As Bitcoin Sinks, Industry Startups Are Forced to Cut Back • Hacker News Board

Re: As Bitcoin Sinks, Industry Startups Are Forced to Cut Back

#251

Post by tboyd47 » Thu, Dec 27, 2018, 1:13 AM UTC

twblalock wrote: post #173

mdpopescu wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's fascinating how strongly we believe that now == how things should be. Humans have been using gold as a currency for thousands of years, and yet nowadays everyone seems to believe that nothing but state-backed paper can work as such - and anyone who wants (as you said) an apolitical currency is just weird.

State-backed paper works so much better than gold-backed currency that it's difficult to find economists who advocate returning to the gold standard without being regarded by their colleagues as quacks. Gold currency can hardly be described as apolitical. It has been a major political issue in every country that adopted it. Political issues have included debasement and forgery of coins, bimetallism, deflation vs infl…

I think by "apolitical," they are referring to Bitcoin's property of being censorship resistant, not claiming that politics do not apply to it at all. I prefer to call it a "people's currency."

Re: As Bitcoin Sinks, Industry Startups Are Forced to Cut Back

#252

Post by leppr » Thu, Dec 27, 2018, 1:18 AM UTC

dustingetz wrote: post #233

askmike wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are very wrong, OTC markets are very liquid right now. Also $10 million in BTC isn't very much, you can trade this on the public markets without slipping very much if you really want to.

yes of course they are liquid now , and of course you can trade it in crypto-crypto markets, the question is if you can trade it for USD cash money in a real bank account, eight months ago

There may have been more slippage than your startup was comfortable with, but the OTC market has always been liquid enough for startups to liquidate ETH/BTC from ICOs, even in the middle of the bear market.

Re: As Bitcoin Sinks, Industry Startups Are Forced to Cut Back

#253

Post by ramontayag » Thu, Dec 27, 2018, 1:29 AM UTC

cageface wrote: post #225

minimaxir wrote: post #6

At what price will the Bitcoin death spiral occur? (i.e. when it costs more to produce/handle Bitcoin than the revenue generated, so best move is to just exit the crypto industry).

I think the problem is that BTC has been through a very public boom and bust cycle so the public at large is now very wary and a lot of new regulations are coming in. Blockchain needs to start solving some actual man in the street kind of problems soon if it's going to retain any mindshare.

I think it is solving some man-in-the-street problems for people who aren't in countries with good financial systems.

Re: As Bitcoin Sinks, Industry Startups Are Forced to Cut Back

#254

Post by cc439 » Thu, Dec 27, 2018, 1:29 AM UTC

r00fus wrote: post #241

cageface wrote: post #206

2018 is the year that we learned that complex social problems can not be solved by technology. From the political weaponization of social media to the collapse of the ICO market we've seen that the techno-utopian dream is largely just that, a dream. Social change takes hard work and the slow building of consensus, not just clever code. We have seen, however, that we can do a lot of damage to the social fabric with po…

> ...so I think the era of the unregulated internet is sadly coming to a close. We really have nobody to blame but ourselves. You had me until there. Who financed the utopian bullshit? We need to regress on this until we can find the culprit and watchlist those (types of) sources of funding. As founders you can refuse (or be highly critical of) funding by e.g. Saudi Arabia or Russian billionaires. As an early enginee…

>Who financed the utopian bullshit?

That's not a question you can answer on the mainstream open internet these days.

Re: As Bitcoin Sinks, Industry Startups Are Forced to Cut Back

#255

Post by leppr » Thu, Dec 27, 2018, 1:32 AM UTC

jsgo wrote: post #180

mdpopescu wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's fascinating how strongly we believe that now == how things should be. Humans have been using gold as a currency for thousands of years, and yet nowadays everyone seems to believe that nothing but state-backed paper can work as such - and anyone who wants (as you said) an apolitical currency is just weird.

I personally have no issue with someone wanting "apolitical currency" but it seems silly to chastise (not saying you're doing that here, seems closer to dancing close to that line but not going over) people for preferring the status quo. Why? If someone robs the bank that holds my money, it is insured and it is recovered. If a Mt. Gox happens with crypto, anything I have in it is gone. Also, there's some comfort in a…

The problem is that people adopting Bitcoin activates at least two defensive behavior triggers in other people (1. devaluation of the fiat currencies they are holding, 2. jealousy towards early adopters getting rich for doing nothing).

As such, there are few people that are really neutral on cryptocurrencies and you get the kind of scam talk we see in this thread as popular consensus.

Re: As Bitcoin Sinks, Industry Startups Are Forced to Cut Back

#256

Post by leppr » Thu, Dec 27, 2018, 1:52 AM UTC

cageface wrote: post #250

leppr wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So "open" = "toxic"? Or is it another aspect of Facebook and Bitcoin that you're criticizing? I fail to see another common characteristic.

Openness is not the issue. I think algorithmic feeds are the root of a lot of the problems. They tend over time to favor sensational and negative content because that's the easiest way to drive engagement. Valuing "engagement" over all other metrics has caused a lot of the problems with this generation of social platforms IMO. I guess I'd describe Bitcoin as more naive than toxic. The failure of its designers to see…

Getting off-topic, but don't you think it's interesting how parallel the main problem of modern "democracies" is? The quinquennial election game is purely about engagement, over all other metrics.

To come back to Bitcoin, I certainly agree that it is naive, but I don't see it as a failure.

It's too simplistic to be a replacement for fiat currencies or be the new world currency™, yes. But it had to be simple. Before even thinking about macroeconomics or social impact, it had to prove it could function at all as a trustless medium of exchange. It did so very well for a long time, now scaling the model to the world is another problem.

Re: As Bitcoin Sinks, Industry Startups Are Forced to Cut Back

#257

Post by hannasanarion » Thu, Dec 27, 2018, 1:59 AM UTC

Joe-Z wrote: post #221

Nasrudith wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that the biggest issue is frankly bullshit. Bullshit in the sense of complete lack of sensitivity to the truth so long as it leads to the outcome they want. Technology isn't at fault here but bullshit is on so many levels it isn't funny. The stupid internet rumors and social media manipulation? Bullshit because they want to influence people - they don't care if it is true or not. Company valuations? They don'…

Indeed. I found GP's comment quite insightful until it suddenly called for regulation on the internet. Why would that change anything when we just established that not the technology but learned behaviours are the problem? Maybe 2018 was the year that showed us that we finally need to come to terms with the fact that - yes - there are enough resources for everybody and the people who control the bulk of them still wa…

People aren't going to spontaneously stop profit seeking at the expense of society. If things are going to change, the change needs to be coordinated. That's what government is for.

Re: As Bitcoin Sinks, Industry Startups Are Forced to Cut Back

#258

Post by ramontayag » Thu, Dec 27, 2018, 2:03 AM UTC

Nursie wrote: post #129

jMyles wrote: post #66

The discussion of blockchain tech on HN is puzzling to me. On the matter of value: I suspect that if we find ourselves able to send a message back in time two years (when BTC was less than $1,000 USD) and report that the price is now over $3,700, that we'll find this message to be met with an understanding that this is, at least, a validation of the use of blockchain tech as a store of value. I suspect that if we des…

> On the matter of value: I suspect that if we find ourselves able to send a message back in time two years (when BTC was less than $1,000 USD) and report that the price is now over $3,700, that we'll find this message to be met with an understanding that this is, at least, a validation of the use of blockchain tech as a store of value So just ignore everything in between? Yah, sounds great... > I suspect that if we…

It's actually useful in places that don't have great financial access. I'm guessing your estimate of "very few people" is from a place that has good access?

Re: As Bitcoin Sinks, Industry Startups Are Forced to Cut Back

#259

Post by hannasanarion » Thu, Dec 27, 2018, 2:06 AM UTC

leppr wrote: post #255

jsgo wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I personally have no issue with someone wanting "apolitical currency" but it seems silly to chastise (not saying you're doing that here, seems closer to dancing close to that line but not going over) people for preferring the status quo. Why? If someone robs the bank that holds my money, it is insured and it is recovered. If a Mt. Gox happens with crypto, anything I have in it is gone. Also, there's some comfort in a…

The problem is that people adopting Bitcoin activates at least two defensive behavior triggers in other people (1. devaluation of the fiat currencies they are holding, 2. jealousy towards early adopters getting rich for doing nothing). As such, there are few people that are really neutral on cryptocurrencies and you get the kind of scam talk we see in this thread as popular consensus.

In me it triggers loss aversion: I don't want to put my money in a uninsured security that could be stolen or lost at any moment with no recourse.

Re: As Bitcoin Sinks, Industry Startups Are Forced to Cut Back

#260

Post by shemnon42 » Thu, Dec 27, 2018, 2:17 AM UTC

hannasanarion wrote: post #257

Joe-Z wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. I found GP's comment quite insightful until it suddenly called for regulation on the internet. Why would that change anything when we just established that not the technology but learned behaviours are the problem? Maybe 2018 was the year that showed us that we finally need to come to terms with the fact that - yes - there are enough resources for everybody and the people who control the bulk of them still wa…

People aren't going to spontaneously stop profit seeking at the expense of society. If things are going to change, the change needs to be coordinated. That's what government is for.

The change needs to be coordinated, but how do you coordinate action between multiple actors when some of those actors are nefarious and actually acting against the change?