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I am well aware that most people on Hacker News hate Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies so a lot of these types of studies and articles that are negative end up makin

by craigc 8y ago

I am well aware that most people on Hacker News hate Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies so a lot of these types of studies and articles that are negative end up making their way to the top. It is strange that this study was from 2017-2018 and yet they only considered data from 2009-2013. Would be nice if there was an explanation as to why. One thing I wanted to point out is this seems to be presented to shine a negative light on Bitcoin, but I have a feeling that if you were to plot the owners of any equity you would find the exact same patterns. People who get in early will own a majority of the supply. For example take a look at Morgan Stanley stock. 86% of the shares are owned by institutional investors and of that chunk, five institutions own 58% of them: https://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/ms/ownership-summary https://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/ms/ownership-summary I also think these types of patterns with regards to transactions probably exist with other currencies as well, but it is just that the data is not available for the public to analyze.

wjnqx 8y ago
To be fair, stock in Morgan Stanley is not marketed as "decentralized."
- craigc 8y ago
  Bitcoin is not marketed as anything. There is no company and there are no marketing or sales people. That is part of the beauty of it. The decentralized claim refers to a decentralized network where the miners and nodes connected to the network are decentralized and no single entity controls 51% of the network (if they did it would collapse). Ownership of coins is not the same as hashing power. Nowhere do people claim that the coins themselves are decentralized.
  - dnomad 8y ago
    This is not true. Bitcoin was heavily marketed as a currency. It failed at this. Bitcoin was heavily marketed as decentralized where no single entity owns 51% of the network. In fact Bitmain likely already does or soon will control 51% of the network [1]. The remarkable thing here is that despite these clear, observable failures... Bitcoin will go on. The true believers will continue to HODL and while shorts may pile on in the absence of fundamental economic data there's little reason to buy or sell. The price now is purely a popularity contest. [1] https://bitcoinist.com/bitmain-51-percent-bitcoin-hashrate/ https://bitcoinist.com/bitmain-51-percent-bitcoin-hashrate/
    - craigc 8y ago
      I think you are missing my point. If Bitcoin is “marketed” as anything, it is by people who got interested in the technology, learned about it, and started to spread the word to other people. You could say the same thing about many open source software programs or apps. What I was saying is that there is no company behind Bitcoin that represents it or speaks for it. When you say “Bitcoin was heavily marketed” you mean that people explained it that way to others.
      - dnomad 8y ago
        You might read the Bitcoin paper written by the inventor of Bitcoin. There is absolutely no doubt that Bitcoin was originally and has always been marketed as a currency. I can see why you might want to deny this but, please, it's insulting to try and rewrite history when the facts are widely known.
        craigc 8y ago
        I have read it multiple times, in fact. I am not denying that it was originally intended as a peer to peer currency, but saying it was marketed as that when the creator was publishing an academic paper of sorts and releasing it for free into the world is a bit of a stretch. Marketing implies that there is a customer you are trying to sell a product or service to. He or she did not care about getting rich since the original coins have never actually been touched. The creator did not even know that people would start to exchange existing currencies for Bitcoin at the time the paper was published or that it would catch on at all. I am not trying to rewrite history. I was only stating that Bitcoin is not a company. There are no big corporations controlling it. There is no sales team. There is no marketing team. Anyone who promotes it is doing it out of their own free will.
        joering2 8y ago
        Correction: doing it out of greed, more than free will.
        DonHopkins 8y ago
  - neffy 8y ago
    I would really beg to differ on that, based on the sheer number of ads I´ve seen over the years on reddit for people to write blogs praising bitcoin, to say nothing of the blatant pump and dump schemes you can find on the dark net. At least some of the people who got in early, seem to know how to spend money on advertising.
    - craigc 8y ago
      Interesting, I would be curious to see some of these ads. Are you referring specifically to Bitcoin or other crypto currencies (many of which are flat out scams)? That said, my point was that any “marketing” was not done by a dedicated team or company. It was done by individuals who got interested in the technology and wanted to share it with other people.
      - rboyd 8y ago
        Nah, it was just idiots that were marketing "let me show you how to get rich with bitcoin" courses, etc. I always wonder how much HN hates crypto just because it's important to have a good story for sleeping on crypto.
        craigc 8y ago
        I do not really understand it. Posts about other technologies on here lead to civilized, intelligent conversations, but for whatever reason, any post about crypto or Bitcoin just leads to attacks and arguments. The reason I find it more inexplicable is that when you think about just the idea of peer to peer programmable finances/money without requiring any trusted intermediary that is a huge idea. In my opinion, it is almost as revolutionary as the internet itself. I guess we will see how things progress over the next 10-20 years.
        rspeer 8y ago
        Why is it revolutionary? Who really cares that much about not requiring a trusted intermediary, besides anarchists? Our civilized world is built on trust. It was a Bitcoin advocate who said "nothing is cheaper than proof of work", given the precondition that you don't trust anyone. Curiously, they saw that as an argument in favor of proof of work. Bitcoin detractors see that as an argument in favor of trusting someone, because proof of work is insanely expensive and an ecological disaster.
  - drdeca 8y ago
    By "marketed as" people just mean "described as by people promoting it"? Or possibly "described as by people promoting it who have a financial incentive to do so". This seems obvious to me? Saying "bitcoin isn't marketed because it isn't run by any particular company" in response to people saying it is "marketed" in certain ways seems like missing what was clearly meant to be communicated.
  - hudon 8y ago
    Hi Craig, I'm sure you know that it only takes 1 or 2 Chinese Bitcoin mining pool CEOs to get more than 51% of the network's hash rate [0]. Mining hasn't been decentralized since 2013 unless your definition of "decentralized" is just "not 1 entity" and so "2 entities" qualifies as decentralized... how is that useful? [0] https://www.ccn.com/bitmains-mining-pools-now-control-nearly-51-percent-of-the-bitcoin-hashrate/ https://www.ccn.com/bitmains-mining-pools-now-control-nearly...
dane-pgp 8y ago
And it's not just owners of equities that have this worrying pattern. Consider, for example, the market share trends for SSL certificate authorities: https://w3techs.com/technologies/history_overview/ssl_certificate/ https://w3techs.com/technologies/history_overview/ssl_certif...
0xcde4c3db 8y ago
> I am well aware that most people on Hacker News hate Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies It's not hatred of Bitcoin to think that it's more worthwhile as a white paper than as an investment vehicle.
- craigc 8y ago
  True. Could you elaborate on why you believe that?
  - 0xcde4c3db 8y ago
    I don't have some kind of incisive analysis. I just think the tech is interesting while the loudest cheerleaders come off as some mixture of scammy and cult-like. There are other things that I feel roughly the same way about; it seems to be a standard hazard of being on the cutting edge of R&D.
- DonHopkins 8y ago
  It's not Bitcoin itself, it's just that most people on Hacker News hate fraudsters and charlatans perpetrating get-rich-quick pyramid schemes.
  - robertAngst 8y ago
    You arent a programmer right? Or did you not know there are only 21,000,000 BTC ever ever ever? Have you heard of fractional reserve banking?
    - apoorvkumar 8y ago
      Fractional reserve banking is independent of the currency. You can implement a bitcoin fractional banking system if you have trusted party available (the bank) and as long as you consider bitcoins to be homogeneous. Although it'll be funny (and borderline eco-terrorism) to use bitcoins if there exists a trusted party (like CME for bitcoin futures, bitcoin wallets, bitcoin exchanges, your ISP, your hardware manufacturer). Limited bitcoins doesn't make it any less vulnerable to being marketed (yes, there is a lot of marketing $ behind it) as a get rich quick scheme. In fact, the growth of fiat value of bitcoin is the biggest reason people see it as an investment vehicle. Bitcoin system might be helpful in countries with oppressive governments and no trustworthy party, but I don't see largest orders of bitcoins coming from North Korea.

by craigc 8y ago

wjnqx 8y ago

To be fair, stock in Morgan Stanley is not marketed as "decentralized."

craigc 8y ago
Bitcoin is not marketed as anything. There is no company and there are no marketing or sales people. That is part of the beauty of it. The decentralized claim refers to a decentralized network where the miners and nodes connected to the network are decentralized and no single entity controls 51% of the network (if they did it would collapse). Ownership of coins is not the same as hashing power. Nowhere do people claim that the coins themselves are decentralized.
- dnomad 8y ago
  This is not true. Bitcoin was heavily marketed as a currency. It failed at this. Bitcoin was heavily marketed as decentralized where no single entity owns 51% of the network. In fact Bitmain likely already does or soon will control 51% of the network [1]. The remarkable thing here is that despite these clear, observable failures... Bitcoin will go on. The true believers will continue to HODL and while shorts may pile on in the absence of fundamental economic data there's little reason to buy or sell. The price now is purely a popularity contest. [1] https://bitcoinist.com/bitmain-51-percent-bitcoin-hashrate/ https://bitcoinist.com/bitmain-51-percent-bitcoin-hashrate/
  - craigc 8y ago
    I think you are missing my point. If Bitcoin is “marketed” as anything, it is by people who got interested in the technology, learned about it, and started to spread the word to other people. You could say the same thing about many open source software programs or apps. What I was saying is that there is no company behind Bitcoin that represents it or speaks for it. When you say “Bitcoin was heavily marketed” you mean that people explained it that way to others.
    - dnomad 8y ago
      You might read the Bitcoin paper written by the inventor of Bitcoin. There is absolutely no doubt that Bitcoin was originally and has always been marketed as a currency. I can see why you might want to deny this but, please, it's insulting to try and rewrite history when the facts are widely known.
      - craigc 8y ago
        I have read it multiple times, in fact. I am not denying that it was originally intended as a peer to peer currency, but saying it was marketed as that when the creator was publishing an academic paper of sorts and releasing it for free into the world is a bit of a stretch. Marketing implies that there is a customer you are trying to sell a product or service to. He or she did not care about getting rich since the original coins have never actually been touched. The creator did not even know that people would start to exchange existing currencies for Bitcoin at the time the paper was published or that it would catch on at all. I am not trying to rewrite history. I was only stating that Bitcoin is not a company. There are no big corporations controlling it. There is no sales team. There is no marketing team. Anyone who promotes it is doing it out of their own free will.
        joering2 8y ago
        Correction: doing it out of greed, more than free will.
        DonHopkins 8y ago
- neffy 8y ago
  I would really beg to differ on that, based on the sheer number of ads I´ve seen over the years on reddit for people to write blogs praising bitcoin, to say nothing of the blatant pump and dump schemes you can find on the dark net. At least some of the people who got in early, seem to know how to spend money on advertising.
  - craigc 8y ago
    Interesting, I would be curious to see some of these ads. Are you referring specifically to Bitcoin or other crypto currencies (many of which are flat out scams)? That said, my point was that any “marketing” was not done by a dedicated team or company. It was done by individuals who got interested in the technology and wanted to share it with other people.
    - rboyd 8y ago
      Nah, it was just idiots that were marketing "let me show you how to get rich with bitcoin" courses, etc. I always wonder how much HN hates crypto just because it's important to have a good story for sleeping on crypto.
      - craigc 8y ago
        I do not really understand it. Posts about other technologies on here lead to civilized, intelligent conversations, but for whatever reason, any post about crypto or Bitcoin just leads to attacks and arguments. The reason I find it more inexplicable is that when you think about just the idea of peer to peer programmable finances/money without requiring any trusted intermediary that is a huge idea. In my opinion, it is almost as revolutionary as the internet itself. I guess we will see how things progress over the next 10-20 years.
        rspeer 8y ago
        Why is it revolutionary? Who really cares that much about not requiring a trusted intermediary, besides anarchists? Our civilized world is built on trust. It was a Bitcoin advocate who said "nothing is cheaper than proof of work", given the precondition that you don't trust anyone. Curiously, they saw that as an argument in favor of proof of work. Bitcoin detractors see that as an argument in favor of trusting someone, because proof of work is insanely expensive and an ecological disaster.
- drdeca 8y ago
  By "marketed as" people just mean "described as by people promoting it"? Or possibly "described as by people promoting it who have a financial incentive to do so". This seems obvious to me? Saying "bitcoin isn't marketed because it isn't run by any particular company" in response to people saying it is "marketed" in certain ways seems like missing what was clearly meant to be communicated.
- hudon 8y ago
  Hi Craig, I'm sure you know that it only takes 1 or 2 Chinese Bitcoin mining pool CEOs to get more than 51% of the network's hash rate [0]. Mining hasn't been decentralized since 2013 unless your definition of "decentralized" is just "not 1 entity" and so "2 entities" qualifies as decentralized... how is that useful? [0] https://www.ccn.com/bitmains-mining-pools-now-control-nearly-51-percent-of-the-bitcoin-hashrate/ https://www.ccn.com/bitmains-mining-pools-now-control-nearly...

dane-pgp 8y ago

And it's not just owners of equities that have this worrying pattern. Consider, for example, the market share trends for SSL certificate authorities: https://w3techs.com/technologies/history_overview/ssl_certificate/ https://w3techs.com/technologies/history_overview/ssl_certif...

0xcde4c3db 8y ago

> I am well aware that most people on Hacker News hate Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies It's not hatred of Bitcoin to think that it's more worthwhile as a white paper than as an investment vehicle.

craigc 8y ago
True. Could you elaborate on why you believe that?
- 0xcde4c3db 8y ago
  I don't have some kind of incisive analysis. I just think the tech is interesting while the loudest cheerleaders come off as some mixture of scammy and cult-like. There are other things that I feel roughly the same way about; it seems to be a standard hazard of being on the cutting edge of R&D.
DonHopkins 8y ago
It's not Bitcoin itself, it's just that most people on Hacker News hate fraudsters and charlatans perpetrating get-rich-quick pyramid schemes.
- robertAngst 8y ago
  You arent a programmer right? Or did you not know there are only 21,000,000 BTC ever ever ever? Have you heard of fractional reserve banking?
  - apoorvkumar 8y ago
    Fractional reserve banking is independent of the currency. You can implement a bitcoin fractional banking system if you have trusted party available (the bank) and as long as you consider bitcoins to be homogeneous. Although it'll be funny (and borderline eco-terrorism) to use bitcoins if there exists a trusted party (like CME for bitcoin futures, bitcoin wallets, bitcoin exchanges, your ISP, your hardware manufacturer). Limited bitcoins doesn't make it any less vulnerable to being marketed (yes, there is a lot of marketing $ behind it) as a get rich quick scheme. In fact, the growth of fiat value of bitcoin is the biggest reason people see it as an investment vehicle. Bitcoin system might be helpful in countries with oppressive governments and no trustworthy party, but I don't see largest orders of bitcoins coming from North Korea.