Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 72 posts

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

#51

Post by tracker1 »

As a currency, there's maybe some merit in given scenarios. But all of the "me too, I have $CURRENCY$, it's different this time" doesn't lead to a lot of faith.

It's over-hyped in general. Beyond that, often implemented in was suggested that don't really add much value compared to any number of other less complicated solutions.

If you are in a situation, where you have competing parties not aligned who want to ensure a given transaction is applied, and don't mind the implementation of that transaction being completely public, then blockchain might be the right solution.

If you are wanting to use cryptocurrency for financial transactions, then there is some merit, but in many cases suggested it's effectively a corporatist overload control over currency (such as Facebook's currency suggestion). If it's actual bitcoin or a handful of other alt-coins, at least it's decentralized but not as anonymous as many think. It's also, in general difficult to use without some centralization.

In the end, someone will win in this game. My guess is the banks behind the winner (MasterCard and Visa are backing FB's Libre venture). Given the actions against people with unpopular views (even if they are wrong thinking assholes), it terrifies me. Freedom to exchange property, and currency is a stand in for property, is a big deal and at least as big a deal as speech.

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

#52

Post by aeternus »

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.

It would probably be better to address the root problem. Unfortunately replacing governments has a long history of being a very violent and bloody ordeal.

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

#53

Post by brycehamrick »

Reading through the criticisms my main takeaway is that (1) there's a severe lack of empathy for the segment of the world that doesn't have the luxury of a stable currency and developed financial infrastructure, and (2) there's some extreme misconceptions about both the technology and the economics behind Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. If your main point of opposition is that there's too much "hype" you're being contrarian for the sake of being contrarian.

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

#54

Post by majewsky »

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,…

> is that in the future you should be allowed to choose your citizenship, which may be something like a digital country

I heard that wish uttered countless times. Has anyone ever explained how that's actually supposed to work? When nation states are not defined by control over some piece of land, who provides and regulates the infrastructure in a specific physical location? Stuff like policing, medical care, roads, power lines, plumbing, internet cables.

I guess people imagine that these services would just be provided by "some company", but then you're back to square one because that company is just going to become a nation state rather quickly: When you have infrastructure on the ground and no rule of law to back it up, you need to make your own laws and enforce them with your own militia, and boom, all the defining elements of a nation state.

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

#55

Post by majewsky »

smt88 wrote: post #20
cipherpro wrote: post #10

In general people are critical of ideas that are new. HN has an especially critical user-base with technical skills, so attacks can be made on a larger surface area.

1) Blockchain is not "new". It's 10 years old. We went through the hype cycle for it. The thousands of software engineers and mathematicians on HN have had time to assess. 2) HN is for more accepting and enthusiastic about new ideas than the general population.

> Blockchain is not "new". It's 10 years old.

More like 40 years: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merkle_tree

The only thing that's new about blockchain is that on top of being a Merkle tree, it wastes a ton of energy.

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

#56

Post by majewsky »

jamroom wrote: post #48
bdcravens wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Alternative explanation: People just got sick of blockchain after the umpteenth Ponzi scheme makes it onto the frontpage.

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

#57

Post by majewsky »

conductr wrote: post #22
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…

Or if your like me, you bought at $10 held until $20000 and decided was time to sell. That’s when I found out the wallet file format was no longer readable by the bitcoin client. So my coins are in cryptopurgatory. Maybe someday I’ll hire a dude to come help me. But he will probably steal my coins instead.

> That’s when I found out the wallet file format was no longer readable by the bitcoin client.

Another bold innovation from the fintech industry! Imagine if that happened with regular bank accounts.

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

#58

Post by panarky »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #29

I don't think HN is anti-blockchain. HN is anti-hype. Bitcoin and blockchain are not the solutions for every problem; HN can sometimes respect the hustle of "say blockchain so that you get more VC money", but that doesn't mean HN won't criticize the actual technology if it's "X but with Blockchain!!". And HN can go either way on "technical solutions for social/legal problems", so it's at least controversial to sugges…

> HN is anti-hype

This is part of it, but that's faulty reasoning. Just because there's a lot of hype and fraud surrounding the technology and network does not mean that the technology and network is hype or fraud.

Another factor is that we're very talented at finding all the reasons something new won't work, and not so good at understanding how something flawed can still be useful.

Exhibit A is the infamous Dropbox comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224

But fundamentally, most of us, like most people generally, fail to understand what money is. We use it every day, so we all think we understand it. Money seems tangible and valuable, but it's all just a very powerful social construct that's backed by nothing more than collective belief and utility.

The mind rebels at such a flimsy foundation, so many of the criticisms aimed at cryptocurrency are equally valid when aimed at dollars or yen.

Maybe we're doomed to an Eternal September of repeating the same arguments in an endless loop for decades more. Please, let's hear the story of Dutch tulips again, or how dollars are actually backed by taxes or the military or buying cups of coffee.

If we listened to the nattering nabobs of negativism, we'd never invent anything truly novel.

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

#60

Post by andirk »

smt88 wrote: post #26

My take is that it's several things: - Lots of crypto links posted to HN are scams or have no technical merit - No one has come up[1] with a use case for blockchain that actually requires blockchain, outside of cryptocurrency (which is something non-technical people and speculators don't understand or won't admit) - Because of rampant scams and speculation, a lot of online blockchain/crypto conversations have a high…

Vehicle history. Health care history. Or any type of history storage, really. The fact the data is everywhere means it cant be easily destroyed, and doesnt have only one gatekeeper.
Post reply on HN