20 ms·

One element I find fascinating about the cryptocurrency / blockchain / ICO debates on HN and elsewhere is that there are 2 diametrically opposed sides with pass

One element I find fascinating about the cryptocurrency / blockchain / ICO debates on HN and elsewhere is that there are 2 diametrically opposed sides with passionate advocates. On one side are the boosters that think it is a great innovation with enormous potential. The other side thinks blockchain is practically useless, the most overhyped technology ever created, a bubble never-before seen in history. Yet every day there are stories (such as this article) showing crypto becoming more deeply ingrained in mainstream circles. New projects and new companies are forming consistently, just like with any new disruptive technology. But some very knowledgable people continue to argue with passion that the entire technology is a useless fraud! However this pans out, there are going to be a lot of people on one side that were totally, completely wrong. I doubt there is much middle ground for this.

elorant 9y ago
And then there are those of us who sit in the middle. Regardless of whether Bitcoin is a bubble or not, the thing is that you can't do much with it. There are few companies here and there that support it but for the best part everyone's sitting on their stack waiting for wider adoption from the real world in the future. As long as this isn't happening the whole discussion regarding Bitcoin is irrelevant. What's the point of having "money" you can't use as such.
- xxxdarrenxxx 9y ago
  Traditional money value has little to do with money anyway. America has an insane debt. Yet they still have power, while a single person with such relative debt goes to jail. Likewise, in terms of raw resources and precious material potentials, Europe has nothing in the ground compared to africa, but who are considered more wealthy by image, physical living standards and trade equity. Money is not really backed by gold or numbers, but backed by power off governments behind them and the (potential) whooping they will bring. However fancy a currency is, a government decides whether it will be acknowledged globally and within society.
asynchrony 9y ago
I don't think there's that much disagreement over the effectiveness of blockchain for managing decentralized ledgers (cryptocurrencies). There's rather more contention about the applicability of blockchain to other spaces.
- sp527 9y ago
  I think this should be rephrased as: the disagreement is entirely over what happens when you introduce humans (and, even more specifically, human behavior). The math is theoretically sound. Anyone disagreeing with that is a fool. A good example is the argument over network control. The mathematics of blockchain very precisely describe what percentage of accumulated mining power introduces the opportunity to defeat distributed consensus. But it's the fact that there is a human behavioral incentive to try and accumulate that aggregate mining power that might be a real problem, not the math. Granted that's a low likelihood event. This dichotomy emerges in countless different facets of blockchain, and I think is the simplest way of delineating the line between believers and naysayers.
  - asynchrony 9y ago
    In my mind the main contention is the difference between assets that exist entirely within the ledger (BTC, ETH, CryptoKitties) and assets that purport to reliably track some physical asset. Mathematical certainties about cryptographic security don't help reconcile the reality of meatspace with the state of the ledger.
- dnautics 9y ago
  > I don't think there's that much disagreement over the effectiveness of blockchain for managing decentralized ledgers (cryptocurrencies) Agreed. A lot of people have forgotten to ask the question - do I really need a decentralized and trustless ledger?
  - mirimir 9y ago
    Fundamentally, so it can't be taken down or pwned.
Meekro 9y ago
We've been re-arguing this for a long time now! Check out these 2010-2011 Slashdot stories: https://news.slashdot.org/story/10/07/11/1747245/bitcoin-releases-version-03 https://news.slashdot.org/story/10/07/11/1747245/bitcoin-rel... https://news.slashdot.org/story/11/02/10/189246/online-only-currency-bitcoin-reaches-dollar-parity https://news.slashdot.org/story/11/02/10/189246/online-only-... https://slashdot.org/story/11/05/16/1316211/bitcoin-the-most-dangerous-project-ever https://slashdot.org/story/11/05/16/1316211/bitcoin-the-most...
atomical 9y ago
> Yet every day there are stories (such as this article) showing crypto becoming more deeply ingrained in mainstream circles. Check out Attack of the 50-foot blockchain by David Gerard. He goes through many of those articles and debunks them. They are misleading articles written by crypto enthusiasts to promote their own agenda. > I doubt there is much middle ground for this. There is a middle ground. There are few areas where cryptocurrency can add real value. Consider the example of origin / provenance tracking. That's not a problem that needs to be solved by blockchain unless the company can't trust its own audit logs and database team. Would you want give your credit card to a company that thought it needed blockchain technology to prevent tampering? It sounds like incompetence to me. There are businesses that the public doesn't trust that could be disrupted by blockchain technology. Take a look at the studies on trust in casino and poker games. The public is very skeptical.
- n-exploit 9y ago
  Couldn't the same argument be made against fiat currencies? Nations don't have a great track record for trust. I don't see why a data-backed currency wouldn't completely flip the economy. I mean, the definition of fiat currency is basically: "it has value because you say so"
  - nickbauman 9y ago
    It has never been "it has value because you say so" by itself. It has value because it has a huge war machine behind it. Why does the gold coin of the realm have the king's face on it? Why didn't the king just keep the gold instead of using it to pay his soldiers and demand the coin be used to pay him his taxes from the formerly free peasants? Money _is_ trust. I really wonder if people trust a traditional banking system less than an algorthm implemented by a group of programmers whose code they either can't read or can't understand or both.
    - stevenwoo 9y ago
      Cryptocurrency seems to have struck a chord with those who do not see much chance for advancement in the current state of affairs and perceive it as a way out - this seems to be common among all the people involved I've seen interviewed from South Korea to Eastern Europe. There's little discussion of the advantage of system of traditional money versus cryptocurrency, though that may be a function of how short the quotes used in the article are. https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2018/04/23/597780405/how-the-tiny-nation-of-georgia-became-a-bitcoin-behemoth https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2018/04/23/597780405/... http://money.cnn.com/2017/12/12/technology/south-korea-bitcoin-mania/index.html http://money.cnn.com/2017/12/12/technology/south-korea-bitco...
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
wolco 9y ago
Plenty of middle ground for everyone. I've traded buy things with various coins loved the idea. I also see the downsides and wonder if it will all work out.
wtvanhest 9y ago
Your point is exactly why I have begun getting an allocation to bitcoin and ETH even though I am unsure whether it is going to zero, or whether either of those coins will be what the potential platforms of tomorrow are based on. My heart (not much real research yet) is telling me that bitcoin will be a store of value and that ETH MAY run some very interesting and large scale platforms. The risk of both going to zero is there, but the probability of massive growth in ETH or BTC is not zero. I guess we will all see, but my small allocation to BTC and ETH every month will either be zero, or a lot. Or, maybe its just flat overtime. I really have no idea, and I don't think anyone else does either. I just think it may be irresponsible to not at least have a small, very small allocation.
anonu 9y ago
> Yet every day there are stories (such as this article) showing crypto becoming more deeply ingrained in mainstream circles. For all intents and purposes, this is fake news. The value in GS opening a bitcoin trading operation is mostly in them publicizing and having people write articles about it. It looks like they're on the avant-garde of new technology and prospective hires - especially the engineers and techies - pay attention. Are they actually opening a trading operation? Probably. But as the article points out - its far less glamorous than it sounds - some new dude is sitting on the FX desk waiting for compliance and regulatory approval. And the truth is - many hedge funds have been trading crypto for years now - and I'm pretty sure other bigger broker dealers have gotten into the game already as well.
- ThomPete 9y ago
  You go to any trading floor today and compare it with 20 years ago youll find no one there. Does that mean trading stocks is overhyped?
  - abritinthebay 9y ago
    Yes. Yes it is. Which is why so many people think it’s a magical get rich quick thing.
    - ThomPete 9y ago
      Yes what is? The stock market is better than ever it's alive and well.
      - abritinthebay 9y ago
        It is over-hyped. Has been for decades. Is it also alive and well? Yes. They aren't mutually exclusive.
        ThomPete 9y ago
        Not sure I understand your definition of overhyped then. What's the correct non-hyped version of the stock market?
ucaetano 9y ago
> Yet every day there are stories (such as this article) showing crypto becoming more deeply ingrained in mainstream circles. They're selling shovels.
- PeterisP 9y ago
  And, what's more important, selling shovels doesn't imply belief that the mountain where everyone is digging actually contains gold, it is a viable and profitable business even if all the miners eventually come back empty-handed.
bcheung 9y ago
I hold both views simultaneously. I see huge potential for it, but in terms of practicality the incumbent mainstream technologies are good enough. Until it gets mainstream adoption it's pretty much useless to me.
zeth___ 9y ago
Bitcoin is the eniac of crypto-currencies. Good for the time, no, you shouldn't have one in your garage.
olalonde 9y ago
I'm very bullish on Bitcoin as a currency but simultaneously think that "blockchain" and the vast majority of altcoins are overhyped technology. Something that often gets swept under the carpet is that hash rate matters. You don't get the benefits of a "blockchain" with only a handful of miners.
profalseidol 9y ago
> But some very knowledgable people continue to argue with passion that the entire technology is a useless fraud! Can you mention one of them? And his/her knowledgable argument. -- > useless fraud! It's already been used to solve real world problems: https://www.coindesk.com/the-united-nations-just-launched-its-first-large-scale-ethereum-test/ https://www.coindesk.com/the-united-nations-just-launched-it... Citi and Nasdaq had a blockchain project that is already up and live. Can't find a link, but I swear I've watched it in a blockchain event in youtube. However, these are small scale use. Afaik, no blockchain is able to scale to creditcard usage yet (and stay secure at the same time). Ethereum Foundation is working hard on this. Not sure about Bitcoin. So as far as ETH goes, there's basis on it's price growth.
- Chriky 9y ago
  > Can't find a link, but I swear I've watched it in a blockchain event in youtube. This is a perfect example of "solution looking for a problem". You heard about the thing via Bitcoin channels, you only care about it because it's /Bitcoin/ solving a problem, not because the problem is solved, you can't actually find the thing now! Normal people, people who haven't bought Bitcoin, don't really care /how/ their problems are solved. This is the fundamental reason Bitcoin hasn't gone mainstream. It doesn't solve any mainstream problems well.
dmead 9y ago
this is all kind of obvious right? calling it "disruptive" is extremely vague in a kind of "i don't care of it's just a scam" kind of way.
tudorconstantin 9y ago
I think it's very risky for people to predict that crypto will die. If it doesn't, the stigma of 1 online comment will stay with them for the rest of their life: whenever Jamie Dimon will want predict something in the future, his opponents will say "yeah, says the guy who thought Bitcoin is a fraud". If crypto WILL die and one positioned themselves as a supporter, nobody will tell them they were overly enthusiastic about some vaporware. Who is being bashed for semantic web not becoming web 3.0, for example?
- sanderjd 9y ago
  Semantic web was not fueling rampant mainstream financial speculation such that its failure would result in large numbers of regular folks losing lots of money.
- Nursie 9y ago
  I don't think the stigma of one online comment would stay with most people in the same way. Few are that high profile, or in that specific field.
- ForHackernews 9y ago
  > If crypto WILL die and one positioned themselves as a supporter, nobody will tell them they were overly enthusiastic about some vaporware. I sure hope that stigma will attach to the scam artists, tax evaders and clueless chumps who together make up the overwhelming majority of cryptocurrency boosters today. Alas, you're probably correct that they'll move on to the next fad with their reputations intact.
cossatot 9y ago
Many of us do occupy the middle ground of thinking 'maybe' or 'I really don't care' or whatever. We also tend to avoid commenting because bitcoin discussions are among the most useless on HN.
- atomical 9y ago
  The most useless discussions on HN revolve around diet. So much pseudoscience. Topics on Bitcoin make more sense.
SlowRobotAhead 9y ago
>Yet every day there are stories (such as this article) showing crypto becoming more deeply ingrained in mainstream circles. At face value what I see here isn’t that Goldman believes in crypto-commodities at all. It’s that Goldman sees there is money to be made on picking up fees from clients. What the clients are buying or trading really doesn’t matter at all, so long as the fees are coming in.
- mvindahl 9y ago
  Bingo. Just like a casino doesn't "believe" in blackjack, craps or poker. They'll just set up the tables to match what people want to play. In the Goldman Sachs case it's even easier to set up tables as they don't have a finite size floor.
sjwright 9y ago
You have proposed a false dilemma. It is entirely for the technology to be valid and useful with enormous potential AND for the current coin bubble to be a massive pyramid scheme on a scale never-before seen in history. Tulips are still very pretty flowers. [0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip_mania https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip_mania
- mirimir 9y ago
  Sure, but I can't lease servers anonymously with tulip bulbs. If for no other reason, because they're physical objects. Maybe with tulip futures, or whatever, but I digress. I've followed discussions of anonymous electronic currency since the 90s. Nothing introduced before Bitcoin has survived. The main defect was centralization, which allowed government take-down. If I've missed one, please share. And about the bubble thing, I don't much care. The Bitcoin price has seen times of huge volatility. The increase during 2017 from ~$1000 to almost $20000 was impressive. As was the collapse during first quarter 2018. But now the price seems relatively stable at $7000-$9000. And payments go through quickly enough. And about anonymity. Yes, Bitcoin itself is not at all anonymous. Everything's in the public blockchain. But one can use mixing services, through Tor, and get different Bitcoin. Which aren't linked to the starting Bitcoin, or to any identity or IPv4 address that's linked to the user in meatspace. Maybe it's not perfect, but it's good enough for me.
  - wklauss 9y ago
    > But now the price seems relatively stable at $7000-$9000. And payments go through quickly enough. Great. Is this system that provides, so far, minimal to no advantage over other transaction systems worth expending the same electric power that a small developed country (Portugal) uses?
    - mirimir 9y ago
      If you know another way to make anonymous payments, please share. I had a Liberty Reserve account, but they got busted. I have a Pecunix account, but it's not accepted anywhere. If I were wealthy, I could setup shell corporations and so on. But I'm not. I do agree that a system that used less energy would be better. When it's available, and widely enough accepted, I'll switch.
thisisit 9y ago
> However this pans out, there are going to be a lot of people on one side that were totally, completely wrong. How about more people changing their minds as this pans out? One of the sad issues of internet debate is people see it as binary - agree or disagree. There are some well reasoned arguments on HN which walk the line between supporting cryptocurrency but against something like say, IOTA. But somehow everyone either in favor or against.
randomsearch 9y ago
I don’t recognise your analysis at all. What I see is one side that thinks bitcoin (specifically bitcoin) is going to be the new cash or the new gold, and one side that thinks bitcoin is a bubble. Overtime this has evolved a bit; most bitcoin fans no longer argue for it as a currency, and they also talk about ETH etc. just as much as bitcoin. I do not see most people who think bitcoin is a bubble saying blockchain itself is useless. You’re conflating two points of view to create a false dichotomy that (ironically) supports your own position. The reason bitcoin is such a controversial topic is because the “bubblers” are right about one thing: there is a large component of emotion and hope driving those bullish on bitcoin. Logic like “well it’s not that different from gold” is arguable, but that in itself isn’t a guarantee bitcoin will be useful - hence there’s an element of gambling/irrationality. And no-one wants to be accused of that.
- rubber_duck 9y ago
  I often see discussions on HN where people are saying that bitcoin is completely useless (technically and economically), that it invented nothing new, etc. I'm not a bitcoin supporter, I think the tech has been demonstrated as fundamentally flawed in practice already (slow and expensive transactions, failed to scale, failed to evolve etc.) and the economic/legal aspects are very complicated and uncertain. But a lot of people are willing to put money in to playing with it and stuff like smart contracts, etc. are interesting - I wouldn't call it useless and it has decent potential to solve some issues but it's nowhere near it currently (eg. it could handle international money transfer - if it was easier to convert to cash/buy - but right now the margins and fees eat the difference between standard methods like western union, and they are less volatile/proven/known).
  - hvidgaard 9y ago
    I'm interested in knowing why you think it failed scaling and evolving. SegWit and by extension LN, increased both scaling and was a significant evolution that enables sidechains and interchain transactions. What became quite obvious was the "scare" with full blocks and expensive transactions was with all likelihood an attack with spam transactions and not an actual issue at this moment. See https://jochen-hoenicke.de/queue/#1,all https://jochen-hoenicke.de/queue/#1,all for unconfirmed transactions and notice how it doesn't exactly line up with price increases where you would expect more activity. There seems to be some correlation with the entire BCH fork.
salty_biscuits 9y ago
Seems to be a general failure mode for human reasoning when presented with two options and weak evidence. We fall into a holy war instead of being happy with "meh, 50/50"
JustFinishedBSG 9y ago
> New projects and new companies are forming consistently, just like with any new disruptive technology. Or just like bubbles
beefield 9y ago
> However this pans out, there are going to be a lot of people on one side that were totally, completely wrong. I doubt there is much middle ground for this. I am starting to have doubts on this one. I mean, I fully admit that if bitcoin ever becomes widely accepted as currency/money, something in my worldview has been horribly wrong and I need to learn from that. But the other side can keep on burning fossil fuels worth millions of dollars daily indefinitely [1] and keep on moving the goalposts and claiming that the still undefined actual use case that is worth billions of trillions may actually be just behind the corner. And we likely are beyond the point where anything could convince cryptocoiners otherwise.[2] I strongly doubt (and thus cast a challenge to prove me wrong...) cryptocoiners can come up with a clearly defined possible future event (or lack of event) that would irrefutably prove them wrong. [1] Well, of course not indefinitely, there are things like the sun turning to a red giant and the Big Freeze of the universe that may cause some hiccups there, but indefinitely for the purpose of this analysis. [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_Prophecy_Fails https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_Prophecy_Fails
- csomar 9y ago
  How old are you? The young are embracing crypto-currencies. The only guys that I see holding this back are 35+ and particularly 45+. Who, obviously, do have the wealth to move crypto to higher valuation. There is nothing wrong with your worldview. You don't have the correct worldview, you'll never will and no one will. The world is complex and chaotic.
  - MrEldritch 9y ago
    Speaking as a young person (22), I'm certainly not embracing cryptocurrencies and neither is anyone I know. Bitcoin is virtually useless as a currency[1] and, having no other compelling use-case whatsoever, cannot really be a store of value either. (Lightning network may change that, but that also amounts to totally replacing almost all of Bitcoin by building a hopefully less shitty system on top of it. Lightning being necessary means that Bitcoin as Satoshi envisioned it has failed utterly.) Ethereum strikes me as basically a gimmick, and the constant calls for forks as some completely immutable smart contract gets irrevocably fucked up and the only option is to roll back the whole damn blockchain does not strike me as a problem that is even fixable; smart contracts just don't seem to be a good idea. It also seems terribly inefficient as a computing platform and unlikely to scale well. I don't deny that the dream of decentralized, fast, low-transaction-cost, disruptive payment infrastructure would be groundbreaking if it could be achieved without instantly breaking due to scaling problems and wild speculation. But I'm not convinced that blockchain is even remotely the right tool to deliver it. [1] Admittedly, not as useless as it was a couple months ago, when average transaction time would randomly spike through the roof and transaction fees were insane. But it seems like the reason that happened is not because problems were fixed, but because people moved away from Bitcoin and eased pressure on the creaking system. Bitcoin works only when people aren't trying to use it.
csomar 9y ago
I think there will be a middle ground. Both parties will be dissapointed. Bitcoin won't be the future of all transactions (or crypto for that matter). We still need the physical world to a large degree. Also crypto is here to stay. The use cases are huge and the community has matured beyond the hype. Sure there are lots of scams, and it has a bubbly nature. But the people working in this field have learned to embrace it.
scalesolved 9y ago
"The other side thinks blockchain is practically useless, the most overhyped technology ever created, a bubble never-before seen in history." I really think the bubble side of crypto currencies is wildly overstated, the total market cap is tiny in comparison to any massively over leveraged asset (housing,student loans) etc. Whilst BTC and others may be in a bubble even if they crashed to zero now it would pale compared to bubbles within the last 20 years.
- MrEldritch 9y ago
  It may be a bubble never-before-seen in relative terms of price-at-peak divided by some unknown future price-after-settling. It's certainly not the largest bubble in absolute terms, not even close.
  - scalesolved 9y ago
    That is something that anyone can apply to anything. I'm not being snarky, I agree that BTC may be a large bubble but too many people are talking in absolute terms.
SuoDuanDao 9y ago
It does seem that way. I think the middle ground in that debate is occupied mostly by people who just don't know much about blockchain on the one hand and people like myself, who expect very good OR very bad consequences to come from the technology, but are unsure how to raise the odds of the good outcome and don't even all agree on which are which.
vinchuco 9y ago
https://bitcoinwisdom.com/markets/bitstamp/btcusd https://bitcoinwisdom.com/markets/bitstamp/btcusd https://228main.files.wordpress.com/2015/11/graph.jpg https://228main.files.wordpress.com/2015/11/graph.jpg Guess we'll find out.
- macns 9y ago
  If I'm reading this graph right, are we at "Return to \"normal\"" main stage of the bitcoin bubble? If yes, then bitcoin is about to go down to the "Despair" stage soon.
- madshiva 9y ago
  Where's the crash in your chart?
xbwalters 9y ago
Corba was mainstream once. 95% of these announcements are IT departments who desperately have to show some activity and need something to work on. Some manager, who also needs to show activity, catches on and promotes the heck out of it. The manager's manager, who also needs to show activity, ... Finally the matter arrives at the CEO, who, incidentally, has to show activity to the board. Therefore, he approves.
simias 9y ago
>Yet every day there are stories (such as this article) showing crypto becoming more deeply ingrained in mainstream circles. Depends what you claim to be mainstream. Most of these "stories" are either 1/ speculation related (this one is) or 2/ some pipe dream it's-totally-going-to-work-guys technology that's going to cure cancer and solve world hunger through the power of SHA-256 and healing crystals (see IOTA, 99% of all ICOs, the "De Beers" crystal blockchain, the Kodak chain etc...). Now beyond all of that noise, maybe there's actual value somewhere. I'm definitely in the camp of the "unbelievers" but I really don't think I'm being unreasonable. I think I understand how cryptocurrencies work (probably better than 99% of crypto zealots judging by the average technical level of cryptocurrency discussions online). They're great for buying illegal stuff online and timestamping documents. Every single other use case I've seen so far involves such a heavy amount of hand waving that I wonder if crypto-enthusiasts suffer from RSI more than the general population. It either simply falls apart after the smallest amount of scrutiny or ends up being so much more inefficient than "centralized" alternatives that you end up wondering who would use that (again, outside of doing illegal stuff online). So frankly I don't think it's fair to oppose both camps like this. Either the technology is useful or it's not. If it is it shouldn't be difficult to explain how it is. Not by making fancy marketing slides but by explaining what problem it solves and how and why it's better than the alternative. I could make a long post explaining why I believe that "public key cryptography is dumb and useless" and nobody would care because it's pretty damn obvious that it's actually very useful. It doesn't cease to exist if you stop believing in it. For the "Blockchain" (whatever that is) I'm not so sure. Furthermore remember that cryptocurrency enthusiasts often own cryptocurrencies, so they have a clear incentive to "pump" the technology whereas unbelievers don't really have anything to gain either way (although you could argue that some are jealous of the bitcoin millionaires I suppose).
- hvidgaard 9y ago
  Bitcoin is terrible to buying illegal stuff. Now that exchanges have become somewhat legitimate businesses, the authorities can track bitcoins all the way back to the buyers.
  - simias 9y ago
SideburnsOfDoom 9y ago
> Yet every day there are stories (such as this article) showing crypto becoming more deeply ingrained in mainstream circles Goldman-Sachs doesn't have to care if the goldrush is real or not, so long as they can sell shovels.
- paulgb 9y ago
  Yes, I'm always amused when people see GS entering cryptocurrencies as a good thing. Here's an article from 2010 on how GS can profit from bubbles: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-great-american-bubble-machine-20100405 https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-great-america...
cup-of-tea 9y ago
I don't think any intelligent person would disagree that decentralisation of money is a good thing and that any tech that enables it could easily change the world. What some people, including me, are saying now is just that this isn't it. Blockchain does not solve the problem.
- Taek 9y ago
  What are your reservations about blockchain? I do believe that blockchain solves this problem, and I'm also an expert in the field (seven years of research). Maybe I can move the needle for you.
  - cup-of-tea 9y ago
    Only one reservation: it's not scalable.
    - hvidgaard 9y ago
      What part of it is not scalable? Storage of history? Supported transaction volume?
      - cup-of-tea 9y ago
        Yes. Add to that the environmental impact of proof-of-work as well. Are people still not seeing this? I think the question should be, how is it scalable?
    - dfdfdfwff 9y ago
      A lot of people are working on that, though. Lightning Network seems like a huge improvement already? Proof of Stake, if it can be made to work, might also scale much better than Proof of Work.
    - bitreality 9y ago
      So you're saying that with all the investment into crypto-currency development, and a techonology that did not exist in any form 10 years ago, that it is impossible to scale? You are saying it is impossible to create an improved form of crypto currency that solves scaling? Even with 10's of billions of dollars being invested this year into their development? People are throwing a lot of money at this technology. The stakes are incredibly high. If someone does find a solution and creates a form of crypto currency which can operate at scale and do so for cheap fees, they'll become at least a billionaire. On top of becoming a billionaire, a crypto currency that was able to transact at scale, securely, for pennies in TX costs would fundamentally change the world.
CommieBobDole 9y ago
I think there's more middle ground than you think. Personally, I think blockchain is a useful, interesting technology that can be used to solve a number of problems. And I think that blockchain-based cryptocurrencies are likewise useful as a pseudonymous medium of exchange and will probably be around for a long time. Cryptocurrency has utility and therefore actual value. I just don't think that 'actual value' is $30k/bitcoin or whatever. I think bitcoin and other coins are overvalued hundreds or maybe thousands-fold and that overvaluation is driven by an enormous speculative bubble of people who mostly don't understand anything about the thing but buy out of fear of missing out in case the price keeps going up forever. Blockchain is here to stay. Cryptocurrency likewise. $30k coin valuation is a flash in the pan.
- xorcist 9y ago
  Not many people dare to give a monetary value at this point. What kind of legitimate use case would have the order of magnitude valuation you describe and what is your reasoning behind it?
  - CommieBobDole 9y ago
    I may have implied more precision than I meant; my thought is just that the value seems more likely to be small than very large. Reasoning would be the things contributing to value are the utility (it's a medium of exchange) and the scarcity (there can only be a finite number of Bitcoin). But the latter has limited effect because anyone can create a new coin anytime they want to. I could be wrong, of course. I'm not an economist.
basseq 9y ago
The extreme voices are the loudest, and online arguments don't nurture nuanced perspectives. Thus, if it's a binary choice, your options are: 1. Crypo=Blockchain=Bitcoin, we're all going to be doing 100% of our transactions in BTC in 5 years, it's going to revolutionize the world more than any other invention, and how could you not see the obvious, you sheeple. 2. Everything related to BTC, blockchain, crypto is a giant over-hyped fraud, the concept isn't new, investors are stupid for throwing money at it, and no one cares about this, you neckbeards. I would be in the "negative" camp if it was a binary choice. But there's a ton of middle ground.
Geee 9y ago
I think the most important thing is that Bitcoin opened the floodgates by allowing innovation in economic systems. I'm not sure of anything else, but innovation and competition is bound to evolve into something by survival of the fittest. I find this really fascinating.
drngdds 9y ago
This isn't what the hardcore Bitcoin proponents want, though. They think Bitcoin is a revolutionary piece of technology that will replace fiat currency. This is just a big bank recognizing an opportunity to make money by speculating on price changes.
yyt_x 9y ago
I agree. One of the consistently recurring types of jabs at blockchain from the HN crowd is to lampoon the fact that it is just an 'append-only' database. Then i realized that while they are right, the naysayers fail to appreciate how fucking amazing that is. PoW gave us the first append-only database worth its salt. That gives us a form of digital history that computers can interface with directly. Tubes and wires man!

elorant 9y ago

And then there are those of us who sit in the middle. Regardless of whether Bitcoin is a bubble or not, the thing is that you can't do much with it. There are few companies here and there that support it but for the best part everyone's sitting on their stack waiting for wider adoption from the real world in the future. As long as this isn't happening the whole discussion regarding Bitcoin is irrelevant. What's the point of having "money" you can't use as such.

xxxdarrenxxx 9y ago
Traditional money value has little to do with money anyway. America has an insane debt. Yet they still have power, while a single person with such relative debt goes to jail. Likewise, in terms of raw resources and precious material potentials, Europe has nothing in the ground compared to africa, but who are considered more wealthy by image, physical living standards and trade equity. Money is not really backed by gold or numbers, but backed by power off governments behind them and the (potential) whooping they will bring. However fancy a currency is, a government decides whether it will be acknowledged globally and within society.

asynchrony 9y ago

I don't think there's that much disagreement over the effectiveness of blockchain for managing decentralized ledgers (cryptocurrencies). There's rather more contention about the applicability of blockchain to other spaces.

sp527 9y ago
I think this should be rephrased as: the disagreement is entirely over what happens when you introduce humans (and, even more specifically, human behavior). The math is theoretically sound. Anyone disagreeing with that is a fool. A good example is the argument over network control. The mathematics of blockchain very precisely describe what percentage of accumulated mining power introduces the opportunity to defeat distributed consensus. But it's the fact that there is a human behavioral incentive to try and accumulate that aggregate mining power that might be a real problem, not the math. Granted that's a low likelihood event. This dichotomy emerges in countless different facets of blockchain, and I think is the simplest way of delineating the line between believers and naysayers.
- asynchrony 9y ago
  In my mind the main contention is the difference between assets that exist entirely within the ledger (BTC, ETH, CryptoKitties) and assets that purport to reliably track some physical asset. Mathematical certainties about cryptographic security don't help reconcile the reality of meatspace with the state of the ledger.
dnautics 9y ago
> I don't think there's that much disagreement over the effectiveness of blockchain for managing decentralized ledgers (cryptocurrencies) Agreed. A lot of people have forgotten to ask the question - do I really need a decentralized and trustless ledger?
- mirimir 9y ago
  Fundamentally, so it can't be taken down or pwned.

Meekro 9y ago

We've been re-arguing this for a long time now! Check out these 2010-2011 Slashdot stories: https://news.slashdot.org/story/10/07/11/1747245/bitcoin-releases-version-03 https://news.slashdot.org/story/10/07/11/1747245/bitcoin-rel... https://news.slashdot.org/story/11/02/10/189246/online-only-currency-bitcoin-reaches-dollar-parity https://news.slashdot.org/story/11/02/10/189246/online-only-... https://slashdot.org/story/11/05/16/1316211/bitcoin-the-most-dangerous-project-ever https://slashdot.org/story/11/05/16/1316211/bitcoin-the-most...

atomical 9y ago

> Yet every day there are stories (such as this article) showing crypto becoming more deeply ingrained in mainstream circles. Check out Attack of the 50-foot blockchain by David Gerard. He goes through many of those articles and debunks them. They are misleading articles written by crypto enthusiasts to promote their own agenda. > I doubt there is much middle ground for this. There is a middle ground. There are few areas where cryptocurrency can add real value. Consider the example of origin / provenance tracking. That's not a problem that needs to be solved by blockchain unless the company can't trust its own audit logs and database team. Would you want give your credit card to a company that thought it needed blockchain technology to prevent tampering? It sounds like incompetence to me. There are businesses that the public doesn't trust that could be disrupted by blockchain technology. Take a look at the studies on trust in casino and poker games. The public is very skeptical.

n-exploit 9y ago
Couldn't the same argument be made against fiat currencies? Nations don't have a great track record for trust. I don't see why a data-backed currency wouldn't completely flip the economy. I mean, the definition of fiat currency is basically: "it has value because you say so"
- nickbauman 9y ago
  It has never been "it has value because you say so" by itself. It has value because it has a huge war machine behind it. Why does the gold coin of the realm have the king's face on it? Why didn't the king just keep the gold instead of using it to pay his soldiers and demand the coin be used to pay him his taxes from the formerly free peasants? Money _is_ trust. I really wonder if people trust a traditional banking system less than an algorthm implemented by a group of programmers whose code they either can't read or can't understand or both.
  - stevenwoo 9y ago
    Cryptocurrency seems to have struck a chord with those who do not see much chance for advancement in the current state of affairs and perceive it as a way out - this seems to be common among all the people involved I've seen interviewed from South Korea to Eastern Europe. There's little discussion of the advantage of system of traditional money versus cryptocurrency, though that may be a function of how short the quotes used in the article are. https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2018/04/23/597780405/how-the-tiny-nation-of-georgia-became-a-bitcoin-behemoth https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2018/04/23/597780405/... http://money.cnn.com/2017/12/12/technology/south-korea-bitcoin-mania/index.html http://money.cnn.com/2017/12/12/technology/south-korea-bitco...

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

wolco 9y ago

Plenty of middle ground for everyone. I've traded buy things with various coins loved the idea. I also see the downsides and wonder if it will all work out.

wtvanhest 9y ago

Your point is exactly why I have begun getting an allocation to bitcoin and ETH even though I am unsure whether it is going to zero, or whether either of those coins will be what the potential platforms of tomorrow are based on. My heart (not much real research yet) is telling me that bitcoin will be a store of value and that ETH MAY run some very interesting and large scale platforms. The risk of both going to zero is there, but the probability of massive growth in ETH or BTC is not zero. I guess we will all see, but my small allocation to BTC and ETH every month will either be zero, or a lot. Or, maybe its just flat overtime. I really have no idea, and I don't think anyone else does either. I just think it may be irresponsible to not at least have a small, very small allocation.

anonu 9y ago

> Yet every day there are stories (such as this article) showing crypto becoming more deeply ingrained in mainstream circles. For all intents and purposes, this is fake news. The value in GS opening a bitcoin trading operation is mostly in them publicizing and having people write articles about it. It looks like they're on the avant-garde of new technology and prospective hires - especially the engineers and techies - pay attention. Are they actually opening a trading operation? Probably. But as the article points out - its far less glamorous than it sounds - some new dude is sitting on the FX desk waiting for compliance and regulatory approval. And the truth is - many hedge funds have been trading crypto for years now - and I'm pretty sure other bigger broker dealers have gotten into the game already as well.

ThomPete 9y ago
You go to any trading floor today and compare it with 20 years ago youll find no one there. Does that mean trading stocks is overhyped?
- abritinthebay 9y ago
  Yes. Yes it is. Which is why so many people think it’s a magical get rich quick thing.
  - ThomPete 9y ago
    Yes what is? The stock market is better than ever it's alive and well.
    - abritinthebay 9y ago
      It is over-hyped. Has been for decades. Is it also alive and well? Yes. They aren't mutually exclusive.
      - ThomPete 9y ago
        Not sure I understand your definition of overhyped then. What's the correct non-hyped version of the stock market?

ucaetano 9y ago

> Yet every day there are stories (such as this article) showing crypto becoming more deeply ingrained in mainstream circles. They're selling shovels.

PeterisP 9y ago
And, what's more important, selling shovels doesn't imply belief that the mountain where everyone is digging actually contains gold, it is a viable and profitable business even if all the miners eventually come back empty-handed.

bcheung 9y ago

I hold both views simultaneously. I see huge potential for it, but in terms of practicality the incumbent mainstream technologies are good enough. Until it gets mainstream adoption it's pretty much useless to me.

zeth___ 9y ago

Bitcoin is the eniac of crypto-currencies. Good for the time, no, you shouldn't have one in your garage.

olalonde 9y ago

I'm very bullish on Bitcoin as a currency but simultaneously think that "blockchain" and the vast majority of altcoins are overhyped technology. Something that often gets swept under the carpet is that hash rate matters. You don't get the benefits of a "blockchain" with only a handful of miners.

profalseidol 9y ago

> But some very knowledgable people continue to argue with passion that the entire technology is a useless fraud! Can you mention one of them? And his/her knowledgable argument. -- > useless fraud! It's already been used to solve real world problems: https://www.coindesk.com/the-united-nations-just-launched-its-first-large-scale-ethereum-test/ https://www.coindesk.com/the-united-nations-just-launched-it... Citi and Nasdaq had a blockchain project that is already up and live. Can't find a link, but I swear I've watched it in a blockchain event in youtube. However, these are small scale use. Afaik, no blockchain is able to scale to creditcard usage yet (and stay secure at the same time). Ethereum Foundation is working hard on this. Not sure about Bitcoin. So as far as ETH goes, there's basis on it's price growth.

Chriky 9y ago
> Can't find a link, but I swear I've watched it in a blockchain event in youtube. This is a perfect example of "solution looking for a problem". You heard about the thing via Bitcoin channels, you only care about it because it's /Bitcoin/ solving a problem, not because the problem is solved, you can't actually find the thing now! Normal people, people who haven't bought Bitcoin, don't really care /how/ their problems are solved. This is the fundamental reason Bitcoin hasn't gone mainstream. It doesn't solve any mainstream problems well.

dmead 9y ago

this is all kind of obvious right? calling it "disruptive" is extremely vague in a kind of "i don't care of it's just a scam" kind of way.

tudorconstantin 9y ago

I think it's very risky for people to predict that crypto will die. If it doesn't, the stigma of 1 online comment will stay with them for the rest of their life: whenever Jamie Dimon will want predict something in the future, his opponents will say "yeah, says the guy who thought Bitcoin is a fraud". If crypto WILL die and one positioned themselves as a supporter, nobody will tell them they were overly enthusiastic about some vaporware. Who is being bashed for semantic web not becoming web 3.0, for example?

sanderjd 9y ago
Semantic web was not fueling rampant mainstream financial speculation such that its failure would result in large numbers of regular folks losing lots of money.
Nursie 9y ago
I don't think the stigma of one online comment would stay with most people in the same way. Few are that high profile, or in that specific field.
ForHackernews 9y ago
> If crypto WILL die and one positioned themselves as a supporter, nobody will tell them they were overly enthusiastic about some vaporware. I sure hope that stigma will attach to the scam artists, tax evaders and clueless chumps who together make up the overwhelming majority of cryptocurrency boosters today. Alas, you're probably correct that they'll move on to the next fad with their reputations intact.

cossatot 9y ago

Many of us do occupy the middle ground of thinking 'maybe' or 'I really don't care' or whatever. We also tend to avoid commenting because bitcoin discussions are among the most useless on HN.

atomical 9y ago
The most useless discussions on HN revolve around diet. So much pseudoscience. Topics on Bitcoin make more sense.

SlowRobotAhead 9y ago

>Yet every day there are stories (such as this article) showing crypto becoming more deeply ingrained in mainstream circles. At face value what I see here isn’t that Goldman believes in crypto-commodities at all. It’s that Goldman sees there is money to be made on picking up fees from clients. What the clients are buying or trading really doesn’t matter at all, so long as the fees are coming in.

mvindahl 9y ago
Bingo. Just like a casino doesn't "believe" in blackjack, craps or poker. They'll just set up the tables to match what people want to play. In the Goldman Sachs case it's even easier to set up tables as they don't have a finite size floor.

sjwright 9y ago

You have proposed a false dilemma. It is entirely for the technology to be valid and useful with enormous potential AND for the current coin bubble to be a massive pyramid scheme on a scale never-before seen in history. Tulips are still very pretty flowers. [0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip_mania https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip_mania

mirimir 9y ago
Sure, but I can't lease servers anonymously with tulip bulbs. If for no other reason, because they're physical objects. Maybe with tulip futures, or whatever, but I digress. I've followed discussions of anonymous electronic currency since the 90s. Nothing introduced before Bitcoin has survived. The main defect was centralization, which allowed government take-down. If I've missed one, please share. And about the bubble thing, I don't much care. The Bitcoin price has seen times of huge volatility. The increase during 2017 from ~$1000 to almost $20000 was impressive. As was the collapse during first quarter 2018. But now the price seems relatively stable at $7000-$9000. And payments go through quickly enough. And about anonymity. Yes, Bitcoin itself is not at all anonymous. Everything's in the public blockchain. But one can use mixing services, through Tor, and get different Bitcoin. Which aren't linked to the starting Bitcoin, or to any identity or IPv4 address that's linked to the user in meatspace. Maybe it's not perfect, but it's good enough for me.
- wklauss 9y ago
  > But now the price seems relatively stable at $7000-$9000. And payments go through quickly enough. Great. Is this system that provides, so far, minimal to no advantage over other transaction systems worth expending the same electric power that a small developed country (Portugal) uses?
  - mirimir 9y ago
    If you know another way to make anonymous payments, please share. I had a Liberty Reserve account, but they got busted. I have a Pecunix account, but it's not accepted anywhere. If I were wealthy, I could setup shell corporations and so on. But I'm not. I do agree that a system that used less energy would be better. When it's available, and widely enough accepted, I'll switch.

thisisit 9y ago

> However this pans out, there are going to be a lot of people on one side that were totally, completely wrong. How about more people changing their minds as this pans out? One of the sad issues of internet debate is people see it as binary - agree or disagree. There are some well reasoned arguments on HN which walk the line between supporting cryptocurrency but against something like say, IOTA. But somehow everyone either in favor or against.

randomsearch 9y ago

I don’t recognise your analysis at all. What I see is one side that thinks bitcoin (specifically bitcoin) is going to be the new cash or the new gold, and one side that thinks bitcoin is a bubble. Overtime this has evolved a bit; most bitcoin fans no longer argue for it as a currency, and they also talk about ETH etc. just as much as bitcoin. I do not see most people who think bitcoin is a bubble saying blockchain itself is useless. You’re conflating two points of view to create a false dichotomy that (ironically) supports your own position. The reason bitcoin is such a controversial topic is because the “bubblers” are right about one thing: there is a large component of emotion and hope driving those bullish on bitcoin. Logic like “well it’s not that different from gold” is arguable, but that in itself isn’t a guarantee bitcoin will be useful - hence there’s an element of gambling/irrationality. And no-one wants to be accused of that.

rubber_duck 9y ago
I often see discussions on HN where people are saying that bitcoin is completely useless (technically and economically), that it invented nothing new, etc. I'm not a bitcoin supporter, I think the tech has been demonstrated as fundamentally flawed in practice already (slow and expensive transactions, failed to scale, failed to evolve etc.) and the economic/legal aspects are very complicated and uncertain. But a lot of people are willing to put money in to playing with it and stuff like smart contracts, etc. are interesting - I wouldn't call it useless and it has decent potential to solve some issues but it's nowhere near it currently (eg. it could handle international money transfer - if it was easier to convert to cash/buy - but right now the margins and fees eat the difference between standard methods like western union, and they are less volatile/proven/known).
- hvidgaard 9y ago
  I'm interested in knowing why you think it failed scaling and evolving. SegWit and by extension LN, increased both scaling and was a significant evolution that enables sidechains and interchain transactions. What became quite obvious was the "scare" with full blocks and expensive transactions was with all likelihood an attack with spam transactions and not an actual issue at this moment. See https://jochen-hoenicke.de/queue/#1,all https://jochen-hoenicke.de/queue/#1,all for unconfirmed transactions and notice how it doesn't exactly line up with price increases where you would expect more activity. There seems to be some correlation with the entire BCH fork.

salty_biscuits 9y ago

Seems to be a general failure mode for human reasoning when presented with two options and weak evidence. We fall into a holy war instead of being happy with "meh, 50/50"

JustFinishedBSG 9y ago

> New projects and new companies are forming consistently, just like with any new disruptive technology. Or just like bubbles

beefield 9y ago

> However this pans out, there are going to be a lot of people on one side that were totally, completely wrong. I doubt there is much middle ground for this. I am starting to have doubts on this one. I mean, I fully admit that if bitcoin ever becomes widely accepted as currency/money, something in my worldview has been horribly wrong and I need to learn from that. But the other side can keep on burning fossil fuels worth millions of dollars daily indefinitely [1] and keep on moving the goalposts and claiming that the still undefined actual use case that is worth billions of trillions may actually be just behind the corner. And we likely are beyond the point where anything could convince cryptocoiners otherwise.[2] I strongly doubt (and thus cast a challenge to prove me wrong...) cryptocoiners can come up with a clearly defined possible future event (or lack of event) that would irrefutably prove them wrong. [1] Well, of course not indefinitely, there are things like the sun turning to a red giant and the Big Freeze of the universe that may cause some hiccups there, but indefinitely for the purpose of this analysis. [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_Prophecy_Fails https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_Prophecy_Fails

csomar 9y ago
How old are you? The young are embracing crypto-currencies. The only guys that I see holding this back are 35+ and particularly 45+. Who, obviously, do have the wealth to move crypto to higher valuation. There is nothing wrong with your worldview. You don't have the correct worldview, you'll never will and no one will. The world is complex and chaotic.
- MrEldritch 9y ago
  Speaking as a young person (22), I'm certainly not embracing cryptocurrencies and neither is anyone I know. Bitcoin is virtually useless as a currency[1] and, having no other compelling use-case whatsoever, cannot really be a store of value either. (Lightning network may change that, but that also amounts to totally replacing almost all of Bitcoin by building a hopefully less shitty system on top of it. Lightning being necessary means that Bitcoin as Satoshi envisioned it has failed utterly.) Ethereum strikes me as basically a gimmick, and the constant calls for forks as some completely immutable smart contract gets irrevocably fucked up and the only option is to roll back the whole damn blockchain does not strike me as a problem that is even fixable; smart contracts just don't seem to be a good idea. It also seems terribly inefficient as a computing platform and unlikely to scale well. I don't deny that the dream of decentralized, fast, low-transaction-cost, disruptive payment infrastructure would be groundbreaking if it could be achieved without instantly breaking due to scaling problems and wild speculation. But I'm not convinced that blockchain is even remotely the right tool to deliver it. [1] Admittedly, not as useless as it was a couple months ago, when average transaction time would randomly spike through the roof and transaction fees were insane. But it seems like the reason that happened is not because problems were fixed, but because people moved away from Bitcoin and eased pressure on the creaking system. Bitcoin works only when people aren't trying to use it.

csomar 9y ago

I think there will be a middle ground. Both parties will be dissapointed. Bitcoin won't be the future of all transactions (or crypto for that matter). We still need the physical world to a large degree. Also crypto is here to stay. The use cases are huge and the community has matured beyond the hype. Sure there are lots of scams, and it has a bubbly nature. But the people working in this field have learned to embrace it.

scalesolved 9y ago

"The other side thinks blockchain is practically useless, the most overhyped technology ever created, a bubble never-before seen in history." I really think the bubble side of crypto currencies is wildly overstated, the total market cap is tiny in comparison to any massively over leveraged asset (housing,student loans) etc. Whilst BTC and others may be in a bubble even if they crashed to zero now it would pale compared to bubbles within the last 20 years.

MrEldritch 9y ago
It may be a bubble never-before-seen in relative terms of price-at-peak divided by some unknown future price-after-settling. It's certainly not the largest bubble in absolute terms, not even close.
- scalesolved 9y ago
  That is something that anyone can apply to anything. I'm not being snarky, I agree that BTC may be a large bubble but too many people are talking in absolute terms.

SuoDuanDao 9y ago

It does seem that way. I think the middle ground in that debate is occupied mostly by people who just don't know much about blockchain on the one hand and people like myself, who expect very good OR very bad consequences to come from the technology, but are unsure how to raise the odds of the good outcome and don't even all agree on which are which.

vinchuco 9y ago

https://bitcoinwisdom.com/markets/bitstamp/btcusd https://bitcoinwisdom.com/markets/bitstamp/btcusd https://228main.files.wordpress.com/2015/11/graph.jpg https://228main.files.wordpress.com/2015/11/graph.jpg Guess we'll find out.

macns 9y ago
If I'm reading this graph right, are we at "Return to \"normal\"" main stage of the bitcoin bubble? If yes, then bitcoin is about to go down to the "Despair" stage soon.
madshiva 9y ago
Where's the crash in your chart?

xbwalters 9y ago

Corba was mainstream once. 95% of these announcements are IT departments who desperately have to show some activity and need something to work on. Some manager, who also needs to show activity, catches on and promotes the heck out of it. The manager's manager, who also needs to show activity, ... Finally the matter arrives at the CEO, who, incidentally, has to show activity to the board. Therefore, he approves.

simias 9y ago

>Yet every day there are stories (such as this article) showing crypto becoming more deeply ingrained in mainstream circles. Depends what you claim to be mainstream. Most of these "stories" are either 1/ speculation related (this one is) or 2/ some pipe dream it's-totally-going-to-work-guys technology that's going to cure cancer and solve world hunger through the power of SHA-256 and healing crystals (see IOTA, 99% of all ICOs, the "De Beers" crystal blockchain, the Kodak chain etc...). Now beyond all of that noise, maybe there's actual value somewhere. I'm definitely in the camp of the "unbelievers" but I really don't think I'm being unreasonable. I think I understand how cryptocurrencies work (probably better than 99% of crypto zealots judging by the average technical level of cryptocurrency discussions online). They're great for buying illegal stuff online and timestamping documents. Every single other use case I've seen so far involves such a heavy amount of hand waving that I wonder if crypto-enthusiasts suffer from RSI more than the general population. It either simply falls apart after the smallest amount of scrutiny or ends up being so much more inefficient than "centralized" alternatives that you end up wondering who would use that (again, outside of doing illegal stuff online). So frankly I don't think it's fair to oppose both camps like this. Either the technology is useful or it's not. If it is it shouldn't be difficult to explain how it is. Not by making fancy marketing slides but by explaining what problem it solves and how and why it's better than the alternative. I could make a long post explaining why I believe that "public key cryptography is dumb and useless" and nobody would care because it's pretty damn obvious that it's actually very useful. It doesn't cease to exist if you stop believing in it. For the "Blockchain" (whatever that is) I'm not so sure. Furthermore remember that cryptocurrency enthusiasts often own cryptocurrencies, so they have a clear incentive to "pump" the technology whereas unbelievers don't really have anything to gain either way (although you could argue that some are jealous of the bitcoin millionaires I suppose).

hvidgaard 9y ago
Bitcoin is terrible to buying illegal stuff. Now that exchanges have become somewhat legitimate businesses, the authorities can track bitcoins all the way back to the buyers.
- simias 9y ago

SideburnsOfDoom 9y ago

> Yet every day there are stories (such as this article) showing crypto becoming more deeply ingrained in mainstream circles Goldman-Sachs doesn't have to care if the goldrush is real or not, so long as they can sell shovels.

paulgb 9y ago
Yes, I'm always amused when people see GS entering cryptocurrencies as a good thing. Here's an article from 2010 on how GS can profit from bubbles: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-great-american-bubble-machine-20100405 https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-great-america...

cup-of-tea 9y ago

I don't think any intelligent person would disagree that decentralisation of money is a good thing and that any tech that enables it could easily change the world. What some people, including me, are saying now is just that this isn't it. Blockchain does not solve the problem.

Taek 9y ago
What are your reservations about blockchain? I do believe that blockchain solves this problem, and I'm also an expert in the field (seven years of research). Maybe I can move the needle for you.
- cup-of-tea 9y ago
  Only one reservation: it's not scalable.
  - hvidgaard 9y ago
    What part of it is not scalable? Storage of history? Supported transaction volume?
    - cup-of-tea 9y ago
      Yes. Add to that the environmental impact of proof-of-work as well. Are people still not seeing this? I think the question should be, how is it scalable?
  - dfdfdfwff 9y ago
    A lot of people are working on that, though. Lightning Network seems like a huge improvement already? Proof of Stake, if it can be made to work, might also scale much better than Proof of Work.
  - bitreality 9y ago
    So you're saying that with all the investment into crypto-currency development, and a techonology that did not exist in any form 10 years ago, that it is impossible to scale? You are saying it is impossible to create an improved form of crypto currency that solves scaling? Even with 10's of billions of dollars being invested this year into their development? People are throwing a lot of money at this technology. The stakes are incredibly high. If someone does find a solution and creates a form of crypto currency which can operate at scale and do so for cheap fees, they'll become at least a billionaire. On top of becoming a billionaire, a crypto currency that was able to transact at scale, securely, for pennies in TX costs would fundamentally change the world.

CommieBobDole 9y ago

I think there's more middle ground than you think. Personally, I think blockchain is a useful, interesting technology that can be used to solve a number of problems. And I think that blockchain-based cryptocurrencies are likewise useful as a pseudonymous medium of exchange and will probably be around for a long time. Cryptocurrency has utility and therefore actual value. I just don't think that 'actual value' is $30k/bitcoin or whatever. I think bitcoin and other coins are overvalued hundreds or maybe thousands-fold and that overvaluation is driven by an enormous speculative bubble of people who mostly don't understand anything about the thing but buy out of fear of missing out in case the price keeps going up forever. Blockchain is here to stay. Cryptocurrency likewise. $30k coin valuation is a flash in the pan.

xorcist 9y ago
Not many people dare to give a monetary value at this point. What kind of legitimate use case would have the order of magnitude valuation you describe and what is your reasoning behind it?
- CommieBobDole 9y ago
  I may have implied more precision than I meant; my thought is just that the value seems more likely to be small than very large. Reasoning would be the things contributing to value are the utility (it's a medium of exchange) and the scarcity (there can only be a finite number of Bitcoin). But the latter has limited effect because anyone can create a new coin anytime they want to. I could be wrong, of course. I'm not an economist.

basseq 9y ago

The extreme voices are the loudest, and online arguments don't nurture nuanced perspectives. Thus, if it's a binary choice, your options are: 1. Crypo=Blockchain=Bitcoin, we're all going to be doing 100% of our transactions in BTC in 5 years, it's going to revolutionize the world more than any other invention, and how could you not see the obvious, you sheeple. 2. Everything related to BTC, blockchain, crypto is a giant over-hyped fraud, the concept isn't new, investors are stupid for throwing money at it, and no one cares about this, you neckbeards. I would be in the "negative" camp if it was a binary choice. But there's a ton of middle ground.

Geee 9y ago

I think the most important thing is that Bitcoin opened the floodgates by allowing innovation in economic systems. I'm not sure of anything else, but innovation and competition is bound to evolve into something by survival of the fittest. I find this really fascinating.

drngdds 9y ago

This isn't what the hardcore Bitcoin proponents want, though. They think Bitcoin is a revolutionary piece of technology that will replace fiat currency. This is just a big bank recognizing an opportunity to make money by speculating on price changes.

yyt_x 9y ago

I agree. One of the consistently recurring types of jabs at blockchain from the HN crowd is to lampoon the fact that it is just an 'append-only' database. Then i realized that while they are right, the naysayers fail to appreciate how fucking amazing that is. PoW gave us the first append-only database worth its salt. That gives us a form of digital history that computers can interface with directly. Tubes and wires man!