1. Proof-of-work has inherent, fundamental, no-way-to-work-around-it issues regarding scale. The more value Bitcoin holds, the more Argentina's-worths-of-energy that is needed to keep it secure. That is by design when it comes to proof-of-work. It is a guaranteed dead end. Proof-of-stake does not have that same problem, but ironically I see so much antipathy towards proof-of-stake by large swaths of the crypto community.
2. The fundamental idea that crypto can "escape" government financial controls is false. Or, at least it's no different than the fact that selling meth is also capable of evading government controls, but at huge risk. Government can make anything it wants illegal if it so desires.
This. I was thinking seriously about investing in bitcoins, but realized governments across the world won’t give up their control over people’s behavior by controlling money supply, either by minting currency or by means of interest rates.
Not everything is black and white. While the government can enact laws, and enforce those with courts and guns, on a practical level it is easier, for example, to flee a hostile country with Bitcoin than with a checking account held at a local bank.
This feels like something that could be proven given the current climate. How many refugees from the multitude of currently-invaded countries are carrying their assets as bitcoins vs. traditional items of value and cash?
Given the tremendous volatility of a bitcoin investment, I doubt many people outside of the upper middle class have bitcoins to begin with, and I really doubt they'd buy bitcoins with what wealth they have access to before fleeing (traditional wisdom says that purchasing items with inherent value that are easy to carry).
But again, that's something that could be proven with the ledger. It would be a good story if the evidence backed it up.
This incentives engagement by people who wish to evade legal and regulatory controls. For the most part, in the West, these are not people escaping corruption or autocracy.
The problem with crypto is that all that it is is speculative financial hype. The entire worth of crypto is a bet on its future utility.
The difference between the dot com bubble and web3 is that there is no web3 craigslist or geocities or usenet or altavista or webmd or ebay or amazon or anything of utility or value other than as an investment asset.
And good worthwhile things are being created in the cryptocurrency/blockchain space now. Likewise, there was a lot of useless bullshit on the Web in the 90's, and a lot of useless bullshit in the blockchain space today. And likewise, there were a lot of pre-Web "experts" making the Web out to be some passing fad due to all the bullshit, and there are a lot of pre-blockchain "experts" making blockchains/cryptocurrency out to be some passing fad due to all the bullshit - in both cases ignoring the potential, only to find themselves and their opinions irrelevant.
I don't know whether blockchains are going to end up being as fundamental to the world economy in the coming decades as the World Wide Web is today, but I do know that history repeats itself, and I ain't arrogant enough to assume this to be some exception.
like what?
Cryptocurrency ain't perfect, but people are using it for its intended purpose, and it ain't going away anytime soon.
Where oh where is this happening?
The El Salvador experiment failed: https://restofworld.org/2022/el-salvador-bitcoin/
And I hope you don't mean millionnaires of the developing world because they're people who've escaped the rigours of being in a developing world.
broadly gestures at Africa, Asia, Latin America, and Eastern Europe
not-so-broadly gestures at Ukraine
> The El Salvador experiment failed
A few growing pains != "failed"
And from that same site:
https://restofworld.org/2022/ukraines-tech-community-rallies... <---- Bitcoin donations serving as a critical part of the initial lifeline for Ukraine's self-defense.
https://restofworld.org/2022/were-still-very-afraid-of-failu... <---- It ain't just me saying that cryptocurrency is a solid bet to unshackling the Global South from the Global North's financial hegemony.
https://restofworld.org/2021/stablecoins-find-a-use-case-in-... <---- People in Nigeria using stablecoins in the midst of local currency inflation and restrictions on accessing foreign currency.
When we threw the bathwater out after the bubble crash, there were a few babies left.
13 years into the cryptocurrency bubble and I still don't see any productive use. Unless you're in the ransomware industry, or trying to evade sanctions.
Now They expect 1BLN+ to be onboarded to crypto with internet access.
More growth potential takes more time to play out.
Most people were ignoring crypto in 2017 like internet was ignored in 1993 by most people.
Period of 2009-2016 is like 1980-1992 for the internet. Almost no one was using it beside geeks and tech passionate youngsters.
Institutions are getting interested only from 2021 in a serious manner like in 1998-2001 for the internet period.
I don't know, but the way it is. People in crypto are used to 90% off within few weeks, where people in the other world probably won't experience it in a lifetime with their "traditional" investments. This is why it's so hard to explain..
It's much harder to onboard into a new currency, than to onboard to new social media platform.
It's like learning to fly an airplane VS learning to drive a car.
People treat their financial stuff with more caution than opening an account on TikTok.
It's already crashed a couple times now. Each time it did, it came back a couple years later stronger than ever.
History rhymes. Everything takes long time to play out. Internet took 40 - 50 years, crypto is just 10 years old and they say it has to bust, soon.
Bitcoin works exactly as technically scoped. Which part of "A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System" is technobabble? I think its a pretty good choice of words.
> rather that HN readers see crypto's empty promises to fix existing issues for what they are: bullshit designed to lure in ever more dumb money.
I would say rather that HN readers are blinded by their own technical abilities, so much so that they think they are right when it comes to social or economic ones.
Good news is the future years will determine which theory is right. Either its "bullshit designed to lure in ever more dumb money", or its an innovation that created something that provides real value to the economy.
I promise, one of us will be deterministically wrong.
I agree with you on that. Never mind the money laundering, the criminal extortion, the unfettered grift, the ponzi schemes, the lack of regulation, smart contracts which aren't, securities sold in exchanges that aren't secure, the gross misappropriation of other's work making profit in NFT's as genius level crypto godhood, and the never ending supply of pretzel logic to convince others that while 90% of it is all shit, the 10% that isn't justifies crypto's entire existence.
Is that because they're blinded by their own technical abilities? Or do they realize its all a fraud as well and trying to make a quick buck before the regulator's swoop in?
I don't see you addressing this in your post, so I thought I'd ask.
I don't know who the "they" you're referring to is, but I'm pretty sure the people who are really into NFT's actually believe in it. My guess is there's still more scammers than not, but they remind me of card traders. You can laugh at them all day, but some of those pokemon cards are worth a lot of money. I don't think they think its a fraud, they like the feeling of owning that NFT.
So getting back to it, "realize its all a fraud", that's already poising the well before you ask the question. It would actually have to be one(a fraud) for someone to "realize" that it is. Otherwise you need to talk objectively and work your question from the standpoint that "NFT's/crypto is a fraud" is merely an opinion and not a hidden fact that needs to be realized.
What do they "like" about holding an NFT? They don't own the copyright usually, and they also don't own the original. Do they like seeing their name as the owner on some website? Because we can do that with credit cards and databases and html.
If the well has been poisoned already, asking someone for proof of the poisoned well seems silly when all you have to do is look in and take a whiff. This is the kind of pretzel people try to logic themselves out of.
What do they like about holding Joe Montana's rookie card? Or a first-edition Charizard? Do they like having the physical card? Because we can do that with cardstock and inkjet printers.
It ain't my cup of tea in any case, but it also ain't my place to judge them for it or interrogate their motivations. If they want to collect Yu-gi-oh cards or bored monkey NFTs, power to 'em.
So if collecting doesn't involve adding to the global warming crisis, I'd be much more okay with it.
And if holding an NFT (especially on a proof-of-stake blockchain, wherein the carbon footprint is negligible) was in any way comparable to holding child porn, then maybe that'd be a valid point.
No one else has that power to make changes to the portion of the blockchain that you own the keys to. This is the aspect of ownership that matters.
Same thing with credit cards and databases. Those are centralized databases owned and operated by a central organization. When it comes to blockchain technology, to make entries regarding the portions of the blockchain that you control, no one else can make changes to that portion of the blockchain without the keys. This is the aspect of ownership that makes digital assets ownable. The ability to control the asset that no one else who doesn't own it can.
Look, I can't speak for ownership of NFT's, but to be honest, you probably can't either. Your entering the stage with a pitchfork and torch trying to hate it before you've even tried to see what its about.
I don't think it has anything at all to do with seeing their name on some website, its about ownership.
> proof of the poisoned well seems silly when all you have to do is look in and take a whiff.
You're not making a lot of sense here. Maybe you don't know what "poisoning the well" means.
poising the well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_the_well
> is a type of informal fallacy where adverse information about a target is preemptively presented to an audience, with the intention of discrediting or ridiculing something that the target person is about to say.
Again, we don't know that NFT's are a fraud, so to say "Or do they realize its all a fraud as well and trying to make a quick buck" asserts the question from the standpoint that they are, when we can't know that.
You are coming to the stage proclaiming the New England Patriots have won the Superbowl when the Superbowl has yet to start. That's all I'm saying. That to me sounds more like the pretzel logic.
Well, that's the ideal right? The reality says otherwise for reasons I stated earlier -- which you haven't addressed yet.
So now you're arguing the low level details now and smearing your opponents intention rather than trying to make the big arguments in supportive of your point. That seems to me you have no further big arguments to support your point and are willing to go into minutae to score debate points.
Where is the smear of the intention? Was it because I said you are attacking the argument from the standpoint that something is a fraud, when the argument cant be attacked from a position that it was a fraud because that's a fact we cannot know?
Your communications of the reasons you've stated must have not come across very well because I didn't understand them from rereading your previous comments. What were the reasons again?
How are we using Bitcoin? As a ponzi scheme where the earliest of investors win by bringing more people in.
How are we using Blockchains (specifically NFTs)? Outright fraud.
Ponzi schemes and fraud won't solve our social or economic woes. What few good things Bitcoin and the blockchain ever provided has been completely overwhelmed by the crap.
As a result, governments are going to crack down on these technologies hard. They've already started by taxing these virtual currencies the same way they do stocks.
In the developed world, sure. In the developing world, people are using it as actual money to replace traditional financial systems that are rife with corruption or have outright failed.
Never said that it did. Only that HN'ers suffer from a kind of overconfidence of other aspects of this world because they are used to being right on technical things.
> How are we using Bitcoin? As a ponzi scheme where the earliest of investors win by bringing more people in.
The US dollar fits a better definition of a ponzi scheme, its just a different kind of pyramid. The closer you are to the regulatory environment, the more disproportionate your gains. Bitcoin will store value better than the dollar. Doesn't matter if you're "late" or "early". So its not a system that favors those who got in early, its a system that favors everyone who uses it.
> How are we using Blockchains (specifically NFTs)? Outright fraud.
Lets not discuss nft's or other cryptos. Only bitcoin.
> Ponzi schemes and fraud won't solve our social or economic woes. What few good things Bitcoin and the blockchain ever provided has been completely overwhelmed by the crap.
Again lets not talk nft's or other cryptos. Only bitcoin.
> As a result, governments are going to crack down on these technologies hard. They've already started by taxing these virtual currencies the same way they do stocks.
Thank goodness. Regulations and legislature is necessary for this emerging market. We need to work with it, not against it.
HN hates on bitcoin because it’s incredibly wasteful and overhyped.
HN hates on blockchain because it’s a convoluted way of solving problems that could otherwise be done simply.
>
> HN hates on bitcoin because it’s incredibly wasteful and overhyped.
>
> HN hates on blockchain because it’s a convoluted way of solving problems that could otherwise be done simply.
There is nothing in your comment that isn't accounted for in my original comment.