31–40 of 72 posts
Coinbase was a YC S12 company for what its worth.
They work with data tracking companies, think Palantir for cryptos
I obviously can't speak for all of HN, but I'm annoyed by the number of projects that include blockchain technology for no good reason.
Or it's psychological and many feel better believing that is a scam because they missed the run up despite likely being knowledgeable about bitcoin years ago and decided to ignore it.
I think a lot of HN users like to think of themselves as early adopters of new technology and are disappointed for missing out on the crypto highs at the end of 2017. I think they feel if they could have been in the loop at that time they could have cashed out. Thus crypto discussions are going to have a lot of negativity in the comments since the best way to make yourself feel better about it is to pretend it was a…
Funny story: I'm a non-believer. However sometime this year I bought bitcoin to buy some stuff. By the time I got home its value decreased too much and I no longer had enough bitcoin to buy what I wanted. Now I've found out that my bitcoin is worth a considerable amount. Did I cash out? Of course!
Do I feel "smart" about this investment? Of course not. It's just a gamble and pretty much this is the story of bitcoin. Would I "invest" again? Not really. I don't need this kind of investment for the same reasons I don't do gambling in my spare time. I think gambling is a weakness.
Personally I like Ripple. I like permissioned blockchains. Why is it that blockchains weren't invented sooner? I'll contend that you'd be laughed out of any distributed systems conference if you suggested any protocol where the workload capacity doesn't increase when you add nodes. If you have ten traders who trade under a buttonwood tree, then having ten copies of the database makes the system bulletproof. If you ha…
Because bitcoin is solving a problem that isn't a real problem by introducing a dozen more problems the existing system has solved. Bitcoin decentralizes currency and leaves no one entity in control. Hurrah, the government can't stop you from moving money as you see fit. Except that most of the time, the government is stopping people from doing things that were made illegal for very good reasons . Money laundering of…
In terms of reducing governmental control, sure this isn't much of a problem if your government is altruistic. Governments do not have a great long-term track record here. In Venezuela for example, many would say Bitcoin is solving a very real problem. You're right about its ability to be used for illegal activities, however the same could be said for most technology: encryption, the internet.
In terms of energy, this can be a criticism of almost all currencies and stores of value. This real-world expenditure is much of what gives it value, especially early on. Gold is valuable because of the difficulty in mining/acquiring it. Even national currencies are valuable due to the resources committed by their military, or the military's of that nation's allies. People might argue it is GDP, but GDP does not mean much if you cannot defend it.
Manipulation and price swings are a valid concern, but no other currency is immune to those either. Silver for example has had very widespread manipulation in the past. Silver and gold have probably still been a net-positive.
I think it's the same reasons behind the infamous "Show HN" Dropbox post - technical people have a tendency to be too focused on pointing out technical flaws and miss the bigger picture. Or it's psychological and many feel better believing that is a scam because they missed the run up despite likely being knowledgeable about bitcoin years ago and decided to ignore it.
I obviously can't speak for all of HN, but I'm annoyed by the number of projects that include blockchain technology for no good reason.
1. It has become more of a speculative instrument than an actual currency. People are more concerned about making money buying/selling/holding BTC. Defeats the original purpose of a "decentralized currency"
2. Not sure that decentralized currency is a good thing. Some things need to be regulated unfortunately. Yes, we all hate the central banks etc but I would trust a regular currency anyday over BTC. Not to mention that you are at the mercy of these "wallets" or even worse "centralized wallets" like coinbase etc which again defeats the purpose in my opinion.
3. It wastes electricity. A lot of it just to mine. Why do we need to mine it again ? Oh it is because there is only so much of it ? Is that a good thing ? I don't know.
4. Most importantly: adoption. My mother has no idea what BTC is and will ever know. It is far too away from being a currency that can be used by regular people. Perhaps that day will come but not yet.
5. Too many scams due to the gold rush of BTC. Again, that is a bad thing.
Disclaimer: I don't know much about BTC but still have these thoughts about it.
I can't speak for all of HN but I seriously doubt there was ever a need for the technology to begin with.
I've read numerous investigative articles on Bitcoin, in particular, that document the environmental impact and harm it does to workers who live in remote data centers. The situation is poor. And few, if any, bitcoin enthusiasts see these as problems. From what I understand the consensus among bitcoin enthusiasts is that we'll technology our way out of this and somehow we'll live in their techno-libertarian-utopia once they figure these things out.
Frankly I don't share their ideology.