
Pre-mining began January 2009 Pre-mining began April 2014
Advocates behave like people in an MLM cult Advocates behave like people in an MLM cult
Represents the vain hope to individually escape catastrophe while the world burns by using theoretically clever but practically unworkable technological solutions that create further social problems, while the real, difficult though not intractable social problems of government abuse, economic instability, and authoritarianism continue to increase because resources for real social solutions are starved of resources Represents the vain hope to individually escape catastrophe while the world burns by using theoretically clever but practically unworkable technological solutions that create further social problems, while the real, difficult though not intractable social problems of government abuse, economic instability, and authoritarianism continue to increase because resources for real social solutions are starved of resources
$116,760 / coin $270 / coin
20M coins 18.5M coins
Logo is a circle with the letter “B” Logo is a circle with the letter “M”

One of the hilarious details I discovered while researching this is that according to the US Government Accountability Office report “Use of Online Marketplaces and Virtual Currencies in Drug and Human Trafficking” in 2022,

Representatives of two analytics firms and one exchange also noted that illicit actors use privacy coins less frequently, as they are more difficult to obtain and are supported by fewer exchanges compared to Bitcoin, making it difficult to convert funds to government-issued currency.

So whatever benefits Monero claims to have in protecting the privacy of illicit activities, the people who could face real time in jail don’t consider the benefits worth how extremely annoying it is to use.

@GasMaskedLunatic@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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Well, if Lord Robert McCauley says it, it must be true. I am truly humbled by your superior intellect and ability to determine a currency from a Ponzi scheme by citing essays that have nothing to do with Monero. Goodbye.

ar1
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I think what you, and the people you believed, are making one wrong fundamental assumption (and I read it as your main point), which is “to evalute crypto currency one must compare it against fiat money”.

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