> I think this is a symptom of the general problem of calling everything "crypto", which anchors people on the mental model of Bitcoin.

Or those of us who immediately think of AES, RSA, and Diffie–Hellman.

Anyone around tech in the 1990s may also remember:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto_Wars

Right you are. I just edited to differentiate from this other general problem with the nomenclature in the space.

I actually think this one leads to less confusion though, because the people who are familiar with "crypto" vis cryptography universally have enough expertise to differentiate it from "crypto" vis cryptocurrency. Whereas I would estimate that at least 99% of people who have heard of both Bitcoin and Ethereum have no idea that there are important differences in their capabilities and technology.

All the smart but non-technical people I know or read commentary from talk about cryptocurrency as a single thing, where that thing is just different flavors of Bitcoin.

The next time I get cornered by a coinhead - a worryingly common occurrence in real life lately - I'm going to say "Oh, I love crypto! My bank uses it so I can access my account from anywhere. It's great!"

hahaha yeah you can claim a different definition of "crypto" depending on whether you're talking to an anarchist or an institutionalist.

Many of the same teams in this round.

It goes to show that cryptomoney has not yet a settled common set of words to describe what's happening, unlike applications which have "gui, compilers, loop, trees, objects, etc.".

It's still to much specialized to follow what's going on from a higher viewpoint.

I don't think so. The terminology is quite standardised, but just like "gui, compilers, loop, trees, objects, etc." you're not going to know them unless you're familiar with the subject.

Is it really? From what I can tell these are all Etherium-specific terms. This is not standardized. It might be consistent but that’s not at all the same as actually being standardized.

This seems like saying that Chef terminology is standard. It might be internally consistent with its talk of recipes and ingredients and whatnot for imaging machines. But this terminology is not standard because it’s meaningless to someone who had experience with a different imaging platform.

I think it's a mix. Some of it is Ethereum specific and some is pretty standard across all blockchains that support smart contracts.

Yes, it really is pretty standard and straight forward. The ONLY problem is that its popularity has skyrocketed so there are A LOT of people talking about it who have no technical understanding. Parent comment above is a perfect example, complaining because in 10 years the tech has evolved.

I think you're both right to a degree. I agree the jargon is pretty well defined at this point, but it certainly is not as widely understood as the earlier computing and internet jargon. I think the mainstream is in the phase of basically having no idea whatsoever. I am sympathetic to them. I think they feel chuffed with themselves for finally figuring out what Bitcoin is, and now we're telling them they're still over half a decade behind the curve?!