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

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

#161

Post by anonymoushn »

jacknews wrote: post #150
anonymoushn wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

uber was not perfectly legal in all jurisdictions at all times. I would guess they were operating illegally in almost every jurisdiction when they began operating there. They in fact had teams dedicated to illegal activities in specific regions. There's an article about that here by Mike Isaac who also wrote a pretty good book about Uber: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/03/technology/uber-greyball-... It seems like i…

You shouldn't just be waiting for govt to fix anything. Govt acts through the mandate of the people, so if you want it to do something you should be lobying and voting for it. Private enterprise quite legitimately alters the playing field by introducing new products, services and business models. LEGALLY. When it does so illegally, it should be stopped. That is exactly my argument, bad institutions should be disrupte…

I don't think you have to do anything illegal to send or accept payments in crypto.

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

#163

Post by svennek »

prohobo wrote: post #157
svennek wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is almost 630 watts per person (250 million people, 24*365 hours per year)... That seems like a lot... As a north european techie spending power on quite a few always on things (respberry pis, a nas, a router, wifi, ps5 etc)- but also freezer, fridge, cooking - and lightning for half the year and a little extra heating, I have used around 2500 kWh year to date, which is roughly 320 watts in total (or half that s…

I would say less technically savvy people probably use more electricity, not less. And you're assuming that you're the average American consumer. There are probably old toasters and electrical heaters that contribute significantly to that figure. In any case, the conservative estimate is still several times that of Bitcoin's usage. I'd also say cruise ships are more egregious, which no one seems to care about despite…

I am sure as hell not letting my toaster run 24/7, is that a common 'murican thing? (joking).

I did not question that Americans use a lot of power (my power budget is also just half of the average Dane as most of my heating is by steam made by the electricity plants (and paid on it's own) and all pumps regarding water (fresh and dirty) is paid by my building coop and not me personally.

But for any reasonable comparison it needs to be "non-critical 24/7 devices" such as routers, nas'es, computers etc and not infrastructure needed for survival..

Also there is a lot of regulation in the EU about standby power (and also in California, if I am not mistaken)? Didn't I see some tech news about that 2 months ago or so?

Comparing electric heating with bitcoin is a bit weird - heating is a necessity in a lot of the world (including where I live) for most of the year.

Bitcoin is not and will never be a survival necessity in the original sense of the word..

Also, there is a lot of focus on ship emissions as people all around the world have noticed the problem, the latest regulation change was in 2020 - not for cruise ships but for all ships...

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

#164

Post by MadeThisToReply »

onion2k wrote: post #25
MadeThisToReply wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There absolutely are good uses for crypto, and even for things like NFTs What do you think are the good uses for crypto and NFTs? (This is a genuine question; I've never been sure what to think about crypto.)

Crypto solves a problem around distributed trust. If you have a bunch of people who need to trust something is correct, but don't trust each other, putting that data on a verifiable blockchain that you pay people to cryptographically sign is a good solution. The thing is though, that's a really unusual problem that few people actually have. If you're buying diamonds or bananas or cobalt, and you need a provable suppl…

> If you're buying diamonds or bananas or cobalt, and you need a provable supply chain though.. yeah.. it fits.

I've heard about this supposed use for blockchain before and I genuinely don't get it. So what if you have a tamper-proof blockchain containing information about a supply chain? How does this prove anything about the particular diamond you're selling me?

Again, this is a genuine question. Can someone please walk me through this? What information do I need to verify about the supply chain and how does blockchain help? How were people solving this problem before blockchain?

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

#165

Post by fsflover »

gjulianm wrote: post #118
prohobo wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're wrong about "lacking initiative and the detailed procedures" - that's exactly what blockchains were created for: As a response to opaque and unreliable systems. This is the solution to a systematic problem in governance. Blockchains simply add verifiability of claims. Yes, you could create a central system which flags "bad actions" or something, but it'd be difficult to prove someone scammed you without the co…

> You're wrong about "lacking initiative and the detailed procedures" - that's exactly what blockchains were created for: A response to opaque and unreliable systems. This is the solution to a systematic problem in governance. You can't solve non-tech problems with technical solutions. If the government doesn't bother to have accessible documentation about how to do X thing, why would they bother to make a blockchain…

> You can't solve non-tech problems with technical solutions.

This is useless and unconstructive generalizaton. AFAIK many non-tech problems were solved with technical solutions.

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

#166

Post by pcthrowaway »

svennek wrote: post #101
pcthrowaway wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Proof of stake is already happening. It's on Ethereum (though they haven't switched over to the beacon chain from proof-of-work yet), and it's on many others. If you look at the top 100 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization, maybe bitcoin and 1 are 2 others are proof of stake. There are a bunch of 'tokens' cryptocurrencies which exist on top of another blockchain, but the remainder of the layer 1 blockchains and…

Last I looked the so-called proof-of-stake was more a system where somebody put up a stake to be witnesses (in lack of a better word). When I say proof of stake, I mean it in the way of "proof of possession"

Proof of stake is a decentralized consensus mechanism that is (usually) trustless, and prevents attacks like double spending.

Most notably, Solana, Cardano, Polkadot, Avalanche, Terra, Algorand, Polygon, Elrond, and Fantom are all using permissionless networks where nodes which have some amount of the native token of those blockchains staked produce blocks and validate transactions

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

#167

Post by pcthrowaway »

svennek wrote: post #93
roenxi wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Sure it oversimplified (most opinions that are somewhat transferable are). I agree with the hope for a better stewardship, but as all people end up moving cryptocurrencies in and out of the "old" financial system (creditcards, swift etc). I fail to see how crypto would help me.. I for one cannot pay for my rent, food, heat, water, power, internet with crypto, can you?

I can't pay my rent in US dollars, that doesn't make them worthless.

Although, to be fair, I did pay a security deposit in bitcoin 6 years ago.

Actually, in El Salvador, Bitcoin is now the national currency, so I suspect a lot of people are paying their rent in bitcoin

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

#169

Post by randomhodler84 »

leroman wrote: post #144
Applejinx wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Blackmail, extortion and drug dealing absolutely are real world problems that bitcoin directly serves to facilitate. The notion of it being in any way an investment vehicle is a whole separate thing, an arguably non-proven use-case. Being able to use bitcoin to conduct actions outside the control of any government or law is absolutely, demonstrably proven. That part delivers on all its promises. Nobody ever said that…

Good point. If Bitcoin was shutdown today, how would these criminals collect their ransoms?

Most phone scammers don’t use cryptocurrency, they use gift cards. Ransom will work the same it always did, hacked bank account transfers, money mules, gift cards and gift credit cards. Even cash in the mail. Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies are just money like any other surrogate. Money doesn’t create crime, but it is a necessary component. It’s not the money that is bad, it is the criminals.

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

#170

Post by timdaub »

Here on HN, I believe there's the effect of a shouting class when it comes to crypto [1].

I think we can take it as a fact that the broad opinion of HN is that many crypto-related links satisfy the hacker's curiosity as outlined in HN's guidelines. That's why we see frequent posts on the front page. A large group is upvoting.

But when you look into the comments of the threads, I find that often the topic is discussed unfairly and in a very polarizing and political fashion. Links also disappear rapidly from HN as they get flagged heavily. I've gotten this confirmed from dang via email.

As a blogger, I've learned that for my arguments to have impact, I usually have to be fair to both sides of the spectrum, for the argument to land.

And this is what I've come to observe isn't happening in HN discussions on crypto.

It's very a very aggressive, personal and destructive controversy from both sides. A classical flamewar.

It's sad, as I think the topic could have much more depth.

- 1: https://noahpinionblog.blogspot.com/2017/06/the-shouting-cla...

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