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Banks Preparing for Aftermath of Unprecedented Catastrophe Caused by AI: "You can't stop it." (futurism.com)
submitted 20 hours ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[–] [S] 168 points 20 hours ago (11 children)

The terrifying AI catastrophe here is apparently that customers might finally move their money to accounts paying decent interest. Banks spent decades automating every trick to extract profit from us, but the second consumers automate looking for a better deal, suddenly it’s a systemic threat. Funny how innovation becomes dangerous the moment it works for the customer.

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  • [–] 43 points 16 hours ago (10 children)

    Banks are the largest mafia on the planet. They literally have a license to print money. Not even the government can do this. When things go south, they are bailed out with our money. Even after the worst crisis, they have a ridiculously low capital requirement of 2.5%.

    Never expect criminal scum to just accept one of their sources of income being taken away.

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  • [–] 17 points 14 hours ago (2 children)

    Banks were condemned for money laundering.

    They helped drug traffickers to launder their blood money...5 billions of suspicious transactions in bank of america and they looked the other way.

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  • [–] 1 point 11 hours ago (6 children)

    Yet people write off Bitcoin as "for criminals" while glossing over the fact no one can print more of it, and it cannot be taken away from you (without you fucking up).

    There is literally no better option in terms of holding and protecting your own wealth.

    Yet still, in 2026, I can almost guarantee nothing but down votes and/or replies all about how it's BS, etc, etc.

    Not trying to be snarky, it's just sad that the vast majority of people won't ever get a good explanation of how it works.

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  • [–] 2 points 56 minutes ago

    There is literally no better option in terms of holding and protecting your own wealth.

    Crypto is the glass cannon of financial security. Yes, you optimize for a single variable...at the cost of everything else.

    Crypto is good at resisting computer-based hacking and money printing, but it's far worse than the conventional banking systems at social hacking, physical coercion, or accidental loss.

    Basically, nerds love to latch onto crypto because they view it from its interesting technical properties. But they ignore the real risks to money. Banks aren't being hacked left and right to have their funds drained. But social engineering drains accounts every day. The crypto nerds are more comfortable with computers than with people, so they focus on the computer-centered threats than the human ones.

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  • [–] 11 points 10 hours ago (2 children)

    I'm a bit torn on Bitcoin. I used to think the same as you, but now it seems to me that Bitcoin is way too easy to control. State actors could quite easily acquire enough hash power to take over the network, mining is too concentrated already. I think Monero is much more true to the original idea of Bitcoin, probably also one of the reasons it's always branded as a coin for criminals, to prevent people from looking into it.

    It's also, unfortunately, just not that practical. Most people don't want to be their own bank. Your "unless you fuck up" is not quite true, what do you do if someone breaks into your house and threatens to shoot you if you don't hand over your keys? That's the true purpose of a bank, outsourced security.

    While crypto is cool, it's not required to solve this, full-reserve banking would be sufficient.

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  • [–] 1 point 9 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago) (1 child)

    Bitcoin is way too easy to control.

    Bitcoin is the hardest form of money in existence to control. Manipulation is not control. I'm pretty sure you're thinking of manipulation.

    State actors could quite easily acquire enough hash power to take over the network

    With respect, you need to learn more about how Bitcoin works, in particular the concept of "difficulty" and also options for defending against bad actors. Or you think the decade and a half plus Bitcoin has been running, not one single person/entity/state actor would try it?

    mining is too concentrated already

    TOO concentrated? No, otherwise Bitcoin wouldn't exist anymore. Could it be less concentrated? For sure. Couldn't the power the polticians and banks have be less concentrated? And it's within most people's means to be part of the solution against mining concentration...see: OCEAN pool for one.

    Most people don't want to be their own bank.

    Most people don't. Having bitcoin doesn't mean you have to be your own bank. Just that you have that option if and when the need arises. It's not one extreme (be your own bank) or the other (reject bitcoin entirely).

    what do you do if someone breaks into your house and threatens to shoot you if you don't hand over your keys?

    Well, what do you do if someone breaks into your house and threatens to shoot you if you don't hand over your cash, credit cards, and valuable possessions? I for one could a) say that I don't memorise my keys and they are stored outside of my home, b) give them keys to a duress wallet. What can you do?

    I can't say Bitcoin is the only solution to things, but it's by far the best tool we've been given so far. My argument has always been, the only way Bitcoin dies is if the whole advanced world works together to ban it. And if you think the whole world is going to cooperate on anything when self-interest and game theory heavily incentivizes involvement.....

    Just take some time to learn about how it works, not just "what it is". That's what holds people back.

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  • [–] 1 point 51 minutes ago

    Most people don’t. Having bitcoin doesn’t mean you have to be your own bank. Just that you have that option if and when the need arises. It’s not one extreme (be your own bank) or the other (reject bitcoin entirely).

    Then there's no god damn point. Bitcoin at a Bitcoin bank is just a regular bank with an incredibly, comically inefficient transaction tracking system.

    Well, what do you do if someone breaks into your house and threatens to shoot you if you don’t hand over your cash, credit cards, and valuable possessions?

    Cash and possessions are one thing, but that's not how most people keep their real financial assets. A thief can steal my credit card all they want. They're not getting much use out of it.

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  • [–] -1 points 9 hours ago* (1 child)

    Hey crypto-investor! I'm letting you know I'm about to print my own crypto from the open-source bitcoin! Buy my alt-coins now! Your profits are about to go to the moon! Buy CON-coin! The only difference between it and bitcoin is hype and branding! Get in before it's too late!

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  • [–] 2 points 8 hours ago*

    Uh yep, pretty much what I expected 😂

    The hard part is people that seriously think like that don't realize how utterly and completely stupid they sound to anyone who does take the time to understand it. They'll happily go through life saying stuff like that and never actually be able to make a good argument.

    Edit: omg that wasn't satire.....my bad. Sorry I even replied 😂

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