Congrats. You’re finally awakening from the Matrix. There is nothing…zip…zero…zilch that’s scarce about any crypto including Bitcoin. 21mm only yada yada yada. Yeah sure until you divide each by another 100mm. It’s just fiat distributed backwards and the early adopters are the only ones who’ll ever have anything of value if everyone buys in. So stop buying into their bullshit. Or if you do realize there’s a countdown clock that will eventually make them all worthless and be ready to get out when the signs are there that the end is near
Ask HN: Does Anyone else working in a crypto company feel this is all a scam?
181–190 of 198 posts
Re: Ask HN: Does Anyone else working in a crypto company feel this is all a scam?
#182Earlier quoted context omitted.
You might have a point if the only negative outcome of 2008 was that a lot of people lost homes they could never afford. It was the banks' and regulators' responsibility to not allow bad loans to be issued and resold as mis-labeled AAA investment vehicles. That is the part that broke the global economy.
NO, it's not the job of the government to save people from shooting themselves.
Mis-labeling a product is literally fraud.
Looked at from first principles, the market cannot work efficiently if people are allowed to lie. Lies create an enormous amount of waste through direct and indirect effects.
Government as the monopoly on power (and locking people up) has an important role to play in policing this.
Re: Ask HN: Does Anyone else working in a crypto company feel this is all a scam?
#183I work in crypto and have done for the last couple years. To be totally transparent, I worked on Cardano, then a couple random projects including a cosmos DEX and writing test suites for a qa consultancy, and now a startup DEX. I've been active in the scene (investing, reading papers, talking about crypto etc) since around 2016 and worked in it since 2019. I think there's a few things here. I don't believe that many…
I have a job satisfaction indicator I like to call “the barbecue factor”. You’re at a social event with friends and friends of friends. Someone asks “so what do you do?” and you answer. They either go “huh?”, “ooh neat!” or “oh, gee, yeah isn’t it awful how $industry is $negative_outcome?” Which of those answers you get can have a big bearing on your job satisfaction. It feels like the opinions of others shouldn’t be…
This so much depends on your audience.
Outside of the tech industry, "software engineer" alone has negative connotations and stereotypes, so some of my friends - when single - deliberately hand-waive past what they do by saying they're a "consultant" which somehow. In a brief period of trying to be a very different person when meeting girls, I referred to myself as a "professional problem solver". (yuck).
Working at Amazon and Facebook is another one where your audience differs dramatically. Some people are much more impressed if you work at Amazon on the "retail website" because that's the part they know, while others associate that with dehumanizing treatment of warehouse workers. Others are impressed (and won't shame you) if you work on AWS because the cloud doesn't have the same stink of wage slavery, but to others still they understand this so little that they literally have no reference point to react. Working at Facebook gets you a bad rep, but working on Instagram/Whatsapp doesn't, so now everyone gets to say you work at Meta and get told "Oh yes, I did see something about the Metaverse on CBS. Very nice, dear."
Re: Ask HN: Does Anyone else working in a crypto company feel this is all a scam?
#184Earlier quoted context omitted.
> you will soon find that there are very little companies that you would allow yourself to work for. That’s literally the idea. People doing bad things should find hiring minions difficult.
"bad things" is a subjective concept. A former roommate was building a website in the mid 2000 for a dildo company. You probably don't care, but a religious zealot might consider it "bad". We're gonna make a deal, I'll let you work in ad-tech, and you let me build tool which allow people to shoot themselves in the foot.
Taking a fully relativist perspective on morality is just an excuse to justify taking no ethical stance on anything at all. It's certainly your choice to exist in society this way, but you can't be surprised if people correctly criticize it as selfish, self-serving, and morally bankrupt. At least embrace it.
Re: Ask HN: Does Anyone else working in a crypto company feel this is all a scam?
#185I work in crypto and have done for the last couple years. To be totally transparent, I worked on Cardano, then a couple random projects including a cosmos DEX and writing test suites for a qa consultancy, and now a startup DEX. I've been active in the scene (investing, reading papers, talking about crypto etc) since around 2016 and worked in it since 2019. I think there's a few things here. I don't believe that many…
> However I do find the constant onslaught from HN, news articles, random people on the internet and in real life, to be too much for my mental health and I'm considering leaving the industry to work on something else.
Maybe this is harsh, but I'm glad to hear it's having an effect.
Re: Ask HN: Does Anyone else working in a crypto company feel this is all a scam?
#186Earlier quoted context omitted.
Broad-brush crypto whataboutism strikes again. “Maybe it’s a scam, but so is [central banking / the stock market / every other startup / etc.]” You’re trying to gaslight the OP to believe that what they’re feeling is normal, but it’s not. In startups with real products and real users and actual growth, the mood is not “we’re just dumping tokens.”
> In startups with real products and real users and actual growth Thats a big caveat. Tons of startups dont have that and still consume billions in capital.
Billions in capital from accredited investors.
Re: Ask HN: Does Anyone else working in a crypto company feel this is all a scam?
#187I work in crypto and have done for the last couple years. To be totally transparent, I worked on Cardano, then a couple random projects including a cosmos DEX and writing test suites for a qa consultancy, and now a startup DEX. I've been active in the scene (investing, reading papers, talking about crypto etc) since around 2016 and worked in it since 2019. I think there's a few things here. I don't believe that many…
I hope you find work that's exciting and meaningful to you in whatever industry you like, but you should really consider the source when it comes to the anti-crypto moralizers. If someone accuses you of being a scammer when they know nothing about you or what you do, is their opinion really worth your time?
People will always be resentful of success and even just the attempt of it, whether it's a business growing big or putting a man on the moon. Made an advance in robotics? Given the obvious military applications, someone somewhere is going to call you a murderer. You have to get used to this if you want to accomplish anything great. You can't let yourself be ruled by someone else's morality.
Where do the crypto-haters cluster? With those who praise accomplishment and greatness or those who are resentful of it? My view is that they are clearly in the camp of the latter. You have to start hearing the "constant onslaught" as praise, my friend.
Re: Ask HN: Does Anyone else working in a crypto company feel this is all a scam?
#188You are posting this question into what is mostly an anti-crypto echo chamber. It's a bit like asking "is the internet just a big scam" in 1998 at a magazine and newspaper trade conference. The people here are too engrossed in the world they built and lack the imagination for how it could be completely transformed to offer you an objective answer. My opinion is that 98% of crypto is either a scam or just bad ideas th…
Crypto has been around since 2009. It's been 13 years of bullshit. Because Andreessen is behind the web3 scam a lot of people are in... FOR THE MONEY. Let me guess none of you would be involved in this if it wasn't for $$$. As soon as crypto becomes the Enron/Madoff of the 2020s this cough 'technology' will disappear.
The ARPANET has been around since 1971. It's been 25 years of bullshit. Because Andreessen is behind the "web" scam a lot of people are in... FOR THE MONEY. Let me guess none of you would be involved in this if it wasn't for $$$. As soon as internet becomes the savings and loans crisis of the 2000's this cough "technology" will disappear.
Re: Ask HN: Does Anyone else working in a crypto company feel this is all a scam?
#189Earlier quoted context omitted.
NO, it's not the job of the government to save people from shooting themselves.
Mis-labeling a product is literally fraud. Looked at from first principles, the market cannot work efficiently if people are allowed to lie. Lies create an enormous amount of waste through direct and indirect effects. Government as the monopoly on power (and locking people up) has an important role to play in policing this.
> Mis-labeling a product is literally fraud
Such as Tesla FSD ?
Re: Ask HN: Does Anyone else working in a crypto company feel this is all a scam?
#190I work in crypto and have done for the last couple years. To be totally transparent, I worked on Cardano, then a couple random projects including a cosmos DEX and writing test suites for a qa consultancy, and now a startup DEX. I've been active in the scene (investing, reading papers, talking about crypto etc) since around 2016 and worked in it since 2019. I think there's a few things here. I don't believe that many…
> I don't believe that many people are actively and knowingly working on deliberate scams,
Really.