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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

#421

Post by dang »

yannoninator wrote: post #280
tzumby wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don’t believe that there is value in a distributed self replicating Byzantine tolerant state machine, that’s fair, everybody is entitled to their opinion.

what? english please? edit: why the flagging? do I seriously need to go get a PhD from MIT to understand this and why this is important?

If you genuinely want to understand something, you need to ask about it in a way that expresses that intent. A snarky putdown in the form of a question does the opposite.

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...

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

#422

Post by [deleted] »

rfd4sgmk8u wrote: post #337

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 co…

[deleted]

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

#423

Post by ahallock »

Graffur wrote: post #215
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…

Pauli, what are you talking about? Bitcoin, Ethereum or Cryptokitties? What group are you talking about when you accuse them of "Scientology-like groupthink"? What comparisons can you draw? I think it's important you back up and explain what you're saying.

It's funny that these dismissive, trash-talk comments with zero value get upvoted on HN as long as it's against crypto. It really is a double-standard here. Ironically, that comment is also part of the groupthink.

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

#424

Post by qualudeheart »

rossjudson wrote: post #313
dadoge wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Sure, fantastic. Why should it be legal to exchange bitcoin for US$? Or euros?

That sounds like a burden of proof shift. Why should that be illegal in the first place?

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

#425

Post by SubiculumCode »

pavlov wrote: post #340
mthoms wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 “prob…

There is accelerating adoption of blockchain to manage cargo shipments, bills of laden, and authentication of supply chains.

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

#426

Post by LegitShady »

meowkit wrote: post #107
skrebbel wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Because email has no value except as a means of communication. Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are massive speculation scams. It's popular because everyone wants to hold one in the hopes it goes up in value. There's no reason for it to go up in value except that other people think it will go up in value and want to buy one too.

You're buying a number on a blockchain somewhere in the hope someone else will want it for more money, that's it.

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

#427

Post by kzrdude »

yaa_minu wrote: post #214
brianolson wrote: post #188

Bitcoin is terrible technology and stupidly wasteful, but there are new blockchain networks coming along that are about a million times more efficient, so use those instead.

How's bitcoin stupidly wasteful?

It's a race towards spending ever greater amounts of energy to mine blocks.

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

#428

Post by dadoge »

pessimizer wrote: post #358
icelancer wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They never transact with people in countries that have strict financial controls, so the problem does not exist for them. I pay people in Venezuela in cryptocurrency because nothing else is a viable option.

There's an assumption that people should think evading currency controls and taxes is somehow heroic. I'm happy that crypto allows people to violate US sanctions, but that's because I'm specifically against US sanctions, not the rule of law.

Have you thought about what effect 40% inflation year over year does to you like in Argentina?

Or over 1000% in Venezuela.

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

#429

Post by ajkdhcb2 »

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 observe the exact opposite: people do not like accepting the risk of payments that can be reversed because the buyer does a chargeback scam, or used a hacked paypal account.

Multisig escrow is also better in every way if people want to involve a third party in case of a dispute

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