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It's time for us in the tech world to speak out about cryptocurrency

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Re: It's time for us in the tech world to speak out about cryptocurrency

#31

Post by ceilingcorner »

sp332 wrote: post #25
ceilingcorner wrote: post #16

I don’t understand the constant criticism crypto gets. It isn’t the sort of thing that can be stopped at this point. If you don’t like it, support better alternatives or create your own. That’s really the only solution here. I don’t say this to be sarcastic. The train has already left the station.

Just because something is growing doesn't mean it's above criticism, or regulation.

But this link isn’t criticism. It’s a quasi-religious two minutes hate, as every single topic on crypto inevitably turns into.

I guess it’s just a reaction to the constant hype being pushed by the crypto world. As a mostly neutral observer, I really don’t get it.

Regardless, this isn’t the point I was making. Crypto cannot be stopped. At best, you’ll have regulations against PoW mining.

Re: It's time for us in the tech world to speak out about cryptocurrency

#32

Post by sp332 »

john_alan wrote: post #13

Hacker news is holistically anti cryptocurrency. Which disappoints me. It has virtues. As someone who works in applied Cryptography and has also worked for the European Central Bank, we need “crypto”. 1) seigniorage is an abused privilege. Source: US debt ceiling at 27TRN. 2) permissionless money has value, I cannot send more than 5k a day using my bank. I can send any amount using crypto. I also don’t need two utili…

That limit sounds low, e.g. Chase Bank allows wire transfers out of $100,000 per day for individuals.

Re: It's time for us in the tech world to speak out about cryptocurrency

#34

Post by idlewords »

kemonocode wrote: post #22
hilbertseries wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What’s the advantage of cryptocurrency over mpesa?

I can use cryptocurrencies from anywhere in the world, I can't use M-Pesa unless I'm in one of the few countries it operates, and even then I'd be at Vodafone's whims. Truly it may serve similar needs (money for the under/unbanked) but the scope is not nearly the same.

How do you move cryptocurrency back and forth to local currency you can spend?

Re: It's time for us in the tech world to speak out about cryptocurrency

#35

Post by Tomte »

pavlov wrote: post #21

“But it’s like the early Internet!” shouted the Emperor’s coinholders. “The Internet wasn’t yet useful a mere, um, thirteen years after its invention either.” I can see how people in their twenties would fall for this argument because they can’t remember. The reality is that the internet was immediately extremely interesting (either useful or fun) for practically everyone who got access. Email and ftp alone were kill…

> There were things to download, people to meet

Same with LAN parties. I was thrilled to buy my first network card, and a tee connector.

Even the fact that the first half of the day was mostly wasted with trying to get IPX and NetBEUI to work and TCP and UDP, and promising each other that we would not change anything until the next LAN party, and of course next time nothing worked either at first try. But it was fun nonetheless.

(The second half of the first day was obviously swapping all those music and video files)

Re: It's time for us in the tech world to speak out about cryptocurrency

#36

Post by beaner »

This doesn't read as a particularly intelligent thread. There are no interesting insights here, at least not anything that's new and hasn't already been debated/debunked/pushed back on, before.

Seems like one of those tweetstorms where people perceive it to be saying something worthwhile because it's long and is said with adamancy.

Re: It's time for us in the tech world to speak out about cryptocurrency

#37

Post by kemonocode »

idlewords wrote: post #34
kemonocode wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can use cryptocurrencies from anywhere in the world, I can't use M-Pesa unless I'm in one of the few countries it operates, and even then I'd be at Vodafone's whims. Truly it may serve similar needs (money for the under/unbanked) but the scope is not nearly the same.

How do you move cryptocurrency back and forth to local currency you can spend?

LocalBitcoins works just fine for me.

Re: It's time for us in the tech world to speak out about cryptocurrency

#40

Post by marricks »

c01n wrote: post #27

> What we especially need to stress to regulators... Lol. Talking like that obviously shows that cryptocurrencies are not for you. This tech has cypherpunk and crypto-anarchy roots, regulators/governments are not the intended users for this tech, even if you like it or not. If you do not view cryptocurrencies from an cypherpunk perspective you will not see their social benefits, it is an entire way of life an alterna…

I think that cyberpunk dream died when billionaires and VC got involved and Bitcoin (and other) currencies skyrocketed in price from millions of people playing crypto-lottery.

Strikes against it:

- It's burning a massive amount of resources and that is just increasing

- I don't have the stats but I imagine the exponential growth in Bitcoin/coin prices is mainly from people using it as a pyramid scheme/casino not simple an upticl in usage

- A transaction is still pretty trackable (we know where the mt gox money is, yeah?)

- Over 60% of bitcoin mining takes place in one country on specialized hardware, not terribly decentralized anymore

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