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

#401

Post by tuesdayrain » Sun, May 30, 2021, 10:36 PM UTC

eli wrote: post #370

tuesdayrain wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're not very good at experimenting then. I first bought BTC in 2013 because of a legitimate purpose: to pay for online goods (legal software) to a seller who wanted to completely eliminate any risk of chargebacks.

And 8 years later the fees no longer make it viable for even that niche use case.

Surely you recognize that this is a bad faith argument? The average transaction fee today is around $8 USD. That's a small price to pay for knowing that a transaction is set in stone.

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

#402

Post by cratermoon » Sun, May 30, 2021, 10:36 PM UTC

dumbfounder wrote: post #249

idlewords wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand the belief that any of this takes power from corporations. If you look at NFTs right now, big participants include the NBA, Sotheby's, and a whole lot of venture capital. What's the dynamic that's going to shut them out as they become more lucrative?

Creators of content controlling that content without the need for big corp involvement, which can be corporations yes, but also the little people. This could be access/distribution, royalties, licensing, and more.

The big corporations have binders full of techniques to take control of content from the little creators and claim it for themselves. A popular one right now goes: A one-person operation making and selling designs could find their online work subject to pointless DMCA complaints or even threats. They'd crumble at even the threat of a big corporation actually suing for infringement. Now the big company copies the individual's designs, and collects rent on something it didn't create.

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

#403

Post by manfredz » Sun, May 30, 2021, 10:37 PM UTC

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 the transaction fees that get distributed to all the other coin holders that makes it a pyramid or MLM scheme.

In the case of Bitcoin, originally, every Bitcoin holder would also be able to mine with their own computer and receive transaction fees. This has since changed, so now it's only the miners with specific equipment that benefit from the transaction fees.

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

#404

Post by craftinator » Sun, May 30, 2021, 10:37 PM UTC

lottin wrote: post #325

Graffur wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are the fundamental flaws you're talking about? (I assume throughput but I'll wait for your reply). What do you mean by saying people fell for "this"? I assume you mean it's a scam but I will wait for your reply.

> What are the fundamental flaws you're talking about? For a payments system, the fact that all transactions are final is pretty bad. I'd say this, by itself, makes the system unusable in the real world.

I get the feeling that the underpinnings of your argument points are based on not being very familiar or well read with the technology around Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, especially Ethereum. Your coming at it from an end user or armchair quarterback point of view, not someone who actually does development in that space; if you did, you'd know that one of the reasons Ethereum was created was to provide a digital escrow mechanism, and has been around for over 5 years. So no, your example isn't based on reality.

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

#405

Post by megameter » Sun, May 30, 2021, 10:37 PM UTC

fleddr wrote: post #279

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…

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.

Twitter crypto-haters essentially act as the "anti" to the crypto-bro "pro".

Both repeat the same memes to each other in a self-reenforcing echo chamber. The underlying link is to political consensus. Leftist-socialist Twitter is eager to say that socialism is good because Bitcoin is bad. Trumpist-conservativist Twitter loves to say that Bitcoin is good because Joe Biden is bad. Nihilistic crypto permabulls are so hyped up that they jump into every thread to defend their favorites and their negativity is usually limited to the dismissive "sorry you want to be poor".

It never really goes anywhere. Someone comes up with a new crypto narrative - adoption, value, environmental impacts, human interest - and it's all you hear about for the next month. If you try to find good information you are presented with an opaque wall of obvious scams, not as obvious scams, and people who believe or do not believe in them.

There is interesting stuff going on, but the people studying it carefully are so hard to find through all the noise now.

It's easier when there's a bear market.

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

#406

Post by SamBam » Sun, May 30, 2021, 10:38 PM UTC

meowkit wrote: post #64

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…

> 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…

> Nothing about blockchains, DLTs, crypto, at its core is a scam to me.

I think everyone is talking past each other, because no one's exactly defining what the "scam" is, so you're talking about different things.

I don't think anyone's suggesting that, say, deep in the BitCoin code there is some algorithm giving Satoshi Nakamoto a dollar for evert transaction.

On the other hand, I believe that the vast majority of buyers are buying simply because they hope that someone else will buy at a higher price tomorrow, or next year.

This causes everyone to cheer-lead about how everyone else needs to buy or HODL, because they simply want to drive the price up.

For me, personally, I'd say this is what I'd call a "scam," in the sense that a MLM company is a "scam": that the motivation of the majority of people extolling the virtues of buying crypto tends to be simply personal enrichment.

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

#407

Post by cbzbc » Sun, May 30, 2021, 10:38 PM UTC

kragen wrote: post #381

Tarq0n wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reminds me of the old adage about technical solutions to social problems. Cryptocurrency isn't going to un-fail these states, all it does is enable the wealthy to evade currency controls and reinforce the downward spiral. If someone lives in an oppressive regime it's governmental change they need, not worldwide abandonment of financial regulation just so the lucky few can escape.

The wealthy can already evade currency controls; that's what it means to be wealthy, at least in a place that has them. Bitcoin and similar systems enable the poor to evade currency controls, as well as frankly confiscatory regulation like the bank-deposit-conversion episode I mentioned, precisely because it's accessible to everyone , not just the lucky few. I've already addressed your point about governmental change…

How does someone who is poor convert their local - non dollar denominated - currency to bitcoins?

The reality is that it's just another means for the wealthy (and criminals) to evade currency controls.

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

#408

Post by jfrunyon » Sun, May 30, 2021, 10:38 PM UTC

pa7x1 wrote: post #367

idlewords wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a hash tree with a vape cloud around it, not quantum chromodynamics. I think most people on this technical forum understand it just fine.

The hard part is not the data structure behind it (Merkle tree) but the economics. An entirely new branch of economics has spun of it and it's far from trivial.

"People had to invent entirely new ways to explain it because our existing models didn't work" isn't a very good argument for it being real.

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

#409

Post by lifty » Sun, May 30, 2021, 10:38 PM UTC

fleddr wrote: post #264

I could waste a huge amount of time refuting the author's points, but will make it more of a meta comment. Crypto is vast, complex, and inherently not suitable for binary thinking. I've studied the space for months and have come to the conclusion that crypto is two-sided in almost every aspect. Many/most coins are speculative, which you can associate with words like "greed" and "casino". Yet also provide wealth savin…

This is the most reasonable comment in this whole thread. It’s good to acknowledge the current mania and the type of unethical behavior it attracts, but it would be intellectually lazy to dismiss the whole field.

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

#410

Post by cratermoon » Sun, May 30, 2021, 10:38 PM UTC

dschooh wrote: post #299

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…

> Depending on what country I travel to, Ill be using a different app like Grab or Didi or a local taxi app that were all made possible by Uber's initial disruption. Local Taxi hailing apps were first. Uber adopted this and their disruption of many local markets happened only after offering cheaper alternatives by burning money.

I worked on a short-lived idea for taxi hailing apps before the iPhone even existed. The target then was Palm Pilots and feature phones. Alas, before its time.