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I wasted years of my life in crypto

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Re: I wasted years of my life in crypto

#151

Post by Seattle3503 »

dreamcompiler wrote: post #141
serial_dev wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Blockchain is a very inconvenient database, for sure, but there is a good reason Bitcoin uses it. It had to solve to double spend problem and create a trustless p2p digital cash, while being censorship resistant and having no central authority. Some people around a decade ago started using blockchain for everything where a SQLite db would have been better, because blockchain was the buzzword around that time, and the…

It's stupid because blockchains don't scale. In most other respects they're quite clever.

In theory a L2 network coukd solve the scaling problem, but every time I've looked at L2 solutions theve had terrible UX.

Re: I wasted years of my life in crypto

#152

Post by wmf »

kaluga wrote: post #142

What stands out to me is how many smart people spent their best years optimizing around the constraints of a system that was fundamentally misaligned with real-world demand. The tech is fascinating, but incentives turned the whole space into a gravity well for speculation rather than creation. The upside is: once you realize this, you can take all that engineering discipline, resilience and product intuition you buil…

What's that saying... people won't understand something if they're being paid to not understand it.

Re: I wasted years of my life in crypto

#153

Post by themafia »

CamelCaseName wrote: post #7

Okay, so if your time felt wasted, that must mean there were better uses of your 20s. But, how else would you have driven towards your goal of building a new financial system?

Probably by choosing a more realistic goal. Who even thinks they can build a "new financial system?" When governments already control, by law, the current one?

It was always a pipe dream.

Re: I wasted years of my life in crypto

#154

Post by themafia »

moffers wrote: post #34

I’d hesitate to say it’s wasted. Aren’t these some of the most complex, electronic, decentralized systems in human history? That skillset is going to be more and more important the more and more computers there are.

> Aren’t these some of the most complex, electronic, decentralized systems in human history?

There are more phone calls in a day, but orders of magnitude, than Bitcoin transactions. So, no, they aren't even close.

Re: I wasted years of my life in crypto

#155

Post by vrighter »

HaZeust wrote: post #117
fsh wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's an ingenious solution to achieve a "trustless" currency that prevents double-spending without a central authority. Unfortunately, this solves the wrong problem. Spending money usually involves getting a good or service in return, which inherently requires "trust" (as does any human interaction). Your fancy blockchain is not going to help you if you order something with Bitcoin and no package arrives.

I always thought it was actually an ingenious solution to elections. There's absolutely no reason that a driver's license can't derive a hash that can only be proven and not reversed (for identity); and provides a one-time contribution to a blockchain that contains your vote - which you then receive your block's information when you finish voting. ANYONE can calculate the sums, anyone can verify and proof hashes, ide…

you can also juststore hashes in a normal database.

Re: I wasted years of my life in crypto

#156

Post by wmf »

Jamustico wrote: post #140
cosmotic wrote: post #19

Considering the transaction time and cost, crypto never made sense. As fast as I can tell, it's been pure speculation since its inception.

What? Most of networks nowadays are faster or as fast and cheaper than normal credit card and banking systems.

It's pretty obvious when people are using cached information from ten years ago.

Re: I wasted years of my life in crypto

#158

Post by wmf »

CamelCaseName wrote: post #7

Okay, so if your time felt wasted, that must mean there were better uses of your 20s. But, how else would you have driven towards your goal of building a new financial system?

They could have worked for Stripe/Ramp/Brex/Mercury for example. They'd still be rich but with non-speculative impact.

Re: I wasted years of my life in crypto

#159

Post by bawolff »

HaZeust wrote: post #117
fsh wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's an ingenious solution to achieve a "trustless" currency that prevents double-spending without a central authority. Unfortunately, this solves the wrong problem. Spending money usually involves getting a good or service in return, which inherently requires "trust" (as does any human interaction). Your fancy blockchain is not going to help you if you order something with Bitcoin and no package arrives.

I always thought it was actually an ingenious solution to elections. There's absolutely no reason that a driver's license can't derive a hash that can only be proven and not reversed (for identity); and provides a one-time contribution to a blockchain that contains your vote - which you then receive your block's information when you finish voting. ANYONE can calculate the sums, anyone can verify and proof hashes, ide…

If you want that just use zero knowledge proofs and cryptographic accumulators. No block chain needed.

Typically one of the properties people want from elections is the inability to prove to soneone how you voted, e.g. to stop someone from going, prove you voted for my candidate or i beat you up (or dont give you the bribe). Your scheme wouldn't support that.

Re: I wasted years of my life in crypto

#160

Post by picklepats »

spicyusername wrote: post #9

I've never understood the initial arguments about Bitcoin, no matter how many times they've been explained to me. The block chain is, and always was, an extremely inconvenient database. How anyone, especially many intelligent people, thought it was realistic to graft a currency on top of such a unwieldy piece of technology is beyond me. Maybe it goes to show how few people understand economics and anthropology and ho…

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