Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Edited Latecomer’s Guide to Crypto

mollywhite.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 331 posts

Re: The Edited Latecomer’s Guide to Crypto

#61

Post by nightski »

librish wrote: post #36

Until someone has built a crypto product that creates values (for the purpose of this discussion it can be a good or a service would be willing to spend USD on even if it wasn't a crypto) crypto is a negative-sum game. Any USD taken out of the system someone else has to have put in, plus whatever the miners take out. Fortunes aren't created, they are redistributed.

While partly true, that is true of any asset (dollars in/dollars out). However your statement that fortunes are not created, they are redistributed is incorrect. The value is not a 1 to 1 relationship with inflows. The value is based on supply/demand. If demand outstrips supply, value goes up regardless of how much $ is flowing in or out. You can see large price swings even on days with low volume.

Re: The Edited Latecomer’s Guide to Crypto

#62

Post by Karrot_Kream »

pavlov wrote: post #51
Karrot_Kream wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This hasn't been my experience at all. I feel like this is just pandering to group sentiment. My work (household name so we work with a lot of companies) has been seeing increased spend from crypto companies and so we've talked with a few folks from these companies and they've been hiring headcount like crazy. We've had lots of our own engineers churn to crypto companies also. Yeah they won't get the anti-crypto-bubb…

> Stephen Diehl (who's been astroturfing crypto because he works on his own blockchain company) If you criticise crypto based on general software engineering experience, the cryptobros say: "You don't know what you're talking about!" If you criticise crypto based on experience trying to actually use it, the cryptobros say: "You're astroturfing!" Thus the only people allowed to discuss crypto are seemingly those with…

> Thus the only people allowed to discuss crypto are seemingly those with a financial interest in token prices going up. Funny how that works.

> Funny how that works.

This rhetorical device is tiring and divisive, please stop. I have no interest in crypto other than some coins I bought years ago that constitute a negligible portion of my portfolio and a passing interest in IPFS. I think the space is full of fraud and it would take a full-time enthusiast to find what's not. But there's no need to spread FUD like the person I responded to, nor is there any reason to say silly things like "funny how that works" and wink derisively at some cryptobro conspiracy. If crypto fails it will fail, and then you can laugh at it all day like everyone does to Theranos and WeWork. Until then stick to factual statements. The GP claims that nobody wants to work on crypto. I have no idea how your "funny how that works" sneer has anything to do with the original claim. Stop moving the goalposts to score internet points in an anti-crypto echo chamber.

Re: The Edited Latecomer’s Guide to Crypto

#63

Post by jonathan-adly »

di4na wrote: post #3

Worth adding >>> And in Silicon Valley, engineers and executives are bolting from cushy jobs in droves to join the crypto gold rush. No they do not. I am an engineer in a technology heavily used by crypto projects and they have a really hard time recruiting. Engineers slam the door in their face the moment you tell them the opening is for this industry.

Opposite anecdote, I would be happy to take a 30% paycut to work on (some) crypto projects and actually do 60+ hours of work (I do like 10 hours in my cushy job now). Unfortunately, I am not in SV and don't have a padded a resume, and they are flooded with better applicants - so I can't even compete.

Re: The Edited Latecomer’s Guide to Crypto

#64

Post by jjtheblunt »

pavlov wrote: post #51
Karrot_Kream wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This hasn't been my experience at all. I feel like this is just pandering to group sentiment. My work (household name so we work with a lot of companies) has been seeing increased spend from crypto companies and so we've talked with a few folks from these companies and they've been hiring headcount like crazy. We've had lots of our own engineers churn to crypto companies also. Yeah they won't get the anti-crypto-bubb…

> Stephen Diehl (who's been astroturfing crypto because he works on his own blockchain company) If you criticise crypto based on general software engineering experience, the cryptobros say: "You don't know what you're talking about!" If you criticise crypto based on experience trying to actually use it, the cryptobros say: "You're astroturfing!" Thus the only people allowed to discuss crypto are seemingly those with…

Astroturfing means what?

Re: The Edited Latecomer’s Guide to Crypto

#65

Post by doogerdog »

Molly provides a great service to skeptics like me. She concise, easy to read, articulate and funny.

I feel like I live in a world where a huge train wreck is getting set up. I would like to follow along but it has gotten to the point where I can't get myself to read many of these 'News' stories about a new crypto adventure. I only have a little news reading time in a day and the typical article about NFTs or whatever leaves me feeling assaulted by a hype machine. But I can peruse web3isgoinggreat and stay abreast of what is going on.

Molly obviously has an opinion about the future of blockchain money but her comments all seem factual and fair to me. I'm pretty sure I would read her site even if I were on the other side of the argument.

Re: The Edited Latecomer’s Guide to Crypto

#66

Post by ludamad »

germanjoey wrote: post #44

The article (or, rather, the commentary in the link above on the article) talks about the fallacious notion of "market cap" in regards to cryptocurrencies. That is to say, e.g., multiplying the number of bitcoins in existence times the current market price is a silly metric because the entire market would never be able to cash-out at that maximum price. What I was wondering was: is there a better number? e.g., is the…

I like e.g. '2% liquidity depth' measure along with market cap, to show how steep the iceberg is if you start selling

Re: The Edited Latecomer’s Guide to Crypto

#67

Post by Karrot_Kream »

fizzyfizz wrote: post #53
Karrot_Kream wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This hasn't been my experience at all. I feel like this is just pandering to group sentiment. My work (household name so we work with a lot of companies) has been seeing increased spend from crypto companies and so we've talked with a few folks from these companies and they've been hiring headcount like crazy. We've had lots of our own engineers churn to crypto companies also. Yeah they won't get the anti-crypto-bubb…

I was surprised by the claim about Stephen Diehl so I did a little googling. I don't think it's correct to say he "works on his own blockchain company". However, relatively recently he was working on smart contracts with a company called Adjoint. https://web.archive.org/web/20180220171955/https://www.steph... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFlu61wJe2Y He seems to have been interested in smart contracts but found the…

I appreciate your reply. You dug into a claim I made and lay out your criticisms dispassionately, thanks. This is the kind of discourse I'd like to see more of.

> This stuff is scrubbed from his website, and Adjoint doesn't even appear on his LinkedIn profile. But I can easily see why that might be the case if he's decided the whole field is rubbish and left the industry, or if his work is being misconstrued.

Gives his passionate publishing against Blockchains I'd prefer he not hide this aspect of his past and actually talk about it. I guess I didn't know that he had moved on from Adjoint so that does add more credibility to his beliefs. But removing it from his website, removing it from LI, and neglecting to talk about it in public can certainly cast some doubt. I'm sympathetic to your view as well though.

Re: The Edited Latecomer’s Guide to Crypto

#68

Post by NovemberWhiskey »

seibelj wrote: post #52
librish wrote: post #36

Until someone has built a crypto product that creates values (for the purpose of this discussion it can be a good or a service would be willing to spend USD on even if it wasn't a crypto) crypto is a negative-sum game. Any USD taken out of the system someone else has to have put in, plus whatever the miners take out. Fortunes aren't created, they are redistributed.

I find a lot of DeFi projects to be very useful, but you have a logical fallacy - If I buy 1% of Apple stock at $100, and later it's worth $1000 based on the last trading price, money didn't change hands to make me have more USD, it's my paper wealth. If Bitcoin goes from $1 to $50k, and I never sell, I didn't take any money - the wealth simply grew.

The point is that holding Apple stock is a claim of ownership of the assets of Apple as well as the future income of Apple, either in the form of dividends or stock buybacks.

The activity of Apple is economically meaningful; and the price of Apple stock reflects that.

Re: The Edited Latecomer’s Guide to Crypto

#69

Post by detaro »

jjtheblunt wrote: post #64
pavlov wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Stephen Diehl (who's been astroturfing crypto because he works on his own blockchain company) If you criticise crypto based on general software engineering experience, the cryptobros say: "You don't know what you're talking about!" If you criticise crypto based on experience trying to actually use it, the cryptobros say: "You're astroturfing!" Thus the only people allowed to discuss crypto are seemingly those with…

Astroturfing means what?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astroturfing

> Astroturfing is the practice of masking the sponsors of a message or organization (e.g., political, advertising, religious or public relations) to make it appear as though it originates from and is supported by grassroots participants. It is a practice intended to give the statements or organizations credibility by withholding information about the source's financial connection.

Re: The Edited Latecomer’s Guide to Crypto

#70

Post by fizzyfizz »

Karrot_Kream wrote: post #67
fizzyfizz wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was surprised by the claim about Stephen Diehl so I did a little googling. I don't think it's correct to say he "works on his own blockchain company". However, relatively recently he was working on smart contracts with a company called Adjoint. https://web.archive.org/web/20180220171955/https://www.steph... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFlu61wJe2Y He seems to have been interested in smart contracts but found the…

I appreciate your reply. You dug into a claim I made and lay out your criticisms dispassionately, thanks. This is the kind of discourse I'd like to see more of. > This stuff is scrubbed from his website, and Adjoint doesn't even appear on his LinkedIn profile. But I can easily see why that might be the case if he's decided the whole field is rubbish and left the industry, or if his work is being misconstrued. Gives h…

Thank you for a response in the spirit of good discourse.

Anyway, I don't even know if he has moved on from Adjoint.

I agree there's something odd about this, but I've also seen how people who are vocal critics on the internet have to be less public about their associations. Not sure what to think about it.

Post reply on HN