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

#801

Post by kobalsky » Mon, May 31, 2021, 4:44 AM UTC

manfredz wrote: post #403

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.

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

This is embarrasing. I will give you more info in case you are geniunely wrong and not playing dumb.

This is the last mined BTC block: https://www.blockchain.com/btc/block/00000000000000000001d85...

The fees collected for transactions is 0.15 BTC and the mining reward is 6.25 BTC. Mining rewards will continue declining and some day the only value of mining will be those fees, but until now they have been largely irrelevant to the point that some miners just mined empty block because it was simpler from a technical standpoint, and it was becoming a problem because it just generated congestion in the network: https://bitcoinmagazine.com/business/why-do-some-bitcoin-min...

So you may think it's a scam for other reasons, but your point about mining fees being the driving of the pyramid, ponzi or whatever, is completely wrong.

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

#802

Post by leifg » Mon, May 31, 2021, 4:44 AM UTC

rockemsockem wrote: post #675

leifg wrote: post #604

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds like a typical blockchain enthusiast answer: The banking industry is corrupt. Blockchain solves this. End of argument. I have yet to see a specific, easy to explain answer on how blockchain solves any kind of fraud. Who is forcing any of these fraudsters to put any information on the blockchain? As soon as you need external safe guards you are back to square one. I don’t have the solution to any of the pr…

Say instead of using a bank to store your money you store it on the blockchain. Suddenly you don't have to worry about Wells Fargo opening accounts in your name and charging you fees for those accounts. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wells_Fargo_account_fraud_scan... Say something like a traditional bank emerged on the blockchain in the form of a smart contract and you stored money with them to have them invest it or…

> Say instead of using a bank to store your money you store it on the blockchain. Suddenly you don't have to worry about Wells Fargo opening accounts in your name and charging you fees for those accounts.

Great you solved a very specific problem and replaced it with a myriad of other problems. Who is gonna take care of your private key? Are you really that confident in your tech skills that you can keep the private key to your money safe? I am not. If someone else issues and protects your private key, what’s stopping them from charging you fees for nothing (or spending all your money).

> There would be a public record of all charges the smart contract billed you for

I as a bank customer have exactly zero interest in my transactions being “public” (I know they would be pseudonym, still pretty risky). The risks I imagine coming with this outweigh the supposed advantages by a lot.

> tracking the history of it would be way easier than piecing together your Wells Fargo statements

I don’t know in which century you live but I have a history of all my transactions of all my bank accounts in the interface of my budgeting tool. I can immediately see if there is a suspicious charge. But maybe you have a recommendation for a blockchain based budgeting tool that lets me see details of every transaction, rather than public keys.

> This also would be much easier for auditors and financial crime investigators to notice.

If it was so easy to investigate shady things on the blockchain why aren’t all these pump and dump scammers and ransomware groups in prison?

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

#803

Post by nealabq » Mon, May 31, 2021, 4:45 AM UTC

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…

I was instantly hooked on Usenet when I got access in 1982. It was sometimes useful and always interesting. I had to be careful to limit my time reading it so I could get my work done.

It felt futuristic, here to stay.

Bitcoin feels like a great experiment and proof of concept. And someday a useful cryptocurrency may arise from the lessons learnt. But it won't be Bitcoin.

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

#804

Post by baby » Mon, May 31, 2021, 4:48 AM UTC

bussierem wrote: post #796

baby wrote: post #713

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the maximum throughput (tx/s) that some systems can achieve? Do you really need to go through all the history of the system in order to be convinced of the latest state? What are the different ways to decide who should be the next person that gets to choose the next block of transactions? Can you hide the amount you’re sending? What about the recipient? Or your own identity? Can you transfer bitcoin into ethe…

- Literally a google search for that + bitcoin gave me the answer - No - Another google search for "bitcoin + " - "Yes" for literally the rest of the questions. This wasn't an exam, this was basically an advertisement for "look what cool things you can do with this" If I got any wrong, whatever. I have literally never researched bitcoin or blockchain. If I got them right, well... nice try on the exam I guess.

You got them all wrong. I wasn’t talking about bitcoin specifically but about cryptocurrencies in general. If you’re interested in learning I can help but not with that attitude.

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

#805

Post by rocho » Mon, May 31, 2021, 4:54 AM UTC

bussierem wrote: post #796

baby wrote: post #713

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the maximum throughput (tx/s) that some systems can achieve? Do you really need to go through all the history of the system in order to be convinced of the latest state? What are the different ways to decide who should be the next person that gets to choose the next block of transactions? Can you hide the amount you’re sending? What about the recipient? Or your own identity? Can you transfer bitcoin into ethe…

- Literally a google search for that + bitcoin gave me the answer - No - Another google search for "bitcoin + " - "Yes" for literally the rest of the questions. This wasn't an exam, this was basically an advertisement for "look what cool things you can do with this" If I got any wrong, whatever. I have literally never researched bitcoin or blockchain. If I got them right, well... nice try on the exam I guess.

Answer to question two is yes for Bitcoin and all blockchain like that. There are some new ones like Mina who propose a different system in which you only need to verify the last hash.

Answer to question three is not restricted to Bitcoin. There are many other systems, e.g. Proof of stake (POS).

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

#806

Post by dwild » Mon, May 31, 2021, 4:55 AM UTC

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 reality is that the internet was immediately extremely interesting (either useful or fun) for practically everyone who got access.

That's quite an absurd statement to make. I can easily find people right now that find no interest in the current internet, it's literally impossible that in the past it would have been different with way less interesting things to do on it..

There's a huge bias in what you state. I have no doubt that plenty of people who got access at the time found it interesting, but the thing you ignore is that theses are the one that found it interesting that got access in the first place.

Like sure email are incredibly useful, but to send to who? It's is right now that I can send them to 2 billions users, but in 1996, that was 16 millions... kind of much less useful, the chances are most people you knew, didn't knew anyone that was on it at the time... thus literally useless. FTP are nice, but plenty didn't used computers at all, sharing files meant nothing. I know so many right now that have trouble sharing files, yet FTP still exist... no chance they would have shared any in the past.

You are now on that team, the ones that don't have any use for it right now. It's fine that you don't find it interesting, but please don't be that old grandpa that scream "get out of my lawn" please...

> The early Internet was infinite times more fun.

Curiously, I've seen tons of people having fun with cryptocurrencies, in different ways, you are just not part of it...

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

#807

Post by swiley » Mon, May 31, 2021, 4:57 AM UTC

magila wrote: post #478

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…

People have been saying this for over a decade now. Mainstream applications are just around the corner, wait and see! We have waited, and all we've seen is baseless speculation (which you call "wealth savings/growth") and scams. I see no reason to think this is going to change any time soon.

You could say the same thing about Wayland.

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

#808

Post by lmm » Mon, May 31, 2021, 5:01 AM UTC

heurist wrote: post #345

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.

I'm confused about why Bitcoin is being discussed in the past tense when both usage and price have both grown significantly over the last year. Is it already dead? Could have fooled me.

Has non-speculative use actually grown? The ability to actually buy stuff with bitcoin looks to be on a downward trend, and the fact that the price has changed significantly over the last year feels like a negative for actual use of bitcoin.

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

#809

Post by dingaling » Mon, May 31, 2021, 5:11 AM UTC

pen2l wrote: post #523

kragen wrote: post #473

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, Bitcoin isn't zero risk. But compared to my experiences with banks and WU the risk is manageably low. I have to give someone my passport and home address in order to receive money via WU, so I'm exposed to the risk that buddies of the WU employees will rob my house later. I've had to pay a collection agency thousands for fees charged on a bank account that was empty and that I thought was closed. I've had my…

> I'm exposed to the risk that buddies of the WU employees will rob my house later In comparison to getting your wallet compromised by viruses searching for it (and they will probably become more aggressive and adept as BTC usage increases), the chance of this happening I feel is exceedingly low. And avenues of recourse exist: there are clear leads to follow on for an investigative team. > I've had my bank ATM card c…

> I know that my credit card covers me for this and I would get my money back if such a thing were to happen to me.

But that money isn't free, you may for it through higher merchant fees and lower bank interest rates.

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

#810

Post by ffggvv » Mon, May 31, 2021, 5:21 AM UTC

revel wrote: post #540

I've worked in both finance and technology. I think the technical people aren't seeing how amazing this is from a finance point of view. Payments are going to be completely transformed by this. All of fixed income will change to be oriented around crypto. It's just a matter of time. All the main preconditions for crypto to take off are finally in place. If you are a professional money manager or CFO there is no way i…

we get it. it’s just a scam.