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Ask HN: Feel bad about working in crypto, what to do?

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Re: Ask HN: Feel bad about working in crypto, what to do?

#131

Post by pcthrowaway »

I work in the crypto industry also. I've thought about leaving because (especially as market sentiments turn so negative), I feel like it could become a stain on my resume that hurts my employability if crypto becomes irrelevant in the future.

At the same time, it may become more relevant in the future (I'm thinking along the lines of 3-10 years out, probably not any time too soon with current market conditions). In that case, my skills may be incredibly valuable.

Until recently I've mainly been doing React+node+Typescript dev and system administration+AWS management anyway, all of which are skills that translate well to any other domain. Recently I've been doing some web3 stuff (which is completely new to me), so that's an area where I especially worry the skills I'm developing could become irrelevant.

But I don't think/hope they will. Even if they do, I have all the other skills to "fall back on" and as with any niche skill you develop, you have to consider its future value. For web3 development, I think if it has any value in the future, it will have a lot of value, so I'm happy with this time investment.

As for other considerations, I really like the company and people I work with. We provide financial services to other crypto companies (so we're essentially B2B). There is a ton of toxicity in the crypto industry unfortunately (Coinbase and Kraken are two prominent examples) so that's my biggest gripe with publicly identifying with "crypto values" (I'm pretty far from libertarian anyway). So my main concern really is people forming an opinion about how my values might align with their company values due to my work history.

But that could be said for working for any FAANG also (since they're all largely amoral, capitalistic, profit-drive companies)

Re: Ask HN: Feel bad about working in crypto, what to do?

#132

Post by benjaminwootton »

Yes, in a similar situation. I started a generic business in "real time analytics", but found that most of the demand was in Crypto so have been increasingly pulled into it.

I have always had a similar view to yourself, that a lot of the coins/tokens were silly, but DeFi and smart contracts were genuinely innovative and useful.

I've kind of held back from jumping in fully committed to Crypto because I'm very torn by the whole space and almost semi-reluctant to being associated with it.

I feel like with the recent declines in interest I should probably walk away at this moment and I find something I care about more.

Re: Ask HN: Feel bad about working in crypto, what to do?

#133

Post by rqdtlk »

Thlom wrote: post #60
capkutay wrote: post #44

Zoom and Netflix both lost 60-80% of their value in the last year and I don't see anyone declaring them dead. I don't work in crypto but I think there's a bit of a knee jerk reaction to seeing all the vaporware projects being wiped out (rightfully so). Consolidation and pruning of wasteful projects is good. If you feel like the work you're personally doing is positive, then don't worry about people dancing on the gra…

ETH has been a legitimate technology with real use cases for a decade now and all we’ve got is jpeg’s of apes. With the amount of real money, talent and hard work being pumped into this space we should have seen the use cases materialize by now. But there’s nothing. I’m sure someone uses it for something real, but I haven’t seen crypto actually solve a real problem any better than a plain old database. Please correct…

You're not wrong. The entire cryprocurrency space has been a colossal waste of time and energy.

Re: Ask HN: Feel bad about working in crypto, what to do?

#135

Post by cuteboy19 »

dig1 wrote: post #126
cuteboy19 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fair players like Celsius or maybe Terra Luna? I am almost genuine in this question because those two might probably have been in your "fair crypto" list a few months ago. Crypto practically incentivses scams. Why create something honest when you can rip off thousands of idiots and they will defend you for doing so? Crypto offers almost none of the services that normal banks offer. Crypto loans are overcollateral…

I don't find your examples convincing. Like in banking and finance, everyone is fair until they are proven to be not. For example, Knight Capital, Bernie Madoff, SAC, The Galleon Group, or banks like Merrill, HSBC, Standard Chartered, and Deutsche, not to mention banks that went bust in recent years [1]... and yet, no one suggests that finance and banking world are scams. As I mentioned, you need to know where to loo…

In most of your examples the customers were not harmed and in some of them even the investors were made whole. A lot of people faced criminal investigation for their actions.

This is what I mean when I say scams are incentivised. When a project you hold gets rugpulled, you have two choices: either hunt down the people who scammed you and get your money back (unlikely), OR shill your coin to as many people you can with the hope that some other greater fool will agree to hold your bags. Most crypto communities chose option B. Some even go as far as to defend the rugpullers so as to restore some legitimacy to the coin. The celcius people are a good example of this, but any bsc shitcoin will have the same process.

Re: Ask HN: Feel bad about working in crypto, what to do?

#136

Post by andruby »

Sometime in 2013 I was doubting to work with crypto. What made it clear for me, and this is the advice I still give friends today:

Ask yourself this. Regardless of wether crypto pricing goes up or down, regardless of wether there is major adoption or not. Will I get satisfaction from having built X? Will I look back after a decade and be grateful about my contribution?

So far, for me, the answer has been a no. I haven’t seen a use-case in crypto that excites me and is worth working on. The money would have been nice, but I’m in a luxury position where I’d rather spend my time working on useful things.

But again, that’s just my personal position and I accept that everyone is different.

Re: Ask HN: Feel bad about working in crypto, what to do?

#137

Post by m00dy »

Thlom wrote: post #60
capkutay wrote: post #44

Zoom and Netflix both lost 60-80% of their value in the last year and I don't see anyone declaring them dead. I don't work in crypto but I think there's a bit of a knee jerk reaction to seeing all the vaporware projects being wiped out (rightfully so). Consolidation and pruning of wasteful projects is good. If you feel like the work you're personally doing is positive, then don't worry about people dancing on the gra…

ETH has been a legitimate technology with real use cases for a decade now and all we’ve got is jpeg’s of apes. With the amount of real money, talent and hard work being pumped into this space we should have seen the use cases materialize by now. But there’s nothing. I’m sure someone uses it for something real, but I haven’t seen crypto actually solve a real problem any better than a plain old database. Please correct…

you are completely wrong. I don't want to explain other use cases here but even though for jpeg's of apes, Ethereum or blockchain industry created a more inclusive economy. (now all the artists, they know at least one more way to monetize their art.)

Re: Ask HN: Feel bad about working in crypto, what to do?

#138

Post by hirako2000 »

thematrixturtle wrote: post #113
ETH_start wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ETH launched in 2015, which is 7 years ago, and has been working through fundamental limitations of the technology, building out the technological primitives that will enable mass-consumer blockchain applications in the future. A list of areas where Ethereum has made huge progress: * building secure smart contracts - more sophisticated auditing programmes by more experienced companies, improvements in programming lan…

Your bullet points list a bunch of navel-gazing crypto improvements for crypto, but the previous poster was asking for examples where "crypto actually solve[a] a real problem any better than a plain old database". Got any?

Be your own bank cannot be solved by a plain database, as it doesn't ship with the trustless features most blockchain networks offer. The network is there. When bitcoin came out it solved that problem but the network took years to expand enough to guarantee integrity.

That's what has been happening in crypto, in the early years, network expansion, fed by speculative investment (speculation can have its merit, see).

Then came more elaborated DeFI and non DeFI supporting techs. (Smart contract, faster and cheaper blocks networks for micro transactions, anonymity/privacy networks etc).

Yes, business use cases continue to lag, but in a decade the progress is to me so astonishing, not so disappointing.

Perhaps worth mentioning, the traditional system via, via regulators working for we know who, and massive media fear mongering is not to be ignored, the injustice will lose in the long run, but it's pretty clear it has contributed to limit adoption, hence the emergence of more concrete, useful to socity use cases, other than auto generated Punk Monkeys for degenerated moneybgrabbers.

Re: Ask HN: Feel bad about working in crypto, what to do?

#139

Post by neals »

Live by your own values, I'd say.

Crypto is interesting and is not going away. Find a company that does have proper values. Not all of it is about selling coins.

I run a very small DLT operation where we don't even mention crypto or blockchain. We just talk about empowering local communities and restoring biodiversity. We don't associate with Cryptobro's and there's plenty of companies like us.

I guess we're just a little harder to find because we don't scream so hard :)

Don't give up, apply you talent to create the world you do want to be a part of. <3

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