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It's time for us in the tech world to speak out about cryptocurrency

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Re: It's time for us in the tech world to speak out about cryptocurrency

#241

Post by [deleted] »

sneak wrote: post #228
skrebbel wrote: post #50

These two resonated with me: > A lot of intelligent observers look at cryptocurrency, see that it makes no sense, and reasonably infer that they must be missing something profound on the technical level. Tech culture has a nice tradition of not deriding new ideas, but we need to break it here and speak out > [non-tech people] don't see the huge silent majority of tech people who know it's a scam. That's on us It is o…

This all falls apart if bitcoin isn't a scam. The burden of proof lies with those accusing it. Additionally, there is no "silent majority" in tech that think it is a scam; the author has invented this.

[deleted]

Re: It's time for us in the tech world to speak out about cryptocurrency

#242

Post by dredmorbius »

friedman23 wrote: post #138
dredmorbius wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What fraction of all commerce is worldwide as opposed to local? What degree of that difference, if any, is a consequence of payment frictions rather than other factors (say: most activity and interactions are local). What preferences are exhibited by major international buyers and sellers for payment or credit systems?

Why don't you go answer these questions yourself? All you are doing is stifling discussion.

Asking questions is stifling conversation?

And making blind assertions and veiled insults is not?

The claim was made. Its relevance should be determinable.

That aside:

- Gravity model of trade.

- "Research: How Far Will Consumers Travel to Make Routine Purchases?" https://blog.accessdevelopment.com/research-how-far-will-con...

Re: It's time for us in the tech world to speak out about cryptocurrency

#243

Post by Graffur »

texaswhizzle wrote: post #221
blurbleblurble wrote: post #60

I can understand peoples' frustration with the artificial scarcity, but would like to see this same energy over the artificial scarcity of housing and free time. The oligopoly of national money systems is currently failing to provide people with basic access to capital. There's nothing intrinsic about cryptocurrency that will necessarily help this or exacerbate it, but the fact that I can get better interest on US do…

It’s not artificial scarcity, it’s outright fake scarcity. The total supply of Bitcoin is 21,000,000 coins. However, every single coin is 100,000,000 individual assets. 21,000,000 sounds pretty finite. But 21,000,000,000,000,000 sounds a tad less finite. The price of Bitcoin relies on the fundamental false premise that it’s scarce.

1 = x

1/100,000,000 = x/100,000,000

"stacking sats" is a common phrase so it's not really a secret that a bitcoin can be subdivided. In fact, a lot of bitcoin supports would support people learning this fact.

Re: It's time for us in the tech world to speak out about cryptocurrency

#244

Post by Geee »

xpe wrote: post #105
Geee wrote: post #75

The author clearly doesn't understand Bitcoin at all and Bitcoin has been already discussed for ten years by everyone in the tech world. His opinion is his own, not 'us in the tech world'.

> The author clearly doesn't understand Bitcoin at all Putting aside softer claims, writing "at all" is an exaggeration. Would you care to moderate your opinion or at least elaborate? Please point out area(s) where you think the author is mistaken?

His claims are false.

Bitcoin has more social benefit than any other technology. Money is technology that runs our society by allowing us to trade our time between each other. Sound money that can't be diluted or stolen away by a few benefits everyone. It's not only more fair money, but it also allows perfectly efficient markets and saves the environment by not incentivizing overconsuming.

Bitcoin is not used for money laundering, gambling, vaporware etc. and is not particularly well suited for those. His claims are not based on actual data.

Bitcoin is decentralized. Bitcoin nodes which protect the monetary policy are run by users. It's not possible for anyone to weaken the currency by forcing users to run a weaker version of the software.

Bitcoin actually solves the problem of central bank monopolies. It is money, it is a currency, it is a store of value. His claims are simply false.

He just doesn't understand that it takes time for Bitcoin to stabilize at a certain value. It takes time for people to switch to a better money.

Re: It's time for us in the tech world to speak out about cryptocurrency

#245

Post by Graffur »

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #24

I am not sure why this is flagged - it seems a reasonable and timely opinion piece. Cryptocurrency is a subject that has to have a deep and public debate. What the OP is saying (which I take to be "the tech world has a duty to point out the flaws in cryptocurrency to avoid giving an impression of a clean bill of health to every ICO out there") - that is a valid socially useful debate. There are valid real world uses…

It's flagged because it's flame baiting. It's posting opinions and acting like it's representing the "tech world". This is just some unknown twitter account

Re: It's time for us in the tech world to speak out about cryptocurrency

#246

Post by e9 »

sneak wrote: post #228
skrebbel wrote: post #50

These two resonated with me: > A lot of intelligent observers look at cryptocurrency, see that it makes no sense, and reasonably infer that they must be missing something profound on the technical level. Tech culture has a nice tradition of not deriding new ideas, but we need to break it here and speak out > [non-tech people] don't see the huge silent majority of tech people who know it's a scam. That's on us It is o…

This all falls apart if bitcoin isn't a scam. The burden of proof lies with those accusing it. Additionally, there is no "silent majority" in tech that think it is a scam; the author has invented this.

It’s both. It’s not a scam in a sense that it is a store of value(digital property) to a small degree. But a scam in a sense that it can’t power every day transactions or day to day needs etc

Re: It's time for us in the tech world to speak out about cryptocurrency

#247

Post by tzumby »

xpe wrote: post #195
tzumby wrote: post #162

What is surprising is how large the number of techies who don’t get this. It’s not about crypto currencies as much as it is about the game theory that allows it to run a distributed self replicating state machine that is Byzantine tolerant - this is the true innovation

Your comment is unclear. > What is surprising is how large the number of techies who don’t get this. What do you mean by "this"? Do you mean all of the points made by the author in the tweets? Or do you mean "the following" instead of "this", referring to what you think is most innovative about Bitcoin?

If you don’t believe that there is value in a distributed self replicating Byzantine tolerant state machine, that’s fair, everybody is entitled to their opinion.

Re: It's time for us in the tech world to speak out about cryptocurrency

#248

Post by yannoninator »

skrebbel wrote: post #98
meowkit wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm pretty sure it's nothing but a pyramid scheme, but I always gave the enthusiasts the benefit of the doubt. So go find out? I’m quoting you here for the “pretty sure” part. Do a deep dive. I’be done deep dives on Bitcoin, Ethereum, Cardano, Monero, Nano, Iota, Hyperledger, BSC, Uniswap, Tether, Chainlink and cursory glances at dozens of other coins/tokens. I’m a tech guy. I work on an operating system/embedded s…

Why can't the tech be neat/super cool and primarily be used to run a scam? I mean bittorrent is neat tech as well but it's still primarily used for piracy. Doing a deep dive into how bittorrent works doesn't suddenly change the fact that 99.9% of torrents out there are violating somebody's intellectual property. All I'm saying is, there's lots of super neat tech out there that's primarily used for not-so-super-neat s…

basically piracy bad, bittorrent bad, ok lets ban bittorrent.

edit: downvoters, look, you're supposed to swap 'piracy' with [insert bad thing about cryptocurrency] and 'bittorrent' with your favourite cryptocurrency of choice.

capeesh?

Re: It's time for us in the tech world to speak out about cryptocurrency

#249

Post by dumbfounder »

idlewords wrote: post #149
dumbfounder wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think NFTs will transform the concept of ownership, and take power away from major corporations in the process. This is just one aspect of crypto that I think more than justifies its value. But there is a ton of hype and a ton of bad stuff going on yes, but that will be pushed to the background as it goes more mainstream. All people inside the industry think this is just the beginning and there is a lot of value to…

I don't understand the belief that any of this takes power from corporations. If you look at NFTs right now, big participants include the NBA, Sotheby's, and a whole lot of venture capital. What's the dynamic that's going to shut them out as they become more lucrative?

Creators of content controlling that content without the need for big corp involvement, which can be corporations yes, but also the little people. This could be access/distribution, royalties, licensing, and more.

Re: It's time for us in the tech world to speak out about cryptocurrency

#250

Post by mondoveneziano »

pavlov wrote: post #21

“But it’s like the early Internet!” shouted the Emperor’s coinholders. “The Internet wasn’t yet useful a mere, um, thirteen years after its invention either.” I can see how people in their twenties would fall for this argument because they can’t remember. The reality is that the internet was immediately extremely interesting (either useful or fun) for practically everyone who got access. Email and ftp alone were kill…

I am essentially pasting an old comment of mine: The Internet was always something where demand--and desired applications--were vastly over capacity and capability. From the moment computers were networked, more people wanted to do more things over those networks, and both infrastructure and underlying technology had to grow to barely keep up (or, in fact, could not keep up--many long desired applications only became feasible in the 2000s or so). This does not resemble the history of Blockchains.
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