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It peaked not from a lack of demand but from hitting an inevitable scaling roadblock. Now the community is busy deploying a layer 2 (Lightning) to the Bitcoin m

It peaked not from a lack of demand but from hitting an inevitable scaling roadblock. Now the community is busy deploying a layer 2 (Lightning) to the Bitcoin mainnet that can offer transactions per second that exceed any financial system today, not to mention a whole host of breathtakingly innovative developments powered by this new layer. I understand the justifiable HN frustration at the prevalence of scams and overpromises that have plagued the blockchain (mainly ICO) world as of late. But the blockchain is getting better, and with developments that make SWIFT innovations seem trivial by comparison.

Nursie 8y ago
Lightning appears to be a set of hacks on top of a broken fundamental system. It's been touted as the saviour of the BTC ecosystem for some time now, but would require massive sums to be locked in its channels to be near functional, and last time I saw figures it was effectively incapable of routing as little as $60 and required participants to be online 24/7 or was vulnerable to counterparty attacks if not. It's really a bit of a joke.
- bitreality 8y ago
  Your argument is so short-sighted. Yes, right now the Lightning Network is not ready for mainstream use. It may turn out that the Lightning Network and Bitcoin itself are obsolete in 5-10 years. But are you seriously betting against crypto-currency long term? Crypto-currency technology received billions of dollars in funding in 2017. Yes, plenty of that went to bullshit projects which have no chance at success, and probably have no intention to develop anything substantial. However, plenty of it also went towards hiring talented developers and creating projects focused on the next generation of crypto-currency. Up until 2017, the actual investment into blockchain projects was minimal. And yet, even when the market was chopping around between 2014 and 2016, and barely any money was invested, very important milestones were reached. Most notably, Ethereum was launched, and has set the foundation for putting applications on the blockchain. I don't think anyone argues that having full scale, working applications on the blockchain is a bad idea. They simply argue that the current applications are limited, and aren't working very well. As if the current state of crypto currency is static and will not improve in the next 10-20 years. The reality is that crypto-currency and blockchain never got any serious attention until 2013-14. And even then it was short-lived. Today every single person in tech knows about blockchain and crypto-currency. They all have their own opinion on it, but compared to just 5 years ago, it has come an incredibly long way. The technology will improve. It will improve at a much faster rate now, thanks to the bubble in 2017. These projects don't need to post quarterly earnings improvements. The developers don't need to follow a corporate timeline. You can't kill these projects. They will always improve incrementally, until at some point the technology is truly unrecognizable from what it is today. Go back and check a computer from 1950. I'm sure plenty of people back then were laughing at how ridiculous the concept was of owning a PC. Technology moves in a straight line, forward. And unless a competitor outpaces the improvement, then every day crypto currency gains on other forms of currency.
  - Nursie 8y ago
    > Your argument is so short-sighted. Yes, right now the Lightning Network is not ready for mainstream use. That was literally my argument, well that and it seems like it never will be because of the fundamental design of the thing. Not sure why you felt the need to write the rest of that, it's nothing to do with what I posted. It appears to be a lot of wishful thinking and idealism.
    - deltateam 8y ago
      I did some blockchain related work and now my linkedin messages from consultants and crypto-practitioners never stop. If you "want strong blockchain with 100.000 TPS" I can connect you over InMail.
      - Nursie 8y ago
        I'm not sure what that had to do with the Lightning Network? I already get enough cryptocurrency related recruitment mail, ta. Some of it is very scammy - I particularly like the ones that want you to make them a new currency, and propose that they will then use it to pay you!
  - annabellish 8y ago
    > But are you seriously betting against crypto-currency long term? Yes. >Go back and check a computer from 1950. I'm sure plenty of people back then were laughing at how ridiculous the concept was of owning a PC. Computers in 1950 were being used for useful work that could not have been done before them. They had a track record of successes which has continued uninterrupted until today. Cryptocurrency has yet to show a legal success story of any kind. The story on what cryptocurrency is "for" has swung wildly over the years as each attempted use case proves either inferior to existing solutions or impossible to achieve. Bitcoin is digital cash. Bitcoin isn't digital cash, but it is for micropayments. Bitcoin isn't for micropayments, it's a settlement system. Bitcoin isn't a settlement system, it's borderless transactions for the unbanked. Bitcoin isn't for the unbanked, it's a settlement system again for different layers. Segregated witness will fix everything. Segregated witness wasn't meant to fix anything, it's the lightning network that will fix everything. The lightning network isn't meant to fix everything, it's designed to lock in vast amounts of currency and work only for those use cases that makes sense. It's just endless. Cryptocurrency has no success stories, just a constant stream of "hope" that never goes anywhere in order to keep people hooked on a system that transfers a lot of money to a handful of centralised large-scale mining corporations and increasingly shady exchanges.
nawgszy 8y ago
>that can offer transactions per second that exceed any financial system today >that make SWIFT innovations seem trivial by comparison Listen, those two phrases alone are gigantic signs of your bias. Even if they were true, the way you phrase it just screams "I own a significant amount of Bitcoin" Add to that a sentence about >a whole host of breathtakingly innovative developments and, oh boy, do I ever think you are biased. There is actually a pretty clear value prop for Bitcoin: you can exchange something approximating money for services which are undesirable or risky to do so with your traditional money. But needing to build an entirely new layer which, if I'm understanding right, has some significant impact on the semantics of how your transactions end up on the blockchain, just in order to be able to do a completely unimpressive level of throughput, is hilariously far from "breathtaking innovation" that makes traditional financial "innovations seem trivial".
- chrisco255 8y ago
  Thise are opinions. It's not necessary for someone to state that an opinion is biased, that's implied by taking any non-impartial stance on anything. For what it's worth, programmable, open source money has far bigger implications than you lead on here.

Nursie 8y ago

Lightning appears to be a set of hacks on top of a broken fundamental system. It's been touted as the saviour of the BTC ecosystem for some time now, but would require massive sums to be locked in its channels to be near functional, and last time I saw figures it was effectively incapable of routing as little as $60 and required participants to be online 24/7 or was vulnerable to counterparty attacks if not. It's really a bit of a joke.

bitreality 8y ago
Your argument is so short-sighted. Yes, right now the Lightning Network is not ready for mainstream use. It may turn out that the Lightning Network and Bitcoin itself are obsolete in 5-10 years. But are you seriously betting against crypto-currency long term? Crypto-currency technology received billions of dollars in funding in 2017. Yes, plenty of that went to bullshit projects which have no chance at success, and probably have no intention to develop anything substantial. However, plenty of it also went towards hiring talented developers and creating projects focused on the next generation of crypto-currency. Up until 2017, the actual investment into blockchain projects was minimal. And yet, even when the market was chopping around between 2014 and 2016, and barely any money was invested, very important milestones were reached. Most notably, Ethereum was launched, and has set the foundation for putting applications on the blockchain. I don't think anyone argues that having full scale, working applications on the blockchain is a bad idea. They simply argue that the current applications are limited, and aren't working very well. As if the current state of crypto currency is static and will not improve in the next 10-20 years. The reality is that crypto-currency and blockchain never got any serious attention until 2013-14. And even then it was short-lived. Today every single person in tech knows about blockchain and crypto-currency. They all have their own opinion on it, but compared to just 5 years ago, it has come an incredibly long way. The technology will improve. It will improve at a much faster rate now, thanks to the bubble in 2017. These projects don't need to post quarterly earnings improvements. The developers don't need to follow a corporate timeline. You can't kill these projects. They will always improve incrementally, until at some point the technology is truly unrecognizable from what it is today. Go back and check a computer from 1950. I'm sure plenty of people back then were laughing at how ridiculous the concept was of owning a PC. Technology moves in a straight line, forward. And unless a competitor outpaces the improvement, then every day crypto currency gains on other forms of currency.
- Nursie 8y ago
  > Your argument is so short-sighted. Yes, right now the Lightning Network is not ready for mainstream use. That was literally my argument, well that and it seems like it never will be because of the fundamental design of the thing. Not sure why you felt the need to write the rest of that, it's nothing to do with what I posted. It appears to be a lot of wishful thinking and idealism.
  - deltateam 8y ago
    I did some blockchain related work and now my linkedin messages from consultants and crypto-practitioners never stop. If you "want strong blockchain with 100.000 TPS" I can connect you over InMail.
    - Nursie 8y ago
      I'm not sure what that had to do with the Lightning Network? I already get enough cryptocurrency related recruitment mail, ta. Some of it is very scammy - I particularly like the ones that want you to make them a new currency, and propose that they will then use it to pay you!
- annabellish 8y ago
  > But are you seriously betting against crypto-currency long term? Yes. >Go back and check a computer from 1950. I'm sure plenty of people back then were laughing at how ridiculous the concept was of owning a PC. Computers in 1950 were being used for useful work that could not have been done before them. They had a track record of successes which has continued uninterrupted until today. Cryptocurrency has yet to show a legal success story of any kind. The story on what cryptocurrency is "for" has swung wildly over the years as each attempted use case proves either inferior to existing solutions or impossible to achieve. Bitcoin is digital cash. Bitcoin isn't digital cash, but it is for micropayments. Bitcoin isn't for micropayments, it's a settlement system. Bitcoin isn't a settlement system, it's borderless transactions for the unbanked. Bitcoin isn't for the unbanked, it's a settlement system again for different layers. Segregated witness will fix everything. Segregated witness wasn't meant to fix anything, it's the lightning network that will fix everything. The lightning network isn't meant to fix everything, it's designed to lock in vast amounts of currency and work only for those use cases that makes sense. It's just endless. Cryptocurrency has no success stories, just a constant stream of "hope" that never goes anywhere in order to keep people hooked on a system that transfers a lot of money to a handful of centralised large-scale mining corporations and increasingly shady exchanges.

nawgszy 8y ago

>that can offer transactions per second that exceed any financial system today >that make SWIFT innovations seem trivial by comparison Listen, those two phrases alone are gigantic signs of your bias. Even if they were true, the way you phrase it just screams "I own a significant amount of Bitcoin" Add to that a sentence about >a whole host of breathtakingly innovative developments and, oh boy, do I ever think you are biased. There is actually a pretty clear value prop for Bitcoin: you can exchange something approximating money for services which are undesirable or risky to do so with your traditional money. But needing to build an entirely new layer which, if I'm understanding right, has some significant impact on the semantics of how your transactions end up on the blockchain, just in order to be able to do a completely unimpressive level of throughput, is hilariously far from "breathtaking innovation" that makes traditional financial "innovations seem trivial".

chrisco255 8y ago
Thise are opinions. It's not necessary for someone to state that an opinion is biased, that's implied by taking any non-impartial stance on anything. For what it's worth, programmable, open source money has far bigger implications than you lead on here.