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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

#51

Post by knolan »

When I first heard of cryptocurrency I was reminded of when people started idling in Team Fortress 2 to get content drops. It was such a daft cart before the horse approach, but of course those dropped items could be sold for fractions of a penny and people can be dumb.

It also reminded me of Folding at Home. Here people completed by virtue of their personal compute resources.

Of course crypto serves as neither a form of entertainment or scientific discovery and is just a massive waste of resources to create artificial wealth. If only all that computation did something useful.

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

#52

Post by c01n »

marricks wrote: post #40
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 simp…

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

Do you own a car? Have you ever used plastic? How much resources are burned by banks?

> 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

Yea lets also ban computers because they allow cryptocurrencies.

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

Ever heard about Zcash or Monero

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

Yes the tech is not perfect but tons of research (Proof of Stake etc) is happening to make it perfect.

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

#53

Post by friedman23 »

davesque wrote: post #4

What an original and thoughtful take on a topic that really hasn't gotten enough attention on HN up until now.

Would love to get a real time look at the dopamine rush the author got when writing this long winded diatribe. I can smell the self righteousness through my speakers.

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

#54

Post by ArkanExplorer »

friedman23 wrote: post #46

Cryptocurrency allows people to exchange money without dealing with financial institutions or governments. I don't own any as an investment, I use it for playing poker online. That's it. We give too much voice to all these people suffering from hysteria. I suspect the only reason these people are given a voice is because they usually call for more laws to "fix" more things which benefits those in power. edit: Also sp…

That's not really accurate. For most people, they deal with financial institutions directly via the fiat onroads and offroads fror the exchanges.

The fact that you can formally buy, exchange, and cash out of crypto with full banking support gives cryptocoins a veneer of Government support and legitimacy.

The USA bans online gambling and ponzi schemes. Cyrptocoins are worse, because they include a side order of immense waste of electricity and advanced manufactured computer chips, and enable ransomware.

I think this article is completely correct. We, as members of the tech community, have a duty to communicate with the public and democratic representatives that cryptocurrencies are a harmful technology, and the formal exchange of them for fiat should be banned.

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

#56

Post by dang »

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.

Please make your substantive points without name-calling.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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

#57

Post by idlewords »

neither_color wrote: post #45

1. Promise a revolutionary technology ("self-driving cars are coming"!) 2. Use that promise as a pretext to ignore all regulation 3. Make a fortune 4. Drop the tech story The author lost me here. Completely subjective take on what Uber has done. They've completely improved ride-sharing and cab hailing within the whole industry, including non uber users. Depending on what country I travel to, Ill be using a different…

I'm the author of the thread. For what it's worth, I grew up as a refugee whose mother had to find incredibly inventive ways to send USD to family back home, where it was illegal to possess.

What I don't understand about the crypto remittances argument is how the people sending and receiving them are supposed to convert them into spendable currency. My hunch is that a lot of the value of cryptocurrency in those countries comes from the fact that it's been astronomically increasing in value, not that it's a great way to move money around remittance barriers.

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

#58

Post by dang »

greyface- wrote: post #41
paulgdp wrote: post #39

Does someone knows why this tweet was previously flagged on HN? see: https://twitter.com/Pinboard/status/1399094306221166592

The screenshot is of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27335940 >, which is a duplicate of this thread. This thread was previously [flagged] [dead], but is now back to normal. I assume via moderator action?

Yes, but I missed that it was being flagged because it was a dupe. Merging the threads now. Thanks!

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

#59

Post by ben_w »

jbverschoor wrote: post #49

There are a few things that it offers: - “bank accounts” - a universal notary and authenticity service These are building blocks for a number of applications. Most order applications don’t make sense, but hey, everybody needs “bigdata” too

> a universal notary and authenticity service

Cryptocurrencies do not add anything to either beyond what was already done by cryptography.

> “bank accounts”

We already have bank accounts. In banks, hence the name. What’s the average transaction fee for the most popular cryptocurrency? By one of many metrics by which cryptocurrency fails even against the status quo.

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

#60

Post by blurbleblurble »

I can understand peoples' frustration with the artificial scarcity, but would like to see this same energy over the artificial scarcity of housing and free time. The oligopoly of national money systems is currently failing to provide people with basic access to capital. There's nothing intrinsic about cryptocurrency that will necessarily help this or exacerbate it, but the fact that I can get better interest on US dollars by depositing stablecoins on some defi platform, with no gatekeeping, is an indictment of conventional financial institutions more than it is of blockchain tech.
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