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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?

#151

Post by ETH_start »

I suggest you stand up for your industry. Finance in general and cryptocurrency in particular is much decried for being supposedly speculative/unproductive.

While anything involving money has a higher than normal proportion of scammers, it is also true that finance is generally a positive sum activity, that facilitates more productive coordination.

I recommend Nick Szabo's article on the origins of money:

https://fermatslibrary.com/s/shelling-out-the-origins-of-mon...

Szabo hypothesizes that the standardized collectibles seen in various early sites of homo sapien settlement dating from the paleolithic, like the ostrich-eggshell beads from the Kenya Rift Valley dated at 40,000 B.P and the mammoth ivory bead necklace from Sungir, Russai dated to 28,000 B.P, were in fact the earliest forms of money, and that the trade-based trustless coordination that this proto-money enabled raised the carrying capacity of the environment, and enabled humans to out-compete neanderthals.

Intriguingly, Szabo went on to become the first person to describe both the concept of a proof of work blockchain in Bitgold, which inspired Bitcoin, and smart contracts.

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

#152

Post by jsiepkes »

Simon_O_Rourke wrote: post #116
latchkey wrote: post #63

I've been in crypto since 2014. I just had the California Franchise Tax Board literally steal money out of a bank account of mine without any warning or notice. They left $0.01 in there and charged a $125 fee. I found out today they are claiming I owe taxes from when I wasn't even living in the country (and I was paying taxes then too!). In 2021/2022, I paid more taxes than I ever have in my life. I even over paid ju…

Had similar experience when I was out working in Berlin. I had a gym membership in one part of the city (paid up 12 months in advance in cash). Moved to a different part of the city and didn't go back. Fast forward about six months, two bald headed goons came knocking at my old address looking for me, with a 1850 euro bill. Gym membership for the next year plus a 900 euro service charge because I hadn't written a let…

> if I'd given them a bank account the full amount would have been charged straight away, with no comeback

Can they do that in Germany? In the Netherlands you can revert such "charge" transactions ("incasso") up to 13 months after they happen. Also, over here every subscription becomes monthly cancelable after the first year.

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

#153

Post by wasmitnetzen »

latchkey wrote: post #63

I've been in crypto since 2014. I just had the California Franchise Tax Board literally steal money out of a bank account of mine without any warning or notice. They left $0.01 in there and charged a $125 fee. I found out today they are claiming I owe taxes from when I wasn't even living in the country (and I was paying taxes then too!). In 2021/2022, I paid more taxes than I ever have in my life. I even over paid ju…

I feel like it's a bit naive to expect that the crypto world can evade the authorities forever. You need a registered office and executives and lawyers to run any big company, and thus the authorities and laws have a way in. The laws governing the existing banking system are not an intrinsic property, the crypto world will have the same laws eventually, just on a slightly different technical platform.

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

#154

Post by danielvf »

xEnOnn wrote: post #8

I’m curious that do individual devs of these crypto protocols really earn a lot like what many would have thought about them? By a lot, I mean like at least a million dollars a year that range of income. I mean, as we all know, in many of these protocols, not saying that your protocol is one of those though, the devs have almost full control over the protocol’s operations. It’s not really that “decentralised” as many…

Know that in crypto vocabulary, "devs" tends to means anyone working on the core team, programmer or not.

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

#155

Post by jakupovic »

eulenteufel wrote: post #145
mudrockbestgirl wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's an alternative financial system with many of the same (and some different) primitives than the existing ones: Liquidity via AMMs (instead of human or HFT MMs), derivatives, loans, yields, fixed-rate instruments, etc. These are used in the same way the equivalents in TradFi are used, just implemented differently, permissionless and with an API. I believe that many people don't understand the traditional financial…

>They understand how the above instruments are crucial for an economy even though they are not end-user products like Twitter is. Do they actually know these instruments are crucial for the economy or do they just know how to make money with it? I'd think the latter would be enough. Can you recommmend any resources to understand the importance of financial instruments to the economy?

>Do they actually know these instruments are crucial for the economy or do they just know how to make money with it? I'd think the latter would be enough.

There is no difference in capitalism between something being "crucial" for economy or just a way "to make money." They are equivalent.

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

#156

Post by itsoktocry »

jeroenhd wrote: post #97

I'm one of the "haters". I see no value in crypto in 99.99% of crypto and in the cases that do make sense the actual use for it is borderline money laundering or tax evasion. All the "enthusiasts" seem to want to get rich by getting as many people as they can in their greater fool scheme of choice in the hopes of becoming a Bitcoin billionaire. The obnoxious fan base and practical scams coming out of the marketing de…

>A job's a job

But most people involved in the scam claim to be "just doing their job".

If you're working for an employer or in an industry that you yourself consider a bit shady, you are morally obligated to leave. Society can't function otherwise.

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

#157

Post by tgv »

jeroenhd wrote: post #97

I'm one of the "haters". I see no value in crypto in 99.99% of crypto and in the cases that do make sense the actual use for it is borderline money laundering or tax evasion. All the "enthusiasts" seem to want to get rich by getting as many people as they can in their greater fool scheme of choice in the hopes of becoming a Bitcoin billionaire. The obnoxious fan base and practical scams coming out of the marketing de…

> A job's a job

That's something that doesn't sit well with me. Not all jobs are equal. Some are unethical, or worse. And OP is in the unethical camp, at least by association, and also tarred by the stereotypes of exploitation and fraud.

> Anyone refusing you simply because you worked in crypto at some point is short-sighted.

I would also not want to hire/work with anyone who's worked for facebook or google in the past 5 years. It's not as if there was a great shortage of jobs.

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

#158

Post by jakupovic »

martin_a wrote: post #122
olalonde wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Use case: decentralized, censorship-resistant, programmable money. Sorry if it takes more than a decade to disrupt the most entrenched and powerful status quo on earth. Personally, I never thought it would come this far so quickly, and am quite happy with the pace of adoption and progress.

> decentralized, censorship-resistant, programmable money accepted by nobody who has something valuable to offer

Still has you talking about it. So, you must in theory accept it if you talk about it. My friend that's logic at play :)

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

#159

Post by m00dy »

andruby wrote: post #142
m00dy wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.)

You don’t want to explain the other use-cases? Would you mind linking to a place that does explain them?

DeFi has concrete use cases. Just look at how derivatives and options work in DeFi. You will see how financial products work in traditional finance. You can understand them by reading their smart contract code. Another example would be reading the code of uniswap [0]. It is a decentralized exchange in other words, it lets you exchange your value without intermediaries and a central authority by having an algorithmic pricing. (Actually, by saying algorithmic, It is actually pretty simple pricing curve :) but it works :).

I hope it is clear.

thank you.

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