Ask HN: Why is HN so aggressively anti-Bitcoin?
36 points by crypticlizard 6 years ago | 70 comments- JoshTriplett 6 years agoI don't think HN is anti-blockchain. HN is anti-hype. Bitcoin and blockchain are not the solutions for every problem; HN can sometimes respect the hustle of "say blockchain so that you get more VC money", but that doesn't mean HN won't criticize the actual technology if it's "X but with Blockchain!!". And HN can go either way on "technical solutions for social/legal problems", so it's at least controversial to suggest that a blockchain will solve a social/legal problem without doing anything but writing code.
- panarky 6 years ago> HN is anti-hype
This is part of it, but that's faulty reasoning. Just because there's a lot of hype and fraud surrounding the technology and network does not mean that the technology and network is hype or fraud.
Another factor is that we're very talented at finding all the reasons something new won't work, and not so good at understanding how something flawed can still be useful.
Exhibit A is the infamous Dropbox comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224
But fundamentally, most of us, like most people generally, fail to understand what money is. We use it every day, so we all think we understand it. Money seems tangible and valuable, but it's all just a very powerful social construct that's backed by nothing more than collective belief and utility.
The mind rebels at such a flimsy foundation, so many of the criticisms aimed at cryptocurrency are equally valid when aimed at dollars or yen.
Maybe we're doomed to an Eternal September of repeating the same arguments in an endless loop for decades more. Please, let's hear the story of Dutch tulips again, or how dollars are actually backed by taxes or the military or buying cups of coffee.
If we listened to the nattering nabobs of negativism, we'd never invent anything truly novel.
- JoshTriplett 6 years agoI never suggested that Bitcoin or Blockchain were entirely hype. I'm suggesting that many uses of them, and many articles about them, are, and HN treats them accordingly. I'm talking about the 23rd article on "let's do medical records but On The Blockchain, which will solve every problem with medical records". I'm talking about people who seriously suggest that Bitcoin will make existing currency and governments obsolete. I'm talking about comments that decry the slightest criticism or moderation as "the nattering nabobs of negativism".
- JoshTriplett 6 years ago
- panarky 6 years ago
- vorpalhex 6 years agoAll blockchains have fundamental problems including the majority problem[1]. They don't really solve any problems, because all blockchain problems are just restating other problems with the words "but on the blockchain" added. Tracking your fruit to make sure it's fresh by making trucks have sensors that post to the blockchain? Yeah, you're just shifting the burden of trust from whoever fills out the paperwork to whoever made and installed the sensor - you haven't done anything.
It's a buzzword that's used blindly in the hopes of attracting capital [2] that has no real meaning. Out of a dozen blockchain related job offers I was approached with, not a SINGLE founder could answer simple questions about how to assure verification or prevent blockchain manipulation.
Blockchain is up there with fad diets, crazy health claims for boring foods, and nonsense cancer treatments. Does it have a potential role? Sure, it'd probably be kind of a cute feature in a game.
[1] https://www.investopedia.com/terms/1/51-attack.asp [2] https://www.wsj.com/articles/bringing-blockchain-to-the-coff...
- codegeek 6 years agoCan't speak for others but my thoughts are:
1. It has become more of a speculative instrument than an actual currency. People are more concerned about making money buying/selling/holding BTC. Defeats the original purpose of a "decentralized currency"
2. Not sure that decentralized currency is a good thing. Some things need to be regulated unfortunately. Yes, we all hate the central banks etc but I would trust a regular currency anyday over BTC. Not to mention that you are at the mercy of these "wallets" or even worse "centralized wallets" like coinbase etc which again defeats the purpose in my opinion.
3. It wastes electricity. A lot of it just to mine. Why do we need to mine it again ? Oh it is because there is only so much of it ? Is that a good thing ? I don't know.
4. Most importantly: adoption. My mother has no idea what BTC is and will ever know. It is far too away from being a currency that can be used by regular people. Perhaps that day will come but not yet.
5. Too many scams due to the gold rush of BTC. Again, that is a bad thing.
Disclaimer: I don't know much about BTC but still have these thoughts about it.
- carapace 6 years agoI can't speak for all of HN...
My $0.02: it wastes electricity to solve a non-problem.
- burkaman 6 years agoSame for me, but "wastes" is an understatement.
> From 1 January 2016 to 30 June 2018, we estimate that mining Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin and Monero consumed an average of 17, 7, 7 and 14 MJ to generate one US$, respectively. Comparatively, conventional mining of aluminium, copper, gold, platinum and rare earth oxides consumed 122, 4, 5, 7 and 9 MJ to generate one US$, respectively, indicating that (with the exception of aluminium) cryptomining consumed more energy than mineral mining to produce an equivalent market value.
> During this period, we estimate mining for all 4 cryptocurrencies was responsible for 3–15 million tonnes of CO2 emissions.
- burkaman 6 years ago
- slang800 6 years agoI obviously can't speak for all of HN, but I'm annoyed by the number of projects that include blockchain technology for no good reason.
- grumpy-cowboy 6 years agoHDD (Hype Driven Development). Like projects using Microservices, Serverless, NoSQL, CQRS, Hadoop, [add your preferred hype here]... technologies for no good reason.
- tinus_hn 6 years agoBlockchain was all the hype in 2018. It’ll fade soon.
- grumpy-cowboy 6 years ago
- bdcravens 6 years agoHN in general hates hype. The technology behind Bitcoin is interesting; "to the moon!" isn't. Blockchains have a few use cases when they are better than a database, but not billions of dollars in VC worth. That money is the result of FOMO, not innovation.
- code_chimp 6 years agoI personally like Hyperledger Fabric (https://www.hyperledger.org/projects/fabric) for a private blockchain technology.
That being said I still have not found the problem that it is the solution for other than addressing our CTO's case of FOMO.
- verdverm 6 years agoIt works well when you are trying to get several companies to interoperability. The hype gets them moving, I don't really care that they aren't using the best tech. What matters is that the supply chain is becoming more efficient and trustable. (even if the def of trust is not the "holy Grail" public/permissionless claims to have found.)
Honestly, trust the companies that obey the laws more than those trying to create a lawless society
- verdverm 6 years ago
- smt88 6 years agoMy take is that it's several things:
- Lots of crypto links posted to HN are scams or have no technical merit
- No one has come up[1] with a use case for blockchain that actually requires blockchain, outside of cryptocurrency (which is something non-technical people and speculators don't understand or won't admit)
- Because of rampant scams and speculation, a lot of online blockchain/crypto conversations have a high noise-to-signal ratio
1. https://hackernoon.com/ten-years-in-nobody-has-come-up-with-...
- andirk 6 years agoVehicle history. Health care history. Or any type of history storage, really. The fact the data is everywhere means it cant be easily destroyed, and doesnt have only one gatekeeper.
- smt88 6 years agoHow does blockchain help? Why do I want "consensus" (let alone distributed consensus) on any of those histories?
It's easy to create data that can't easily be destroyed. Back it up. You don't need a cryptographic, anonymous data mutation algorithm to do that. Just copy it to more places.
And as far as not having one gatekeeper... none of those things have one gatekeeper anyway. Who is lamenting that there's a single gatekeeper for their health history? If anything, people are lamenting the opposite -- that it's such a mess where multiple people have to cobble it together from disparate records formats.
To paraphrase something once said about JavaScript: the useful aspects of blockchain aren't new, and the new aspects aren't useful. Immutable (aka append-only), distributed, encrypted databases are useful! They are not blockchains, though.
- andirk 5 years agoThe point is that you dont have to go to a source owned by someone. For example, the DMV has your driving record. Blockchain allows the history of a vehicle to be stored and accessed easily. Mechanics all have their own records. Why not tie them directly to the object?
- andirk 5 years ago
- smt88 6 years ago
- andirk 6 years ago
- mstaoru 6 years agoMany on HN had experiences with investment, or are themselves, investors. We need to see either enormous traction (beyond speculation) or solving of an actual customer problem. So far not a single "X but with Blockchain" startup did not deliver anything of true value.
Personal anecdote: a friend of mine was working on a project to utilize extremely counterfeit-resistant holographic tags to authenticate organic produce in China (where anything can be faked). 2-3 years and he still didn't have any significant customers. Enter Blockchain. They replaced the tag with a QR code, "blockchain cannot be faked" mantra, and within 6 months got $4 million investment and some customers. So when you scan the QR code, it opens a web page that shows some fancy data like id, date of packaging, etc. Who provides this data? The company. Who provides the web page? The company. Who can alter this data in any way they want? The company. And now the punchline: there is no blockchain in the code. Zero.
- conception 6 years agoFor me personally, I think it's the fact that Bitcoin and especially other cryptos, are far far less secure than people think from attacks. The amount of money you need to move the market or execute at 51% attack (https://www.crypto51.app/) especially if you are working with other large investors is trivial. For a group that loves independence from "big banks" and "Fiat" and the democratization of money, they seem to miss out that they are constantly being manipulated by rich coin holders.
- verdverm 6 years agoGo to coinmarketcap and you'll see the daily pump & dumps. Blockchain claims all this moral superiority, and then you look at what the majority have done on the space. Feel bad for those trying to do something meaningful...
Look at how the concentration of wealth is more skewed in cryptos than IRL.
- andirk 6 years agoConsider that those with the ability to invest in a blockchain >50% are probably not going to destroy the thing theyre making money from.
- verdverm 6 years ago
- RandomBacon 6 years ago> are there any blockchains that HN (generally speaking) has a positive opinion of?
Other than Bitcoin, three other coins that are sometimes talked about here are Ethereum, Monero, Zcash.
Ethereum was the first ICO. Many other tokens operate on its blockchain.
Monero is an open source project with lots of development and progress (third behind Bitcoin and Ethereum). Its transactions are private.
Zcash is open source but mainly developed by a for-profit company and uses interesting mathematics. Its transactions are public, with the option of being private.
Disclaimer: I'm only "invested" in one of the three coins I mentioned.
- thefounder 6 years agoI believe many people are against using crypto currencies as an investment opportunity instead of a technology solution.
The primary property of a good currency is stability. The crypto currencies are exactly the opposite.
I like smart contracts but I don't think public/permission-less blockchains are feasible/very useful in the real world. Engaging in a tech and electricity spending race doesn't look like a good way to verify transactions and protect the blockchain against attacks.
- PaulHoule 6 years agoPersonally I like Ripple.
I like permissioned blockchains.
Why is it that blockchains weren't invented sooner? I'll contend that you'd be laughed out of any distributed systems conference if you suggested any protocol where the workload capacity doesn't increase when you add nodes.
If you have ten traders who trade under a buttonwood tree, then having ten copies of the database makes the system bulletproof. If you have ten million traders, there is no additional gain, but there is a huge cost because you have ten million copies of the database.
Blockchains attract people who know nothing about money or technology the same way that pot startups attract stoners. It's just a bad scene.
- foobarchu 6 years agoThere's the additional issue that blockchains are almost always the wrong tool for the job. It turns out that immutability is not really a desirable property in a system where humans are involved, because humans always introduce mistakes that need to eventually be undoable.
- jki275 6 years agoThere's no need for a blockchain if you only allow ten validators. You simply need a database.
Ripple is nothing more than a bank coin. It's not a cryptocurrency.
- deweller 6 years agoCheck out Facebook-sponsored Libra. It is a federated, permissioned blockchain that uses some concepts pioneered by Ripple.
- vorpalhex 6 years agoUnfortunately CBD is probably the next Blockchain... Theoretical benefits, hampered by real world ponzi schemes.
- foobarchu 6 years ago
- tracker1 6 years agoAs a currency, there's maybe some merit in given scenarios. But all of the "me too, I have $CURRENCY$, it's different this time" doesn't lead to a lot of faith.
It's over-hyped in general. Beyond that, often implemented in was suggested that don't really add much value compared to any number of other less complicated solutions.
If you are in a situation, where you have competing parties not aligned who want to ensure a given transaction is applied, and don't mind the implementation of that transaction being completely public, then blockchain might be the right solution.
If you are wanting to use cryptocurrency for financial transactions, then there is some merit, but in many cases suggested it's effectively a corporatist overload control over currency (such as Facebook's currency suggestion). If it's actual bitcoin or a handful of other alt-coins, at least it's decentralized but not as anonymous as many think. It's also, in general difficult to use without some centralization.
In the end, someone will win in this game. My guess is the banks behind the winner (MasterCard and Visa are backing FB's Libre venture). Given the actions against people with unpopular views (even if they are wrong thinking assholes), it terrifies me. Freedom to exchange property, and currency is a stand in for property, is a big deal and at least as big a deal as speech.
- brycehamrick 6 years agoReading through the criticisms my main takeaway is that (1) there's a severe lack of empathy for the segment of the world that doesn't have the luxury of a stable currency and developed financial infrastructure, and (2) there's some extreme misconceptions about both the technology and the economics behind Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. If your main point of opposition is that there's too much "hype" you're being contrarian for the sake of being contrarian.
- verdverm 6 years agoHyperledger can be useful, more in the non-tech sense, but then the cryptokiddies get all irate, lol, part of the fun.
HN tends to shun Blockchain because it has a non trivial amount of fraud and amature hour to it... IMHO. Too much focus on the marginally useful tech, and not enough on the outcomes (i.e. CO2 from mining) and solving real problems. Too much neolib. Forgetting no one really wants their finances made public to the world.
- peteforde 6 years agoI remain intrigued by Stellar Lumens and the protocol behind it. Ripple gets the attention but my perception is that Stellar's tech is a superior fork.
- yongjik 6 years agoHN usually has lots of negative comments - some of them are even constructive negative comments. It's not necessarily a bad thing. I come here to read these intelligent criticism.
Besides, I don't think it's particularly more negative on cryptocurrencies - go to any other internet forum (that are not specialized in cryptocurrencies) and I think you'll find a similar mixture of opinions.
Finally, "Google also invested in X" isn't a very good counter-argument here. Have you seen some HN comments when Google is being discussed?
- jki275 6 years agoChainlink is a scam. Other than that, there's a ton of hype and BS in the cryptocurrency world, lots of Ponzi schemes and fraud.
That's where a lot of negative opinion comes from.
- rhapsodyv 6 years agoA comment off topic of a fashion that police have found in my country, they have discovered gangs are mining bitcoin with theft of electric power. Almost a real gold mine
- Urgo 6 years agoCoinbase was a YC S12 company for what its worth.
- verdverm 6 years agoThey now track your wallet history and paths, apparently banning you from the platform if you do something against their rules, even if way off their platform.
They work with data tracking companies, think Palantir for cryptos
- verdverm 6 years ago
- dawhizkid 6 years agoI think it's the same reasons behind the infamous "Show HN" Dropbox post - technical people have a tendency to be too focused on pointing out technical flaws and miss the bigger picture.
Or it's psychological and many feel better believing that is a scam because they missed the run up despite likely being knowledgeable about bitcoin years ago and decided to ignore it.
- tastroder 6 years agoI'm still waiting for somebody to come up with that bigger picture after 10 years, all we've gotten instead is a bunch of Ponzi schemes and marketing. It's a shame so many minds were and are wasted on a solution that's not solving a problem it didn't invent (or somebody just falsely attributes to it).
- dawhizkid 6 years agoWhy don't you think there are serious problems with how central banks around the world control money? Inflation steals from everyday people to varying degrees around the world...look at Zimbabwe and Venezuela. We're all beholden to secret monetary policy decisions made a small handful of people, sometimes just one.
The bigger picture, in my mind, is that in the future you should be allowed to choose your citizenship, which may be something like a digital country, and decide for yourself what sort of government you want to live in. Cryptocurrency enables that future more so than anything else that currently exists.
- pintxo 6 years agoInterestingly money (or control thereof) is not named as one of the fundamental properties of a state [1]. So maybe having an independent currency won't help you much, as long as the state you currently live in holds the monopoly on legitimate use of force (for an example see [2]).
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_(polity) The most commonly used definition is Max Weber's, which describes the state as a compulsory political organization with a centralized government that maintains a monopoly of the legitimate use of force within a certain territory. General categories of state institutions include administrative bureaucracies, legal systems, and military or religious organizations.
- majewsky 6 years ago> is that in the future you should be allowed to choose your citizenship, which may be something like a digital country
I heard that wish uttered countless times. Has anyone ever explained how that's actually supposed to work? When nation states are not defined by control over some piece of land, who provides and regulates the infrastructure in a specific physical location? Stuff like policing, medical care, roads, power lines, plumbing, internet cables.
I guess people imagine that these services would just be provided by "some company", but then you're back to square one because that company is just going to become a nation state rather quickly: When you have infrastructure on the ground and no rule of law to back it up, you need to make your own laws and enforce them with your own militia, and boom, all the defining elements of a nation state.
- pintxo 6 years ago
- dawhizkid 6 years ago
- tastroder 6 years ago
- agentultra 6 years ago> In other words, are there any blockchains that HN (generally speaking) has a positive opinion of?
I can't speak for all of HN but I seriously doubt there was ever a need for the technology to begin with.
I've read numerous investigative articles on Bitcoin, in particular, that document the environmental impact and harm it does to workers who live in remote data centers. The situation is poor. And few, if any, bitcoin enthusiasts see these as problems. From what I understand the consensus among bitcoin enthusiasts is that we'll technology our way out of this and somehow we'll live in their techno-libertarian-utopia once they figure these things out.
Frankly I don't share their ideology.
- mabbo 6 years agoBecause bitcoin is solving a problem that isn't a real problem by introducing a dozen more problems the existing system has solved.
Bitcoin decentralizes currency and leaves no one entity in control. Hurrah, the government can't stop you from moving money as you see fit. Except that most of the time, the government is stopping people from doing things that were made illegal for very good reasons. Money laundering of proceeds of crime, terrorist financing, tax evasion. You can debate all day about whether taxes are inherently evil, but right now the law says they are legal and you've gotta pay them. Saying "No worries man, I've got a NEW currency that the government can't stop" doesn't make it not a crime.
All the while, it's not actually free. We're burning huge amounts of energy to do mining, and the costs have to be passed on to someone. Miners get free BTC for mining, but that's a closed system- someone eventually must pay real currency for that energy being used. And it's getting expensive given the number of miners. (Plus, a lot of them are China which is using coal as it's primary energy source, which is killing people from pollution!)
And finally, there's no inflation/deflation controls. A currency's utility is increased by it's stability. Not knowing if my BTC will double in price or drop by half in the next 2 weeks means every day is a gamble. If this were my only currency, I'd be terrified about buying groceries.
Oh, and let's not forget that the huge spike in BTC prices in the last few years were found likely to have been caused by manipulation.
I love crypto and think bitcoin/blockchains are a really neat technology. But I just wish they weren't here, in the real world, because they seem to be a net-loss for the world, and a Ponzi scheme.
Edit after getting a coffee: ... okay, that was a bit of a rant...
- aeternus 6 years agoVery valid criticisms, but they do not apply in all cases.
In terms of reducing governmental control, sure this isn't much of a problem if your government is altruistic. Governments do not have a great long-term track record here. In Venezuela for example, many would say Bitcoin is solving a very real problem. You're right about its ability to be used for illegal activities, however the same could be said for most technology: encryption, the internet.
In terms of energy, this can be a criticism of almost all currencies and stores of value. This real-world expenditure is much of what gives it value, especially early on. Gold is valuable because of the difficulty in mining/acquiring it. Even national currencies are valuable due to the resources committed by their military, or the military's of that nation's allies. People might argue it is GDP, but GDP does not mean much if you cannot defend it.
Manipulation and price swings are a valid concern, but no other currency is immune to those either. Silver for example has had very widespread manipulation in the past. Silver and gold have probably still been a net-positive.
- mabbo 6 years ago> You're right about its ability to be used for illegal activities, however the same could be said for most technology: encryption, the internet.
Bitcoins primary purposes today consist of: 1. buying bitcoins in the hope that they're worth more tomorrow, and 2. using bitcoins to buy illegal drugs on the internet. And the only reason #2 is declining is because so many people are doing #1 that it's getting too expensive in terms of fees to use it for #2.
> In terms of energy, this can be a criticism of almost all currencies and stores of value.
You're comparing fixed, one-time capital costs with ongoing variable costs. Transferring gold from one human to another involved handing it over. No costs there. Transferring bitcoins requires an increasing amount of energy as the rules make it harder and harder to complete a block.
> Manipulation and price swings are a valid concern, but no other currency is immune to those either.
When was the last time your USD bank account suddenly became worth twice as much, or half as much? Central banks can utilize price control mechanisms to carefully maintain inflation rates. Most aim for 2% per year, and most hit their targets pretty accurately. Bitcoin cannot offer that.
- aeternus 6 years agoTrue there is a lot of speculation today, and transaction fees are much too high to use for everyday expenses. I would say store-of-value is a valid use-case though. The ability of an individual to store wealth in their brain is a useful property. Mostly for those attempting to escape oppressive governments, or "extractive" political institutions.
The transferring of bitcoin is not what is energy intensive. The energy is expended as a "vote" on which of many possible forks should be trusted. Gold definitely has this expenditure as well, military's are often required to secure it, and large amounts of energy and expenditure are required to discover and mine it.
USD is one of the most stable currencies in the world, and the fed has done a good job of maintaining stability. You're right that Bitcoin is no where near as stable as USD, but it is more stable than the currencies of some other countries. There are still ways for a central bank to maintain interest rates even if Bitcoin is widely used. Bitcoin does not prevent fractional reserve banking.
- aeternus 6 years ago
- rishirishi 6 years ago"Untrustworthy governments manipulating currencies" appears to be the problem that decentralized digital currencies are supposedly solving. Instead of this indirection, how about addressing the root problem? Replacing that untrustworthy government with a trustworthy one, changing incentives, or identifying new forms of government/control.
- verdverm 6 years agoWe are likely (hopefully) near an inflection point for our current rule systems and their ability to manage today's complexities.
See: Rules for a Flat World
- aeternus 6 years agoIt would probably be better to address the root problem. Unfortunately replacing governments has a long history of being a very violent and bloody ordeal.
- verdverm 6 years ago
- mabbo 6 years ago
- aeternus 6 years ago
- duxup 6 years agoTo many people bitcoin (and similar crypto currency) more than adequately demonstrates why the protections provided by governments and etc for financal orgnizations, transactions exist / are needed.
As for blockchain I think we've seen a number of "solutions" to problems that are adequately solved by a database.
- KaiserPro 6 years agoWhy? because its not the golden saviour.
Firstly its a panopticon, not anonymous
Secondly, it has a transaction rate of <10 a second Globally.
Thirdly, its chowing down huge amounts of power for no real gain
Fourthly, its snake oil. Its value comes from its mystique. As a store of wealth its horrifically expensive, as a trading currency, its too slow, you might as well buy gold.
Yes, its has a neat idea behind it, but blockchains are inherently niche. They have very few applications outside exceptionally high value, low transaction, zero trust systems.
Etherium and its smart contracts are inherently flawed, because they are not smart, or contracts. Unless your "contract" has a binary outcome, that is faultlessly measurable, then they aren't for you. The entire point of a contract is that there is a third party capable of issuing binding resolutions, using all available evidence. Etherium gives you none of that, despite the hype.
The only thing that might be worthy of a blockchain is something like the changelog of wikipedia, but then its not worth the spectacular cost. Just keep a couple of mirrors.
- oiasdjfoiasd 6 years agoMany people missed the boat (ironically because of this same attitude) and now need to double down on their biases.
- cipherpro 6 years agoIn general people are critical of ideas that are new. HN has an especially critical user-base with technical skills, so attacks can be made on a larger surface area.
- smt88 6 years ago1) Blockchain is not "new". It's 10 years old. We went through the hype cycle for it. The thousands of software engineers and mathematicians on HN have had time to assess.
2) HN is for more accepting and enthusiastic about new ideas than the general population.
- majewsky 6 years ago> Blockchain is not "new". It's 10 years old.
More like 40 years: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merkle_tree
The only thing that's new about blockchain is that on top of being a Merkle tree, it wastes a ton of energy.
- majewsky 6 years ago
- smt88 6 years ago
- lostmsu 6 years agoBitcoin, for being the original.
Ethereum, for providing smart contracts, that enabled many ICOs.
Monero/ZCash for being private.
All other currencies are mostly just clones of the 3 (meaning they can suffer from 50%+1 attacks), or remove the main feature: trustless transactions.
In general, unless a currency provides a novel consensus algorithm, that brings something new to the table, it would actually be better off as a token on one of the above. If it is not, likely it is a scam/money grab.
All other projects do not really need blockchain, with a rare exception.
Disclosure: I own ETH and BTC.
- jki275 6 years agoThere are many cryptocurrencies that are not clones of those three. Monero and ZCash aren't even related to each other. Cardano is not a clone. Tezos is not a clone. Stellar is not a clone. Qtum is not a clone. NEO is not a clone. I could go on all day with cryptocurrencies that are not clones of any of the three you mentioned.
ETH enabled a vast amount of scammers and BS artists. Monero isn't actually private, it's been broken. Bitcoin is the original, but even it has changed many times over the years.
- lostmsu 6 years agoI am still very skeptical of PoS. To my knowledge, no PoS system provided an adequate proof of correctness as of today.
Stellar is not trustless.
> ETH enabled a vast amount of scammers and BS artists.
I believe this is not relevant to a technical discussion.
You are probably right about Monero's limits in comparison to ZCash. But, TBH, I am not following their development, because I prefer lack of anonymity.
- jki275 6 years agoI didn't say anything about POS, but if you want to discuss it IOHK has done a significant amount of academic work in the field, which has been deployed with Cardano. Tezos is in operation now and has been for over a year doing delegated POS, and they're at the same level of academic rigor as the IOHK team.
My comment about ETH is an explanation of why it causes people to be anti-cryptocurrency. Its only actual working purpose is to enable scams. That's certainly relevant in a technical discussion. BTW, ETH didn't do smart contracts first. They were in bitcoin back at the very beginning, then were removed as a security problem. ETH proved Satoshi right, they've showed the world exactly how not to implement smart contracts.
- jki275 6 years ago
- lostmsu 6 years ago
- jki275 6 years ago
- jamroom 6 years agoI think a lot of HN users like to think of themselves as early adopters of new technology and are disappointed for missing out on the crypto highs at the end of 2017. I think they feel if they could have been in the loop at that time they could have cashed out. Thus crypto discussions are going to have a lot of negativity in the comments since the best way to make yourself feel better about it is to pretend it was a scam all along and you really didn't miss out. My 2 cents of course :)
- thefounder 6 years agoSo the solution BTC solved was to make some people rich. Is that it?
Funny story: I'm a non-believer. However sometime this year I bought bitcoin to buy some stuff. By the time I got home its value decreased too much and I no longer had enough bitcoin to buy what I wanted. Now I've found out that my bitcoin is worth a considerable amount. Did I cash out? Of course!
Do I feel "smart" about this investment? Of course not. It's just a gamble and pretty much this is the story of bitcoin. Would I "invest" again? Not really. I don't need this kind of investment for the same reasons I don't do gambling in my spare time. I think gambling is a weakness.
- bdcravens 6 years agoYour comment sums up pretty nicely why HN is against it: you're focused on the price, which is only tangentially connected to the technology. "But rich!" is a pretty shallow argument in the HN world.
I would like to point out that I'm in a category that I think many HNers are: I'm critical of Bitcoin, yet I hold some (been involved since 2010, when I mined). Most of my criticisms are legitimate even while the price is rising; again, price is tangential.
- jamroom 6 years agoTo be honest I'm not focused on the price - I too have held bitcoin for a long time. This was just my observation having been on HN for a very long time - it just seems the negativity around BC really spiked up in early 2018. As much as we like to think about the tech behind crypto, many users simply look at it as an investment and were pretty depressed when they didn't cash at the 20K high and were hoping for it to go even higher.
- majewsky 6 years agoAlternative explanation: People just got sick of blockchain after the umpteenth Ponzi scheme makes it onto the frontpage.
- majewsky 6 years ago
- jamroom 6 years ago
- conductr 6 years agoOr if your like me, you bought at $10 held until $20000 and decided was time to sell. That’s when I found out the wallet file format was no longer readable by the bitcoin client. So my coins are in cryptopurgatory. Maybe someday I’ll hire a dude to come help me. But he will probably steal my coins instead.
- jki275 6 years agoJust extract the keys. Your wallet is nothing more than a vehicle to hold the keys. If nothing else, just download an old version of electrum or the bitcoin client and export your keys that way. That's trivially easy, you don't need anyone to help you do it.
- majewsky 6 years ago> That’s when I found out the wallet file format was no longer readable by the bitcoin client.
Another bold innovation from the fintech industry! Imagine if that happened with regular bank accounts.
- jki275 6 years ago
- verdverm 6 years agoI did not miss out and yet I still have left the BC space to work on more interesting things.
- thefounder 6 years ago