alt Hacker NewsBy now crypto-in-practice has violated so many of its supposed founding principles that it's tired and cliche to point it out.
It was supposed to be limited in supply unlike fiat, and yet Tether underpins the whole thing and they print that out of thin air all the time. It was supposed to be decentralized, but in practice a few big exchanges control all the transactions and a few big mining pools control all the minting. It was supposed to be "code is law", and yet if you find a big exploit on smart contracts it'll be unwound later on and the cops will still show up for you. And as you say, it was supposed to be trustless, but counterparty risk is everywhere.
And it turns out nobody cares, because to a first approximation nobody is in crypto for the libertarian principles. It is all about number go up; always has been, always will be. It's not even worth pointing out anymore.
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Yes. Cryptocurrencies operate within the larger econo-political system we live in, and as long as cryptocurrencies replace only a part of that system, the rest of the system will continue to operate as it does otherwise. Its quite clear that the way capitalism operates in practice is that most markets end up being oligopolish, and that people with guns are needed to keep the system stable. So not at all surprising.
> And it turns out nobody cares, because to a first approximation nobody is in crypto for the libertarian principles. It is all about number go up; always has been, always will be. It's not even worth pointing out anymore.
I agree 100% - Meme stocks go brrrrrrrr
The idea that it's a currency that lives beyond the reach of governments is laughable (as soon as something goes bang a lot of the owners call for... regulators and government oversight)
> It was supposed to be limited in supply unlike fiat, and yet Tether underpins the whole thing and they print that out of thin air all the time.
This is a joke right? Tether (USDT) is pegged to the dollar... and there is not really a limit to the USD printing machine, nobody ever claimed a stablecoin would have a limited supply. It's literally the main critique of the fiat system levied by crypto proponents.
The only asset which has made and still hold promises of not increasing its supply over its limit set through its consensus code is Bitcoin. And it is nowhere close to ever change... as a matter of fact if it changed, most people wouldn't call that fork Bitcoin.