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Ask HN: Feel bad about working in crypto, what to do?

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Re: Ask HN: Feel bad about working in crypto, what to do?

#171

Post by mmcnl »

jeroenhd wrote: post #97

I'm one of the "haters". I see no value in crypto in 99.99% of crypto and in the cases that do make sense the actual use for it is borderline money laundering or tax evasion. All the "enthusiasts" seem to want to get rich by getting as many people as they can in their greater fool scheme of choice in the hopes of becoming a Bitcoin billionaire. The obnoxious fan base and practical scams coming out of the marketing de…

I understand a job's a job, but it's not as easy as you make it sound. Developers have ample opportunities and have the luxury of being able to make career decisions autonomously. Ofcourse I don't hate crypto developers, but it's not wrong to question their decisions.

Re: Ask HN: Feel bad about working in crypto, what to do?

#172

Post by mmcnl »

capkutay wrote: post #44

Zoom and Netflix both lost 60-80% of their value in the last year and I don't see anyone declaring them dead. I don't work in crypto but I think there's a bit of a knee jerk reaction to seeing all the vaporware projects being wiped out (rightfully so). Consolidation and pruning of wasteful projects is good. If you feel like the work you're personally doing is positive, then don't worry about people dancing on the gra…

Zoom and Netflix are companies that actually produce valueable goods. Both companies have a lot of happy customers. There is a lower bound for the stock price roughly equal to the physical assets of the company. There's no such limit for crypto coins. It can go to 0. There's no reason to assume otherwise.

Re: Ask HN: Feel bad about working in crypto, what to do?

#173

Post by mmcnl »

mudrockbestgirl wrote: post #88
Thlom wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ETH has been a legitimate technology with real use cases for a decade now and all we’ve got is jpeg’s of apes. With the amount of real money, talent and hard work being pumped into this space we should have seen the use cases materialize by now. But there’s nothing. I’m sure someone uses it for something real, but I haven’t seen crypto actually solve a real problem any better than a plain old database. Please correct…

It's an alternative financial system with many of the same (and some different) primitives than the existing ones: Liquidity via AMMs (instead of human or HFT MMs), derivatives, loans, yields, fixed-rate instruments, etc. These are used in the same way the equivalents in TradFi are used, just implemented differently, permissionless and with an API. I believe that many people don't understand the traditional financial…

I understand it's an alternative, but if you can't explain why it's a better alternative, than it's just making simple things complex. You argue that people who ask for practical use cases don't understand because "they can't wrap their heads around it". I'd argue exactly the opposite: you're in too deep to understand that the burden of proof is on you (or anyone else in crypto), not on everyone else, and you can't wrap your around the fact that everything related to finance is lubricant for life. How is crypto better lubricant than the current financial system? That's a very valid question, and if takes your more than two sentences and all kinds of words that no one outside of crypto understands, I'm afraid you don't have an answer at all.

Re: Ask HN: Feel bad about working in crypto, what to do?

#174

Post by mmcnl »

hirako2000 wrote: post #138
thematrixturtle wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your bullet points list a bunch of navel-gazing crypto improvements for crypto, but the previous poster was asking for examples where "crypto actually solve[a] a real problem any better than a plain old database". Got any?

Be your own bank cannot be solved by a plain database, as it doesn't ship with the trustless features most blockchain networks offer. The network is there. When bitcoin came out it solved that problem but the network took years to expand enough to guarantee integrity. That's what has been happening in crypto, in the early years, network expansion, fed by speculative investment (speculation can have its merit, see). T…

What problem does being your own bank solve? You're posing crypto as a solution to crypto-defined problems that no one actually has. How does crypto improve my life? How will it make me happier, healthier and how will it help me contribute more to the wellbeing of others and the planet? I can easily answer this question for PostgreSQL.

Re: Ask HN: Feel bad about working in crypto, what to do?

#175

Post by drdrek »

Working in an industry that is considered shady can harm you in the long run. I have worked at one point in a gambling (So called "Gaming") company and 80% of the people there only move to other gambling companies (or even shadier places) because there is a bias against them in "regular" companies. I would also add that the longer they stay in the space the harder it is to leave it without a significant pay cut / position downgrade.

This is not only limited to developers but marketing, hr and product as well.

Fields that I would especially be wary of entering or spending time in are:

* Gambling: Including real gambling ,virtual points gambling and gatcha games

* Gambling disguised as financial services: Gamifying Forex/Binary options and other "investments"

* Predatory financial services: Like payday loans and high yield loans

* Areas that you need to explain why your specific company is not a scam: Crypto/NTF etc

* Actual scams: Like toolbars (you would be surprised but its still a thing) and anything that is just thinly veiled phishing

The same advice goes to entrepreneurs and not just employees. I would advise to stay away from VCs that have any significant amount of investment in these fields (>10% of portfolio).

Re: Ask HN: Feel bad about working in crypto, what to do?

#177

Post by mmcnl »

olalonde wrote: post #86
Thlom wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ETH has been a legitimate technology with real use cases for a decade now and all we’ve got is jpeg’s of apes. With the amount of real money, talent and hard work being pumped into this space we should have seen the use cases materialize by now. But there’s nothing. I’m sure someone uses it for something real, but I haven’t seen crypto actually solve a real problem any better than a plain old database. Please correct…

Use case: decentralized, censorship-resistant, programmable money. Sorry if it takes more than a decade to disrupt the most entrenched and powerful status quo on earth. Personally, I never thought it would come this far so quickly, and am quite happy with the pace of adoption and progress.

A very important part of any use case is that you clearly define a goal. What is the goal of "decentralized, censorship-resistant, programmable money"? These are crypto invented words that have no meaning outside of the crypto ecosystem.

Re: Ask HN: Feel bad about working in crypto, what to do?

#178

Post by edanm »

tgv wrote: post #170
charcircuit wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I would also not want to hire/work with anyone who's worked for facebook or google in the past 5 years These companies have a plethora of things to work on and you have the ability to positively impact most of the planet (billions of people). You are oversimplifing things if you think they are all evil people who would be bad to work with.

> you have the ability to positively impact most of the planet (billions of people) Hundreds of thousands of people work there, yet they haven't managed to achieve that positive impact.

In your opinion. Other people disagree. Whose opinion should they listen to?

(And more in the spirit of the specific question parent raised - someone working at Facebook on funding charities. Are they "bad" for doing that job?)

Re: Ask HN: Feel bad about working in crypto, what to do?

#179

Post by mmcnl »

latchkey wrote: post #63

I've been in crypto since 2014. I just had the California Franchise Tax Board literally steal money out of a bank account of mine without any warning or notice. They left $0.01 in there and charged a $125 fee. I found out today they are claiming I owe taxes from when I wasn't even living in the country (and I was paying taxes then too!). In 2021/2022, I paid more taxes than I ever have in my life. I even over paid ju…

Crypto is one of many solutions for this problem. I'm willing to argue that out of 10 possible solutions, the crypto solution is the worst of all. Simply because the law is the law, and crypto might make it harder to enforce the law, it doesn't _change_ the law. So even with your crypto solution, you still would owe money to the California Franchise Tax Board, whether you like or not.

Re: Ask HN: Feel bad about working in crypto, what to do?

#180

Post by nikanj »

Kiro wrote: post #164
andruby wrote: post #136

Sometime in 2013 I was doubting to work with crypto. What made it clear for me, and this is the advice I still give friends today: Ask yourself this. Regardless of wether crypto pricing goes up or down, regardless of wether there is major adoption or not. Will I get satisfaction from having built X? Will I look back after a decade and be grateful about my contribution? So far, for me , the answer has been a no. I hav…

Who has the luxury to work on something that fulfils those criteria? If I would follow your advice I would be homeless.

Senior developers have that luxury. Healthcare adjacent tech is always hiring, and you can actually save lives there - not just make a bunch of crypto andys rich while destroying the planet
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