Blockchain is not only crappy technology but a bad vision for the future • Hacker News Board

Re: Blockchain is not only crappy technology but a bad vision for the future

#81

Post by thr0wawayf00 » Tue, Jan 18, 2022, 1:40 PM UTC

throw__away7391 wrote: post #46

Let's be real. The vast majority of pro-cryptocurrency arguments break down to something like this: "I have Bitcoin, I want it to become the currency of the future so that the price will go up an I will become rich. Here are $reasons why that should become true, which all my fellow Bitcoin hodlers agree are very good reasons". We are now many years past not only the creation of Bitcoin but also past it going "mainstr…

Crypto is essentially the modern equivalent of the pre-Federal Reserve era of US banking, commonly known as the "Free Banking" era or "Wildcat banking".

Back then, states chartered their own banks, there was little cooperation between banking outfits and banks could issue their own currency. Financial crime targeting consumers was everywhere and currency stability was a major problem, two major issues that crypto faces today.

Historians largely attribute the failure of the Free Banking era as a catalyst of the creation of the Federal Reserve. We need to be able to at least have a nuanced conversation about how we've seen these patterns in history, it didn't go well then, and there's not a lot of evidence that these age-old problems have gone away with this new technology.

Re: Blockchain is not only crappy technology but a bad vision for the future

#82

Post by ramoz » Tue, Jan 18, 2022, 1:41 PM UTC

kybernetikos wrote: post #67

throw__away7391 wrote: post #46

Let's be real. The vast majority of pro-cryptocurrency arguments break down to something like this: "I have Bitcoin, I want it to become the currency of the future so that the price will go up an I will become rich. Here are $reasons why that should become true, which all my fellow Bitcoin hodlers agree are very good reasons". We are now many years past not only the creation of Bitcoin but also past it going "mainstr…

> All the interest in Bitcoin is in the price going up. For years I have been interested in blockchain and cryptocurrency technologies for what they are technically and what they could enable, not what profit I can make. There are certainly others like me. There's some really fascinating stuff being worked on in the cryptocurrency community, things like ZK-SNARKS or automated market makers. The original bitcoin paper…

Fascinating cryptology work exists without cryptocurrencies, the reverse is not true.

Re: Blockchain is not only crappy technology but a bad vision for the future

#83

Post by mjdesa » Tue, Jan 18, 2022, 1:42 PM UTC

throw__away7391 wrote: post #46

Let's be real. The vast majority of pro-cryptocurrency arguments break down to something like this: "I have Bitcoin, I want it to become the currency of the future so that the price will go up an I will become rich. Here are $reasons why that should become true, which all my fellow Bitcoin hodlers agree are very good reasons". We are now many years past not only the creation of Bitcoin but also past it going "mainstr…

I owned a pretty decent amount of crypto back in 2012, but sold all of it and own essentially none now. I think what you’re missing here is that there is actually potential in the space and that there are a decent amount of people trying to solve real problems that exist today.

The two big ones I can think of are payments and ownership.

Payments has always been a difficult part of the web. Multi billion dollar companies have been created around this difficulty. Wouldn’t it be nice if there was a native, protocol level way to handle payment?

Similarly, digital ownership is totally fragmented. Wouldn’t it be nice if there were a way that I could take my digital things with me between different services? I own a number of videos on Amazon, but why can’t I take that ownership right with me to view them on Hulu, or some other service.

Re: Blockchain is not only crappy technology but a bad vision for the future

#84

Post by teekert » Tue, Jan 18, 2022, 1:43 PM UTC

ramoz wrote: post #82

kybernetikos wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> All the interest in Bitcoin is in the price going up. For years I have been interested in blockchain and cryptocurrency technologies for what they are technically and what they could enable, not what profit I can make. There are certainly others like me. There's some really fascinating stuff being worked on in the cryptocurrency community, things like ZK-SNARKS or automated market makers. The original bitcoin paper…

Fascinating cryptology work exists without cryptocurrencies, the reverse is not true.

Since fascination is subjective you should never make that statement.

Edit: Scrap that, you are right, cryptography is a necessary building block of crypto-currencies. What you are actually saying is: Fascinating bricks exist without brick-houses, the reverse is not true. Which is logical.

Re: Blockchain is not only crappy technology but a bad vision for the future

#85

Post by achenatx » Tue, Jan 18, 2022, 1:44 PM UTC

16012022 wrote: post #12

Quindecillion wrote: post #6

More bad takes from people who don't understand the point of Bitcoin and its blockchain. It's all so... tiresome. The fact that the author is comparing to services like Venmo or PayPal really goes to show how much they don't understand about what Bitcoin was built to achieve. Also goes to show that people like the author should also check their financial privilege: https://bitcoinmagazine.com/culture/check-your-finan…

Tbf, blockchain is the dark matter of technology. People are never allowed to criticize it without the same, repeated feedback “If that’s what you think blockchain is, then you don’t understand it.” Why doesn’t someone, then, who actually understands their almighty blockchain god, illuminate us, mere mortals, on the wonders of blockchain and how it can be good for society in the foreseeable future. You know what’s re…

blockchain allows essentially instantaneous completion of transactions between unrelated parties with no clearing house.

Today there are many transactions that take days to clear. For example if you buy stock, it appears instantaneous to you, but the scenes your brokerage, the other brokerage, and the clearing house have to make sure all the money is there, the stock is there, etc

Clearinghouses make a lot of money just guaranteeing transactions. That is friction in the system.

Wire transfers, ACH, cashiers checks, etc all have the same issues.

Even things like title insurance, transfer of title, deeds of trust etc have those issues.

Instead of NFT for a gorilla picture, think of NFT for your house that essentially represents your deed. Transferring your deed is a very complicated process.

Think about how social media or app stores are essentially controlled by the choices of a few CEOs. Imagine a distributed social media will allow everyone to ignore you, but no party can censor you. You own your data instead of an entity like facebook.

Re: Blockchain is not only crappy technology but a bad vision for the future

#86

Post by ctvo » Tue, Jan 18, 2022, 1:44 PM UTC

ricochet11 wrote: post #63

16012022 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tbf, blockchain is the dark matter of technology. People are never allowed to criticize it without the same, repeated feedback “If that’s what you think blockchain is, then you don’t understand it.” Why doesn’t someone, then, who actually understands their almighty blockchain god, illuminate us, mere mortals, on the wonders of blockchain and how it can be good for society in the foreseeable future. You know what’s re…

> Having the promises of blockchain sold to us for years now without a single, useful purpose for it in sight other than, well, cryptobros. the issue is that we show the things being made and hn calls them all scams and ponzis and fraud. we show the rates adoption, and the growth in use and hn says its all speculation and fraud and needs to be made illegal. we point out that crypto is in many ways doing better than o…

> At what point will what we've been building be considered useful?

Can you share some of the numbers you're citing? Who is using what to run their businesses daily? What's the number of transactions relative to current financial systems? How many actual users do you have for these things? The problem is anyone digging deeper sees it's all marketing and bullshit.

It starts being useful when it's not motivated by VCs and others with a financial stake trying to get higher exists hyping up products with no utility and no users.

Re: Blockchain is not only crappy technology but a bad vision for the future

#87

Post by aww_dang » Tue, Jan 18, 2022, 1:44 PM UTC

ricochet11 wrote: post #63

16012022 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tbf, blockchain is the dark matter of technology. People are never allowed to criticize it without the same, repeated feedback “If that’s what you think blockchain is, then you don’t understand it.” Why doesn’t someone, then, who actually understands their almighty blockchain god, illuminate us, mere mortals, on the wonders of blockchain and how it can be good for society in the foreseeable future. You know what’s re…

> Having the promises of blockchain sold to us for years now without a single, useful purpose for it in sight other than, well, cryptobros. the issue is that we show the things being made and hn calls them all scams and ponzis and fraud. we show the rates adoption, and the growth in use and hn says its all speculation and fraud and needs to be made illegal. we point out that crypto is in many ways doing better than o…

>... hn says its all speculation and fraud and needs to be made illegal.

This is the part that confuses me. What is the theory of value here? If you don't like it don't buy it. If you're not interested, don't buy it. If you don't see the benefits, don't develop cryptocurrency applications.

Nobody is compelling developers or users to use this technology. Meanwhile state run currencies are forced upon us. Walled gardens and browsers force tech choices on developers.

Isn't it enough to dislike something and avoid it entirely? Why advocate for limiting the choices of others? How is this not authoritarian paternalism?

Re: Blockchain is not only crappy technology but a bad vision for the future

#88

Post by goesnowhere » Tue, Jan 18, 2022, 1:45 PM UTC

bko wrote: post #43

rjmunro wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do this actual person really exist? They were looking for a way to hold some dollars they had lying around, did some research, found blockchain and have now put the dollars into USDT or whatever?

There are people legally prevented from holding USD. Take a look at Argentina [0]. They're legally banned from holding USD and if they have an account with USD it'll get taken by the state and converted to quickly depreciating bonds. Of course there is a black market for USD but holding substantial amounts of USD under your mattress in order to preserve your wealth is impractical and dangerous. [0] https://www.washin…

This is the exception not the rule. Also making this as your main argument for why crypto is a net positive is telling because you understand that there are 0 uses for crypto in a functional democratic society.

Re: Blockchain is not only crappy technology but a bad vision for the future

#89

Post by hiq » Tue, Jan 18, 2022, 1:45 PM UTC

mjdesa wrote: post #83

throw__away7391 wrote: post #46

Let's be real. The vast majority of pro-cryptocurrency arguments break down to something like this: "I have Bitcoin, I want it to become the currency of the future so that the price will go up an I will become rich. Here are $reasons why that should become true, which all my fellow Bitcoin hodlers agree are very good reasons". We are now many years past not only the creation of Bitcoin but also past it going "mainstr…

I owned a pretty decent amount of crypto back in 2012, but sold all of it and own essentially none now. I think what you’re missing here is that there is actually potential in the space and that there are a decent amount of people trying to solve real problems that exist today. The two big ones I can think of are payments and ownership. Payments has always been a difficult part of the web. Multi billion dollar compan…

I've been commenting a few times about this already, but you're just arguing for interoperability, and blockchains don't help in that regard.

Re: Blockchain is not only crappy technology but a bad vision for the future

#90

Post by apeescape » Tue, Jan 18, 2022, 1:45 PM UTC

Qasaur wrote: post #13

"The root problem with conventional currency is all the trust that’s required to make it work. The central bank must be trusted not to debase the currency, but the history of fiat currencies is full of breaches of that trust. Banks must be trusted to hold our money and transfer it electronically, but they lend it out in waves of credit bubbles with barely a fraction in reserve." - Satoshi Nakamoto - 1721 Mississippi…

"The root problem with conventional currency is all the trust that’s required to make it work."

Trust is required to make cryptos work too. Yes, a blockchain is "immutable", as long as the network isn't hacked w/ e.g., a 51% attack in Bitcoin's case. However, the price of Bitcoin isn't really anchored to anything, i.e., there's no natural demand for it like there is for fiat currencies (since people must pay their taxes in fiat), so basically, only the collective trust and hope of people is making it valuable.

In addition to that, current cryptos are lacking in either decentralization, efficiency, or both, nevermind the various decentralized applications that operate like any traditional company, which you'll have to trust in order to use the app. So as of now, a truly decentralized and efficient blockchain network is only a dream.

I'm not saying fiat currencies are without problems though -- they very much aren't. The regulation is problematic, but the bigger underlying issue stems from the expectation of infinite growth. Money in the modern economy is basically debt, whose interests are paid off with newly created debt. This cycle works only if the loan money is, on average, invested profitably, i.e., (in very rough terms) the GDP rises along with the money supply. This is difficult to begin with, but since compounding interests grow exponentially, it means that the GDP should rise exponentially too, which, since exponentially growing curves approach infinity relatively fast, means that the planet is fucked due to exponentially growing demand of energy and natural resources.