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Ask HN: Why do negative crypto articles dominate on HN?

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Re: Ask HN: Why do negative crypto articles dominate on HN?

#81

Post by monkeydreams »

berberous wrote: post #77
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100%. I think I share a pretty common trait on HN that, if someone gives me marketing speak, I just want to ask "OK, but what does it do ?" There are a lot of promises of the crypto community that are just fundamentally wrong , and when these issues are pointed out, you get lots of non-answers in the form of "OK Boomer". 2 simple examples: 1. Proof-of-work has inherent , fundamental , no-way-to-work-around-it issues…

What "government financial controls" are you referring to? Not everything is black and white. While the government can enact laws, and enforce those with courts and guns, on a practical level it is easier, for example, to flee a hostile country with Bitcoin than with a checking account held at a local bank.

> it is easier, for example, to flee a hostile country with Bitcoin than with a checking account held at a local bank.

This incentives engagement by people who wish to evade legal and regulatory controls. For the most part, in the West, these are not people escaping corruption or autocracy.

Re: Ask HN: Why do negative crypto articles dominate on HN?

#82

Post by aroberge »

laszlo-kiss wrote: post #40
neb_b wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's more that it's delivering in a practical way to people that live in authoritarian governments with currencies that are more unstable than bitcoin. In places where the citizens have to deal with their governments literally trying to steal their hard assets. For those of us who live in countries with a good banking system and mostly stable currencies (which is most of hn), bitcoin isn't a necessity.

It seems Canada matches the 'good banking system' and 'stable currency' attributes, yet didn't the truckers get robbed by the government? When a government is able to engage in financial retribution against its critics, its own citizenry, Bitcoin might be necessary.

> yet didn't the truckers get robbed by the government?

No.

In the end, a few accounts were proactively and temporarily frozen by banks acting on their own, which they could (possibly would) have done due to fintrac [1] requirements.

[1] https://www.fintrac-canafe.gc.ca/intro-eng

Re: Ask HN: Why do negative crypto articles dominate on HN?

#83

Post by urbandw311er »

cbdumas wrote: post #12

Because HN readers skew more technologically literate, people here are on average (slightly) more capable of seeing though the techno-babble hype than on other social media sites. It's not that the financial status quo is held in high regard, rather that HN readers see crypto's empty promises to fix existing issues for what they are: bullshit designed to lure in ever more dumb money.

I came here to write exactly this but you put it so perfectly I did not have to. Thank you for making me feel like I am not alone. Sometimes I do get a bit depressed that maybe I’m the only one who can see all the BS.

Re: Ask HN: Why do negative crypto articles dominate on HN?

#84

Post by monkeydreams »

laszlo-kiss wrote: post #14
version_five wrote: post #4

Many of us were excited when bitcoin came out, about both the technology, and the concept of a currency that sovereigns can't control. The problem is, blockchain / cryptocurrency failed to deliver in any practical way, and as a concept was hijacked by scammers, so the only real hype now is from people trying to bypass securities laws so they can scam you. Find a way I can actually electronically teleport money to pay…

Indeed using Bitcoin for payment does not seem a good fit. However, Bitcoin could be viewed as the world reserve currency that is impossible to debase. This can give stability to all other currencies that are based on it. I think that would be a good thing. It would reduce governments' ability to deficit spend, thus reduce the likelihood of financing armies that can be used for aggression... It would not eliminate wa…

Debasement of currency happens for a few key reasons, most of which are far removed from modern financing in the West. And Bitcoin is, by design, both wasteful in terms of energy, and volatile, which excludes it from any reserve currency status. Remember, these are emergent from the design of the platform and incentives keep Bitcoin from changing.

Deficit spending... sigh. I am sorry, but this idea that deficit spending is irresponsible is often tied to beliefs in gold-backed currencies, hyper inflation being inevitable due to 'money printing' and other misconceptions.

Deficit spending is not bad. Any government who did not deficit spend is basically tying both hands behind their backs. It is an incredibly useful tool that can be used as both to kick-start an ailing economy, or cool an over hot economy through higher interest bond sales. Politicians who insist on no-deficit budgets are generally scammers or populists and, in my experience, will ignore this rule once in power.

The main reason deficit spending is not an issue is that inflation eats away at debt over time. Countries, being effectively immortal, don't have to worry about retirement and so can continue to build wealth and finance debt for centuries to come.

How those loans are spent is a whole different kettle of fish.

Re: Ask HN: Why do negative crypto articles dominate on HN?

#85

Post by smoldesu »

laszlo-kiss wrote: post #74
smoldesu wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I hold that Bitcoin is not the cause of the scams. I wish I could agree, as someone who remains eternally hopeful for crypto. Unfortunately, it's almost certainly not the case. When half a billion dollars goes missing from the US banking system, we can follow the paper trail every time. Criminals never cash out at that scale, especially when they wire money digitally. There's always an account to find, a wire trans…

I'm not saying that the US would tie the dollar to Bitcoin willingly. It would have to do it out of necessity to be able to interact with nations that have resources that the US needs. This of course applies to all countries, not just the US. The dollar as the world reserve currency enables the US to rob the recipients of the value of their holdings after the fact. I don't think any nation is happy about that. It wou…

> I'm not saying that the US would tie the dollar to Bitcoin willingly. It would have to do it out of necessity to be able to interact with nations that have resources that the US needs.

I think the idea that the dollar would be replaced by a faceless, useless currency is pretty unfounded. There's no draw to using Bitcoin, even the digital yuan has a better shot at dethroning the dollar than Bitcoin does. Plus, what makes Bitcoin any better than the hundreds of altcoins that came after it, many of them fixing the problems inherent to Bitcoin?

> This also translates to each country's citizens, they can't be robbed by their government...

Right. Now they can only be robbed by each other and the rapid fluctuation of an asset they have no control over, with no stability guarantees. Every day can be a bubble in the Bitcoin-based world!

> Maybe they like the way things are... Sanctions and all.

They have no choice but to like it. I can assure you that the wealthier Russians who woke up to a post-SWIFT nation didn't "like the way things are", nor was Putin very happy when Apple and Google decided to close up shop domestically. I'm not an extremist proponent of sanctions, but there is definitely value in having a network that can shun a nation when they start committing war crimes.

> Bitcoin is available now (has been for a decade), so what keeps bad actors from using it to purchase arms now

Nothing. As a matter of fact, Bitcoin kicked off a digital arms race to make even more private currencies like Monero which are now the preferred medium for transacting pretty much anything illegal, from drugs to weapons.

Re: Ask HN: Why do negative crypto articles dominate on HN?

#86

Post by RedBeetDeadpool »

cbdumas wrote: post #12

Because HN readers skew more technologically literate, people here are on average (slightly) more capable of seeing though the techno-babble hype than on other social media sites. It's not that the financial status quo is held in high regard, rather that HN readers see crypto's empty promises to fix existing issues for what they are: bullshit designed to lure in ever more dumb money.

Technical literacy has nothing to do with social, or economic literacy.

Bitcoin works exactly as technically scoped. Which part of "A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System" is technobabble? I think its a pretty good choice of words.

> rather that HN readers see crypto's empty promises to fix existing issues for what they are: bullshit designed to lure in ever more dumb money.

I would say rather that HN readers are blinded by their own technical abilities, so much so that they think they are right when it comes to social or economic ones.

Good news is the future years will determine which theory is right. Either its "bullshit designed to lure in ever more dumb money", or its an innovation that created something that provides real value to the economy.

I promise, one of us will be deterministically wrong.

Re: Ask HN: Why do negative crypto articles dominate on HN?

#87

Post by [deleted] »

kradeelav wrote: post #23
version_five wrote: post #4

Many of us were excited when bitcoin came out, about both the technology, and the concept of a currency that sovereigns can't control. The problem is, blockchain / cryptocurrency failed to deliver in any practical way, and as a concept was hijacked by scammers, so the only real hype now is from people trying to bypass securities laws so they can scam you. Find a way I can actually electronically teleport money to pay…

+1, plus the negative effects bitcoin mining are having on the environment as well as the chip shortage.

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Why do negative crypto articles dominate on HN?

#88

Post by larrykubin »

From what I remember, Hacker News enjoyed crypto discussions in its very early days (early 2010's) when it was just bitcoin and a small number of technologists discussing it.

I think I noticed a turning point when it became more mainstream and rebranded to "web3". The nonstop hyping of NFT's and "web3 is the future" and "web3 will make web2 obsolete" takes on Twitter has gotten a bit annoying. This is coming from someone who finds it interesting and has spent some time working in crypto.

Re: Ask HN: Why do negative crypto articles dominate on HN?

#90

Post by girishso »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #54
cbdumas wrote: post #12

Because HN readers skew more technologically literate, people here are on average (slightly) more capable of seeing though the techno-babble hype than on other social media sites. It's not that the financial status quo is held in high regard, rather that HN readers see crypto's empty promises to fix existing issues for what they are: bullshit designed to lure in ever more dumb money.

100%. I think I share a pretty common trait on HN that, if someone gives me marketing speak, I just want to ask "OK, but what does it do ?" There are a lot of promises of the crypto community that are just fundamentally wrong , and when these issues are pointed out, you get lots of non-answers in the form of "OK Boomer". 2 simple examples: 1. Proof-of-work has inherent , fundamental , no-way-to-work-around-it issues…

> The fundamental idea that crypto can "escape" government financial controls is false.

This. I was thinking seriously about investing in bitcoins, but realized governments across the world won’t give up their control over people’s behavior by controlling money supply, either by minting currency or by means of interest rates.

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