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Web3 and crypto skepticism is growing and people are finally starting to listen

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Re: Web3 and crypto skepticism is growing and people are finally starting to listen

#191

Post by slaw3 »

ttul wrote: post #29

It’s pretty cool that I can send $1M to someone without a bank intervening, not to mention that nobody can stop the transaction from happening. And then they can print that out onto a sheet a paper and put it into a vault. Crypto is really great if you’re a drug dealer or some other kind of criminal.

Ya pretty cool that someone from Ghana living in Canada could send $5000 worth of crypto to their family without a bank intervening. Also pretty cool that they could be paid per second instead of weekly or monthly using something like Superfluid.

If these are problems that don’t exist for you, consider yourself lucky and remind yourself of the opportunities for many that you’re advocating against.

Re: Web3 and crypto skepticism is growing and people are finally starting to listen

#192

Post by galosh »

axg11 wrote: post #60

The relentless number of anti-crypto and anti-web3 articles on HN is tiring. Nobody is forcing anyone to partake in this new technology. Skepticism is healthy, but criticism without being constructive is not. There are clearly _some_ novel ideas in the crypto space, even if you think the state of the community today is not healthy. Thousands of teams are exploring ideas on many different fronts (e.g. L1s, L2s, NFTs).…

> Nobody is forcing anyone to partake in this new technology

https://twitter.com/mcm_ct/status/1485295498806403077

Unfortunately Michael Saylor is the rule rather than the exception. Crypto marketing is extremely coercive, with slogans like "have fun staying poor!", intended to maximize shame and peer pressure to encourage the vulnerable and ignorant to become "believers". This is explicitly bullying behaviour.

Re: Web3 and crypto skepticism is growing and people are finally starting to listen

#193

Post by BugsJustFindMe »

intev wrote: post #142
nikanj wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't support robocall spammers, even if their tech stacks might contain interesting nuggets. At best your typical crypto project is just a planet-destroying unregulated casino, at worst it's criminal fraud. I don't care that it might contain cool tech. The same goes for e.g. ransomware. It might be innovative. It's still a huge blight on humanity.

> I don't care that it might contain cool tech. As a tech enthusiast, that's just sad to hear.

If you think that's sad, wait until you hear about the people who give crimes against society and the planet the "ok" because they involve cool tech.

Re: Web3 and crypto skepticism is growing and people are finally starting to listen

#194

Post by squarefoot »

fullshark wrote: post #4

The evidence to support the claim is pretty weak, basically there's some more anti-crypto blogposts and documentaries out. I could easily make an article with the reverse claim and point out the pro-crypto blogposts and documentaries.

The best argument against cryptocurrencies is their impact on the environment, which is becoming huge and is based on solid numbers. Thousands of thousands of hardware miners in pretty much every country, and growing every damn day, each one drawing no less than 3 Kilowatts 24/7 and pumping heat into the atmosphere don't come without a cost. Which for those who don't care about the environment is also represented by the unprecedented raise of energy prices. Energy has become the raw material used to build money; its costs follow the demand and will continue to soar as long as prices continue to be dictated by the demand for continuously growing crypto farms. There's no going back until some form of strong regulation, or a global catastrophe, will end this for good.

My personal (admittedly Don Quixotesque) stance on the matter is that I will never ever accept to be paid in crypto currency for products, services or whatever: their value over here is less than zero.

Re: Web3 and crypto skepticism is growing and people are finally starting to listen

#195

Post by spmurrayzzz »

Tenoke wrote: post #77
hervature wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you reconcile the fact that most of Web3 is built on Ethereum which only works because miners ("soon to be" stakers) are rewarded for running the blockchain?

There's more and more being built outside of Ethereum and the dominance has been shrinking. As to how I explain the dominance - shrinking first mover advantage.

even for the other DVM-eqsue networks (solana, avalanche, et al), they still have the same constraint. the incentive to secure the network (either through PoW or PoS) is inherently tied to the underlying tokenomics, the currency has to have some value for the consensus mechanism to be successful.

Re: Web3 and crypto skepticism is growing and people are finally starting to listen

#196

Post by latchkey »

techwiz137 wrote: post #132
bojo wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indirectly. You are processing their transactions.

This drug argument is silly. Dollars are still the main culrpit in drug deals. They still account for the majority of drug transactions in the world.

Oil is a terrible drug.

Re: Web3 and crypto skepticism is growing and people are finally starting to listen

#197

Post by capableweb »

kerneloftruth wrote: post #131
jsharf wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Usually I hate skeptical mean comments like this on hackernews. Right or wrong, there's a certain level of empathy missing. And yet... In this case I find myself guiltily agreeing.

I don't see anything mean in the comment, and I also fully agree (it's really well-stated). Being direct and not mincing words is not being mean.

It's not mean, it's just very skewed in one way without acknowledging different perspectives. Take this sentence:

> At best your typical crypto project is just a planet-destroying unregulated casino, at worst it's criminal fraud

Obviously the "at best" part is still a negative, just like the "at worst". That's no way of starting a curious conversation and frankly, it makes for boring reading no matter if you're for/against cryptocurrencies as a whole.

Re: Web3 and crypto skepticism is growing and people are finally starting to listen

#198

Post by bikamonki »

axg11 wrote: post #60

The relentless number of anti-crypto and anti-web3 articles on HN is tiring. Nobody is forcing anyone to partake in this new technology. Skepticism is healthy, but criticism without being constructive is not. There are clearly _some_ novel ideas in the crypto space, even if you think the state of the community today is not healthy. Thousands of teams are exploring ideas on many different fronts (e.g. L1s, L2s, NFTs).…

Well put. Not everything is bad about crypto, some ideas may turn into the "next thing". One use I find interesting and look forward to see if it grows into something truly useful is DAOs. I know is a naive thought but I do see decentralized governance as a way of fixing the broken democracy we currently have. I also believe crypto has the potential to fix banking and insurance. We'll see.

Re: Web3 and crypto skepticism is growing and people are finally starting to listen

#199

Post by toss1 »

The article ends with:

>>Even with the increased amplification of skepticism, the crypto and Web3 space continue to grow rapidly. Only time will tell if we will have a new decentralized blockchain-based utopia or if the skeptics were correct all along.

So basically, this is now just falling off the "Peak Of Inflated Expectations" into the "Trough of Disillusionment" on the Gartner Technology Hype Cycle graph[0][1].

Perhaps notable that it is going through the cycle so quickly. I expected a more substantive analysis, but it seems to be merely pointing to the name-calling ("a solution in search of a problem". "con job") of a few skeptics.

Actually I now recall lasers being called "a solution in search of a problem" for several decades, but now they are ubiquitous, although it does mean that the initial laser manufacturers were not necessarily the big winners.

[0] https://emtemp.gcom.cloud/ngw/globalassets/en/research/image...

[1] https://www.gartner.com/en/research/methodologies/gartner-hy...

Re: Web3 and crypto skepticism is growing and people are finally starting to listen

#200

Post by RandomLensman »

axg11 wrote: post #60

The relentless number of anti-crypto and anti-web3 articles on HN is tiring. Nobody is forcing anyone to partake in this new technology. Skepticism is healthy, but criticism without being constructive is not. There are clearly _some_ novel ideas in the crypto space, even if you think the state of the community today is not healthy. Thousands of teams are exploring ideas on many different fronts (e.g. L1s, L2s, NFTs).…

There are indeed and they are probably not even technological but conceptual. In practice blockchains/DLTs etc. might not solve many real world issues (any?) but the associated experimentation has surfaced some interesting ideas, e.g.,:

(i) ability to split governance layers more, i.e., what was once thought of as one monolith could be run along many dimensions

(ii) things like AMMs in DeFi might point the way towards making market making more investable in general

(iii) The possibility for creation of new asset classes/creation of new volatility. This might not be crypto/not only crypto, but (also) markets in entirely different things

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