Crypto in 2026: Oh, This Is the Bad Place • Hacker News Board

Re: Crypto in 2026: Oh, This Is the Bad Place

#191

Post by l23k4 » Tue, Jun 23, 2026, 1:45 PM UTC

dragandj wrote: post #31

l23k4 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you go outside of the nice countries, local money becomes worthless. Nobody wants it, they'd much rather have dollars instead. Stablecoins for the first time offer a reasonable way for the global poor to store value in dollars, or in the form of any relatively stable currency. Obviously this comes with all kinds of issues, but it's still better than the original situation where "savings" simply didn't exist exce…

The global poor already had ways to store value in dollars. They could simply exchange whatever meager savings they had into... real dollars! And they have been doing that for decades. I don't know whether anyone in the west really believes in this bullshit of cryptocurrencies that give the global poor options.

I suggest you go outside sometimes, you'll see that the real world looks rather different than whatever crypto-obsessed bubble you live in.

I really don't think I need to explain the obvious difference between physical US dollar notes and USDT.

I'll point out that in most of the world a $100 note is only worth $100 if it's in basically mint condition, the value falls rapidly as condition degrades.

Re: Crypto in 2026: Oh, This Is the Bad Place

#192

Post by singpolyma3 » Tue, Jun 23, 2026, 1:45 PM UTC

altmanaltman wrote: post #98

thrownawaysz wrote: post #2

>Meet Mike. Mike is a college freshman who is exposed to crypto through social media. He downloads Coinbase, buys ten dollars of CumRocket because his friend group is in on it, watches the price move, and feels for the first time the dopamine rush of gambling on non-economic random walks. By his sophomore year he is onto harder drugs: 0DTE options on triple-leveraged single-stock ETFs he does not understand, traded o…

Yeah like why is Mike thinking he is investing if he is betting on a literal sportsbook? That is delusion and has nothing to do with crypto. I am not pro crypto but the logic here doesn't make a lot of sense. You can say buying crypto is like gambling sure but it literally is not. It's investing in an extremely risky asset that can go to 0. But it is very different than placing a bit on Kalshi or a sportsbook. I actu…

Honestly I blame the stock market goons for normalizing calling "betting on the stock market" investing. The stock market isn't investing it's gambling. Same for the bond market and most asset markets.

Buying a bond from the issuer is investing. Buying an IPO is investing. Buying a rental property is investing. Investment implies possible productive result from the action. When you buy shares or bonds already on the market this just exits the previous holder, it does nothing productive.

Re: Crypto in 2026: Oh, This Is the Bad Place

#193

Post by bee_rider » Tue, Jun 23, 2026, 1:45 PM UTC

jerf wrote: post #167

dghlsakjg wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can’t think of many better examples of social problems than sanitation and public health.

I think it would be a reasonable definition of "social problem" that it requires two people to have it, and that they must have it in relation to each other, which is to say, some sort of social interaction or communication must be involved as well. Sanitation is a problem for one person as well, as is health. Social problems arise specifically with the interaction of two people. You can't have a scam without two peo…

The original post said plumbing, not sanitation in general. Plumbing mostly solves a problem that arises when you have large groups of people. An individual or a small tribe can keep the waste and drinking waters separate by walking downstream a bit.

Re: Crypto in 2026: Oh, This Is the Bad Place

#194

Post by dgroshev » Tue, Jun 23, 2026, 1:46 PM UTC

mcintyre1994 wrote: post #83

I do agree that there's a huge amount of fraud and scams, and obviously that's only got worse since the President of the US started being part of that ecosystem. But at the same time there is also finally real finance happening on-chain too. Backpack launched a SpaceX token at IPO that can be moved between on-chain and your brokerage. I think Coinbase announced their on-chain equity offering will have the same capabi…

> Backpack launched a SpaceX token at IPO that can be moved between on-chain and your brokerage

What is the actual societal value of this? Do you seriously believe that such a token helps price discovery?

Re: Crypto in 2026: Oh, This Is the Bad Place

#195

Post by Ygg2 » Tue, Jun 23, 2026, 1:47 PM UTC

over_bridge wrote: post #146

danielvaughn wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I got into crypto in 2017 when I came across the phrase "money is a technology". That idea fascinated me. But fast forward several years later, and it's obvious that money might be a technology in the sense that it's a tool, but more importantly, money is a culture .

Or if you read Sapiens you'll know money is a story we tell each other. You can't literally do much with a coin or bank note or numbers on a screen but as long as we all believe it has value, it does. It becomes part of the culture, as you say. Crypto also has to tell a story about why it's valuable. There was a lot of anti government rhetoric and fear mongering (from libertarians) but the public never really believe…

> but crypto is still hanging on among its supporters

From what I last heard about crypto miners, the price of mining is not enough to justify price of rig + electricity, so they are quietly switching to AI.

Wonder how long the second scam will last.

Re: Crypto in 2026: Oh, This Is the Bad Place

#196

Post by fragmede » Tue, Jun 23, 2026, 1:47 PM UTC

mrhottakes wrote: post #137

jakelazaroff wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"How do we remove feces from our living spaces" and "how do we stop dying from pathogens" are not social problems.

Those are perhaps the biggest social problems that humanity has ever faced.

Toilet technology helped with the social aspects. There's a fascinating museum in India about the history of toilets.

Re: Crypto in 2026: Oh, This Is the Bad Place

#197

Post by VoodooJuJu » Tue, Jun 23, 2026, 1:50 PM UTC

cyphar wrote: post #169

danielvaughn wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I got into crypto in 2017 when I came across the phrase "money is a technology". That idea fascinated me. But fast forward several years later, and it's obvious that money might be a technology in the sense that it's a tool, but more importantly, money is a culture .

I mean, cultures are also a kind of technology, arguably one of the first we developed as Homo Sapiens. In my view the actual issue has always been that cryptocurrency folks don't understand what purpose money serves, mostly because they're all basically gold bugs. To strain the "money is a technology" metaphor, this is a product-market-fit issue -- like trying to build a cloud orchestration framework that only works…

[dead]

Re: Crypto in 2026: Oh, This Is the Bad Place

#198

Post by dboreham » Tue, Jun 23, 2026, 1:51 PM UTC

rglullis wrote: post #55

alehrs wrote: post #50

I've been deep into crypto for years and I was a big stablecoin supporter. I was fascinated by the tech and I still am. But everything outside the tech itself is just trash, scams, and gambling. I've come to believe that "pure" decentralization is neither practical nor particularly convenient. The only real use case that makes sense to me is giving people in developing countries access to a stable currency they can a…

Exactly. Cryptocurrency is useful as as a backup system against failing/weak institutions. Just that. Like insurance, it was not there to make anyone's lives better but simply to become a safeguard to avoid complete collapse.

Except it requires institutions in order to work.

Re: Crypto in 2026: Oh, This Is the Bad Place

#199

Post by close04 » Tue, Jun 23, 2026, 1:51 PM UTC

mothballed wrote: post #141

close04 wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GP added the "by the justice system" where OP only said "can be taken away". Both digital and fiat currency can be taken away from you through courts, legislation, trickery, or coercion. Crypto is surrounded by vast amounts of misinformation, misdirection, or misunderstanding. So you get these myths and generalization propagated through lack of education. "I heard crypto is completely anonymous", "I heard crypto can'…

If you toss a bag of cash in a hole buried under a grave in Timbuktu, or toss a bitcoin seed phrase in there. Cover it up, leave Timbuktu back to your western country. Then vow to die before giving up the location (you can claim torture or whatever works, but many people in history have decided to be tortured to death without giving up the information). You can be essentially 100% assured it will never be taken. Poss…

> You can be essentially 100% assured it will never be taken.

If we take the creative approach, then according to the equivalence of inertial reference frames in the principle of relativity, taking you away from the money is exactly the same as taking the money away from you. Taking the money from you don't imply someone else must have it, just that you don't. Someone could take your HW crypto wallet even if they can't access the money, happens a lot with wallets confiscated by the government.

But ok, the original goalposts were set at the difference between stablecoins and fiat with regards to how easily they can be taken away from you. There is no difference for all practical purposes in any non-hyperbolic situation.

Re: Crypto in 2026: Oh, This Is the Bad Place

#200

Post by echelon » Tue, Jun 23, 2026, 1:53 PM UTC

cyphar wrote: post #169

danielvaughn wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I got into crypto in 2017 when I came across the phrase "money is a technology". That idea fascinated me. But fast forward several years later, and it's obvious that money might be a technology in the sense that it's a tool, but more importantly, money is a culture .

I mean, cultures are also a kind of technology, arguably one of the first we developed as Homo Sapiens. In my view the actual issue has always been that cryptocurrency folks don't understand what purpose money serves, mostly because they're all basically gold bugs. To strain the "money is a technology" metaphor, this is a product-market-fit issue -- like trying to build a cloud orchestration framework that only works…

Crypto exists to make early crypto holders money.

You get in on the speculative promise of making yourself wealthy. It's sold to you by the people at the top, and the message is amplified by the grifters and the pick mes in their orbit.

It's never been a convenient exchange of money. If they'd focused on this, maybe the argument would have worked. Instead, it's wacky and has the worst UX of any banking apparatus in the world. Including giant US banks stuck in 2005. This sucks because this is literally the value being sold, and it doesn't deliver on it at all.

By the time quantum chips can attack crypto's underlying hardness (2029?), most of the coins won't have the engineering talent and support left to migrate to more secure cryptography. We'll start seeing shit coins popped left and right, which will cause mass panic. That will cause sell offs, even if the big name brands manage to secure themselves temporarily.