Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Crypto is an unproductive bubble

alexkolchinski.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

1–10 of 539 posts

Re: Crypto is an unproductive bubble

#2

Post by wrnr »

The opposite is true of the metaverse in my opinion, it is stupid gimmick that puts form over function and all that, but computer graphics is still a very rewarding field with a lot of useful technologies ranging from GPU programming to game design.

Re: Crypto is an unproductive bubble

#3

Post by woodruffw »

> Claim 2: Blockchain technology has no non-monetary applications

Even beyond this: there don't seem to be that many non-speculative monetary applications of cryptocurrencies and distributed ledgers. The few that do exist seem to exist primarily in conjunction with the demand for liquidity in speculative applications.

Re: Crypto is an unproductive bubble

#5

Post by seibelj »

Counter point - art itself has absolutely zero non-monetary applications. If you disagree, then you must admit NFTs can be appreciated as art. If so, the argument of the OP is refuted.

If you think art can be appreciated without being an NFT, then why pay any amount of money for any physical art when a super high resolution PNG does the same thing?

Re: Crypto is an unproductive bubble

#6

Post by daenz »

I have a hard time imagining how your normal everyday people would put any faith whatsoever in crypto. It's another step removed from "just a bunch of numbers in an account" (current banking) that is even harder to explain and justify. Why should they trust it? So how can it succeed if everyday people don't want to use it?

Re: Crypto is an unproductive bubble

#7

Post by paxys »

While I agree with 2 and mostly agree with 3, I don't see how anyone can say "crypto is a bubble" with high confidence. Even if it is a 100% speculative investment with no real world use, that doesn't automatically make it a bubble. There are plenty of similar investment classes that have persisted through the ages and society has deemed perfectly valid – gold, art, precious gems, trading cards, virtual hats...I'm sure one or more cryptocurrencies can have a similar long term life as a store of value.

Re: Crypto is an unproductive bubble

#8

Post by jmyeet »

I couldn't agree more. It is the ultimate solution looking for a problem.

What's funny is watching the crypto world relearn all the lessons that went into making the current financial system the way it is. Example: printing money aka managing the money supply. This is a feature not a bug. At least for a currency. Side note: let's stop calling these cryptocurrencies. They're crypt-assets.

It makes me wonder if th Great Filter responsible for the Fermi Paradox is civilizations boiling their planets alive mining crypto before they ever establish a presence in space.

Post reply on HN