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It's time for us in the tech world to speak out about cryptocurrency

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Re: It's time for us in the tech world to speak out about cryptocurrency

#131

Post by codehalo »

ArkanExplorer wrote: post #90
codehalo wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you (and your representative) please just leave me alone so I can harm myself with this "harmful technology"? Whatever the outcome, I'll take my chances. Please leave me alone.

The harm is not limited to you. Electricity shortages: https://www.cnbc.com/2021/05/26/iran-bans-bitcoin-mining-as-... Chip shortages: https://www.fxempire.com/forecasts/article/bitcoin-mining-ad... Ransomware: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/bitcoin-extortion-how-cryp... In terms of overall negative impacts, crypto is worse than ponzi schemes and online gambling.

Yeah, all the problems of the world are due to bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. Embarrassingly, more than a decade in, HN is still struggling with it. I don't consider harmful, I consider it a godsend. Ten years ago, I knew HN was wrong, it will still be wrong in a decade.

Re: It's time for us in the tech world to speak out about cryptocurrency

#132

Post by Swizec »

Git is the most wildly successful and broadly useful application of the ~blockchain~ merkle tree data structure. It’s fantastic and here to stay.

The digital money angle? Eh it’s okay. Everyone loves a gullible population that prefers to be paid in not-money.

Eventually crypto will have to invent all the overhead and governance it was trying to escape. You know, so things like Musk’s little pump-and-dump the other week stop being possible.

For the downvoters: The original bitcoin paper explicitly says it’s using a merkle tree data structure under the hood. Same as that used by git.

Re: It's time for us in the tech world to speak out about cryptocurrency

#133

Post by chrisco255 »

morelisp wrote: post #100

> They don't see the huge silent majority of tech people who know it's a scam. That's on us Serious question: What does "not silence" looks like? Anyone who asks me gets my viewpoint on cryptocurrency and blockchains generally (which is more or less the same as Maciej's). My relatives all know it, but they also know another relative (who also thinks it is a scam!) made a couple K back in the first bubble because he w…

How sustainable do you think this is: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M1SL

That's a chart showing the M1 money supply increase by the Fed. It has more than quintupled in the past two years. That chart looks like a true scam to me. And it shows in the US household net worth data: https://mobile.twitter.com/RaoulGMI/status/13987339019132641...

Re: It's time for us in the tech world to speak out about cryptocurrency

#134

Post by hahahasure »

skrebbel wrote: post #50

These two resonated with me: > A lot of intelligent observers look at cryptocurrency, see that it makes no sense, and reasonably infer that they must be missing something profound on the technical level. Tech culture has a nice tradition of not deriding new ideas, but we need to break it here and speak out > [non-tech people] don't see the huge silent majority of tech people who know it's a scam. That's on us It is o…

Bitcoin is not a scam. Government currency is a scam.

Every other coin is basically a scam. Privacy coins may have a purpose

Re: It's time for us in the tech world to speak out about cryptocurrency

#135

Post by MrRadar »

codehalo wrote: post #73
ArkanExplorer wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not really accurate. For most people, they deal with financial institutions directly via the fiat onroads and offroads fror the exchanges. The fact that you can formally buy, exchange, and cash out of crypto with full banking support gives cryptocoins a veneer of Government support and legitimacy. The USA bans online gambling and ponzi schemes. Cyrptocoins are worse, because they include a side order of immens…

Can you (and your representative) please just leave me alone so I can harm myself with this "harmful technology"? Whatever the outcome, I'll take my chances. Please leave me alone.

The environmental harms of cryptocurrencies hurt everyone. It's a classic externality.

Re: It's time for us in the tech world to speak out about cryptocurrency

#136

Post by idlewords »

alecbz wrote: post #118

Isn't all currency more or less a "pyramid scheme" in the sense that Bitcoin is? I wish we had more subtlety in our discourse. It feels like it's all either blind admiration or blind condemnation. Bitcoin is trying to be a new currency. Currencies more or less operate on "collective delusion". I think many people scratching their heads at why Bitcoin is worth anything _are_ missing something, which is why any currenc…

When I say pyramid scheme, I don't mean it in the sort of philosophical way that you could apply to all fiat currency, but in the "OMG look at Tether" way.

Re: It's time for us in the tech world to speak out about cryptocurrency

#137

Post by dadoge »

tinyhouse wrote: post #103
dadoge wrote: post #86

Bitcoin is giving people in hyperinflation environments like Nigeria, Argentina, Turkey an out to their oppressive and corrupt govt banking system. If one looks at gold and asks themselves “why is gold worth 11 trillion dollars today?” How did it, over centuries and centuries obtain such a status? Bitcoin has better properties than gold does. It’s more scarce, scarcity means predictability, and predictability gives r…

Yeah sure, every time there's a crisis bitcoin loses 50% of its value. That's indeed such a great protection from inflation...

50% dip is a hell of a lot better than 40% inflation each year in Argentina year over year.

In Venezuela is disgusting, over 1,000% inflation each year.

Re: It's time for us in the tech world to speak out about cryptocurrency

#138

Post by friedman23 »

dredmorbius wrote: post #85
vimy wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's worldwide.

What fraction of all commerce is worldwide as opposed to local? What degree of that difference, if any, is a consequence of payment frictions rather than other factors (say: most activity and interactions are local). What preferences are exhibited by major international buyers and sellers for payment or credit systems?

Why don't you go answer these questions yourself? All you are doing is stifling discussion.

Re: It's time for us in the tech world to speak out about cryptocurrency

#140

Post by webgoat »

ashtonkem wrote: post #63
idlewords wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't agree with your point hard enough. Really useful nascent technologies all have this pattern—they grow incrementally more interesting and constantly gain applications. Bitcoin followed this pattern for a while. But then at some point it started to regress on that axis. You could no longer buy a pizza with it, you could no longer mine it, and it got too flooded by scammers to use safely. There's nothing to real…

Bitcoin didn’t regress, what actually happened is that its fundamental flaws ended up eventually dominating whatever early enthusiasm allowed them to be ignored. It was never going to work, for a variety of reasons that were incredibly apparent at the time. “Why did it regress” is much less interesting than “why did anyone ever fall for this?”

Fees high, world too stable, heavy speculation. Cryptos forced to trade on centralized exchanges to avoid fees, making it a much crappier version of something like PayPal. Doesn't help that there's an unending supply of people more than willing to participate in ponzi schemes creating massive volatility and turning the "currency" into the commodity.
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