It's time for us in the tech world to speak out about cryptocurrency • Hacker News Board

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

#101

Post by ashtonkem » Sun, May 30, 2021, 9:02 PM UTC

idlewords wrote: post #95

ashtonkem wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bitcoin didn’t regress, what actually happened is that its fundamental flaws ended up eventually dominating whatever early enthusiasm allowed them to be ignored. It was never going to work, for a variety of reasons that were incredibly apparent at the time. “Why did it regress” is much less interesting than “why did anyone ever fall for this?”

Sure, but a lot of early technologies move laterally in some unexpected direction, and it was reasonable to expect blockchain stuff to do the same. Maybe the original idea could never fly (even in 2008 you didn't have to be a genius to see that evading financial controls would be the chief use of a working cryptocurrency). But likely someone would find a really neat twist on it and find the blockchain equivalent of V…

There was no reason to believe it would move laterally, for both technical and social reasons.

First, the underpinnings of Bitcoin are ideological, namely in Austrian economics. This means that any change that caused any inflation would be socially resisted.

Second, most of the issues with Bitcoin stem from the lack of a central authority to do things like chargebacks and handle conflict resolution. It is not possible to solve many of the issues of Bitcoin without a central authority, and that was not going to happen for obvious reasons.

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

#102

Post by dang » Sun, May 30, 2021, 9:02 PM UTC

ashtonkem wrote: post #69

char8 wrote: post #62

Seems lobsided. Sure Bitcoin suffers from high fees, but it serves well as a savings account. We've also started accepting litecoin payments on our site: I set it up once, and forgot about it. With Paypal it's a never-ending rigamarole. I've recently closed my bank account, and started using something a bit more up-to-date (Revolut). I believe Bitcoin is the single biggest innovation driver in the tech sector right n…

> I believe Bitcoin is the single biggest innovation driver in the tech sector right now Not gonna lie, I laughed at this.

Can you please make your substantive points without swipes? It's hard for conversations like this to stay interesting and this sort of exchange tends to push them over a cliff.

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

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

#103

Post by tinyhouse » Sun, May 30, 2021, 9:03 PM UTC

dadoge wrote: post #86

Bitcoin is giving people in hyperinflation environments like Nigeria, Argentina, Turkey an out to their oppressive and corrupt govt banking system. If one looks at gold and asks themselves “why is gold worth 11 trillion dollars today?” How did it, over centuries and centuries obtain such a status? Bitcoin has better properties than gold does. It’s more scarce, scarcity means predictability, and predictability gives r…

Yeah sure, every time there's a crisis bitcoin loses 50% of its value. That's indeed such a great protection from inflation...

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

#104

Post by ceilingcorner » Sun, May 30, 2021, 9:03 PM UTC

dang wrote: post #56

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

Edited

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

#105

Post by xpe » Sun, May 30, 2021, 9:03 PM UTC

Geee wrote: post #75

The author clearly doesn't understand Bitcoin at all and Bitcoin has been already discussed for ten years by everyone in the tech world. His opinion is his own, not 'us in the tech world'.

> The author clearly doesn't understand Bitcoin at all

Putting aside softer claims, writing "at all" is an exaggeration. Would you care to moderate your opinion or at least elaborate? Please point out area(s) where you think the author is mistaken?

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

#106

Post by chrisco255 » Sun, May 30, 2021, 9:03 PM UTC

Tarq0n wrote: post #77

char8 wrote: post #62

Seems lobsided. Sure Bitcoin suffers from high fees, but it serves well as a savings account. We've also started accepting litecoin payments on our site: I set it up once, and forgot about it. With Paypal it's a never-ending rigamarole. I've recently closed my bank account, and started using something a bit more up-to-date (Revolut). I believe Bitcoin is the single biggest innovation driver in the tech sector right n…

Bitcoin is more like a security, with characteristics more akin to rare metals than a savings account. It's entirely unfit for that purpose.

That makes it a commodity, not a security. Securities are very specific things described by the SEC Act and the Howey test.

But if you don't like Bitcoin you can use USD based cryptos like DAI or USDC to transact and conduct peer-to-peer lending, purchase art work, save with higher yield, provide liquidity in a peer to peer marketplace, etc. By no means do you have to choose Bitcoin.

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

#107

Post by meowkit » Sun, May 30, 2021, 9:04 PM UTC

skrebbel wrote: post #98

meowkit wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm pretty sure it's nothing but a pyramid scheme, but I always gave the enthusiasts the benefit of the doubt. So go find out? I’m quoting you here for the “pretty sure” part. Do a deep dive. I’be done deep dives on Bitcoin, Ethereum, Cardano, Monero, Nano, Iota, Hyperledger, BSC, Uniswap, Tether, Chainlink and cursory glances at dozens of other coins/tokens. I’m a tech guy. I work on an operating system/embedded s…

Why can't the tech be neat/super cool and primarily be used to run a scam? I mean bittorrent is neat tech as well but it's still primarily used for piracy. Doing a deep dive into how bittorrent works doesn't suddenly change the fact that 99.9% of torrents out there are violating somebody's intellectual property. All I'm saying is, there's lots of super neat tech out there that's primarily used for not-so-super-neat s…

I disagree with the characterization that the primary use is a scam. That’s like saying the primary use of email is to receive ads and phishing mail.

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

#108

Post by [deleted] » Sun, May 30, 2021, 9:04 PM UTC

chrisco255 wrote: post #70

skrebbel wrote: post #50

These two resonated with me: > A lot of intelligent observers look at cryptocurrency, see that it makes no sense, and reasonably infer that they must be missing something profound on the technical level. Tech culture has a nice tradition of not deriding new ideas, but we need to break it here and speak out > [non-tech people] don't see the huge silent majority of tech people who know it's a scam. That's on us It is o…

It's not. It's an economy. If you haven't engaged with the technology or even have a surface level understanding of traditional financial tooling like derivatives, options, futures, precious metals trading, etc. then you shouldn't parrot what someone on Twitter says. Take the time to understand the existing system and how smart contracts work and some of the blue chip protocols like https://aave.com/ or https://chain…

[deleted]

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

#109

Post by ArkanExplorer » Sun, May 30, 2021, 9:05 PM UTC

dadoge wrote: post #86

Bitcoin is giving people in hyperinflation environments like Nigeria, Argentina, Turkey an out to their oppressive and corrupt govt banking system. If one looks at gold and asks themselves “why is gold worth 11 trillion dollars today?” How did it, over centuries and centuries obtain such a status? Bitcoin has better properties than gold does. It’s more scarce, scarcity means predictability, and predictability gives r…

Bitcoin is giving people in Turkey an opportunity to be scammed $2billion: https://www.afr.com/markets/currencies/trader-flees-turkey-w...

From my experience living in a 2nd world country, the people involved with buying Cryptocurrencies are typically young males working in IT, who proceed to waste their time, money and energy.

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

#110

Post by xpe » Sun, May 30, 2021, 9:06 PM UTC

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…

> Hacker news is holistically anti cryptocurrency.

First, your use of "holistically" doesn't make sense to me.

> ho·lis·ti·cal·ly | ˌhōˈlistik(ə)lē/ | > adverb

> mainly Philosophy in a way that is characterized by comprehension of the parts of something as intimately interconnected and explicable only by reference to the whole: the damage caused by unethical behavior needs to be examined holistically.

> • Medicine in a way that treats the whole person, taking into account mental and social factors, rather than just the symptoms of a disease: he has been treated holistically for a heart murmur.

Second, are you characterizing the people on HN as being mostly or completely against cryptocurrency? This sounds like anecdotage. Remember, not everyone with an opinion broadcasts it.