It's time for us in the tech world to speak out about cryptocurrency • Hacker News Board

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

#351

Post by FourthProtocol » Sun, May 30, 2021, 10:14 PM UTC

idlewords wrote: post #122

ashtonkem wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was no reason to believe it would move laterally, for both technical and social reasons. First, the underpinnings of Bitcoin are ideological, namely in Austrian economics. This means that any change that caused any inflation would be socially resisted. Second, most of the issues with Bitcoin stem from the lack of a central authority to do things like chargebacks and handle conflict resolution. It is not possibl…

Yeah, but when you took away the money part and just looked at the technical idea of a distributed chained ledger with no central point of trust, that was cool. At least, it was cool to me. It seemed like it might go in some interesting other direction.

I never quite understood how that might happen. I kept hearing how it was distributed when it isn't. How the blockchain was going to change the world, when not a single example beyond Bitcoin itself could be given. Healthcare was mentioned, but no application... It's right up there with all the other crazy ideas of the last decade or two (Mongo, agile, Google Glass...)

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

#352

Post by Bayart » Sun, May 30, 2021, 10:15 PM UTC

People keep being blindsided by the financial aspects of the space, whether it is those who love it or those who hate it. It just rings off-beat and it's frankly a bit vacuous.

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

#353

Post by sneak » Sun, May 30, 2021, 10:15 PM UTC

shafyy wrote: post #267

sneak wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The nice thing about Bitcoin is that it doesn't have a jurisdiction or location[1]; you can solve some problems in some places via a functioning government, but Bitcoin solves some problems in all places simultaneously. [1]: this is not to claim, as some do, that it is unregulatable, although it may be.

What problem does Bitcoin solve?

The threat of unwarranted civil asset forfeiture. The threat of arbitrary unbounded inflation.

Perhaps you don't consider those risks to you to be very big, so you don't place much value on mitigating them. Other people do, however.

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

#354

Post by cryptica » Sun, May 30, 2021, 10:15 PM UTC

I'm OK to ban crypto if we also ban all big tech corporations because they're all part of the same fiat pyramid scheme. Why don't we just end capitalism and switch to communism... Then at least we will be able to communicate honestly about what's going on in the economy.

To say that one scheme is a scam but the other is not is extremely subjective.

A corporation like Facebook probably does more harm to society than Bitcoin. Why ban Bitcoin but not ban Facebook? Why not ban Snapchat or Twitter? Ban Uber, they burn a lot of fossil fuels! This kind of thinking necessarily leads to communism. You can't ban crypto and keep capitalism... What's left of it.

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

#355

Post by seibelj » Sun, May 30, 2021, 10:15 PM UTC

mondoveneziano wrote: post #346

seibelj wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fees of blockchains are at times very high because the demand vastly exceeds their current transaction capabilities

In the case of the Internet, people were doing either new things, or existing things more efficiently (e.g. sending emails vs. postal mail and fax, or transferring files vs. swapping disk media or printouts). As the Internet progressed, efficiency increased. In the case of cryptocurrencies, people are doing existing things that can already be done quickly and efficiently vastly less efficiently, in a system that is p…

I can send unlimited amounts of money, anywhere on earth, for (at most) dollars in a few seconds. I don't need to rely on any government for any reason, and no government can stop me.

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

#356

Post by Grim-444 » Sun, May 30, 2021, 10:15 PM UTC

segmondy wrote: post #125

Just gonna sound like a hater, folks worship success. They will listen to anyone who made millions betting on cryptocurrency over any smart person who didn't and is "jealous" for missing out. One mistake us "smart" folks make is thinking that investing is about understanding a system that's complete and smart. Most investments are not like black jack but more like poker where it all comes down to behavioral economics…

This is similar to my recent realization - as much as I believe it's a complete ponzi scheme, a near complete scam, as long as there's enough people who don't know better who can be conned to buy into it, it will keep getting propped up. In this age of mass media and the internet where everyone is so infinitely, immediately connected, there's no shortage of more suckers to buy in, there's no shortage of propaganda techniques to sucker more people in. As long as there's more suckers, it can keep getting propped up, no matter how unsound it actually is, no matter how much of a scam it actually is. It reminds me of the quote "the markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent".

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

#357

Post by [deleted] » Sun, May 30, 2021, 10:16 PM UTC

lottin wrote: post #325

Graffur wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are the fundamental flaws you're talking about? (I assume throughput but I'll wait for your reply). What do you mean by saying people fell for "this"? I assume you mean it's a scam but I will wait for your reply.

> What are the fundamental flaws you're talking about? For a payments system, the fact that all transactions are final is pretty bad. I'd say this, by itself, makes the system unusable in the real world.

[deleted]

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

#358

Post by pessimizer » Sun, May 30, 2021, 10:17 PM UTC

icelancer wrote: post #206

dadoge wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More people need to appreciate this

They never transact with people in countries that have strict financial controls, so the problem does not exist for them. I pay people in Venezuela in cryptocurrency because nothing else is a viable option.

There's an assumption that people should think evading currency controls and taxes is somehow heroic. I'm happy that crypto allows people to violate US sanctions, but that's because I'm specifically against US sanctions, not the rule of law.

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

#359

Post by ctchocula » Sun, May 30, 2021, 10:17 PM UTC

michaelmrose wrote: post #80

knolan wrote: post #51

When I first heard of cryptocurrency I was reminded of when people started idling in Team Fortress 2 to get content drops. It was such a daft cart before the horse approach, but of course those dropped items could be sold for fractions of a penny and people can be dumb. It also reminded me of Folding at Home. Here people completed by virtue of their personal compute resources. Of course crypto serves as neither a for…

Isn't there some way to combine proof of work and actually useful work?

No, there's not. It's a fundamental principle among PoS cryptocurrencies that the work needs to have no additional utility or else it will help the attacker "subsidize" 51% attacks against the cryptocurrency you've built, because now they can both launch 51% attacks which cost $X abut subsidize it by selling the useful compute for $Y they've gotten by launching the attack, which ends up costing $X - $Y.

Compared with a PoS cryptocurrency yielding no useful compute as a side effect, it costs $Y cheaper for someone to 51% attack.

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

#360

Post by mudlus » Sun, May 30, 2021, 10:18 PM UTC

Here's how you defeat Bitcoin: code a client that a majority of the network uses that changes the consensus protocol to what you think is a good idea.

If you don't want to do that, and you want to wax poetic about shitcoins being evil, ffs, please keep in in the drafts, salty nocoiner. Especially during a bull cycle where people who already don't trust "tech nerds" are going to read this and want to buy the shittiest of shitcoins.