Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

twitter.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

441–450 of 1001 posts

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

#441

Post by skybrian »

idlewords wrote: post #57
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 count…

I don't know anything but it's not hard to see how this might work somewhere like Venezuela. Cryptocurrency seems most useful for black marketers to get funds out of the country, which will create a demand for it. If ordinary people get cryptocurrency from relatives, they can trade locally to get local currency, then use it to buy black market goods. The local money recirculates and the cryptocurrency funds sanctions-evading imports.

Whether this is a good thing or not probably depends on what you think of illegal markets in desperate situations.

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

#442

Post by xpe »

Graffur wrote: post #284
xpe wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> EDIT: downvoted again. I’m not contributing here anymore. Have you reviewed the HN Guidelines at https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html ? > Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading. I'll offer my two cents in case it gives another perspective you haven't considered. The meaning of voting on HN is far from obvious. Various people downvote for di…

xpe, have _you_ reviewed the HN Guidelines at https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html ? > Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading.

Graffur, yes, I've read them. But I'd bet you know that; I think probably you are making another point. I'll write it out, and you can tell me if you agree. You are pointing out an inconsistency in what I wrote: you think it is unfair of me to suggest that someone else read the guidelines while at the same time not following them.

Am I accurately stating your concern?

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

#443

Post by kragen »

cbzbc wrote: post #407
kragen wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

In Argentina? Some of them use LocalBitcoins, while others walk into a storefront that advertises Bitcoin or remittances to Venezuela, and hand over their pesos to the guy behind the counter. There are also groups on WhatsApp and Facebook to find counterparties. That's the reality: Venezuelan refugees, who I guess are "criminals" to Maduro's regime and people like you, and illegal aliens like me, who I guess are "wealthy".

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

#444

Post by shieVae4I »

mandelken wrote: post #363
kragen wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been using Bitcoin to get paid for a couple of years at this point (programming work for overseas clients), and I haven't gotten scammed yet. I'm not engaged in money laundering, vaporware, fraud, ransomware, or gambling, and only the usual amount of delusion. And I don't even buy illegal drugs! And, yeah, 13 years after the internet's invention was 01982; not only couldn't you get so much as a weather report on…

Thanks for sharing your point of view. What is unclear to me, is how these remittances work in practice. I get that in the US you can exchange USD to Bitcoin with a credit card and then send that to a person in, say, Venezuela (or share the wallet password). But how is it converted back to Venezuelan Bolivar? I can't imagine you buying a pizza with bitcoin in Caracas. Side question, why do you write your years with a…

> Side question, why do you write your years with a leading zero? I've never seen that before and it has quite a cognitive strain for me.

That's likely a Long Now reference: https://blog.longnow.org/02013/12/31/long-now-years-five-dig...

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

#445

Post by ahallock »

webgoat wrote: post #140
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?”

Fees high, world too stable, heavy speculation. Cryptos forced to trade on centralized exchanges to avoid fees, making it a much crappier version of something like PayPal. Doesn't help that there's an unending supply of people more than willing to participate in ponzi schemes creating massive volatility and turning the "currency" into the commodity.

Dotcom bubble was the same way. We're in the early stages.

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

#446

Post by the_cat_kittles »

segmondy wrote: post #125

Just gonna sound like a hater, folks worship success. They will listen to anyone who made millions betting on cryptocurrency over any smart person who didn't and is "jealous" for missing out. One mistake us "smart" folks make is thinking that investing is about understanding a system that's complete and smart. Most investments are not like black jack but more like poker where it all comes down to behavioral economics…

this used to be called the "greater fool theory" of investing. i think the funniest thing about crypto is that its touted as the ultra complex, high tech mathy panacea, but in its actual function and utility to people, its most similar to beanie babies or baseball cards.

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

#447

Post by csande17 »

miles wrote: post #387
mandelken wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for sharing your point of view. What is unclear to me, is how these remittances work in practice. I get that in the US you can exchange USD to Bitcoin with a credit card and then send that to a person in, say, Venezuela (or share the wallet password). But how is it converted back to Venezuelan Bolivar? I can't imagine you buying a pizza with bitcoin in Caracas. Side question, why do you write your years with a…

> why do you write your years with a leading zero? I've never seen that before and it has quite a cognitive strain for me. Not OP, but I had the same question and did a few seconds of cursory searching to no avail. But rather than cognitive strain, I found it opened up a much larger vista on the perception of time and our seeming place in it. While I am unlikely to adopt it, perhaps the experience would be even broad…

OP probably got the idea to place a leading zero before the year from the Long Now Foundation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Now_Foundation

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

#448

Post by SubiculumCode »

joepie91_ wrote: post #251
meowkit wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Considering that almost all legitimate users have been priced out of the market due to ever-increasing transaction fees and increasingly draconian regulations (often stricter than for non-cryptocurrency) and the resulting interoperability issues... Yeah, I think it's safe to say that the primary use of cryptocurrency nowadays is as either casino chips or a money laundering mechanism. The economics no longer make any…

Plenty of crypto has low transaction fees these days.

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

#449

Post by hirsin »

seibelj wrote: post #355
mondoveneziano wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the case of the Internet, people were doing either new things, or existing things more efficiently (e.g. sending emails vs. postal mail and fax, or transferring files vs. swapping disk media or printouts). As the Internet progressed, efficiency increased. In the case of cryptocurrencies, people are doing existing things that can already be done quickly and efficiently vastly less efficiently, in a system that is p…

I can send unlimited amounts of money, anywhere on earth, for (at most) dollars in a few seconds. I don't need to rely on any government for any reason, and no government can stop me.

Currently it's 8 dollars to clear in 6 hours. The cost to turn that back into money isn't included here.

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

#450

Post by jfrunyon »

kragen wrote: post #435
jfrunyon wrote: post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've been using Bitcoin to get paid for a couple of years at this point How do you turn your Bitcoin into food, housing, utilities, and other necessities? > And, yeah, 13 years after the internet's invention was 01982 The Internet was not available to virtually anyone in 1982 much less 1969. Nor was the ARPANET of 1969 even remotely similar to the Internet. TCP came about in 1974. IPv4 in 1982. > So why does Bitcoi…

> How do you turn your Bitcoin into food, housing, utilities, and other necessities? I sell it for dollars to people in person; some of the dollars I have to change into Argentine pesos before I can spend them. Isn't that how everybody does it? > The Internet was not available to virtually anyone in 1982 much less 1969 It was available to almost anyone who knew someone who had access, which is the same situation as B…

> I sell it for dollars to people in person; some of the dollars I have to change into Argentine pesos before I can spend them. Isn't that how everybody does it?

No, most people just spend their currency directly on the things they need to purchase, actually.

> It was available to almost anyone who knew someone who had access

That's not even remotely true, and is also a tiny number of people.

> It was remotely similar

But... it wasn't. As I already have shown.

The ARPANET, then the Internet, have all gone through steady evolution. It has not spent 13 years stagnant or regressing in terms of either design or use.

Just because you read somewhere that "ARPANET was the predecessor of the Internet" does not mean that ARPANET was the Internet.

Post reply on HN