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Cryptocurrency Is an Abject Disaster

drewdevault.com

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Re: Cryptocurrency Is an Abject Disaster

#171

Post by 22c »

ddevault wrote: post #123
22c wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're asking people to document their own bias, so I think it is only fair to point out yours. Do you believe that cryptocurrency as a whole is an abject disaster? Do you support efforts to reform consensus with alternatives to Proof-of-Work (eg. Proof-of-Stake, Delegated Byzantine Fault Tolerance, etc.) or do you think cryptocurrency is a lost cause?

>You're asking people to document their own bias, so I think it is only fair to point out yours. I think I have been pretty open with my own perspective in TFA. >Do you believe that cryptocurrency as a whole is an abject disaster? Yes. I just published an article titled "Cryptocurrency is an abject disaster". >Do you support efforts to reform consensus with alternatives to Proof-of-Work [...] or do you think cryptocu…

>I think I have been pretty open with my own perspective in TFA.

Perspective and bias are two different things.

>I addressed both of these in TFA, too.

No you didn't, or I wouldn't have asked. You mention proof-of-stake in passing. You also seem to continue to conflate proof-of-work with cryptocurrency in general.

You seem uninterested in discussing these topics further than what you've laid out in your article, which is totally fine. Thanks for taking the time to write and share.

Re: Cryptocurrency Is an Abject Disaster

#172

Post by tome »

knorker wrote: post #155
pk_kinetic wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We’re not journalists. We’re discussing a subject on a message board. Besides, my original position was that it was bad form to ask for the exact amount of crypto someone holds. I don’t ask for the exact amount of stock someone holds in Tesla when they are talking about how great Tesla is.

But Tesla is not a multi-level marketing scheme. But yes, maybe it would be better to say "none", "a bit", or "my retirement depends on it". (or whatever scale you want to use) Just because you're not a journalist doesn't mean you can't be ethical.

> Just because you're not a journalist doesn't mean you can't be ethical.

I think this is my favourite HN comment of the year so far!

Re: Cryptocurrency Is an Abject Disaster

#173

Post by shkkmo »

eric_cc wrote: post #161
shkkmo wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Weren't you just trying to charge people to discuss with them how cryptocurrencies will change the world? That sounds much less like an ethusiast and much more like a salesman.

It was a sarcastic reply to the request the poster made of me but I guess that humor was lost on you. Why on earth would I spend the time and effort to write up a well sourced research paper to satisfy some random request on hacker news?

> Why on earth would I spend the time and effort to write up a well sourced research paper to satisfy some random request on hacker news?

According to your own words: Because you are trying to explain your position and enjoy talking about it.

Re: Cryptocurrency Is an Abject Disaster

#174

Post by 22c »

reducesuffering wrote: post #160
22c wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you playing logical fallacy bingo? You managed to turn OPs argument into a strawman, while also making an appeal to emotion and poisoning the well.

It's a rhetorical tool that quickly highlights the absurdity of pointing out actual harm experienced makes the subject un-objective. Would you prefer an example of 50 companies being hacked, them advocating for better cybersecurity measures everywhere, and someone pointing out they're now un-objective and should be dismissed? That this doesn't indicate anything about how cybersecurity measures are needed? I also find…

Rhetorical tool? No it's a logical fallacy because you are misrepresenting the argument made by the OP in an attempt to attack it and you're confusing the deaths of family members with a little bit of lost revenue.

Here's a better analogy for you.

This post may as well be talking about how household electricity is the worst invention of the 19th century because of how inefficient long distance DC power transmission is.

Re: Cryptocurrency Is an Abject Disaster

#175

Post by 22c »

narwally wrote: post #162
22c wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think that is related to cryptocurrency, or simply any fast moving asset in general? How many people really bought GME just to stick it to the hedge funds? How many people really liked the stock?

I think it's all of them, but the scary thing is what involvement in the markets for these assets can do to people.

It's possible that we'll see attempts to regulate these markets in a similar way to how binary options trading has become regulated in some markets.

Re: Cryptocurrency Is an Abject Disaster

#176

Post by majewsky »

cannabis_sam wrote: post #167

Jfc, while cryptos exacerbate the climate issue, our climate problems are directly and completely a consequence of a bunch of inventions in the 19th and 20th century... Yet burning gasoline like a deranged madman is apparently constitutionally protected in every country. Infrastructure spending is literally dependent on the continued ability of peoples to transport themselves quicker by sacrificing their grandchildre…

Nice whataboutism.

Re: Cryptocurrency Is an Abject Disaster

#177

Post by tome »

s3krit wrote: post #159
2pEXgD0fZ5cF wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is US dollar moral? Is it not also "smoke-and-mirrors" US Dollar and other "real" currencies are and can be used for payments and transactions (money in exchange for goods, services etc.). Cryptocurrencies are only converted to/from other currencies to make profits based on speculation.

Disclaimer: I don't know world global finance, I don't know much about economics, I hold several cryptocurrencies. I am fantastically unqualified to actually make this post. I was curious about this comment, because I know FOREX is a massive market. According to [1] the daily volume of FOREX in USD is $6.1 trillion. According to [2], the average 'consumer unit' (ugh... I guess that means 'person'?) in the US spends a…

> the average 'consumer unit' (ugh... I guess that means 'person'?) in the US spends about $63k per year

Surely it means 'household'? There's no way the average American spends $63k per year. That's more than the average salary.

Re: Cryptocurrency Is an Abject Disaster

#178

Post by majewsky »

22c wrote: post #86

So it seems Drew is biased here, he is biased because his service is being used by thieves to make money. My tainted opinion: I think the criticisms of Proof-of-Work are totally justified here. There are perverse incentives for "miners" to execute work in the cheapest way they can, whether that is JS miners, bot farms, abuse of free services, hacked AWS accounts, abusing favorable tenancy conditions etc. and even if…

> I always expected that the price of these coins would naturally level out because you'd have to remain competitive with the likes of Backblaze or S3.

Backblaze and S3 cannot conjure storage space out of thin air. If proof-of-storage coins make hard drives more expensive, that also increases the capex for those services and thus their prices. In the end, they're just shitting on everyone's lawn, no matter if you're using your own purchased disks or storage-as-a-service.

Stake: I hold EUR and have never held crypto"currencies".

Re: Cryptocurrency Is an Abject Disaster

#179

Post by acdha »

noxer wrote: post #90
acdha wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No argument here: in the second decade, the only cash-positive usage is convincing other people to buy them. That’s a long time to have nothing to show despite such massive cash flow into the system. TBL transformed the world in a few years for a tiny fraction of the cost despite much higher barriers to adoption.

There is no cash flow "into the system". Its a forever repeated nonsense idea. If you exchange fiat or maybe gold for fiat there is no cash flow into anything its just an exchange. Crypto to crypto or to fiat is exactly the same. No cash goes anywhere other than to the seller. (obviously ignoring fees and such but they also dont go into anything its just paying someone for providing a service) If you look at crypto a…

What do you think happened to all of the money from VCs, big consulting companies, etc. which was spent on blockchain services? How many people have received a full-time paycheck for years for the express purpose of building something worth using?

Your grocery store analogy illustrates why there are so many skeptics: I don't have to ask people whether they use a grocery store because they have food on their shelves and there's a steady stream of people entering and leaving the store. Blockchain systems, on the other hand, are never mentioned other than by people who have a vested interest in selling the system rather than doing anything with it. People say they're going shopping to buy something for dinner, but it's extremely hard to find someone saying they're buying cryptocurrency because there's something it helps them do faster/better/cheaper rather than just hoping they'll be able to sell the same token to someone else for more than they paid for it.

Re: Cryptocurrency Is an Abject Disaster

#180

Post by elite_hackers »

baggy_trough wrote: post #145
acdha wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It makes more sense if you don't trim the quote. Cars directly cause a large number of injuries and fatalities every year, and that's mostly premature — people who had decades of healthy life ahead of them until a vehicle incident, as opposed to someone in their 80s who died of cancer before heart disease got them. I included lower quality of life because while safety and medical improvements have reduced the number…

OK, that makes more sense. However, your comment does not take into consideration the benefits from cars, which should be considered to accurately assess their overall effect on quality of life.

Do you think every citizen of earth should own a car?
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