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

Is this the end of crypto?

economist.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

291–300 of 448 posts

Re: Is this the end of crypto?

#291

Post by ganksalot »

rafaelero wrote: post #275

Bitcoin won't die. Crypto will, and hopefully soon. The community here is so oblivious to the characteristics that make Bitcoin the best monetary system we could have invented that I can only believe people haven't really thought things through. That's why we see these comparisons with Bitcoin and other cryptos. I am actually glad all this mess is happening so we can finally move on with all those crypto scams that w…

> The community here is so oblivious to the characteristics that make Bitcoin the best monetary system we could have invented that I can only believe people haven't really thought things through.

is this satire?

Re: Is this the end of crypto?

#292

Post by origin_path »

AlotOfReading wrote: post #240
_fat_santa wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Broadscale, crypto seems to have had an "Eternal September" moment and I think that's where the problems really began. Back in the early days before crypto entered the mainstream, it was pretty much like any other internet project. It was cool to be able to buy a pizza with internet funny money but by then it was still pretty small and everyone knew the inherent risks. Then came the "Eternal September" where cryto we…

I remember getting into Bitcoin in early 2010 when the pizza thing happened. Even back then it was hyped to me as an investment and an alternative to the corrupt financial system. There's always been an undercurrent of this stuff. The eternal September came years later, after big scams like Mt Gox had already long imploded.

Mt Gox wasn't a scam, just very poorly run.

Re: Is this the end of crypto?

#293

Post by mr_woozy »

arcticbull wrote: post #260
tim333 wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nitpicking but >if we turned off all bitcoin miners today, bitcoin would go to zero instantly isn't true. You couldn't trade them normally with the miners off but you could start mining up the day after - it only takes a couple of computers really.

> You couldn't trade them normally with the miners off but you could start mining up the day after. So if we turn off all the bitcoin miners, it wouldn't be possible to transact. All you could do is look at it, like a read-only excel sheet.

No post body was provided.

Re: Is this the end of crypto?

#294

Post by luddit3 »

compsciphd wrote: post #221
P5fRxh5kUvp2th wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When bitcoin first came onto the scene I personally knew a guy who was running a website to act as an exchange. It was small because bitcoin itself at that time was very small. Then bitcoin had its very first dip and it became unprofitable to mine bitcoins. When that happened he shuttered the website and kept everyone's bitcoins. I knew of bitcoin early on due to this guy, but even then I had no interest and consider…

I'd go a step further with the comparison to gold. If everyone would stop mining gold today, gold would retain value (or perhaps even go up in value). On the flipside, if we turned off all bitcoin miners today, bitcoin would go to zero instantly (as its worthless without continuous resources being pumped into it). This is why I'm sympathetic to those who say its ponzi scheme, it only has value because of new resource…

And if we turned off the internet how many companies would be worthless, because that is about as likely to happen as all mining stopping.

Re: Is this the end of crypto?

#295

Post by Ferret7446 »

bombcar wrote: post #182
pessimizer wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And by definition, a Ponzi must continue to expand, and expand quickly. Regulators are literally waiting until cyrpto completely runs out of possible new customers to intervene. The government is maximizing the damage that crypto does. Thank god we haven't gotten to crypto for kids yet, but crypto bonuses on credit cards is getting very close.

The government moves very slowly and basically waits until the problem is over before regulating it.

As it should. The problem with government is that it lacks perfect knowledge, which would only be exacerbated by acting too early.

Re: Is this the end of crypto?

#296

Post by drchopchop »

rafaelero wrote: post #275

Bitcoin won't die. Crypto will, and hopefully soon. The community here is so oblivious to the characteristics that make Bitcoin the best monetary system we could have invented that I can only believe people haven't really thought things through. That's why we see these comparisons with Bitcoin and other cryptos. I am actually glad all this mess is happening so we can finally move on with all those crypto scams that w…

A blockchain that can barely manage seven transactions per second is the "best monetary system we could have invented"?

Re: Is this the end of crypto?

#297

Post by DJBunnies »

ganksalot wrote: post #291
rafaelero wrote: post #275

Bitcoin won't die. Crypto will, and hopefully soon. The community here is so oblivious to the characteristics that make Bitcoin the best monetary system we could have invented that I can only believe people haven't really thought things through. That's why we see these comparisons with Bitcoin and other cryptos. I am actually glad all this mess is happening so we can finally move on with all those crypto scams that w…

> The community here is so oblivious to the characteristics that make Bitcoin the best monetary system we could have invented that I can only believe people haven't really thought things through. is this satire?

No, it's true, this place has a difficult time seeing nuance between bitcoin and crypto.

Re: Is this the end of crypto?

#298

Post by at-fates-hands »

cooljacob204 wrote: post #11

When Crypto was young it was this cool new technology that mostly interesting because of the underlying tech. But even back then it was mostly valuable for buying drugs online and other illegal stuff. Now it's that and a way to scam people of their life savings. I do hope it dies out, it should have been heavily regulated from the get go. Way too many people saw these high production commercials with their favorite c…

>> It never had a real use outside of scamming people and buying illegal shit,

Some anecdotal evidence to support what you're saying.

I work at a large health care company. When crypto and blockchain was getting popular, there was a huge push in the company to adopt blockchain and to a degree, crypto. I'm talking hour long presentations by blockchain companies, videos, and trainings. It was heralded as the dawning age of technology where people can be treated and pay in crypto, while at the same time, all their medical files being securely stored on the blockchain. They pushed it as the next step in 100% digitizing health care.

3 months later? It was dropped. Not just dropped, either. It was silenced throughout the entire company. The sharepoint sites promoting it internally were gone, the videos, presentations, and trainings were all scrubbed from the company sites and resources, like it never existed.

I started asking around and found out the executives found out about several exchanges going under and taking millions of people's money and how blockchain was more of a solution in search of a problem. That combination became too toxic for them to invest and be associated with.

Re: Is this the end of crypto?

#299

Post by origin_path »

danaris wrote: post #199
azangru wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When that happened he shuttered the website and kept everyone's bitcoins. > I knew of bitcoin early on due to this guy, but even then I had no interest and considered it bullshit. Then when I saw what this guy did it just solidified my opinion that it can't be trusted. But isn't it instead an early lesson in "not your keys not your coin" maxim that Bitcoin advocates preach? > If the value of gold crashes it still h…

> "not your keys not your coin" maxim that Bitcoin advocates preach? I keep seeing this phrase crop up throughout the past several days of cryptocurrency news, and something always rubbed me the wrong way about it, but I couldn't put my finger on it until today. It's demanding a change in human nature to accommodate the system, rather than changing the system to accommodate human nature. It's really not that differen…

"People don't want to deal with a hardware token every single time they want to do anything with their money"

Maybe not, but they have to regardless. Banks force this on users anyway (outside the USA). To pay for things I have to use either a chip card (token), or equivalent embedded in my phone (a token), or log in to e-banking using a chip card PIN pad (token) or my phone again, or auth an online CC tx with a phone app (token).

But no matter what I do the only way to move money around without invoking a hardware cryptographic token at some point, is use paper money and physical coins.

So this isn't really something new. Bitcoin was just ahead of the curve in this regard. Also, it's really hard for banks to reverse transactions outside of the USA. What makes bank money "safe" compared to crypto is simply that:

1. Governments will bail banks out because they're too big to fail. Of course you end up paying for it through inflation anyway.

2. Everything is KYCd/AMLd up the wazoo so even if money is drained from your account in the same way it could be for a cryptocurrency, the perps will find it much harder to evade capture.

Re: Is this the end of crypto?

#300

Post by meehow »

Fractional reserve is a scam, not crypto. Every institution which doesn't have money which they promised to keep safe, should collapse. Proof of reserves and audits are extremely easy in crypto and it doesn't require any regulations. Self custody of crypto is also pretty simple. Market is young, people greedy and as a result we got this domino of falling companies. Even after Mt. Gox collapse people didn't learn much, but I quietly hope it will come.
Post reply on HN