This particular source is extremely low quality and is motivated by the author's undisclosed competing product. I would like to see higher quality sources on the front page of hacker news one day.
The Handwavy Technobabble Nothingburger of Crypto
11–20 of 704 posts
Re: The Handwavy Technobabble Nothingburger of Crypto
#12Another rant about crypto which ignores Nano, which has been around for 6 years now. *y*a*w*n*. There is immediate and obvious utility in being able to send value instantly with no fees, with no dependence on a centralized authority. Nano just got its own currency ticker - XNO - and avoids every fault this author finds in the rest of the field. Mr. Diehl went far enough to pick out some flaws, and then generalized th…
> There is immediate and obvious utility in being able to send value instantly with no fees, with no dependence on a centralized authority.
There is, the problem is you are not sending value, you are sending the modern equivalent of Charles Ponzi's postal reply coupons.
Re: The Handwavy Technobabble Nothingburger of Crypto
#13"Any application that could be done on a blockchain could be better done on a centralized database. Except crime."
So you're saying there IS a use case :)
Re: The Handwavy Technobabble Nothingburger of Crypto
#14> Any application that could be done on a blockchain could be better done on a centralized database. Except crime. After all as we all know: If you've got nothing to hide, you've got nothing to fear. And look at how inefficient all these permissionless, trustless protocols are! What a waste! Let's just all trust a central authority and think of the savings and the children.
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Re: The Handwavy Technobabble Nothingburger of Crypto
#15This particular source is extremely low quality and is motivated by the author's undisclosed competing product. I would like to see higher quality sources on the front page of hacker news one day.
> the author's undisclosed competing product
Which is: http://adjoint.io
"Adjoint digitises cash and settlement processes for multinational corporates."
Re: The Handwavy Technobabble Nothingburger of Crypto
#16[deleted]
Re: The Handwavy Technobabble Nothingburger of Crypto
#17> Any application that could be done on a blockchain could be better done on a centralized database. Except crime. After all as we all know: If you've got nothing to hide, you've got nothing to fear. And look at how inefficient all these permissionless, trustless protocols are! What a waste! Let's just all trust a central authority and think of the savings and the children.
Yeah, this is what I don't understand from the naysayers. Anyone who says blockchain-driven assets don't have intrinsic value seems to ignore the value of trust - the ability to trust that the ledger is accurate seems extremely valuable.
The author of the article skips over the question entirely, maybe he's addressed it elsewhere, but if the crypto skeptics continue to ignore one of its primary value propositions, I have to assume either ignorance or bad faith.
Re: The Handwavy Technobabble Nothingburger of Crypto
#18I think the thing that bothers me most about using "crypto" to mean "cryptocurrency" is when people write articles deriding the "nothingburger of crypto", I feel conflicted.
Part of me wonders how many non-tech people we're conditioning to assume cryptography is worthless in 2021.
Re: The Handwavy Technobabble Nothingburger of Crypto
#19I think the biggest lesson here is that people really, really love unregulated gambling. The same way they love doing drugs, making narcotics an extremely profitable business.
If we don’t legalize the things our population deeply desire, the criminal elements are more than happy to step up and provide said services.
Re: The Handwavy Technobabble Nothingburger of Crypto
#20This entire post seems to avoid or lack the understanding of the basic reasons blockchain were created; that is, to offer a decentralized, permissionless, censorship-resistant network. This was Satoshi's vision, and those values are a blockchain's express priority over scale and efficiency. Centralization is great for speed and efficiency, not so great for protection against authoritarian actors (governments or centr…
We have one already: cash.
As for protection against authoritarian actors. If your state has already gone full panopticon, crypto won't save you, indeed the state will mandate exclusive use of their chosen crypto, gaining even more visibility into your life. If your state has not yet done so, you should fight to preserve liberty and the rule of law. If your country turns into a full-out surveillance state, you are not going to overthrow it by buying things with Bitcoin.
I would like to see some data on what actually valuable applications or businesses have been enabled (or simply improved) by crypto currency. I regret that the only business I know to be benefiting from bitcoin is ransomware.