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

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

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

261–270 of 345 posts

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

#261

Post by giaour »

jagtesh wrote: post #83
heckerhut wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

The above commentator didn’t pretend to know anything. It’s an honest question and they asked with utmost humility. Here’s the question: what’s stopping a significant adoption of blockchain technology from a _business perspective_. I have my own take on this. It could be the increasing cost of transactions (in practice). Not indifferent from your current day financial systems, as we have inflation that causes costs t…

> I’ve heard about governments considering using blockchain based tech to thwart internal corruption (immutable public records FTW).

During my time in government, shady contractors pitching blockchain to solve literally every problem was so common and so preposterous that it quickly became a meme. "Immuatble public records" was a common claim, but "blockchain" isn't fundamentally different from a git repository in this regard.

If all you need is a replicated merkle tree, we have easier and more efficient ways of doing that.

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

#262

Post by deanmoriarty »

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…

Why do you think the FTB took money from your account? Do you think you had unpaid taxes/etc.? You must have some intuition about it (e.g. previous notices?), and I'd love to hear more. Thanks.

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

#263

Post by ufmace »

mmcnl wrote: post #179
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…

Crypto is one of many solutions for this problem. I'm willing to argue that out of 10 possible solutions, the crypto solution is the worst of all. Simply because the law is the law, and crypto might make it harder to enforce the law, it doesn't _change_ the law. So even with your crypto solution, you still would owe money to the California Franchise Tax Board, whether you like or not.

To be fair, it's a lot easier to deal with tax board says you owe $X but can't physically take anything, so you get a chance to make your case before actually handing it over, than tax board says you owe $X and just grabbed it out of your account without even warning you, you can try to contest it after but you'll be broke while you do.

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

#264

Post by granddemolisher »

mmcnl wrote: post #181
latchkey wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. All of this is why "web3" is not bullshit and why I've dedicated years of my energy and my funds to it. Try living in another country too, I have. Banking is the number one pain point. Even more than language issues. Ever tried to get your own money out of a western union in a country that doesn't speak your language? If you're doubting "web3" then you've probably never experienced these sorts of pain yourself a…

Banking is a solved problem, has been for decades. Seeking an alternative in technological complex solutions is running away from the actual problem.

An international swift transaction takes days or sometimes weeks to clear. In developing countries, bank will take its sweet time to clear it which may take even more than two weeks.

It costs tens of dollars in fees and significant percentage in currency conversion cost if you live in a country where you cannot hold foreign currency received directly (Many unbanked countries have these kind of absurd laws).

So you will lose hundreds of dollars on currency conversion on a transaction of a few thousand easily.

This is taking into account the best bank account you can get with high income. At best, you might end up paying tens of dollars on a few thousand transaction in conversion.

Solved problem? Not at all.

I can provide so many examples where banking is broken. People buy registered companies for a company bank account in middle East because you cannot easily open a bank account if you are a foreigner or foreign company. You need to have hundreds of thousands in seed capital to start a current account.

In developed countries, I have seen friends struggle with getting a home loan because they are self employed or founder.

Maybe you don't believe crypto is the solution and I can accept that but banking system is nowhere solved.

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

#265

Post by mancerayder »

popcorncowboy wrote: post #161
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…

> I don't foster any negative feelings towards developers per se. A job's a job Nah. This line of reasoning excuses any activity one might be involved with because "it's just my job". Doesn't work like that. The idea that you carry zero moral (or ethical or even legal) culpability because you're drawing a paycheck and being "told" what to do is what every person working for the companies that are deeply damaging our…

>Nah. This line of reasoning excuses any activity one might be involved with because "it's just my job".

This comes off as financially entitled, like there aren't pressures around rent and life expenses that take precedence in decisions around employment. Either you've taken a vow of not caring about money, or you already have enough (and assets) not to care, or you're naive about a uniquely lucky time we lived in where employment was plentiful - which is about to end.

Ironically it might end first in the crypto space being discussed.

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

#266

Post by m00dy »

ogogmad wrote: post #193
m00dy wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> You will see how financial products work in traditional finance. You can understand them by reading their smart contract code. But this doesn't need DeFi. You could have open-source trading software without Ethereum.

You could have many things but practically speaking we don't have it :)

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

#267

Post by JauntTrooper »

tgv wrote: post #170
charcircuit wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I would also not want to hire/work with anyone who's worked for facebook or google in the past 5 years These companies have a plethora of things to work on and you have the ability to positively impact most of the planet (billions of people). You are oversimplifing things if you think they are all evil people who would be bad to work with.

> you have the ability to positively impact most of the planet (billions of people) Hundreds of thousands of people work there, yet they haven't managed to achieve that positive impact.

You don't think Google has achieved a positive impact?

Search, Maps, Gmail, YouTube, Chrome, Android, Cloud, Pixel, Nest, Fitbit, Stadia, Drive? Not to mention their other projects like DeepMind / AlphaFold?

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

#268

Post by wadefletch »

hirako2000 wrote: post #226
mmcnl wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What problem does being your own bank solve? You're posing crypto as a solution to crypto-defined problems that no one actually has. How does crypto improve my life? How will it make me happier, healthier and how will it help me contribute more to the wellbeing of others and the planet? I can easily answer this question for PostgreSQL.

Well over 1B people remains unbanked, either excluded from banking or due to non intentional accessibility issues. That alone means crypto may be a solution to a signicant issue so many are having. Would that be enough? Even among the banked, and in the very developed world, the traditional system has caused the loss of people' life long savings, loss of the ability to even continue business operations, that day some…

PostgreSQL was created by Michael Stonebreaker and Larry Rowe, neither of whom are imprisoned. Who are you talking about?

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

#269

Post by onebot »

bfung wrote: post #68
onebot wrote: post #54

I think despite what the sentiment is, there is real value in crypto/blockchain. I mean if the US Government turned the dollar into a digital currency, wouldn't the sentiment change? Wouldn't DeFi be better with regulation? All the benefits of cryptocurrency/smart contracts/DeFi are real. The problem is there is no regulation. Without regulations most people are going to optimize for self interest. That is really ove…

How is it Decentralized Finance when regulation is created by a central body? (Can’t have multiple orgs defining regulations, they’ll just come up with different rules!). DAOs are actually centralized bodies… “pay up and join the rule making club”. The benefits touted would be amazing, but implementation-wise, are not based in reality and doesn’t account for use cases in a non-closed system. It’s not sentiment; study…

Maybe I should have qualified my statement. Regulation needs to happen around these Centralized exchanges and lending platforms like Celsius. So they don't over leverage their positions. DeFi should be completely decentralized (not your keys, not your crypto), but we still see middleman everywhere trying to extract value. If you are gonna act like a bank and be in custody of tokens that belong to your customers, then some regulation should be in order.
Post reply on HN