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Coinbase from YC to DPO

blog.ycombinator.com

171–180 of 883 posts

Re: Coinbase from YC to DPO

#171
post #67
post #35

I'm horrendously worried about crypto gaining more marketshare as long as proof of work crypto remains mainstream. It has significantly worse externalities than just about any company I can think of (including defense contractors/vaping companies), and, if it grows larger before we have clean energy, then we virtually guarantee we won't be able to tackle global warming. We are going to bestow a world that will be sig…

2 links: - In today’s news: https://www.zerohedge.com/crypto/critics-claim-bitcoin-threa... - From earlier: https://pomp.substack.com/p/bitcoin-mining-is-good-for-the-e...

Interesting the mental gymnastics people are going through to defend their interests.

The cryptofolks are trying for gaslighting and Firehose of Falsehoods to cover up for their energy wastage projects.

Re: Coinbase from YC to DPO

#172
post #35

I'm horrendously worried about crypto gaining more marketshare as long as proof of work crypto remains mainstream. It has significantly worse externalities than just about any company I can think of (including defense contractors/vaping companies), and, if it grows larger before we have clean energy, then we virtually guarantee we won't be able to tackle global warming. We are going to bestow a world that will be sig…

The problem is that you are solving the issue from the wrong direction. Like getting people to stop littering, the answer is to regulate the producers of the waste, not the end users doing the wasting. The answer is to lobby governments for green energy, not rail against people doing PoW. People who fold at home are using a lot of energy also.

It’s utter and complete horseshit to compare people doing folding @ home with their spare cycles to BTC power usage.

Re: Coinbase from YC to DPO

#173
post #35

I'm horrendously worried about crypto gaining more marketshare as long as proof of work crypto remains mainstream. It has significantly worse externalities than just about any company I can think of (including defense contractors/vaping companies), and, if it grows larger before we have clean energy, then we virtually guarantee we won't be able to tackle global warming. We are going to bestow a world that will be sig…

A green crypto will not work unless it’s tied to BTC. BTC is basically a ponzi scheme built on top of ponzi schemes on top of ponzi schemes. I too was optimistic about cryptocurrencies back in 2013-14. I thought we’d eventually have a global currency that’s beneficial for all parties involved. But no. There’s simply no interest in doing that. Everyone is just in it for the money.

Re: Coinbase from YC to DPO

#174
post #35

I'm horrendously worried about crypto gaining more marketshare as long as proof of work crypto remains mainstream. It has significantly worse externalities than just about any company I can think of (including defense contractors/vaping companies), and, if it grows larger before we have clean energy, then we virtually guarantee we won't be able to tackle global warming. We are going to bestow a world that will be sig…

Naive related question from a crypto n00b that a lazygoogle failed to answer: I just plotted some Chia. I left my laptop open to do this. Usually I would just put the laptop in power save mode all night. My understanding is that to actually make any Chia, I would need to wait ~1 year with my one 100GB plot with full-power mode enabled. Vs mostly with the case closed, as it is now, while I do other things. And this do…

Proof of space/time is a bad idea and you're right, it will put incentives on manufacture and hoarding of storage space.

Proof of stake involves using staking of cryptocurrency to secure the currency. In theory it avoids the resource usage of the other types of proof. In theory.

Re: Coinbase from YC to DPO

#175

I was an early user of coinbase. I only bought a fraction of a coin because of Paul Graham and YC's reputation. Well .. I was wrong. I was not an active trader. It seems they have closed by account and liquidated the btc within (if there were actually btc in my name). I am deeply disappointed that they don't have a telephone number I can call to help figure out the situation. Pretty disappointed.

yeah right, they likely have the account closed but the assets still held

Re: Coinbase from YC to DPO

#176
post #35

I'm horrendously worried about crypto gaining more marketshare as long as proof of work crypto remains mainstream. It has significantly worse externalities than just about any company I can think of (including defense contractors/vaping companies), and, if it grows larger before we have clean energy, then we virtually guarantee we won't be able to tackle global warming. We are going to bestow a world that will be sig…

People always complain about Bitcoin's environmental effects. What about Gold's, the current financial system's? https://www.zerohedge.com/crypto/critics-claim-bitcoin-threa...

BTC wastes more power as it becomes more valuable.

This is the opposite of other major currencies.

BTC is an environmental travesty.

Re: Coinbase from YC to DPO

#177
post #35

I'm horrendously worried about crypto gaining more marketshare as long as proof of work crypto remains mainstream. It has significantly worse externalities than just about any company I can think of (including defense contractors/vaping companies), and, if it grows larger before we have clean energy, then we virtually guarantee we won't be able to tackle global warming. We are going to bestow a world that will be sig…

The problem is that you are solving the issue from the wrong direction. Like getting people to stop littering, the answer is to regulate the producers of the waste, not the end users doing the wasting. The answer is to lobby governments for green energy, not rail against people doing PoW. People who fold at home are using a lot of energy also.

Yet the Producer of Waste here is coinbase no?

Re: Coinbase from YC to DPO

#178

Bitcoin is an enormously wasteful ponzi scheme mind virus and YC should be ashamed of their involvement in it - not proud. I long for the day (which it seems may come soon!) when cryptocurrencies are outlawed and we can all move on with our lives.

BTC is different. It will never go down from here.

I would say it is a new paradigm!

Re: Coinbase from YC to DPO

#179
post #35

I'm horrendously worried about crypto gaining more marketshare as long as proof of work crypto remains mainstream. It has significantly worse externalities than just about any company I can think of (including defense contractors/vaping companies), and, if it grows larger before we have clean energy, then we virtually guarantee we won't be able to tackle global warming. We are going to bestow a world that will be sig…

I'm skeptical of proof-of-stake, proof-of-work seems like the main innovation of cryptocurrencies that differentiates them from the standard financial industry? If you swap out POW for POS (or worse clearing house type trust orgs like Stellar) then aren't you just putting trust into some incentive based system no different than existing financial systems? Just instead a government you're trusting some other entity. Y…

The biggest argument is the other coin networks that have been running for years in production without proof of work. Nano and EOS have interesting consensus models. Nano manages to remove all inflation and transaction fees and is just a base level currency. EOS has an account fee and you have to rent resources but can do code execution on transactions (smart contracts). They both rely on accounts voting for representatives and have had similar problems with spam. Nano has been running for > 4 years and EOS for > 1 years.

Re: Coinbase from YC to DPO

#180

It will be interesting to see how Coinbase performs compared to a weighted average of the top 3 cryptos directly. Anyway, Coinbase is a good case study on how UX/UI makes all the difference. I'll definitely study them in the future.

I predict a slow, constant increase in value over time, not even going down when cryptocurrencies are going down, as people still want to buy/sell cryptocurrencies when prices go down, so Coinbase will still make a killing as a company no matter what.

> as people still want to buy/sell cryptocurrencies when prices go down

Is this true?

If you look back at the price graphs, there's typically a huge run up every 1-3 years, followed by a crash, followed by another run up 1-3 years later. We're in the middle of a run up.

The run up is when people get excited and buy. After the crash, I would guess that enthusiasm about crypto will lessen, until the next run up.

I think this is somewhat supported by the fact that Coinbase's most recent quarter brought in an insanely higher amount of revenue compared with previous quarters before the latest run up.

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