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The Handwavy Technobabble Nothingburger of Crypto

stephendiehl.com

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Re: The Handwavy Technobabble Nothingburger of Crypto

#541

Post by Jensson »

koonsolo wrote: post #508
mypalmike wrote: post #490

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The losers in a Ponzi scheme buy high and sell low. What did the winners do?

So real-estate, stocks and gold are all ponzi schemes?

All of those have value even if you wouldn't be allowed to sell them. Stocks pay dividends, people use gold as jewellery, and you can live in real estate. Speculating on assets with real world value is different from speculating on assets nobody would care about unless they could sell it.

The whole point of these scams is to convince people to buy assets that nobody wants, but you convince them that some other guy really wants it a lot and will pay more for it in the future. And of course if he could convince some new guy of the same thing he can even sell it at a profit, but since there ultimately is nobody who wants this asset the chain has to break sooner or later.

Re: The Handwavy Technobabble Nothingburger of Crypto

#542

Post by SuoDuanDao »

worik wrote: post #488
weego wrote: post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People talk about things like Bitcoin as a threat to sovereign currencies, and they are, as competitors, of sorts No, they're competitors for the stores of sovereign wealth that are the backing of sovereign currencies.

How so? Bitcoin is not a store of value, and sovereign currencies (I think I know what that means) are not backed by stores of wealth.

Inflationary vs deflationary instruments. Sovereign currencies are typically inflationary because central banks print them to a greater or lesser degree, National Assets like gold or land reserves are typically deflationary. Bitcoin is more the latter.

Re: The Handwavy Technobabble Nothingburger of Crypto

#543

Post by Jensson »

rawtxapp wrote: post #349
outside1234 wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are rational reasons for buying Bitcoin - most of them revolve around money laundering, drug trades, and ransomware. This is the reason we should enforce "know your customer" laws on Bitcoin such that we have government ID for everyone for every transaction that hits the chain.

> most of them revolve around money laundering, drug trades, and ransomware. You need a citation for that, because according to experts “In 2020, the illicit share of all cryptocurrency activity fell to just 0.34%,” reported Chainalysis [1]. For many, it's a hedge against inflation, for others it's the next potential global reserve currency, for some it's just a savings mechanism. There are more rational reasons than…

> In 2020, the illicit share of all cryptocurrency activity fell to just 0.34%,

Is the takeaway that the crypto bubble stands for 99.76% of the activity?

Re: The Handwavy Technobabble Nothingburger of Crypto

#544

Post by sjtindell »

acjohnson55 wrote: post #531
sjtindell wrote: post #502

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah to be honest with you, I don’t believe much at all in this talk about “real world” integrations. If you’re interested please check out a couple other comments I made on this thread that touch on that. My opinions are developing as I go.

Read through your other comments, and I don't think that there being a market for money games is sufficient to keep the crypto train going, if it can't find its way into the underpinnings of the real economy. People play money games with things that are indispensable, like the stock market. Failing that, I'm skeptical that people will find crypto interesting after it finds its top. It may just find itself as a perpet…

I get that and think it’s possible for sure.

Re: The Handwavy Technobabble Nothingburger of Crypto

#545

Post by TigeriusKirk »

sjtindell wrote: post #354
llimos wrote: post #301

Most people on HN are rational people who look at the world in a rational way. Bitcoin and friends are not operating in a rational market, therefore we don't understand them, and most of us would probably be pretty lousy investors since we would try to make decisions rationally instead of memeing and YOLOing. But, and this is a key point, that doesn't make us right and them wrong . It's just a different kind of marke…

HN’s attitude is very surprising to me. I would think that they could get very excited about flash loans, decentralized exchanges (automated market makers), daos, and other concrete innovations coming out of crypto asset projects. I think it’s mostly jealousy and a feeling that they missed the boat, so they want to see it sink. I think that because I’ve had the feeling many times. They may not realize these are early…

It would be an extraordinary event in human history if jealousy didn't play at least some role here.

But I think more than that it's become an identity thing. A social signal. So it's not really worth arguing about. Share you own thoughts and move on, don't get invested in debating it here. Elsewhere, perhaps, but not here.

I do want to add that while I don't completely agree with all your comments in this thread, I do appreciate seeing someone express an opinion on the topic that isn't a copy/paste of countless others before it.

Re: The Handwavy Technobabble Nothingburger of Crypto

#546

Post by wyager »

AlexandrB wrote: post #429
wyager wrote: post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The people losing money to bitcoin are bagholders in inferior monetized assets like USD, real estate, etc. It's still a net gain for society though - introducing good hard money is extremely positive-sum.

If a particularly powerful solar flare knocks out the internet for a couple of weeks my real estate investment will still keep me housed. Your bitcoin asset will do... what? Even USD (at least in physical form) is more useful in a crisis. I can put it in my pocket and trade it with the guy down the street for food/water (under the assumption that the government won't collapse). The amount of high-tech, fragile infras…

> If a particularly powerful solar flare knocks out the internet for a couple of weeks

You'd have more serious problems than cash liquidity.

> USD (at least in physical form) is more useful

Which is what, like a low single digit percent of USD? Most people I know don't even have a couple days' worth of paper USD.

> fragile infrastructure

Internet isn't fragile at all. It's extremely robust, especially for relatively low-bandwidth applications like bitcoin. It's certainly more robust than the card payment networks most people rely on.

> bitcoin being superior to traditional currencies depends on the idea that nothing really bad will ever happen again

Anything "really bad" enough to nuke bitcoin will probably also kill you and almost certainly tank the value of USD paper.

Re: The Handwavy Technobabble Nothingburger of Crypto

#548

Post by danielmarkbruce »

sjtindell wrote: post #506
danielmarkbruce wrote: post #466

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are sitting there thinking it's ridiculous on Tesla. Are you thinking it's ridiculous on Google? Or Apple? Don't give yourself a hard time :) I think the Tesla stock price is ridiculous. It's not a jealousy thing. I don't think Google or Apple share prices are ridiculous, and more people made more money out of those two. If someone makes money in a ridiculous way, it's ok to think it's ridiculous.

True. The point I was making was one about emotion in finance - when I’m making money it’s easier to ignore rational doubts, and when I’m missing out it’s easier to focus on the negatives because a little voice in the back of my head wants it to fail.

You want it to fail or you want to be right? Nothing wrong with wanting to be right. If Tesla stays at a crazy high valuation for the long term, then several mental models I use and find valuable fall to pieces. That would be very annoying for me on several dimensions because it's likely they wouldn't be replaced with useful mental models. They'd be replaced with "ITS ALL JUST CHAOS".

Re: The Handwavy Technobabble Nothingburger of Crypto

#549

Post by ur-whale »

anonymoushn wrote: post #11

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.

> motivated by the author's undisclosed competing product

Thank you for this, I have been wondering why Diehl has been spewing so much hate and disinformation about cryptos.

The least he could have done if he had even a shred of intellectual honesty would have been to disclose it indeed.

[EDIT]: It's even sadder when you go check the site.

The look is exactly that of a scamcoin site, all the way to the animated triangulation and the (two suits and a tech guy) pictures.

Re: The Handwavy Technobabble Nothingburger of Crypto

#550

Post by SuoDuanDao »

sjtindell wrote: post #354
llimos wrote: post #301

Most people on HN are rational people who look at the world in a rational way. Bitcoin and friends are not operating in a rational market, therefore we don't understand them, and most of us would probably be pretty lousy investors since we would try to make decisions rationally instead of memeing and YOLOing. But, and this is a key point, that doesn't make us right and them wrong . It's just a different kind of marke…

HN’s attitude is very surprising to me. I would think that they could get very excited about flash loans, decentralized exchanges (automated market makers), daos, and other concrete innovations coming out of crypto asset projects. I think it’s mostly jealousy and a feeling that they missed the boat, so they want to see it sink. I think that because I’ve had the feeling many times. They may not realize these are early…

I suspect that much of HN, either directly or via their backers/employers, also comes out of the angel-investment scene and has emotional ties to the more conventional funding mechanisms that were themselves disruptive to traditional finance. "You can't make someone understand something when their income depends on not understanding it" and all that.
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