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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

#131

Post by MPSimmons »

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).

>We all started off enthused about cryptocurrency

That's hilariously false.

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

#132

Post by taeric »

quickthrowman wrote: post #130
taeric wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, but that counter assumes that there isn't some transaction aid that crypto currency also brings. I could easily imagine a world where I get "crypto currency" that I can use across games. If only so that trying a new game doesn't mean starting from zero for those that did build up a lot of stuff in another one.

> I could easily imagine a world where I get "crypto currency" that I can use across games. Why would any company use a decentralized token to let you purchase things when they could simply make their own store currency/points and sell that instead? Look at all the F2P games that have in-game purchases, they all use points that are sold by the publisher that are bought with dollars because they make more money that w…

Oh, agree that I don't imagine this world being likely. Just imagining that there is no reason these points have to be backed by US dollars. And if you gave people a way to transfer value from one game to another, they may take you up on it. Incentive would be to give a reason to jump worlds, as it were.

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

#133

Post by Turing_Machine »

JohnFen wrote: post #113
Y_Y wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You make a good point, although I might prefer to live in Mr. Lee's Greater Hong Kong than in seventeenth century England.

True. There have been many very real dystopias in history. I've long thought that if I had to live in the world of Snow Crash, I would totally want to be in Mr. Lee's Greater Hong Kong over the other corporations. In context of the book, Mr. Lee kinda slapped.

Mr. Lee would definitely beat the Mafia, at least if you got on the bad side of management.

One of the most amusing parts of that book was how the Mafia had recruiting booths at college job fairs, just like the other corporations.

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

#134

Post by Turing_Machine »

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.

Not the OP, but I've heard that legitimate businesses in Nigeria find it very difficult to carry out international transactions because pretty much every bank flags any transfer to Nigeria as potential fraud.

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

#135

Post by leppr »

quickthrowman wrote: post #127
leppr wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If anything, crypto at least seems to indirectly put food on your table, articbull. I would find it hard to believe you don't get any compensation from religiously covering every HN comment sections about crypto with misinformation. Surely your motives can't simply be the fear of being out of a job if bigtech fades into irrelevance. AI would logically be a way bigger threat to your occupation. Here are some stats for…

> Here are some stats for any passerby who might be convinced to think crypto really has ~zero non-criminal usage [1]. Surely calling 5-25% of many countries' populations criminals (including the US), should be relegated to a fringe extremist view. Simply owning digital tokens is not a real world usage of those tokens, full stop. That being said, I can fully accept that 5-25% of a countries population is gullible eno…

> Simply owning digital tokens is not a real world usage of those tokens, full stop.

It's as much real world usage, as people owning stocks and precious metals is.

> I can fully accept that 5-25% of a countries population is gullible enough to buy cryptocurrency.

In many countries, it's the 75% of the population saving in their local fiat currency that are the gullible ones. I know we all love United States Dollars, but in many local economies, there aren't enough of them to go around. Acquiring, storing and transacting with cryptocurrencies can be easier, and more secure and discrete than going to your local black market USD dealer and stashing stacks of bills under your mattress.

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

#136

Post by rco8786 »

dopidopHN wrote: post #67
rco8786 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry but how on earth is this data supposed to be reliable when the underlying transactions are explicitly anonymous

They are pseudo-anonymous at best.

On an individual basis maybe, but on a macro statistical scale there is no way you can classify transactions as illicit or not with any remote degree of accuracy.

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

#137

Post by JohnFen »

deckard1 wrote: post #128
JohnFen wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does, yes. I think a lot of people haven't read the book or have forgotten that the world of Snow Crash is an extreme dystopia -- certainly not the sort of world most people want to live in. That's why I was so baffled as to why Facebook glommed on to the term "metaverse" with such fervor. The "metaverse" comes from that book, and is a major aspect of the dystopia. The term does not have positive connotations.

Meta has barely any spin on what they are trying to accomplish with the metaverse. It's out in the open that they want to create an all-encompassing privacy-destroying monopoly (sorry, platform ) to suit their revenue and profit needs. Either Zuckerberg is so out of touch that he actually believes people have the same goals as Meta (possibly, considering how comically bad Meta's presentation was) or he doesn't care.…

The only thing I can think of that makes any sense to me is that people like us found the technology itself presented in the book extremely compelling and wanted to have it. So much so that the purposes the technologies were put to in the book, and the social ramifications, were ignored and forgotten.

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

#138

Post by leppr »

kkielhofner wrote: post #98
arcticbull wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's been 14 years, billions in investment and roughly speaking zero non-criminal usage and no real-world killer use cases. That's just fact. Time to move on.

Thank you for succinctly saying what takes me multiple paragraphs. One nitpick - it’s easily $10s of billions of in investment, more than likely approaching or surpassing $100s of billions. A16Z alone has raised roughly $10b. Throw in other big VCs, a bunch of coin/crypto specific funds, likely thousands or tens of thousands of angel/seed rounds we’ve never heard of capitalizing on the hype (or just outright frauds),…

You are both going around my very simple argument that these mind-blowingly huge piles of money poured into crypto scams, don't undermine the undeniable reality of crypto that is not a scam.

Yes, people pouring their savings in tulips, fake railroad companies, and beanie babies is absurd. Does it follow that tulips, railroad companies, and baby plushies are scams and criminal in nature? The grifters and their victims moved on, and the underlying objects of speculation seem to exist and do their respective jobs just fine now.

Crypto is doing its job just fine of being a trustless and permissionless way of transferring value. It doesn't care if grifters hype, pump, and dump its tokens. The few actual decentralized networks in existence just keep running and securing their immutable ledgers. The few actual peer-to-peer researchers and developers keep improving them.

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

#139

Post by soiler »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #79
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!).

I'm actually a big fan of transferable digital in-game goods, although I see why some publishers wouldn't want it. Real currency resale markets obviously come with a cost to the publishers, who are the original sellers of the good. However, they also have upsides to the publishers and players. Magic the gathering is a good example because they have two online versions with different approaches. In Magic The Gathering…

Hm, you're right that there are digital situations where it does make sense. And that's exactly what the article is about: Does it make sense in your game? In most cases, no.

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

#140

Post by soiler »

leppr wrote: post #83
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 th…

People may be downvoting because I stuffed my comment with opinions they dislike more so than my calling out the title being irrelevant to the article.
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