The Cryptocurrency Industry Is 'On the Brink of an Implosion', Research Says

I am familiar with the arguments of Jim Rickards, Peter Schiff and other goldbugs regarding cryptos. They are generally saying that crypto is doomed and should be abandoned. They continuously brought up fraud and money laundering until they recently realized that blockchains make it easier to track down transactions — not harder.

While I respect these people for their great expertise on the general economy, I don't agree with their take on crypto. They obviously misunderstand its nature and, to be frank, during the crypto boom they sometimes appeared to be a bit threatened by the rise of crypto (one of their core businesses is — you guessed it — gold).

With regard to your other points:

* Yes, you can create new altcoins out of thin air, but do you really think that will be possible forever? There are strong network effects at play and — as with any other market — there will be winners and losers. So far Bitcoin has oscillated around the 50% dominance mark. I don't see that changing in the near future. Saying that you can indefinitely create new alts is like saying that you can create unlimited Amazon clones. While technically true, this does not work in reality.

* Yes, inflation is built into Bitcoin, but in contrast to fiat it will not go on forever. Eventually it's a deflationary currency.

* According to the NYT the richest 1% in the US hold more wealth than the "bottom" 90%. This pattern seems to have nothing to do with Bitcoin, although I'd personally wish it would look different.

* Yes, there might be fraud and maybe there are also severe bugs. But up to now, Bitcoin has survived all tests in the field and appears to be pretty stable. Probably more stable than most other pieces of software I have ever seen.

Bitcoin's developers have refused for years to do what's necessary to avoid high fees like that. Luckily there are other cryptocurrencies, like Bitcoin Cash, which consistently have The infrastructure for automatic payments isn't there yet that's true. There's no reason why it can't be done though. I also have recurring payments for my email service, VPN, VPS and domains which I pay using cryptocurrencies.

To be fair the point of cryptocurrencies isn't to store them on an exchange (although you can) as some of the benefits are then lost.

That Wikileaks take other options doesn't retract from the point that there are clear benefits for them to accept cryptocurrencies.

You need to take a step back and breathe.

"Marked you as a spammer" and "promote fraud" is your interpretation, and I believe it's wrong. A single person called your comment "link spam", that's it. And nobody even mentioned fraud.

You seem to think fraud could be the only reason for a flagged-off comment. It's the rarest reason. I cannot remember a single clearly fraudulous comment here.

And I'm sure the people who flagged my submissions and comments from time to time didn't think they were fraudulous, either. They thought they were obnoxious. Or combative. Or mean-spirited. Lots of reasons why someone might flag something.

For what it's worth, I don't think you're trying to defraud anyone. Still, I believe that this cryptocurrency you mentioned is probably fraudulous, as are all of them. :-)

Yes, you linked to ycombinator. Among other links. Nobody ever said anything about that particular link. Again, it's your imagination.

Thanks for full-quoting your comment, but that wouldn't have been necessary. I have already read it. Before flagging it.

I don't care much about you taking your words back, and your pathetic attempt at blackmail doesn't change that.

Finally, yes, HN has changed a lot. In my opinion for the better, but you're in good company, many readers lament that change. Personally I don't particularly respect (or disrespect) Paul Graham, and I'm glad this isn't a Paul Graham fan site.

Maybe it really isn't for you. Do you really want to put more energy in this fight?

You can read why I strongly believe in cryptocurrencies based on my life experience (which has nothing do to with crypto):

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16197475

I think HN went pretty much to the left, if not far-left. HN readers are pretty much on the side of Paul Krugman, Thomas Piketty's world view.

I'm on the side Milton Friedman, Paul Graham's world view.

The left consider what I believe as total shit and at the same time call me intolerant. And this irritates me a lot. There is no way of being in peace with left without being submissive or self-censoring. And I don't want to be either.

> I believe that this cryptocurrency you mentioned is probably fraudulous

So do you believe YCombinator promotes fraud? Because cryptocurrency I mentioned was on blog.ycombinator.com.