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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?

#191

Post by reginold »

svennek wrote: post #108
throwaway554 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Until you cross the borders and move all your wealth with you by memorizing 12 words.

Tell that to the the people of the ex-DDR, the North Korea and REALLY targeted individuals.. Sadly there exists no sure way to secure you belongings if the other party is sufficiently motivated to strip you of them (or your life).. You can also be killed/robbed outside of your country by intelligence officers of your country...

I'm so curious about your posts, this seems like an endless thread of gotchas. What's important to you about this topic? I have read all your posts in this thread and am puzzled. Thanks for any insights.

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

#192

Post by throwaway554 »

Applejinx wrote: post #116
throwaway554 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

56% of energy used for Bitcoin mining is coming from renewable sources of energy.

That is one heck of a waste, at a time when managing the thermal runaway of our planet is a matter of great and immediate urgency.

Separating money from the state is worth the cost.

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

#193

Post by reginold »

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…

Is there a place to go to talk to other people like you? I would love to hear about your Dapps, what's working, what's not.

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

#194

Post by reginold »

timdaub wrote: post #170

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…

Is there a place to go where there is curiosity driven discussion of crypto technologies?

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

#195

Post by reginold »

ykevinator2 wrote: post #154

Because it's not two disinterested parties, it's owners versus mockers. Owners say irrational things because they've drunk the water. It's like asking why don't believers in ressurection ever have curious conversations about the impossibility of ressurection.

This is an important aspect! Crypto is new in that way where everyone can have ownership. I believe everything in the future will be more like this than less. Everything will have financial incentives tied more directly to it. So if anything, the lack of crypto curiosity is a challenge to solve -- how do we get curious in a world where every article, upvote, and comment has a financial stake?

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

#196

Post by reginold »

jkhsdfkjgh wrote: post #35

In my case there isn't curiousity left. I was curious at some point, learned and explored about the subject, and made up my mind. After that there was also a period where I was curious why people were disagreeing with me, but that's gone now too, mostly because I repeatedly find their arguments make no sense. In a nutshell, I'm all for cheaper money transfer, but I've never seen convincing arguments that it follows t…

Sorry to hear it. Curiosity is a special thing. It's hard or impossible to force it. I wonder where my own curiosity about cryptocurrencies comes from.

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

#197

Post by reginold »

igorkraw wrote: post #51

Svennek said it well, there is not much of interest left to discuss, the remaining ambiguities are up to taste, not novelty. The only interesting things are talking about whether decentralisation is a value in and off itself without e.g. equity and whether people actually inherently care about it. But those are charged topics, also because people who are all in on crypto have a material interest in pushing the idea t…

This seems like such a bizarre take to me. It's like saying in 1960 that everything to discuss about computers is up to taste not novely. I see an entire world coming to life across thousands of different blockchains. So much of it is experimental, mistakes, catastrophically bad. But other parts will succeed and define the future. The recent push around DAOs is fascinating, a way to delegate voting and decision making, an experiment that will fail endlessly until it doesn't.

Edit: However, that doesn't mean this conversation should be forced on the HN community over and over again. That's not right, and that's not the nature of curiosity.

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

#198

Post by reginold »

ddtaylor wrote: post #145

As a long time supporter and developer of cryptocurrency I myself am pretty disconnected from the space right now. Almost all of the goals we set out in the early days of Bitcoin, like "be your own bank" have failed terribly. After more than a decade all we've managed to accomplish is creating a slightly different arrangement of the same pieces.

Is there a place I can go to talk to people like you? Or maybe you but before you totally disconnected?

I'm curious what your hopes were for being your own bank kinda stuff. How did you imagine it would work, what was important about that to you... and the the other side, what fell short etc. You rightfully probably don't want to answer these questions as your curiosity has moved on, but I would be curious in case you are.

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

#199

Post by svennek »

pcthrowaway wrote: post #166
svennek wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Your answer reads like a marketing blurb and only tells about the goal (on which we agree) and not the mechanism (where we disagree). I tried reading a few of the coins you mentioned and all of them were witness ("validator") based...

They still do not prove that they have something in possession, they stake their own coin on being honest... BIG difference.

Do they allow you to prove that you (and you alone) have possession/control of the coin itself, and if so, how? (That is the part that I consider impossible).

The whole problem is that proof-of-stake has been redefined by the new PoS networks and does have the original meaning of "stake" (i.e. sole possessor) anymore.

I can prove to you that I have access to a gold coin by taking it out of my purse and showing it to you. You can do three simple tests (weight, volume and ringing) that ensures that it cannot be any other material than pure gold (due to any material that is both cheaper and heavier than gold is tungsten and that does not ring). You can also be sure that it is not a clone of another coin so that it "just disappears" or gets double spent.

There is also no witness/validator that can break your trust and betray you.

Every POS network I have ever looked into (and I admit that it has been a while) relies on witnesses. And that removes my way of knowing whether the witnesses lie or not.

Is there any of the socalled PoS networks that actually allow you to prove that you have exclusive possession/control of the digital coin in question without any witnesses ('validators')?

If so, their founders can already book their ticket to the Nobel Gala next year, as that would AFAIK be a feat in the same scale as disproving gravity...

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

#200

Post by Rd6n6 »

prohobo wrote: post #42
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…

Yeah, I'd say your entire approach is antithetical to healthy discussion: insinuating anyone who is interested in crypto is technically inept, and turning the discussion into a 2-sides polarization. There's no use in talking about crypto in a sincere way now because of the way its been politicized. I tried recently to explain to someone that cryptographically codifying law and contracts can be beneficial in a lot of…

> cryptographically codifying law and contracts can be beneficial in a lot of ways (like transparency/enforcement in governance)

Would 51% attacks spoil the party with that? The incentives would be enormous to do such a thing, it might even become a polarized political imperative to try to do these attacks.

It might also be like replacing the one citizen, one vote system with a one gpu (or future hardware item), one vote system. Would that remove political power from citizens?

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