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

#811

Post by ffggvv » Mon, May 31, 2021, 5:24 AM UTC

bo1024 wrote: post #175

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…

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.

yes because it’s so easy to get stable internet access, electricity and, translate fiat to crypto (without an equivalent to coinbase and without a credit card) do you have any idea what’s it’s like to be in a developing country? do you know the literacy rates? do you think crypto things are in their languages? do you see all the exit scams?

these tech people are in such a myopic bubble

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

#812

Post by quickthrower2 » Mon, May 31, 2021, 5:28 AM UTC

asah wrote: post #543

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…

Yyy. Once you've experienced 24x7x365 instant, no-human finance, there's no going back to mountains of random paperwork, random bank policies, 1pm wire transfer deadlines, etc etc etc

Where do I experience this though? Mostly it’s transfer coins on/off exchange to convert to fiat. Some stores take crypto but it turns out more expensive and there is less choice if I restrict my stores to ones that so

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

#813

Post by quickthrower2 » Mon, May 31, 2021, 5:29 AM UTC

bo1024 wrote: post #175

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…

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.

USD cash can do this too.

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

#814

Post by al3n » Mon, May 31, 2021, 5:40 AM UTC

not technical here, but you could have posted this thread when the price was at it its all time high ? I wonder what would the response have been then ? ;/

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

#815

Post by ttt0 » Mon, May 31, 2021, 5:45 AM UTC

crummy wrote: post #189

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.

Are there numbers on what the primary uses of cryptocurrency are? I would guess remittances, purchasing illegal things, purchasing legal things, and ransomware - but I'm not sure in what order.

The primary use of cryptocurrency is in its name - a currency.

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

#816

Post by mettamage » Mon, May 31, 2021, 5:47 AM UTC

mettamage wrote: post #217

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 not on tech people to evaluate business impact or societal impact or economic impact. Sure, tech people could do that but most of our time is spent on designing or implementing software. Let other people (non-tech or hybrid) comment on the idea. They have time to think about this. Tech people can only help by explaining in understandable ways how blockchain/cryptocurrencies work. 3Blue1Brown has a good video on…

Based on the replies, I stand corrected, my bad. I am happy I voiced my opinion, because the replies convinced me that I was off base with my thinking.

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

#817

Post by sexy_seedbox » Mon, May 31, 2021, 5:50 AM UTC

ephbit wrote: post #568

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…

Don't gnu/linux ISO images make up a considerable proportion of bittorrent traffic nowadays?

You should check out the amount of crap on Rarbg or say even Rutracker. And those are just the public ones.

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

#818

Post by cyou111 » Mon, May 31, 2021, 5:52 AM UTC

I think any tools/means/platforms, no matter how well intentioned the designers are, if left ungoverned/anarchical, will be eventually taken over by malign actors.

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

#819

Post by crucialfelix » Mon, May 31, 2021, 5:53 AM UTC

lmm wrote: post #808

heurist wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's an excellent way to pay off ransomware and get your data unlocked. Hospitals, cities and oil pipelines use it all the time.

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

#820

Post by ttt0 » Mon, May 31, 2021, 5:54 AM UTC

Invictus0 wrote: post #683

sowbug wrote: post #589

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reasonably private online payments. It's the closest to cash on the internet in terms of privacy. (HN is a very pro-privacy community, judging from Apple vs. Google discussions, so I take it for granted that a desire for privacy doesn't need further justification or elaboration.)

Not really. Your wallet address needs to be shared with others if you want to transfer money, and anyone that knows your wallet knows all of your transactions. If Google decided to build a crypto wallet into Chrome, I think you can agree it would trivial for them to see all of everyone's transactions.

That's just a flaw of bitcoin, some other cryptos don't have this problem.