Messaging App Telegram Moving Into Crypto 29
As the FTX collapse continues to reverberate through the cryptocurrency sector, Telegram CEO Pavel Durov wants to revive some of the good will toward blockchain technology by developing a range of decentralized tools including digital asset exchanges. From a report: "The blockchain industry was built on the promise of decentralization, but ended up being concentrated in the hands of a few who began to abuse their power," Durov wrote Wednesday on his Telegram page. "As a result, a lot of people lost their money when FTX, one of the largest exchanges, went bankrupt." The antidote to FTX's downfall is renewed prioritization of decentralization, he said. Durov maintained that blockchain projects must return to their roots of decentralization, and move away from relying on third-party corporations.
Additionally, he said it's possible today for developers to steer the blockchain away from centralization with the release of new products that a wide audience can access. Moving forward, Telegram, a messaging and social-media app, will build non-custodial wallets and decentralized exchanges for millions of people to trade and store cryptocurrencies, Durov said. "This way we can fix the wrongs caused by the excessive centralization, which let down hundreds of thousands of cryptocurrency users," he said. "The time when the inefficiencies of legacy platforms justified centralization should be long gone. With technologies like TON reaching their potential, the blockchain industry should be finally able to deliver on its core mission -- giving the power back to the people."
Additionally, he said it's possible today for developers to steer the blockchain away from centralization with the release of new products that a wide audience can access. Moving forward, Telegram, a messaging and social-media app, will build non-custodial wallets and decentralized exchanges for millions of people to trade and store cryptocurrencies, Durov said. "This way we can fix the wrongs caused by the excessive centralization, which let down hundreds of thousands of cryptocurrency users," he said. "The time when the inefficiencies of legacy platforms justified centralization should be long gone. With technologies like TON reaching their potential, the blockchain industry should be finally able to deliver on its core mission -- giving the power back to the people."
A thing for lost causes? (Score:3)
So they have thing for lost causes, but only when they are truly lost..
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Judging by the amount of crypto spam coming in to my Telegram account, they probably want a piece of the money being made on their platform.
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Judging by the amount of crypto spam coming in to my Telegram account, they probably want a piece of the money being made on their platform.
Yeah, by default Telegram lets randos invite you to groups. The crypto scams have been quiet for me since I disabled that.
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It does seem like they're a bit late to this party. However, I'm reminded of when KeyBase decided to (weirdly, for a secure chat app) give away some crypto "money". Within 24 hours they were getting spammed to the back teeth with every man and his dog trying to "cash in" (even though they were only giving coins to accounts over 3 months old). It got so bad that they were disabling accounts left right and centre, and hit some innocent accounts too (mine included). Something like a month later they ditched th
Why? (Score:2)
Why would anybody buy into crypto any more? Do they really think it's going to make them rich?
There's no other use for it now other than speculation.
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Yeah it seems that Telegram is hitting the gas rather than the brakes on its popularity with criminals and aiming to become a cybercrime super-app. Maybe they'll add something like a darknet black market next.
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"...do not want the government ..."
Do you mean this Telegram?
https://yro.slashdot.org/story... [slashdot.org]
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Why would anybody still consider crypto an investment?
Because you can win big. Simple as that. Yes, it can all vaporize into money heaven in an instant, but that doesn't scare off speculation and it never will. There is always a Greater Fool and some people actually do win. While that reality prevails people will play.
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we've seen that "reality" fail many times
You confront the implacable. Speculation is ancient and immortal. If you actually mean to stop it begin by constructing a GULAG system. Cryptocurrency Ponzis are only the most recent expression of this reality.
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By volume, investment is its primary use by a huge margin. Use of cryptocurrency in trade is very much the secondary use. Its volatility is a primary reason for that. With rare exceptions, I can't buy groceries with cryptocurrencies, I can't put gas in the car, I can't pay my bills, and I can't pay my rent. The acceptance isn't there for those things because of the volatility. Why should I accept payment in cryptocurrency when by the time I want to use it, it's worth half of what it was when I got it?
Explain to me again (Score:3)
How is "blockchain" supposed to work, profit-wise?
You have to justify the cost of building a blockchain "regulator". to make it work. Bitcoin does this by making independent people responsible for verifying everything, but that seems dubious, since it now "costs" more than 10,000 dollars per coin to be a profitable validator.
And everyone relies upon these validators to make it work. And supply payment to support hundreds of workers to do the validations needed to "be secure". Until the money runs out...
Bitcoin seems to survive because it isn't used for everyday stuff anymore. It is simply a way to "store value" that isn't being used. Or because someone doesn't want their private, perhaps illegal, transaction seen by anyone (good luck with that!), and it's the only thing that can be bought by "anyone".
But it still has costs, like all these other "coins", and companies with dozens (or thousands) of employees needing to take a share of it to live off of.
Countries deal with this by paying bureaucrats to manage the money supply. It's still a losing proposition, but not one taxing individual investors, who somehow think they're going to make money because they "are" money.
So, how are these companies supposed to survive?
Re:Explain to me again (Score:4, Informative)
.How is "blockchain" supposed to work, profit-wise?
The same way every financial system in human history has covered costs and earned profits on every form of financial activity: fees. They take a cut. Their cut might be indirected through some unfathomably elaborate scheme, but they take it nontheless.
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The fees on cash transactions are baked in, in the form of inflation. If you hold the $10 too long, it slowly loses its purchasing power.
Any competing currency will have to have the convenience of cash with less inflation. Junk silver could do that--but you'd have to convince merchants to accept it at market rates and most won't. ie, the coins of my early childhood were better than paper money; but actually not by that much and they were harder to carry so paper money wins for now.
Crypto isn't in direct
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The fees on cash transactions are baked in, in the form of inflation.
Umm... no. That's just not how economics works.
Inflation has absolutely nothing to do with the cost of processing transactions. It's caused by variation in the supply of currency, and the supply of goods people want to buy with that currency. Too much currency, not enough supply of goods, you get inflation. Too much supply of goods with too little currency, you get deflation. All real currencies that people use in the real world are managed by central banks. Their job is to control the supply of curre
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True, inflation doesn't *directly* pay the cost of processing transactions, but you sort of refute your own argument later on--if the currency were deflationary the economy wouldn't run as well and there wouldn't be as much tax revenue which *does* directly finance the Treasury that prints the notes, and more importantly the vast military-industrial complex and other things that make the USD relevant.
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My point was that you conflated two unrelated things, inflation and transaction fees. The GP said,
If I have a 10 dollar bill and I pay someone with that 10 dollar bill in person (like actually hand it to them), guess what? No stupid middleman needed to take a profit for that transaction.
And you replied,
The fees on cash transactions are baked in, in the form of inflation.
That's a false equivalence. Cash has zero transaction fees. Depending on the currency, it might or might not have inflation. They're just completely different things.
In the last year, almost every cryptocurrency has experienced hyperinflation. Bitcoin has lost something like 75% of its value. It also has exceptionally high transaction fees. They aren't the same. The transaction fees woul
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What if you and the person you hand that $10 to aren't in the same physical location? How will you pass them the money then?
You can certain go to where they are, or they come to you, but that's inconvenient, especially if significa
Uh huh.... (Score:3)
I don't know whether the article author put those two lines in close proximity on purpose, but if so, bravo.
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You seem to have an agenda. I wonder what that might be? Neither of those two things has anything to do with whether Telegram is, in fact, a "third-party corporation."
If one were being especially unkind to your agenda, one might even post this link: https://tech.slashdot.org/stor... [slashdot.org]
cognitive dissonance (Score:1)
Why isn't Sam Bankman-Fried in jail? (Score:1)
A little late to the party... (Score:2)