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The source of the distaste is obvious: breathless hyperbole without much substance to show for it. Posts like yours are a great example of it. In this very comm

The source of the distaste is obvious: breathless hyperbole without much substance to show for it. Posts like yours are a great example of it. In this very comment you write: > leading the charge on what could be the next major technical revolution Unsubstantiated hype. Where is the revolution? A common thread among cryptocurrency enthusiasts is that the revolution is coming... except it never does. When you talk about revolution, non-enthusiasts roll their eyes. > Silicon Valley has been getting fat on the virtually unlimited venture capital power structure and sees this as a threat they've missed out on to their power. A classic argument from crypto enthusiasts who have to imagine that people are literally afraid of bitcoin. It's laughably condescending and absurd. Bitcoin is not a threat to anyone and most certainly not silicon valley billionaires. Besides, it's not as if SV VCs haven't invested money in bitcoin, it's just that bitcoin is a horrible investment, e.g. 21.co, 120 million in VC dollars flushed down the toilet for a business model that was clearly a failure from the start, but those investors fell vulnerable to the hype and learned a valuable lesson from it. > Maybe the disrupters are being disrupted Another sample of breathless hyperbole that causes non-enthusiasts to cringe. Where is the disruption? Bitcoin is a smidgeon of a fraction of the commerce activity happening on the internet, and even with the rising price, bitcoin remains difficult and relatively unsafe to use (for the non-technical masses) and provides zero benefits for most people. Yes, peer to peer transmission of value is cool, I'm not saying bitcoin is useless, but for most people there is no reason to use bitcoin and there never will be. Contrast these facts on the ground with the never-ending blockchain hype and the result is overall disillusionment with blockchains in general.

moduspol 9y ago
Watch this video [1] of Bill Gates explaining the value of the Internet to David Letterman, where he's just not getting it at all. Bill's telling him the things it can do relative to David's interests, but he just sees those as problems that don't really exist because they've already been solved. It took decades before the Internet was useful to "the masses." I don't think there's some conspiracy among VCs, but I do think dismissing cryptocurrencies for the reasons you have is short-sighted. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lskpNmUl8yQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lskpNmUl8yQ
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- root_axis 9y ago
  I tire of the internet comparison. You're drawing a surface-level comparison between the greatest communication and economic innovation in human history and blockchain software, because people were skeptical of both. And? That doesn't prove anything except that people were skeptical of both; nothing in that comparison speaks to the underlying nature of either things being compared. They are not the same.
  - moduspol 9y ago
    Well it's in response to your rebuttal. > Where is the revolution? A common thread among cryptocurrency enthusiasts is that the revolution is coming... except it never does. A technology doesn't need to have all of its potential realized in the first few years of its existence. > Where is the disruption? Bitcoin is a smidgeon of a fraction of the commerce activity happening on the internet The Internet was a fraction of the commerce activity happening relative to Sears / JC Penney / Walmart. Yet clearly only a few decades later all of these are disrupted by the Internet. > bitcoin remains difficult and relatively unsafe to use (for the non-technical masses) and provides zero benefits for most people. ...as was the Internet for the first few decades. > Contrast these facts on the ground with the never-ending blockchain hype and the result is overall disillusionment with blockchains in general. This compares directly to, "Have you ever heard of radio?" Literally every dismissal of cryptocurrencies you made would have applied exactly to the Internet in the early '90s or prior. There are far more similarities than "people were skeptical of both." It's totally fine to take your position but it's unrealistic to claim these as reasons it can't succeed.
    - root_axis 9y ago
      > Literally every dismissal of cryptocurrencies you made would have applied exactly to the Internet in the early '90s or prior. It seems I'm not getting through to you. Just because two things have something in common doesn't mean that they're the same thing. Showing that people were skeptical of the internet and blockchains does not demonstrate that blockchains will be as successful as the internet. There is no connection between the two (besides the fact that blockchains are software that run on the internet, like all things on the internet). They are totally different.
revmoo 9y ago
> A common thread among cryptocurrency enthusiasts is that the revolution is coming... except it never does. You can have a series of encrypted bits on a personal computer with a single unit being worth more than an ounce of gold. That IS revolutionary.
ckastner 9y ago
> bitcoin remains difficult and relatively unsafe to use (for the non-technical masses) Even assuming it were trivially easy and perfectly safe to use, there are numerous other risks currently associated with it. Just look at its recent volatility, for example.
- scient 9y ago
  People who claim BTC is the next mainstream currency are delusional. Its an investment commodity right now, and its way too volatile, way too little regulated and capped too low to be a serious currency contender. Seriously, the real world does not work that way, and thats not necessarily a bad thing. This goes especially for the whole decentralized and uncontrolled/unregulated part - I see it as bad thing, a lot of the regulations are in place to avoid anarchy and protect the consumers (admittedly there are also regulations that totally screw the consumer in some cases).
  - Terr_ 9y ago
    Right, and the problem (too much speculation, not enough actual economic liquidity) isn't even just a quirk of human behavior: Deflation is baked into the design.
erikpukinskis 9y ago
> Where is the revolution? To me, the revolution is the realization that certain softwares don't need to be built, merely described and they will bring certain things into being. If Satoshi hadn't built Bitcoin, he had simply released the paper, I think Bitcoin would still exist today. That's interesting. I don't think the same is true, if, for example Mark Zuckerberg had just described Facebook rather than writing it. The insight is: when a set of incentive structures stable and self-reinforcing, they can become an autonomous agent of their own, existing on top of, but also outside of, human activities. Very interesting. And I think it is revolutionary. The revolution hasn't happened yet though, perhaps that's what you're pointing out? The computer revolution hasn't even happened yet though. Still only a tiny number of us can use computers directly. Most people need to use another human (some programmer who makes a static human interface for them) as a proxy. The Big Talk claims of the computer revolution won't happen until we're past this phase. These things take time.
- anth1988 9y ago
  Okay, except that's happened before. IIRC Cockroachdb is built off ideas described in the spanner paper. That's just one example.
- aaron-lebo 9y ago
  I can almost guarantee you it wouldn't be built. I think you overestimate the value of ideas without concrete implementations. Without Satoshi actually building it, the barrier for his idea being seen as success would be to build the entire system. Much easier to just mock it and ignore it. With it being built, all someone has to do to test the system is do a little mining or send a transaction.
  - erikpukinskis 9y ago
    Widespread mockery and ignoring is fine. It would only take one person who can code and thinks the contract makes sense for it to get implemented. Its your assertion that no such person would have emerged between 2008 and now, if Satoshi hadn't written the reference implementation in 2009? What is your reason for believing that?
flylib 9y ago
they didn't flush any money down the toilet, 21.co mined a lot more then 120 million in bitcoin, they mined at least 75,000+ BTC

moduspol 9y ago

Watch this video [1] of Bill Gates explaining the value of the Internet to David Letterman, where he's just not getting it at all. Bill's telling him the things it can do relative to David's interests, but he just sees those as problems that don't really exist because they've already been solved. It took decades before the Internet was useful to "the masses." I don't think there's some conspiracy among VCs, but I do think dismissing cryptocurrencies for the reasons you have is short-sighted. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lskpNmUl8yQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lskpNmUl8yQ

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
root_axis 9y ago
I tire of the internet comparison. You're drawing a surface-level comparison between the greatest communication and economic innovation in human history and blockchain software, because people were skeptical of both. And? That doesn't prove anything except that people were skeptical of both; nothing in that comparison speaks to the underlying nature of either things being compared. They are not the same.
- moduspol 9y ago
  Well it's in response to your rebuttal. > Where is the revolution? A common thread among cryptocurrency enthusiasts is that the revolution is coming... except it never does. A technology doesn't need to have all of its potential realized in the first few years of its existence. > Where is the disruption? Bitcoin is a smidgeon of a fraction of the commerce activity happening on the internet The Internet was a fraction of the commerce activity happening relative to Sears / JC Penney / Walmart. Yet clearly only a few decades later all of these are disrupted by the Internet. > bitcoin remains difficult and relatively unsafe to use (for the non-technical masses) and provides zero benefits for most people. ...as was the Internet for the first few decades. > Contrast these facts on the ground with the never-ending blockchain hype and the result is overall disillusionment with blockchains in general. This compares directly to, "Have you ever heard of radio?" Literally every dismissal of cryptocurrencies you made would have applied exactly to the Internet in the early '90s or prior. There are far more similarities than "people were skeptical of both." It's totally fine to take your position but it's unrealistic to claim these as reasons it can't succeed.
  - root_axis 9y ago
    > Literally every dismissal of cryptocurrencies you made would have applied exactly to the Internet in the early '90s or prior. It seems I'm not getting through to you. Just because two things have something in common doesn't mean that they're the same thing. Showing that people were skeptical of the internet and blockchains does not demonstrate that blockchains will be as successful as the internet. There is no connection between the two (besides the fact that blockchains are software that run on the internet, like all things on the internet). They are totally different.

revmoo 9y ago

> A common thread among cryptocurrency enthusiasts is that the revolution is coming... except it never does. You can have a series of encrypted bits on a personal computer with a single unit being worth more than an ounce of gold. That IS revolutionary.

ckastner 9y ago

> bitcoin remains difficult and relatively unsafe to use (for the non-technical masses) Even assuming it were trivially easy and perfectly safe to use, there are numerous other risks currently associated with it. Just look at its recent volatility, for example.

scient 9y ago
People who claim BTC is the next mainstream currency are delusional. Its an investment commodity right now, and its way too volatile, way too little regulated and capped too low to be a serious currency contender. Seriously, the real world does not work that way, and thats not necessarily a bad thing. This goes especially for the whole decentralized and uncontrolled/unregulated part - I see it as bad thing, a lot of the regulations are in place to avoid anarchy and protect the consumers (admittedly there are also regulations that totally screw the consumer in some cases).
- Terr_ 9y ago
  Right, and the problem (too much speculation, not enough actual economic liquidity) isn't even just a quirk of human behavior: Deflation is baked into the design.

erikpukinskis 9y ago

> Where is the revolution? To me, the revolution is the realization that certain softwares don't need to be built, merely described and they will bring certain things into being. If Satoshi hadn't built Bitcoin, he had simply released the paper, I think Bitcoin would still exist today. That's interesting. I don't think the same is true, if, for example Mark Zuckerberg had just described Facebook rather than writing it. The insight is: when a set of incentive structures stable and self-reinforcing, they can become an autonomous agent of their own, existing on top of, but also outside of, human activities. Very interesting. And I think it is revolutionary. The revolution hasn't happened yet though, perhaps that's what you're pointing out? The computer revolution hasn't even happened yet though. Still only a tiny number of us can use computers directly. Most people need to use another human (some programmer who makes a static human interface for them) as a proxy. The Big Talk claims of the computer revolution won't happen until we're past this phase. These things take time.

anth1988 9y ago
Okay, except that's happened before. IIRC Cockroachdb is built off ideas described in the spanner paper. That's just one example.
aaron-lebo 9y ago
I can almost guarantee you it wouldn't be built. I think you overestimate the value of ideas without concrete implementations. Without Satoshi actually building it, the barrier for his idea being seen as success would be to build the entire system. Much easier to just mock it and ignore it. With it being built, all someone has to do to test the system is do a little mining or send a transaction.
- erikpukinskis 9y ago
  Widespread mockery and ignoring is fine. It would only take one person who can code and thinks the contract makes sense for it to get implemented. Its your assertion that no such person would have emerged between 2008 and now, if Satoshi hadn't written the reference implementation in 2009? What is your reason for believing that?

flylib 9y ago

they didn't flush any money down the toilet, 21.co mined a lot more then 120 million in bitcoin, they mined at least 75,000+ BTC