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I generally agree with most of the article, but sorry, this big quote here (that the author apparently thinks of being a good punchline) is just plain wrong: >

I generally agree with most of the article, but sorry, this big quote here (that the author apparently thinks of being a good punchline) is just plain wrong: > There is no single person in existence who had a problem they wanted to solve, discovered that an available blockchain solution was the best way to solve it, and therefore became a blockchain enthusiast. Anyone who was trying to buy drugs/penis-pills/whatever-other-illegal-substance online and wanted to pay in an anonymous form would disagree. Anyone who had a bit of money in a country with restrictive international money transfer laws and who wanted to get that money out of said country would disagree. For both of these groups, available blockchains provided a good solution to a real problem. And especially in the first group, which is generally underestimated in size I think, a lot of people genuinely got enthusiastic about blockchains and jumped on the cryptocurrency train relatively early - first to buy some weed or whatever, and later also to make more money out of less money. But the problem-seeking-a-solution situation was first!

roenxi 9y ago
The article is exaggerating, there must be someone who has problems that are solved by Bitcoin. However, one of Bitcoin's features is that it has a completely public permanent ledger showing all transactions assigned to everyone. It is a wildly inappropriate technology for doing illegal things or skirting the law (which cross-country transfers outside the system could well be). It has more downsides than cash in a duffle bag.
- deft 9y ago
  That's exactly the issue privacy currencies like Monero and to an extent Zcash solve.
- weego 9y ago
  I feel like we confuse bitcoin and blockchain. People's problems have been solved by a globally available currency that can handle simple transactions but that all happens incredibly inefficiently and despite of all the failings of he underlying blockchain tech.
smokeyj 9y ago
> If Ripple, Silk Road, Slush Pool, and the DAO all prefer “old way” systems of creating and enforcing trust, it’s no wonder that the outside world had not adopted trustless systems either! CHECK MATE ATHEISTS. Actually the article is pretty moronic. Besides being written by a person named "Kai" who supports "Whatever the opposite of a futurist is", it's obvious that the crypto crowd is trying to decentralize All The Things. Slush Pool as p2p alternatives, as does silk road. Trust systems have trade-offs. Decentralization is hard. Nothing of interest was revealed here, besides HN has a hard-on for centralized authority.
- shapiro92 9y ago
  blockchain fan boy triggered
- prolikewhoa 9y ago
  Cryptocurrency is so decentralized that most of it is held in a hand full of exchanges (aka, centralized). It seems the crypto community also does not care about the obvious centralization, but who would've ever thought major contradictions would come out of cryptocurrency?
  - jwatte 9y ago
    With Bitcoin or ether, I can hold the currency on paper wallets without Central storage, and immediately spend it if needed. Not as easy with cash, and impossible with checking/credit accounts.
  - mike741 9y ago
    the decentralization of cryptos like bitcoin refers to the source of the money (the miners), not its end location. most of the "contradictions" come down to misunderstandings like this. there's nothing that forces me to use a particular exchange and if the exchange crashes it will not affect my personal wallet, and i can feel safe knowing no 3rd party can come bail out the failed exchange at my indirect expense.
    - mcguire 9y ago
jayd16 9y ago
But it didn't actually solve anything. That's just tax evasion and/or money laundering by another name and there are countless ways to do that.
- verbify 9y ago
  There may have been countless ways of doing money laundering, but give me another way of paying for drugs online anonymously. There's a reason the darknets markets are so popular.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
drawkbox 9y ago
Add to the solution of paying anonymously or globally that transfers are generally shorter than bank account transfers. With banks and checking/savings accounts you have 3-5 business days, mainly due to the ACH and for fraud protection. But some transactions don't need fraud protection or are low enough that it might not matter. In that case bitcoin can transfer funds, verify it within an hour and many times around 20 minutes or so, that is much faster than transferring some money that settles 3-5 days later. A real world use case for bitcoin is to transfer money into it then buy from third party small products vendors or donations that one may or may not trust with credit card or to maintain privacy on purchases. Paypal usually fills that type of role but some don't use that. In those cases bitcoin and solutions like Bitpay work nicely. One can use bitcoin (or other alts you like) like a wallet/cash by having a smaller amount in there for transactions that you don't want to share your credit/payment processor information with similar to Paypal. Some might even trust bitcoin wallets more than Paypal and competition is always good. Credit card companies correlate your data through your card email/id to sell your ad data i.e. you order food out you might get competitive food ads. Privacy in bitcoin is a big killer app in those aspects, trust and non-tracked purchases. Bitcoin is more volatile, if your bank and credit cards are RDBMS then bitcoin is memcached/redis/mongo, more volatile but private. A nice side effect of bitcoin is money may go up in value but alternatively it can lower in value. Bitcoin could also allow someone to sell products globally without credit processors or other payment solutions that may be blocked or instead of setting those up. This can help entrepreneurs get their products available globally and not just for underground products but small hobbyists, creators, artists, and more. Bitcoin also greatly helps with donations and tips for FOSS and others that setting up a paypal invoice or credit transaction would be more of a pain.
- Nursie 9y ago
  Is 3-5 days standard in the US? Transfers here in the UK are effectively instant and free.
  - drawkbox 9y ago
    Yeah paying with savings/checking accounts they can take 3-5 business days. It may be faster but usually processes in that amount of time. If someone gives you a check the other side can take 3-5 days before it can be pulled/reversed as well. Much of this is due to fraud protections but also to get cheaper transactions during ACH sweeps. You can setup ACH transfers that happen nightly but usually that is for something like regular payment that it is worth setting it up i.e. maybe direct deposit for a contracting job.
freyir 9y ago
I used to be a sober guy with a typical penis and U.S. dollars in the bank. I would often lay awake at night, wondering, “How can I solve this?” You see, I was stuck in a rut. I wanted drugs, massive boners, and the thrill of a wildly unstable currency, all while shrouded under the cloak of anonymity. That’s when I became a blockchain enthusiast.
- drawkbox 9y ago
  Ad hominem and strawman, a private but verified payment solution isn't all drugs, money laundering and underground illegal purchases. Crypto is one step above cash, no fraud protection but some amount of verification. So is everyone that uses cash looking to skirt the law just because they want it private? Maybe they don't want their credit card company knowing they ate fast food for days straight. Money is the root of all evil but it is the people not the currency that can be bad. There are real world examples and uses for crypto. Is it used for bad things? Sure. Do criminals use all types of money? Yes. Crypto is just another currency, people are still good and bad.

roenxi 9y ago

The article is exaggerating, there must be someone who has problems that are solved by Bitcoin. However, one of Bitcoin's features is that it has a completely public permanent ledger showing all transactions assigned to everyone. It is a wildly inappropriate technology for doing illegal things or skirting the law (which cross-country transfers outside the system could well be). It has more downsides than cash in a duffle bag.

deft 9y ago
That's exactly the issue privacy currencies like Monero and to an extent Zcash solve.
weego 9y ago
I feel like we confuse bitcoin and blockchain. People's problems have been solved by a globally available currency that can handle simple transactions but that all happens incredibly inefficiently and despite of all the failings of he underlying blockchain tech.

smokeyj 9y ago

> If Ripple, Silk Road, Slush Pool, and the DAO all prefer “old way” systems of creating and enforcing trust, it’s no wonder that the outside world had not adopted trustless systems either! CHECK MATE ATHEISTS. Actually the article is pretty moronic. Besides being written by a person named "Kai" who supports "Whatever the opposite of a futurist is", it's obvious that the crypto crowd is trying to decentralize All The Things. Slush Pool as p2p alternatives, as does silk road. Trust systems have trade-offs. Decentralization is hard. Nothing of interest was revealed here, besides HN has a hard-on for centralized authority.

shapiro92 9y ago
blockchain fan boy triggered
prolikewhoa 9y ago
Cryptocurrency is so decentralized that most of it is held in a hand full of exchanges (aka, centralized). It seems the crypto community also does not care about the obvious centralization, but who would've ever thought major contradictions would come out of cryptocurrency?
- jwatte 9y ago
  With Bitcoin or ether, I can hold the currency on paper wallets without Central storage, and immediately spend it if needed. Not as easy with cash, and impossible with checking/credit accounts.
- mike741 9y ago
  the decentralization of cryptos like bitcoin refers to the source of the money (the miners), not its end location. most of the "contradictions" come down to misunderstandings like this. there's nothing that forces me to use a particular exchange and if the exchange crashes it will not affect my personal wallet, and i can feel safe knowing no 3rd party can come bail out the failed exchange at my indirect expense.
  - mcguire 9y ago

jayd16 9y ago

But it didn't actually solve anything. That's just tax evasion and/or money laundering by another name and there are countless ways to do that.

verbify 9y ago
There may have been countless ways of doing money laundering, but give me another way of paying for drugs online anonymously. There's a reason the darknets markets are so popular.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

drawkbox 9y ago

Add to the solution of paying anonymously or globally that transfers are generally shorter than bank account transfers. With banks and checking/savings accounts you have 3-5 business days, mainly due to the ACH and for fraud protection. But some transactions don't need fraud protection or are low enough that it might not matter. In that case bitcoin can transfer funds, verify it within an hour and many times around 20 minutes or so, that is much faster than transferring some money that settles 3-5 days later. A real world use case for bitcoin is to transfer money into it then buy from third party small products vendors or donations that one may or may not trust with credit card or to maintain privacy on purchases. Paypal usually fills that type of role but some don't use that. In those cases bitcoin and solutions like Bitpay work nicely. One can use bitcoin (or other alts you like) like a wallet/cash by having a smaller amount in there for transactions that you don't want to share your credit/payment processor information with similar to Paypal. Some might even trust bitcoin wallets more than Paypal and competition is always good. Credit card companies correlate your data through your card email/id to sell your ad data i.e. you order food out you might get competitive food ads. Privacy in bitcoin is a big killer app in those aspects, trust and non-tracked purchases. Bitcoin is more volatile, if your bank and credit cards are RDBMS then bitcoin is memcached/redis/mongo, more volatile but private. A nice side effect of bitcoin is money may go up in value but alternatively it can lower in value. Bitcoin could also allow someone to sell products globally without credit processors or other payment solutions that may be blocked or instead of setting those up. This can help entrepreneurs get their products available globally and not just for underground products but small hobbyists, creators, artists, and more. Bitcoin also greatly helps with donations and tips for FOSS and others that setting up a paypal invoice or credit transaction would be more of a pain.

Nursie 9y ago
Is 3-5 days standard in the US? Transfers here in the UK are effectively instant and free.
- drawkbox 9y ago
  Yeah paying with savings/checking accounts they can take 3-5 business days. It may be faster but usually processes in that amount of time. If someone gives you a check the other side can take 3-5 days before it can be pulled/reversed as well. Much of this is due to fraud protections but also to get cheaper transactions during ACH sweeps. You can setup ACH transfers that happen nightly but usually that is for something like regular payment that it is worth setting it up i.e. maybe direct deposit for a contracting job.

freyir 9y ago

I used to be a sober guy with a typical penis and U.S. dollars in the bank. I would often lay awake at night, wondering, “How can I solve this?” You see, I was stuck in a rut. I wanted drugs, massive boners, and the thrill of a wildly unstable currency, all while shrouded under the cloak of anonymity. That’s when I became a blockchain enthusiast.

drawkbox 9y ago
Ad hominem and strawman, a private but verified payment solution isn't all drugs, money laundering and underground illegal purchases. Crypto is one step above cash, no fraud protection but some amount of verification. So is everyone that uses cash looking to skirt the law just because they want it private? Maybe they don't want their credit card company knowing they ate fast food for days straight. Money is the root of all evil but it is the people not the currency that can be bad. There are real world examples and uses for crypto. Is it used for bad things? Sure. Do criminals use all types of money? Yes. Crypto is just another currency, people are still good and bad.