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Ask HN: Why is HN so aggressively anti-Bitcoin?

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Re: Ask HN: Why is HN so aggressively anti-Bitcoin?

#41

Post by yongjik »

HN usually has lots of negative comments - some of them are even constructive negative comments. It's not necessarily a bad thing. I come here to read these intelligent criticism.

Besides, I don't think it's particularly more negative on cryptocurrencies - go to any other internet forum (that are not specialized in cryptocurrencies) and I think you'll find a similar mixture of opinions.

Finally, "Google also invested in X" isn't a very good counter-argument here. Have you seen some HN comments when Google is being discussed?

Re: Ask HN: Why is HN so aggressively anti-Bitcoin?

#42

Post by dawhizkid »

tastroder wrote: post #37
dawhizkid wrote: post #33

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'm still waiting for somebody to come up with that bigger picture after 10 years, all we've gotten instead is a bunch of Ponzi schemes and marketing. It's a shame so many minds were and are wasted on a solution that's not solving a problem it didn't invent (or somebody just falsely attributes to it).

Why don't you think there are serious problems with how central banks around the world control money? Inflation steals from everyday people to varying degrees around the world...look at Zimbabwe and Venezuela. We're all beholden to secret monetary policy decisions made a small handful of people, sometimes just one.

The bigger picture, in my mind, is that in the future you should be allowed to choose your citizenship, which may be something like a digital country, and decide for yourself what sort of government you want to live in. Cryptocurrency enables that future more so than anything else that currently exists.

Re: Ask HN: Why is HN so aggressively anti-Bitcoin?

#43

Post by mabbo »

aeternus wrote: post #36
mabbo wrote: post #18

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…

Very valid criticisms, but they do not apply in all cases. 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 te…

> You're right about its ability to be used for illegal activities, however the same could be said for most technology: encryption, the internet.

Bitcoins primary purposes today consist of: 1. buying bitcoins in the hope that they're worth more tomorrow, and 2. using bitcoins to buy illegal drugs on the internet. And the only reason #2 is declining is because so many people are doing #1 that it's getting too expensive in terms of fees to use it for #2.

> In terms of energy, this can be a criticism of almost all currencies and stores of value.

You're comparing fixed, one-time capital costs with ongoing variable costs. Transferring gold from one human to another involved handing it over. No costs there. Transferring bitcoins requires an increasing amount of energy as the rules make it harder and harder to complete a block.

> Manipulation and price swings are a valid concern, but no other currency is immune to those either.

When was the last time your USD bank account suddenly became worth twice as much, or half as much? Central banks can utilize price control mechanisms to carefully maintain inflation rates. Most aim for 2% per year, and most hit their targets pretty accurately. Bitcoin cannot offer that.

Re: Ask HN: Why is HN so aggressively anti-Bitcoin?

#44

Post by lostmsu »

Bitcoin, for being the original.

Ethereum, for providing smart contracts, that enabled many ICOs.

Monero/ZCash for being private.

All other currencies are mostly just clones of the 3 (meaning they can suffer from 50%+1 attacks), or remove the main feature: trustless transactions.

In general, unless a currency provides a novel consensus algorithm, that brings something new to the table, it would actually be better off as a token on one of the above. If it is not, likely it is a scam/money grab.

All other projects do not really need blockchain, with a rare exception.

Disclosure: I own ETH and BTC.

Re: Ask HN: Why is HN so aggressively anti-Bitcoin?

#45

Post by rishirishi »

aeternus wrote: post #36
mabbo wrote: post #18

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…

Very valid criticisms, but they do not apply in all cases. 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 te…

"Untrustworthy governments manipulating currencies" appears to be the problem that decentralized digital currencies are supposedly solving. Instead of this indirection, how about addressing the root problem? Replacing that untrustworthy government with a trustworthy one, changing incentives, or identifying new forms of government/control.

Re: Ask HN: Why is HN so aggressively anti-Bitcoin?

#46

Post by verdverm »

rishirishi wrote: post #45
aeternus wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very valid criticisms, but they do not apply in all cases. 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 te…

"Untrustworthy governments manipulating currencies" appears to be the problem that decentralized digital currencies are supposedly solving. Instead of this indirection, how about addressing the root problem? Replacing that untrustworthy government with a trustworthy one, changing incentives, or identifying new forms of government/control.

We are likely (hopefully) near an inflection point for our current rule systems and their ability to manage today's complexities.

See: Rules for a Flat World

Re: Ask HN: Why is HN so aggressively anti-Bitcoin?

#47

Post by KaiserPro »

Why? because its not the golden saviour.

Firstly its a panopticon, not anonymous

Secondly, it has a transaction rate of Thirdly, its chowing down huge amounts of power for no real gain

Fourthly, its snake oil. Its value comes from its mystique. As a store of wealth its horrifically expensive, as a trading currency, its too slow, you might as well buy gold.

Yes, its has a neat idea behind it, but blockchains are inherently niche. They have very few applications outside exceptionally high value, low transaction, zero trust systems.

Etherium and its smart contracts are inherently flawed, because they are not smart, or contracts. Unless your "contract" has a binary outcome, that is faultlessly measurable, then they aren't for you. The entire point of a contract is that there is a third party capable of issuing binding resolutions, using all available evidence. Etherium gives you none of that, despite the hype.

The only thing that might be worthy of a blockchain is something like the changelog of wikipedia, but then its not worth the spectacular cost. Just keep a couple of mirrors.

Re: Ask HN: Why is HN so aggressively anti-Bitcoin?

#48

Post by jamroom »

bdcravens wrote: post #28
jamroom wrote: post #11

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…

Your comment sums up pretty nicely why HN is against it: you're focused on the price, which is only tangentially connected to the technology. "But rich!" is a pretty shallow argument in the HN world. I would like to point out that I'm in a category that I think many HNers are: I'm critical of Bitcoin, yet I hold some (been involved since 2010, when I mined). Most of my criticisms are legitimate even while the price i…

To be honest I'm not focused on the price - I too have held bitcoin for a long time. This was just my observation having been on HN for a very long time - it just seems the negativity around BC really spiked up in early 2018. As much as we like to think about the tech behind crypto, many users simply look at it as an investment and were pretty depressed when they didn't cash at the 20K high and were hoping for it to go even higher.

Re: Ask HN: Why is HN so aggressively anti-Bitcoin?

#49

Post by pintxo »

dawhizkid wrote: post #42
tastroder wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm still waiting for somebody to come up with that bigger picture after 10 years, all we've gotten instead is a bunch of Ponzi schemes and marketing. It's a shame so many minds were and are wasted on a solution that's not solving a problem it didn't invent (or somebody just falsely attributes to it).

Why don't you think there are serious problems with how central banks around the world control money? Inflation steals from everyday people to varying degrees around the world...look at Zimbabwe and Venezuela. We're all beholden to secret monetary policy decisions made a small handful of people, sometimes just one. The bigger picture, in my mind, is that in the future you should be allowed to choose your citizenship,…

Interestingly money (or control thereof) is not named as one of the fundamental properties of a state [1]. So maybe having an independent currency won't help you much, as long as the state you currently live in holds the monopoly on legitimate use of force (for an example see [2]).

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_(polity) The most commonly used definition is Max Weber's, which describes the state as a compulsory political organization with a centralized government that maintains a monopoly of the legitimate use of force within a certain territory. General categories of state institutions include administrative bureaucracies, legal systems, and military or religious organizations.

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inner_German_border

Re: Ask HN: Why is HN so aggressively anti-Bitcoin?

#50

Post by aeternus »

mabbo wrote: post #43
aeternus wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very valid criticisms, but they do not apply in all cases. 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 te…

> You're right about its ability to be used for illegal activities, however the same could be said for most technology: encryption, the internet. Bitcoins primary purposes today consist of: 1. buying bitcoins in the hope that they're worth more tomorrow, and 2. using bitcoins to buy illegal drugs on the internet. And the only reason #2 is declining is because so many people are doing #1 that it's getting too expensiv…

True there is a lot of speculation today, and transaction fees are much too high to use for everyday expenses. I would say store-of-value is a valid use-case though. The ability of an individual to store wealth in their brain is a useful property. Mostly for those attempting to escape oppressive governments, or "extractive" political institutions.

The transferring of bitcoin is not what is energy intensive. The energy is expended as a "vote" on which of many possible forks should be trusted. Gold definitely has this expenditure as well, military's are often required to secure it, and large amounts of energy and expenditure are required to discover and mine it.

USD is one of the most stable currencies in the world, and the fed has done a good job of maintaining stability. You're right that Bitcoin is no where near as stable as USD, but it is more stable than the currencies of some other countries. There are still ways for a central bank to maintain interest rates even if Bitcoin is widely used. Bitcoin does not prevent fractional reserve banking.

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