I keep hearing about how cryptocurrencies are a revolution and the "Greatest Transfer of Wealth in History" and all I have in response is that it appears to be nothing more than yet another transfer of wealth in the wealthy elite's favor. The wealthy get wealthier, while those not wealthy may get a few crumbs to placate them (10x returns on 6 - 8 figures investments + funding to build massive scale ASIC/GPU farms versus 10x returns on 3 - 4 figure investments and no ability to generate meaningful returns via personal mining).

Business as usual.

Great, I'll keep accumulating and you can stay away so I can accumulate at a cheaper price.

I highly suggest you do a little more research. This is a transfer of wealth on scale that I haven't seen in my lifetime.

I'm not a wealthy elite. I'm getting wealthier.

I'd argue you're getting richer, not wealthier. A very key distinction.

I do have money in cryptocurrency, just to be clear. Only because I expect to be able to sell it for a higher value to a greater fool down the line (and have no misconceptions about what it is and the risks involved).

If you can't see the utility then you haven't done any due diligence. Most here just want to read a headline and add their opinions.

I agree that crypto has tons of obvious fundamentals. In 2017, I would agree that ETH, LTC, XMR, XRP, NEO, POWR etc have utility, but BTC has name recognition.

And what might the obvious ones be?

storage of value, information integrity, speed - If you don't see obvious utility with cryptocurrency then you haven't done enough/very little research.

Why would ycombinator backed REQ try to replace Paypal with crypto technology if there wasn't fundamental value in the tech?

YC's whole model is making many investments which are likely to fail, assuming a lucky few will pay for the rest. It only works because they diversify, rather than going all-in on a single one.

the statement why REQ would try this, not ycomb's investment strategy..

They don't just invest in anyone, they do due diligence, why would they conclude this is even a viable risk taking opportunity if it was easy to see there is no utility in the technology?

those things havent changed since its been around. im talking about fundamentals that drive the price of bitcoin

Cost and ease of transaction.

Difficult to steal or confiscate.

Confidence of transaction completion in a low trust environment.

I'm sure there are more but those are three off the top of my head.

I think it's obvious that he's just pumping bitcoin

Yeah after people on Hacker News find out about Bitcoin the price will skyrocket and imma cash out

pumping bitcoin, lol - you don't get it.

ok go ahead and list them?