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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

#331

Post by Allezxandre »

shafyy wrote: post #263
bo1024 wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, my understanding is that cryptocurrencies are having impact in developing countries. They can address hyperinflation, access to financial services, general friction in exchanging money etc.

Do you have a source for this? For example, Erdogan flat out banned businesses from accepting cryptocurrency when he saw that people were putting their money in cryptos because of the inflation of the Turkish Lira. It's not like cryptos are a stable currency, either. Question: Wouldn't it make more sense for people in develping countries to buy more stable assets or currencies, or is it not possible to that because o…

One example from last month: https://decrypt.co/69205/cardano-developer-iohk-strikes-part...

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

#332

Post by jameshart »

judge2020 wrote: post #129
shafyy wrote: post #96

The issue of the "promise" of cryptos (and blockchain in general) is that it tries to solve problems that are not tech problems. They are mostly political/governmental problems that are solved by a working democracy. In countries where there is no working democracy, the dictator won't give two shits if this NFT proves that you own this piece of land before taking it from you. Blockchain in itself is not something tha…

If everything is considered ‘owned’ based on NFTs, and other stuff relies on that to verify ownership and provide services, then the government talking the physical land only gives them the utility of the land itself, and not the other stuff (eg. The ability to sell the property) - plus, the government superseding a fictional blockchain-backed real estate market is likely to cause a market crash. Blockchains and NFTs…

Claiming you have the ability to sell some property when all you actually have is an NFT that purports to represent ownership of the property, but the property itself is in the hands of a government that doesn’t recognize that NFT is going to have a significant impact on the sale price you can get for that NFT.

Property rights are always going to rest on the rule of law, and in places where the rule of law is strong, property title law is well established and doesn’t need a distributed ledger to disrupt it. Disrupting it would generally be bad.

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

#333

Post by ertian »

csande17 wrote: post #314
fleddr wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This huge silent majority that know it is a scam doesn't exist. Crypto is so large, complex and fast-moving that it takes thousands of hours to grasp. If I'd make a list of 100 questions regarding crypto, an exam so to speak, I am reasonably sure that this silent majority can't even answer 5% of the questions. Because they don't know crypto. At all.

Count me as one of the people in the silent majority. (Well, not exactly "silent" because I'm talking about it now in Hacker News, but the things I write don't usually reach the general public.) You're right that cryptocurrency enthusiasts are always generating new work and coming up with new ideas. Actually, they do this a lot more easily than other domains, because the fact that their entire field is a scam means t…

It does not rest on any of those assumptions. Those are just characteristics of the very first implementation.

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

#334

Post by Zababa »

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 wouldn't agree that piracy is the same thing as a scam, so the analogy doesn't really works. When people download a bittorrent client, most of the time they know exactly what they're doing and that's what they're going to get. No scam here. The thing is that bittorrent moves information, and crypto moves money, and there's a bigger chance of things being a scam when it's about money. Maybe something like religions and sects would be a good analogy? Religions will bring you lots of information you may not care about, and sects will try to scam you of your money. But some religions have mandatory donations so the analogy isn't perfect.

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

#335

Post by hervature »

dadoge wrote: post #198
zx2391 wrote: post #183

I read a Blockchain book from O'Reilly in 2015, when it came out and it left me with the distinct impression that this "technology" is vaporous. It could do anything, yet, almost no examples to try out, let alone real-world successes. Over time I witnessed many "new" things, and the ones which stick typically have a specific aura to them, like a 10x simplification, or speedup or reduction in "noise". These things are…

Tell that to people in Nigeria, Venezuela and Argentina that have no control over their money. In Venezuela there is absolutely absurd inflation number there: like over 1,000%. Argentina it’s over 30% each year for several years. Bitcoin is a tool against oppressive governments

You should actually talk to people from those countries. The minority of them are doing anything substantial in crypto. Only those fortunate enough to transact with a foreign entity. The others use the much more robust system of bartering.

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

#336

Post by Geee »

EliRivers wrote: post #170
Geee wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah. I think these HN threads are either manipulated, or HN is full of idiots. Not sure which is more likely. Cryptocurrency is maybe the most important innovation is human history.

Cryptocurrency is maybe the most important innovation is human history Electricity? The wheel? Money? Sulfa drugs? Spoken language? Counting? Agriculture? Written language? There's a long, long list and to put cryptocurrency on it seems awfully hubristic.

Money that can't be monopolized is more important than those. The whole human history is about money and how someone monopolized it and started extracting value from it, to get more powerful, to fund wars and destruction. Bitcoin can't be monopolized and enables humanity to rise on a completely new level.

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

#337

Post by rfd4sgmk8u »

I have had banks stealing my funds for years -- be it financial providers eating up my first 401k contributions in excessive fees, be it the banks that charged me $2 every time I used an ATM, be it the random charges unauthorized charges that the bank pulled from my account...

Then there is the watching all my adult life as assets grow more expensive and further out of reach, a debt treadmill emerges to ensure the continued struggle of the middle class lest they try to escape their position.

This is in the west. I can't imagine the shenanigans banks play on folks in less regulated jurisdictions. Maciej, I'm sorry that you refuse to get it. We need hard money to prevent the value loss of the time-store fruits of our labor. We need an explicit spend model to prevent unauthorized charges. We need a way to prevent the custodian of funds from helping themselves to your pocket. Better yet, we need a digital store of value that does not require a trusted third party. And we need to make sure special interests can't dictate who is able to spend their money.

For this, it is the most valuable thing on the planet.

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

#338

Post by tuesdayrain »

e9 wrote: post #246
sneak wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This all falls apart if bitcoin isn't a scam. The burden of proof lies with those accusing it. Additionally, there is no "silent majority" in tech that think it is a scam; the author has invented this.

It’s both. It’s not a scam in a sense that it is a store of value(digital property) to a small degree. But a scam in a sense that it can’t power every day transactions or day to day needs etc

>But a scam in a sense that it can’t power every day transactions or day to day needs etc

It's not supposed to. No need for a permanent ledger to store cheap day-to-day transactions.

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

#339

Post by gfodor »

Oddly enough I’m the diametric opposite: skeptical of crypto’s long term value up until recently (but before the last big run up) - I now see it is a a fundamental hedge against totalitarianism among other things. Westerners can fail to grasp the potential benefits due to the privilege of the time and place they were born. At least for now.

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

#340

Post by pavlov »

mthoms wrote: post #261
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…

The "early internet" comparison is usually presented when talking about how clumsy and slow the technology is in its current state. The argument is certainly not presented in the context of how "fun" it is. There's nothing "fun" about finance (and there never will be). In the context of technological state (how brittle and obtuse the tools are), the comparison between the two is right on the money IMHO. I once config…

Nerds, early adopters — whatever you want to call them, the online behaviors they pioneered became mainstream.

In contrast not even nerds are actually using Bitcoin or Ethereum for anything that interacts with the real world. All proposed applications are self-referential shell games like NFTs, staking schemes, etc.

If this is a superior platform for finance, where’s the real economic activity? Handwaving about “probably they use it in Venezuela” doesn’t cut it.

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