Re:Ask HN: Why is Hacker News so anti-crypto?
by lazzlazzlazz on Sunday May 08, 2022 @06:22AM
(#31302785)
Like with video games, and even personal computers, often things that start off looking like toys become the next big thing in technology[1]. The properties that make them intriguing to young technologists are not appealing to older technologists, who sometimes miss the fact that these nascent tools take time to mature.
[1]: https://cdixon.org/2010/01/03/the-next-big-thing-will-start-...
Re:Ask HN: Why is Hacker News so anti-crypto?
by kuschku on Sunday May 08, 2022 @09:48AM
(#31303937)
> Like with video games, and even personal computers, often things that start off looking like toys become the next big thing in technology
That's true. But we didn't have a hype cycle spending billions and destroying the environment for Pong. We had that only once an actual market of applications for the technology appeared.
Crypto isn't there yet, and likely won't be for the next few years. And likely none of today's chains will be used for these applications.
These technologies are good to have in case someday they become actually useful, but the amount of energy and money spent on them today far exceeds their usefulness and is purely hype-driven.
For example, there may be actual utility in NFTs: EU law requires that if you buy a game on e.g., steam, you should be able to lend it out, get it back, and resell it. If the EU, in a few years, were to decide games had to be portable between stores, and started actually enforcing these, it would make sense to put the actual game license key up as NFT and allow transfers.
But that's a hypothetical. It's not what's happening today. Today's excitement is purely hype.
The total energy consumption of PoW blockchains has increased global CO2 output enough that it exceeds the amount of CO2 saved by switching to renewables in the past 20 years. That's not worth it if there's such little utility in there.