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Neal Stephenson doesn't seem keen on crypto anymore

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Re: Neal Stephenson doesn't seem keen on crypto anymore

#81

Post by sumtechguy »

optimalsolver wrote: post #23
legrande wrote: post #19

We all started off enthused about cryptocurrency and then the Wolf of Wall Street types co-opted it and ruined it for everyone pulling off the most sophisticated Ponzi schemes in history. The only use-case for it now is for the criminal underworld (who have to somehow convert to fiat privately using novel techniques, and that gets harder with regulation and sanctions and outright banning of tumbler systems).

The capitalism was going great until actual capitalists got involved!

Was any actual capital involved? That looks like a speculation bubble.

Re: Neal Stephenson doesn't seem keen on crypto anymore

#82

Post by JohnFen »

noodlesUK wrote: post #61
strict9 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The only use-case for it now is for the criminal underworld You must not have a need to send money to recipients in other countries. I tried every option I could find until giving up in frustration and sending crypto instead. Not denying the negative aspects but it's a privileged position to assert criminality is the only use case.

I’m curious, what countries are you trying to send money between? I’ve only ever really transacted with big countries’ currencies (EUR, USD, GBP, etc.), and I’ve found that the ordinary banking systems (especially with fintech like Wise) serve me quite well for this use case. I’d love to hear more about the flipside of that.

There are nations where transferring money into and out of them with the standard systems is extremely expensive and/or can open you up to political persecution. There are other nations where it's just not realistically possible for the ordinary person.

Re: Neal Stephenson doesn't seem keen on crypto anymore

#83

Post by leppr »

soiler wrote: post #7

This isn't about cryptocurrency at all. It's about the obviously bad idea of transferable digital in-game goods [sold for cryptocurrency]. You don't need the crypto part to see why it's not a good idea, although the model described here (selling loot to other players?) is not the extremely silly one I've heard more often (buy a CSGO skin and wear it in other games!).

You are right. From reading the article, Neal Stephenson doesn't criticize cryptocurrency in itself. His whole criticism is about integrating it inside the universe of games.

I don't agree with your opinion that item transferability is necessarily silly, though. I was happy to be able to sell the rare Dota 2 items I accumulated after playing it for a couple years. It was never a central motivation for playing, but the transferability didn't detract from the experience in any way. It just made for some nice pocket change when all was said and done.

___

Meta remark: It's pretty sad that one of the only HN comments correctly pointing out the disconnect between the article title, the HN knee-jerk reactions, and the actual content of the article, seems about to be downvoted to oblivion. The article is barely 3 paragraphs. Is it too much to ask to read it, before jumping in with the same tired crypto takes as every link to crypto-related resources on HN gets?

Re: Neal Stephenson doesn't seem keen on crypto anymore

#84

Post by CBarkleyU »

quickthrowman wrote: post #26
hgsgm wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once you've crossed the line of purchasable in-game goods, transferable isn't silly.

It certainly is silly, what incentive does a game developer have to let someone transfer in game assets they bought for a different game instead of selling the in game assets themselves? There isn’t any incentive to allow it so it won’t happen. If you mean transferable as in able to sell an in game asset to another player, Valve has offered that for at least a decade.

Yep, it's the same reason why I can only smirk when people tell me that crypto is the next thing for buying/selling "used" video games. News flash: The reason why you can't sell your games on Steam isnt because of tech issues...

Re: Neal Stephenson doesn't seem keen on crypto anymore

#85

Post by strict9 »

noodlesUK wrote: post #61
strict9 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The only use-case for it now is for the criminal underworld You must not have a need to send money to recipients in other countries. I tried every option I could find until giving up in frustration and sending crypto instead. Not denying the negative aspects but it's a privileged position to assert criminality is the only use case.

I’m curious, what countries are you trying to send money between? I’ve only ever really transacted with big countries’ currencies (EUR, USD, GBP, etc.), and I’ve found that the ordinary banking systems (especially with fintech like Wise) serve me quite well for this use case. I’d love to hear more about the flipside of that.

Sending from US to Ukraine. I tried Wise (and WU) but the UI presented generic errors when attempting payment that didn't indicate what the problem was or how to correct it. The chat assistant was equally vague as to what the problem was.

It could've been my fault, I don't frequently send internationally. But the experience sending crypto was far and away easier and is now my default choice.

Re: Neal Stephenson doesn't seem keen on crypto anymore

#86

Post by bko »

badcppdev wrote: post #9

Anyone who has read Cryptonomicon should remember that the hero protagonists went to a lot of effort to secure a large mass of gold to 'back' the currency they wanted to create. The Baroque Trilogy is less clear as Isaac Newton mints new currency. Does that mean that perhaps Stephenson's opinions were always that currency needs to be backed by something whether it is gold or national borders.

How is a currency "backed" by borders? The country can make a currency as the sole method to pay taxes which is the norm, but they can always ditch the currency and force you to trade it in for a different one at a fixed exchange

Re: Neal Stephenson doesn't seem keen on crypto anymore

#87

Post by JohnFen »

wpietri wrote: post #78
optimalsolver wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The capitalism was going great until actual capitalists got involved!

Right? The whole history of capitalism can be written in terms of "well that's fucked up, how can we patch that hole?" I used to work for traders on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, a privately held marketplace for commodities and derivatives. It was an extremely capitalist place, and over the years it had evolved extremely tight internal regulations. You just did not fuck with the exchange or with your clearing firm…

Exactly this.

Greed has never been good, but the entire premise of the US form of capitalism is that greed is inevitable, so we should try our best to make it as close to a force for good as possible. Even if the greedy people don't care about that.

Re: Neal Stephenson doesn't seem keen on crypto anymore

#88

Post by EFreethought »

badcppdev wrote: post #14
petesergeant wrote: post #5

For anyone else who missed it the first time around, here's Neal Stephenson originally being keen on crypto-currency: https://www.lamina1.com/

I might be just stanning but crypto-currency is quite different to block-chains used for digital asset tracking. It's all about the fungibility of individual crypto objects.

"Blockchain", "web3", "NFT": These are just stalking horses to get people roped into cryptocurrency.

A lot of people looked at bitcoin from the beginning, and asked what the point was, or if it would ever go anywhere. And bitcoin bros responded by telling everyone that the real game-changer wasn't bitcoin, but The Blockchain.

Re: Neal Stephenson doesn't seem keen on crypto anymore

#89

Post by pessimizer »

legrande wrote: post #19

We all started off enthused about cryptocurrency and then the Wolf of Wall Street types co-opted it and ruined it for everyone pulling off the most sophisticated Ponzi schemes in history. The only use-case for it now is for the criminal underworld (who have to somehow convert to fiat privately using novel techniques, and that gets harder with regulation and sanctions and outright banning of tumbler systems).

> The only use-case for it now is for the criminal underworld

At least that added validity to the currency; but over time it's become increasingly less useful for any of the criminal underground other than middleweight tax dodgers, embezzlers, and people trying to beat embargoes or currency controls.

My suspicion is that these generally elite crimes (by volume, not by incident count) are tolerable to elite decisionmakers, and the network enables covert transfer of funds to "freedom fighter" groups, informants, and politicians - so the US covert community can hide their activities within the swarm. They surely have the tools and funds to track and unmask everything going on in the network in real time, and if they see something they're truly bothered by, they can use a parallel construction to go after it. Bitcoin becomes Tor.

edit: Back in the day you had to fill a plane with cash and fly it to the Contras. Hell, you had to fill a plane with drugs, fly the drugs to where you could sell them for cash, then fly the cash back. The CIA were very early victims of the cashless society.

Re: Neal Stephenson doesn't seem keen on crypto anymore

#90

Post by rideontime »

j0hnyl wrote: post #33

Is that why he's dropping an NFT collection? https://metaverse.sothebys.com/snow-crash/lots/infocalypse

Any NFT being released now that isn't a blatant scam is a marketing effort cooked up a year ago that's only seeing the light of day now.
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