Starting a crypto project • Hacker News Board

Re: Starting a crypto project

#31

Post by aabhay » Thu, May 06, 2021, 1:48 PM UTC

berkes wrote: post #13

mkohlmyr wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Investors only care about getting more press releases out so they can pump up the price of their discounted tokens, which have a shortened lockup period relative to something like stocks. It’s almost like a pump-and-dump scheme for investors. "almost" If even useful services are being abused for speculation, it's time to realise the entire space is fundamentally broken. We've already seen massive fraud in the space…

How is this any different from the "web tech" space at large? Where investors will push towards "data-hoarding", privacy-invasion, dark patterns and/or addictiveness or other psychological "abuse", more often than not?

It’s not that different? That’s why the dot com bust happened

Re: Starting a crypto project

#32

Post by user-the-name » Thu, May 06, 2021, 1:48 PM UTC

viraptor wrote: post #30

user-the-name wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Why not blind yourself to relevant context" is not a really a great way to make good decisions.

There has to be a better way to address this because "Why not blind yourself to relevant context" cuts both ways. You said "Always treat every single crypto project as a scam." - but if you ignore all blockchain ideas and still see a healthy and useful product, but ignore it as a scam - that's also blinding yourself to context.

Because a scam product will lie to you in order to look like a healthy and useful product. If you ignore the hints that it is a scam (that it is a cryptocurrency project, where 90% or more of all projects are, in fact, scams), you will be more likely to fall for the lies.

Re: Starting a crypto project

#33

Post by aabhay » Thu, May 06, 2021, 1:49 PM UTC

emmap21 wrote: post #29

From user experience, I personally don't see a strong benefit of crypto. It always looks like a Ponzi Scheme to me. When early users are people driven by greed than productivity, it is a HUGE problem.

Exactly. Nassim Taleb calls it an “open ponzi” — a ponzi that is openly known

Re: Starting a crypto project

#34

Post by grey-area » Thu, May 06, 2021, 1:49 PM UTC

berkes wrote: post #13

mkohlmyr wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Investors only care about getting more press releases out so they can pump up the price of their discounted tokens, which have a shortened lockup period relative to something like stocks. It’s almost like a pump-and-dump scheme for investors. "almost" If even useful services are being abused for speculation, it's time to realise the entire space is fundamentally broken. We've already seen massive fraud in the space…

How is this any different from the "web tech" space at large? Where investors will push towards "data-hoarding", privacy-invasion, dark patterns and/or addictiveness or other psychological "abuse", more often than not?

It could not be more different, to pick one example from web tech with a similar name:

Cryptocurrencies: Efforts to make useful tools are driven out, speculation and fraud are rife.

Cryptography: Used to secure billions of web transactions every day on the web with very little fraud.

Re: Starting a crypto project

#35

Post by golergka » Thu, May 06, 2021, 1:53 PM UTC

Reading that twitter thread, and HN discussion here, I am again reminded how the whole startup scene looked before dotcom crash: insane valuations, lots of scammers, and what little utility there is, it's mostly for illegal means. (If you're saying that there's no real utility in Bitcoin, you really should google Hydra).

But don't you wish you bought Amazon stock right after IPO?

Re: Starting a crypto project

#36

Post by seibelj » Thu, May 06, 2021, 1:54 PM UTC

aabhay wrote: post #33

emmap21 wrote: post #29

From user experience, I personally don't see a strong benefit of crypto. It always looks like a Ponzi Scheme to me. When early users are people driven by greed than productivity, it is a HUGE problem.

Exactly. Nassim Taleb calls it an “open ponzi” — a ponzi that is openly known

Taleb has never revealed the details of his investment portfolio. For someone who screams "I don't care - show me the returns!" it's interesting that he cannot prove that his "black swan" strategy has ever been actionable for his own or anyone's portfolio, how to use his theories to make significant money vs. normal strategies, and any proof that his hedge fund made any money during the dot-com crash which you would figure would be the prime time to make money given his public persona.

Taleb got profiled in the New Yorker, his Black Swan book became popular, and he has rode that and Twitter ever since. I highly recommend people see him for what he is - a public figure that is a bullshitter like anyone else - at least until he shows proof that he is some sort of investor oracle. He has actively sued people who revealed how much money his prior fund lost, as those documents are floating around but he attacks anyone who publicly reveals them.

Re: Starting a crypto project

#37

Post by rapsey » Thu, May 06, 2021, 1:55 PM UTC

So many of the smartest people in the world work in the areas of getting people to click on ads, mining personal information, finance and crypto. Areas that at best have no social value. It is quite depressing.

Re: Starting a crypto project

#38

Post by FlyingSnake » Thu, May 06, 2021, 2:00 PM UTC

This is a brilliant thread and sums up neatly what's wrong with crypto space in general.

> 90% of your telegram/discord are scammers and people asking why price is going down/accusations that you and your entire team should go to jail.

So much this. The greed of get-rich-quick crowd is the biggest hurdle in the success of crypto. Remove the incentives from crypto projects and you'll see how the interest from general public decreases. After all no one cared about BTC until people figured out how to build a ponzi scheme out of it.

Re: Starting a crypto project

#39

Post by jcbrand » Thu, May 06, 2021, 2:00 PM UTC

grey-area wrote: post #34

berkes wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is this any different from the "web tech" space at large? Where investors will push towards "data-hoarding", privacy-invasion, dark patterns and/or addictiveness or other psychological "abuse", more often than not?

It could not be more different, to pick one example from web tech with a similar name: Cryptocurrencies: Efforts to make useful tools are driven out, speculation and fraud are rife. Cryptography: Used to secure billions of web transactions every day on the web with very little fraud.

Cryptography is not web tech.

Re: Starting a crypto project

#40

Post by sendbitcoins » Thu, May 06, 2021, 2:02 PM UTC

aabhay wrote: post #33

emmap21 wrote: post #29

From user experience, I personally don't see a strong benefit of crypto. It always looks like a Ponzi Scheme to me. When early users are people driven by greed than productivity, it is a HUGE problem.

Exactly. Nassim Taleb calls it an “open ponzi” — a ponzi that is openly known

Nassim could argue that its a "greater fool machine", but its literally not a ponzi.