I'm positive about Bitcoin valuation over the long term.

I'm negative about Bitcoins utility.

I'm very, very positive on the utility of systems like EVM and their valuation over the long term.

I'm still negative about mainstream adoption of direct usage. It's complicated and too easy to make unrecoverable mistakes.

I believe a lot of the criticism on HN is valid and deserved within certain contexts. Some contexts, like block chain VMs, don't come up much here at all.

Same here. Crypto literally is the best thing that happened carrier wise to my life. From the wild wild west in the early days that allowed anyone to make some beermoney then (and be rich today if they holded) to the immense community we have today that turn simple products/dapps/whatever into millions strong businesses over night.

Crypto is exactly the movement to give power back to the people (for a while at least) its sad to hear such a negative attudide from a otherwise forward thinking community

Where would you tell a crypto noob to start today?

This is the go-to guide for anyone new to crypto today. It goes over the why and how and provides links for further reading. https://newsletter.banklesshq.com/p/-guide-1-starting-with-b...

I hadn't seen this, thank you for sharing!

The issue is that exact story is “get rich quick”. A good predictor on how jaded you are towards your reaction to it is “did you get rich?”

I dont own a ferarri or tesla, but i havent had a regular job in years parts to crypto.

My take is you have to understand finance, central banking, its abuse by banks and governments, and so on in order to see the utility of the crypto industry.

If you never got lost, you might not see the value of GPS.

Others don't need to get lost, but they are better at seeing the economic implications like increased efficiency when navigating roads, waterways, airspace, ...

Instead, the disbeliefers consider it expensive, unecological, and related company stocks as in a bubble.

It doesn't help that the shadiest of people use crypto and ICOs to cheat and steal from gullible people. The suspicion and guard is up because the stakes are different. Let's say you write an opensource logging library for your language and promote it on HN - the stakes are low for everyone involved.

Let's say you're trying to launch rabbit token that's going to be the next only-fans replacement. You have a ton of motivation to hard sell your product and for this reason people are going to be equally not so exited and will have their guards up. I think it'd be naive to expect a OpenSource launch like happy reaction...

So it's 1) bad guys in that industry that have the wrong motivation giving the industry a partial deserved bad name.

2) A recognition that people espousing a technology are not purely talking about those technologies but have a vested interest in those assets having a positive view in other people's perception.

Ofcourse it comes with the territory. Like if a lawyer says, wonder "why is my profession, not universally loved?"

"Its just the 80% of the corrupt politicians giving the rest of the 20% a bad name."

Not passing judgement or moral judgement but I don't think crypto is going to shake-off the suspicion for quite a while.

This is because there is a knowledge gap between the masses and the people that know how things work. Till you have that gap there will be opportunists that will want to cash out on the knowledge arbitrage.

Its actually not just with crypto. Look at products that talk about AI enhanced this and AI enhanced that. Those guys are viewed with suspicion as well. Just slap-on an AI label to your PPT and bang your product is now cutting edge. Everyone see through that BS..

It's likely that the shadiest people use cash though.

I hear the most dreaded criminals tend to breath air and a shocking percentage of them are found to be mammals.

Jokes aside, How do you compare an ICO to cash? Its more closer to an IPO process.. if you started allowing listings in the stock market backed solely by 5-6 nice LinkedIn profiles and some 'white-paper' I'm sure the exact same people will list their companies in the stock exchanges as well.. Unlike an IPO, there is no vetting process, there are no mandatory disclosures or oversight.

That is freedom from central control, sure. But, the cost of freedom is the risk that gets loaded on the part of the investors. This gap is wide open for people that are thus inclined to cheat and make a quick buck. I am not berating crypto, but, I have a lot of confidence in criminals going after easy money that doesn't have too many down sides.

I hope to understand the ecosystem better ... and imagine that at some point the greener operation and greater utility of Ethereum ETH 2.0 will beat out Bitcoin.

Will this lead to better returns for Ethereum over Bitcoin medium- or long-term, eventually? When will that switchover happen (if not already)?

Where do the crypto folks hang out?

Everything is organized around coins and projects. For example if you are into eth core then you are in eth magicians https://ethereum-magicians.org

The most popular crypto mediums are telegram and discord. Twitter is the social media of choice. Reddit has some decent subreddits but it isn’t the primary place.

This community is based on trust. Trust is earned through contributing code, knowledge, effort, etc. If you join in the bull market, stick around through the bear to show you are serious. Etc.

sound a lot like the mob