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Cryptocurrency Is an Abject Disaster

drewdevault.com

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Re: Cryptocurrency Is an Abject Disaster

#91

Post by 22c »

aeroheim wrote: post #58

The most alarming thing to me is how effective cryptocurrencies are in drawing out the inner greed of most people. It's created an obsession of quick wealth among a lot of otherwise normal people, hijacking their rationality and further propagating the viral nature of it. If you take a look at many of the online communities for cryptocurrencies online you'll notice a lot of disturbing behavior that's very cult-like.…

Do you think that is related to cryptocurrency, or simply any fast moving asset in general?

How many people really bought GME just to stick it to the hedge funds? How many people really liked the stock?

Re: Cryptocurrency Is an Abject Disaster

#92

Post by reducesuffering »

pk_kinetic wrote: post #87
kordlessagain wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we look at Lightning, it enables a full implementation of the 402 response code flow, which would allow for decentralized identity and payments in the use of machine learning networks for a wide variety of AI based systems. One such use case may end up being the "killer" use case for crypto and may make up for the speculative phase we're in now.

It seems rather poor form to ask someone to disclose their exact crypto holdings for the sake of legitimizing, or delegitimizating their position. Couldn’t it just be a binary yes or no? Disclosure: I own some crypto.

No I don't think it's poor form. If we had a forum full of people talking about how great Facebook is, and when forced to disclose their $FB holdings, realize everyone is holding $100,000+ of $FB, we might realize we have skin in the game to talk it up instead of objectively evaluating it. Big difference in incentives between $10 and $100,000.

Stake 0.05 BTC, 1.2 ETH

Re: Cryptocurrency Is an Abject Disaster

#93

Post by [deleted] »

pk_kinetic wrote: post #87
kordlessagain wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we look at Lightning, it enables a full implementation of the 402 response code flow, which would allow for decentralized identity and payments in the use of machine learning networks for a wide variety of AI based systems. One such use case may end up being the "killer" use case for crypto and may make up for the speculative phase we're in now.

It seems rather poor form to ask someone to disclose their exact crypto holdings for the sake of legitimizing, or delegitimizating their position. Couldn’t it just be a binary yes or no? Disclosure: I own some crypto.

[deleted]

Re: Cryptocurrency Is an Abject Disaster

#94

Post by pk_kinetic »

reducesuffering wrote: post #66
cle wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And what do we do if someone has a large stake? Ignore their arguments? Should we do the same if they have no stake and are criticizing it? How much stake is enough, given a particular argument, to consider it on its own merits and not reject it based on cui bono? If someone doesn't disclose their stake, should we assume the worst, the best, the average? What if they're lying? (I have no stake in anything crypto rela…

We factor in the degree of aligned incentives they have to their argument. Oil companies can say 100% factual things about climate change too. You'd still put their arguments under more scrutiny than a non-profit panel of scientists.

In that same vein, I assume that anyone who comes out against crypto has little or no stake in it. And I’m usually correct.

Re: Cryptocurrency Is an Abject Disaster

#95

Post by akerl_ »

marcantonio wrote: post #25

Keep in mind that this is not an objective take, fraud is destroying his business. He’s conflating all crypto with PoW based systems. A more accurate title would be "Bitcoin is Making My Life Complicated”.

Are there actual PoS systems in the wild that don’t pretty directly tie themselves to PoW systems?

In my mind, the people who make this pitch that we shouldn’t blame crypto, we should blame proof-of-work sound a lot like Elon telling me that Tesla will be Level 5 any day now. Yea, it would rock if we could suddenly have the perfect thing, but I don’t see any evidence that PoW is actually being replaced by PoS for real world transactions.

Re: Cryptocurrency Is an Abject Disaster

#96

Post by drcongo »

noxer wrote: post #68

Cryptocurrency bad -> explains why basically everything related to mining is bad instead of telling us why cryptocurrencies are bad. Should be named mining is a disaster. PS: I have no stakes in anything that requires mining not even gold.

Out of interest, do you hold any proof of stake currencies? I despise the externalities of proof of work, so interested in whether proof of stake is in a useful place yet.

Re: Cryptocurrency Is an Abject Disaster

#97

Post by eric_cc »

shkkmo wrote: post #89
eric_cc wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

off the top of my head: DeFi, NFT's, data storage, services for the bankless, decentralized metaverses, insurance, synthetics, music streaming, video streaming, social networks, DAO's, social money

I think most, if not all, of those things work fine (and arguably better) without using a cryptocurrency.

so you see no value to:

- DeFi

- decentralized data storage.

- a decentralized & censorship resistant video streaming platform.

- Artists getting compensated fairly via NFT's.

- Banking the bankless

- DAO's (btw, how can DAO's work better without being decentralized? hahaha)

- A decentralized and censorship resistant social network

- Sythentics. What is a better solution to tokenizing assets in your opinion?

and on and on..

Re: Cryptocurrency Is an Abject Disaster

#98

Post by ddevault »

22c wrote: post #86

So it seems Drew is biased here, he is biased because his service is being used by thieves to make money. My tainted opinion: I think the criticisms of Proof-of-Work are totally justified here. There are perverse incentives for "miners" to execute work in the cheapest way they can, whether that is JS miners, bot farms, abuse of free services, hacked AWS accounts, abusing favorable tenancy conditions etc. and even if…

>So it seems Drew is biased here, he is biased because his service is being used by thieves to make money.

Thieves using my service to make money is what pushed me over the edge into writing this piece, but I have a well-documented history of criticising cryptocurrencies. Here are some examples on HN:

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

Re: Cryptocurrency Is an Abject Disaster

#99

Post by greenyoda »

yui43 wrote: post #26
shrubble wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now do the Federal Reserve. 1955 Tappan Zee bridge: $55 million. 2013 Tappan Zee bridge: $4 billion for basically the same bridge. Due in part to the destruction of the USD caused by the Fed.

“Basically the same bridge” is such a hilarious oversimplification that it makes your blame of the Federal Reserve even more amusing. No, absolutely no improvements in engineering, materials, process, or design in sixty years. No added overhead for environmental studies and other regulations. It’s all the Fed. Hacker News discussing economics is like arguing geopolitics with someone on peyote.

Some other differences between the new bridge and the old bridge that would account for higher cost:

- The new bridge is designed to handle a much larger capacity than the old one, which was built starting in 1952, when there were many fewer commuters from distant suburbs trying to get to the NYC area.

- The new bridge has a bicycle/pedestrian path.

- The new bridge had to be built while the old bridge was still standing. Its construction costs presumably included the demolition of the old bridge and the rerouting of the highway, first from the old bridge to the first completed span of the new bridge (which initially handled traffic in both directions), then to the second span when that was completed.

- The old bridge was designed with a a life-span of only 50 years, so it was built using cheaper materials. 50 years seems like a very short life-span for a bridge. For example, the Brooklyn Bridge, opened in 1883, is now well into its second century of operation (although it has undergone various renovations, it hasn't required demolition).

Reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tappan_Zee_Bridge_(2017%E2%80%...

Re: Cryptocurrency Is an Abject Disaster

#100

Post by pk_kinetic »

reducesuffering wrote: post #92
pk_kinetic wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems rather poor form to ask someone to disclose their exact crypto holdings for the sake of legitimizing, or delegitimizating their position. Couldn’t it just be a binary yes or no? Disclosure: I own some crypto.

No I don't think it's poor form. If we had a forum full of people talking about how great Facebook is, and when forced to disclose their $FB holdings, realize everyone is holding $100,000+ of $FB, we might realize we have skin in the game to talk it up instead of objectively evaluating it. Big difference in incentives between $10 and $100,000. Stake 0.05 BTC, 1.2 ETH

Imagine a world where you can’t argue about anything without disclosing the exact amount of stake you have in it.

Skin in the game works both ways. FOMO is a real thing.

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