Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: Why does cryptocurrency subjects on HN lack curious conversations?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 278 posts

Re: Ask HN: Why does cryptocurrency subjects on HN lack curious conversations?

#11

Post by pennaMan »

onion2k wrote: post #4

I'm going to attempt an answer, but as with all things this is only my perspective and I obviously don't speak for all HN readers. HN is largely for founders who want to build things. That's certainly how it started, and there's still traces of that vibe around in the Show HN and startup-y threads. There's a lot more going on here now, like more code topics, AI, electric vehicles, environmental things, a little futur…

The community doing things around the ethereum / smart contracts world are certainly on the building things side of things yet they are met with the same cynical skepticism around these parts.

Re: Ask HN: Why does cryptocurrency subjects on HN lack curious conversations?

#12

Post by pennaMan »

ThalesX wrote: post #7

There’s only so much to be said for retaining my curiosity after years and years of getting shouted about it by people who have no understanding of what they are peddling. I’m actively involved in the space, I explored my curiosity through designing a few DApps, building some coins, the usual. The tech is interesting, the approach is worthwhile, the whole FOMO pyramid on top of it is just noise and I wish it would st…

That s like arguing that because things like scrum masters are a thing in the software world then the whole software industry is valuless bullshit

Re: Ask HN: Why does cryptocurrency subjects on HN lack curious conversations?

#13

Post by yardstick »

svennek wrote: post #3

I think basically because there is nothing interesting left to discus. One camp (where I am in) basically believes it is an environmental disaster, unsuitable for its stated purpose and most likely as scam by the "whales" manipulating the price, and with a potential 51%-disaster. The other camp believes that it is the future of money, untraceable wealth storage and inflation/"confiscation proof" and that all the envi…

Interesting comments! Do you mind sharing your thoughts on why proof of stake won’t happen?

Re: Ask HN: Why does cryptocurrency subjects on HN lack curious conversations?

#14

Post by ajg4 »

svennek wrote: post #3

I think basically because there is nothing interesting left to discus. One camp (where I am in) basically believes it is an environmental disaster, unsuitable for its stated purpose and most likely as scam by the "whales" manipulating the price, and with a potential 51%-disaster. The other camp believes that it is the future of money, untraceable wealth storage and inflation/"confiscation proof" and that all the envi…

Why will proof-of-stake never happen?

Re: Ask HN: Why does cryptocurrency subjects on HN lack curious conversations?

#15

Post by onethought »

svennek wrote: post #3

I think basically because there is nothing interesting left to discus. One camp (where I am in) basically believes it is an environmental disaster, unsuitable for its stated purpose and most likely as scam by the "whales" manipulating the price, and with a potential 51%-disaster. The other camp believes that it is the future of money, untraceable wealth storage and inflation/"confiscation proof" and that all the envi…

The environmental argument is a straw man, and not really related to crypto, but actually related to our energy mix.

If crypto was mined only on renewables there is no environmental argument. Ergo, not related to crypto technology itself.

Re: Ask HN: Why does cryptocurrency subjects on HN lack curious conversations?

#17

Post by edanm »

I think some of your premises are wrong. I don't think cryptocurrencies are especially divisive on HN. It's like a lot of other topics - a lot of different people with a lot of different feelings, some of them more strongly than others. It's not surprising that when something is new, there is a lot of curiosity around it that is different 12 years later, when it's just part of our world, and many of the "questions" have been "answered".

In addition, cryptocurrencies just happen to also have an incredible amount of real-world impact in way other technologies don't. E.g. debates on AI - not even AGI, just plain old AI, and have there been any real new breakthroughs lately, etc, also have a lot of disagreements. But while that impacts grant money and investment in some technologies, it doesn't also directly translate into billion-dollar markets and potential fraud, etc.

You also have to separate "cryptocurrencies" to a few underlying actual topics that people disagree about:

1. Whether actual cryptocurrencies, e.g. bitcoin, are a good investment.

2. Whether actual cryptocurrencies are good for the world, or whether they enable fraud/scams/etc.

3. Whether actual cryptocurrencies can achieve, are achieving, or should achieve their original goals or any newer goals (e.g. replace fiat completely).

4. Whether the blockchain technology itself is interesting at all, or is it only interesting for cryptocurrencies. (This point is especially relevant in a forum of founders, given the massive amounts of creating and investment in blockchain-related startups.)

Re: Ask HN: Why does cryptocurrency subjects on HN lack curious conversations?

#18

Post by svennek »

yardstick wrote: post #13
svennek wrote: post #3

I think basically because there is nothing interesting left to discus. One camp (where I am in) basically believes it is an environmental disaster, unsuitable for its stated purpose and most likely as scam by the "whales" manipulating the price, and with a potential 51%-disaster. The other camp believes that it is the future of money, untraceable wealth storage and inflation/"confiscation proof" and that all the envi…

Interesting comments! Do you mind sharing your thoughts on why proof of stake won’t happen?

IMHO because it depends on uncloneability of digital assets.. Which I believe is not possible.

The whole thing that makes cryptocurrencies work now is the un-cloneability of the amount of work done (which is why the 51% problem exists in the first place).

The only good way of doing it would be through a cartel with strict enforcement of hashrates etc.. And welcome to the financial banking system...

Re: Ask HN: Why does cryptocurrency subjects on HN lack curious conversations?

#19

Post by roenxi »

svennek wrote: post #3

I think basically because there is nothing interesting left to discus. One camp (where I am in) basically believes it is an environmental disaster, unsuitable for its stated purpose and most likely as scam by the "whales" manipulating the price, and with a potential 51%-disaster. The other camp believes that it is the future of money, untraceable wealth storage and inflation/"confiscation proof" and that all the envi…

I basically agree; but this oversimplifies the diversity of opinion in both camps. For example, it might well be worth the environmental damage to shift control of international monetary flows from the US government to a true free market.

Although the US has been as good a steward as can be hoped for no entity should have that much control over international finance.

Re: Ask HN: Why does cryptocurrency subjects on HN lack curious conversations?

#20

Post by hellbannedguy »

I think we are all a little subconsciously angry we didn't put together that rig years ago.

I was so close. I had the cards in a shopping car. I thought about it too many nights. I didn't want to blow $800 with nothing to show though. I didn't have a lot of disposable funds then, or now.

I never thougt it would get this big. I thought the government would shut it down--for reasons of hiding money.

I thought the same about Uber too.

Post reply on HN