5 ms·

> What if we put "beginning" as in "before it was even called the Internet"? Indeed, ARPANET, which came online in 1969, saw fast growth in the United States i

by darawk 8y ago

> What if we put "beginning" as in "before it was even called the Internet"? Indeed, ARPANET, which came online in 1969, saw fast growth in the United States in the 70s. Nodes came online to use it, not to make a quick buck. People use cryptocurrency too. For value transfer, and to a more limited extent, for dapps like Augur. You seem to be criticizing the delta between the lofty hopes for it and it's actual usage. The early internet did not have such lofty hopes, so its growth was more organic. If you take away the pipe dreams from crypto, you have a remnant skeleton that i'd argue very much resembles the early internet. > Of course the effect on the environment will continue to be pointed out: Ethereum's energy consumption is growing and the use cases are nowhere to be seen. So far, "plans" in the cryptocurrency space never go as expected. Satoshi didn't expect persistent forks and altcoins, for example. Vitalik advertised Ethereum as a "world computer" but it can barely stand when only 14k users are trading cartoon kitties on it. He also said Ethereum's "code is law", until he changed his mind and forked the network due to a hack. Please excuse skeptics for holding accountable those that do not have a history of consistent and successful results. So, I said there are plans for solving the energy consumption issue. And your counter-argument is what, exactly? That sometimes people didn't foresee everything that might evolve? Help me understand the argument that you're making here.

hudon 8y ago
> People use cryptocurrency too. For value transfer, and to a more limited extent, for dapps like Augur. Soooo, buying drugs and illegal gambling? Sure, I'll give you that one. My argument rephrased: "Because cryptocurrency investors have repeatedly made claims that don't pan out, we can be reasonably skeptical and concerned about their energy consumption until they actually fix it or at the very least provide peer-reviewed scientific analysis on how it will be fixed."
- darawk 8y ago
  > Soooo, buying drugs and illegal gambling? Sure, I'll give you that one. Yes, although also remittance payments, and some usage in places with unstable currencies like Venezuela. Hard to gauge how much, though. > My argument rephrased: "Because cryptocurrency investors have repeatedly made claims that don't pan out, we can be reasonably skeptical and concerned about their energy consumption until they actually fix it or at the very least provide peer-reviewed scientific analysis on how it will be fixed." While that is, in the abstract, a fair argument I don't think there are actually that many examples of it in practice. Vitalik didn't claim Ethereum would be a world computer right away. He's always been clear and explicit about the scaling roadmap. I don't think the promises of the core devs of Ethereum or Bitcoin have been overstated or unmet. If you believe otherwise though, i'd be happy to listen to your argument.
  - opencl 8y ago
    Bitcoin is a solution to unstable currencies in the same way that gasoline is a fire extinguisher. People in Venezuela that want to actually eat are using USD.
    - arisAlexis 8y ago
      they cannot send or receive usd from abroad. they can do it with bitcoin. you get now the value proposition of a global currency that is not government controlled?
      - opencl 8y ago
        People in Venezuela certainly do send and receive USD from abroad, it is obviously the only way it gets into the country. You can go to a grocery store and buy food with USD. This is what people are actually doing. I suppose you can try to convince the people at your local grocery store to accept cryptocurrencies but good luck with that. And good luck using cryptocurrencies in a country that suffers from frequent blackouts of both electricity and internet.
        aclsid 8y ago
        I'm sorry but I currently live in Venezuela and what you are saying is wrong. Very few places in Caracas or hotels will actually take USD for payment since it is considered illegal unless you go through the regular channels with the idiotic govt exchange rate. Bitcoin not only thrives here and allows you to bypass the whole craziness with the economy by using exchanges like localbitcoins.com where somebody would deposit the amount of bitcoin you sold to your local bank account. This way you just keep your money in bitcoins if you want. This is specially true with miners.
        arisAlexis 8y ago
        for sure people that live in Europe cannot deposit good amounts of USD to send through the bank to their relatives there. I know this for a fact. I think you are misinformed.
- jMyles 8y ago
  > Soooo, buying drugs and illegal gambling? Sure, I'll give you that one. Well, why is this so easy for you to brush aside? If indeed blockchain tech can successfully subvert bad public policy, isn't that pretty remarkable in its own right?
  - hannasanarion 8y ago
    No it isn't. You could do the same thing with dollars in the mail. All bitcoin does is make it easier to commit shady transactions.
- profalseidol 8y ago
  > or at the very least provide peer-reviewed scientific analysis on how it will be fixed https://eips.ethereum.org/EIPS/eip-1011 https://eips.ethereum.org/EIPS/eip-1011 There you go. Read it then make your arguments against it. If not, then shut-up.
  - dang 8y ago
    Being rude like that will get you banned on HN, so please don't do that again, regardless of how right you are or wrong someone else may be. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
gascan 8y ago
So, I said there are plans for solving the energy consumption issue. And your counter-argument is what, exactly? "I'll believe it when I see it"
- tedunangst 8y ago
  No, no, no. You'll see it when you believe it. It's a new paradigm.
anyfoo 8y ago
> The early internet did not have such lofty hopes, so its growth was more organic. People forget that in the early days of the Internet and its predecessors, most computers were still bigger than a washing machine, mostly available only to universities and big or specialized corporations, and data lines were limited to bandwidths many orders of magnitudes narrower than today. The Internet had an inherent hard limit on scale and availability simply by the technology that was available at the time. Not only did the Internet then grow with the available technology, filling it out, its very nature provided a great lever to all research and development, leading to the exponential advancement of information technology that we live in today. There is no comparison, at all.
- wand3r 8y ago
  > The Internet had an inherent hard limit on scale and availability simply by the technology that was available at the time. All technology is limited by what is available at the time. I am nowhere near as bullish as I used to be on “blockchain” but I still think it can have a huge impact. If the internet democratized informatiom the blockchain has the potential to democratize finance and some types of information. The internet had all kinds of crazy scammers during the dotcom era. I think there is still potential here and while the shape isn’t super obvious I think it’s not worth betting against. Im no koolaide drinking crypro cargo cultist but I am optimistic it will solve some problems and be a net positive.
wpietri 8y ago
> People use cryptocurrency too. For value transfer What's your evidence for this? Even major Bitcoin advocates say it's no longer useful as a payment system: https://avc.com/2017/08/store-of-value-vs-payment-system/ https://avc.com/2017/08/store-of-value-vs-payment-system/ Bitcoin's total TPS is circa 2-3. [1] And presumably a small fraction of that is actual money transfer. In contrast, M-Pesa, a digital money system that started about the same time and has millions of users, has 100x that volume and is growing rapidly. [2] So I'm entirely skeptical that it's better for any significant market than even legacy money transfer methods, let alone trying to compete with newer tech. [1] https://www.blockchain.com/charts/transactions-per-second https://www.blockchain.com/charts/transactions-per-second [2] https://www.mobileworldlive.com/money/news-money/m-pesa-reaches-6b-annual-transaction-milestone/ https://www.mobileworldlive.com/money/news-money/m-pesa-reac...
- darawk 8y ago
  > What's your evidence for this? I've used it for that. People use it on darknet markets for value transfer. I have seen many people claim to use it in Venezuela, though I can't confirm that (one of them posted in this thread [1]). > Bitcoin's total TPS is circa 2-3. [1] And presumably a small fraction of that is actual money transfer. In contrast, M-Pesa, a digital money system that started about the same time and has millions of users, has 100x that volume and is growing rapidly. [2] That's no longer true. The lightning network increases that to effectively infinite TPS. The infrastructure of nodes isn't that great yet, but it is now possible in principle for Bitcoin to scale to an essentially arbitrary throughput. > So I'm entirely skeptical that it's better for any significant market than even legacy money transfer methods, let alone trying to compete with newer tech. That's a fair skepticism. Though not due to slowness/throughput, as that problem is solved. And not due to environmental concerns, because that problem will be solved (in Ethereum, not Bitcoin). The legitimate objections to cryptos I see are: 1. It's not clear that decentralization, uncensorability, and irrevocability are really properties that people need. provides a value anyone really need. 2. Deflationary assets are subject to boom/bust cycles that can be toxic to modern economies. Crypto assets tend to be deflationary, and as such may not, over the longer term, serve effectively as global currencies. I think those two points are the core of any serious objection to crypto. I believe that in the case of #1, the architectural change it would induce in our financial system is worthwhile, and consumers will feel the effects of that rather than the benefits currently stated for crypto. As for #2, it's a legitimate concern, and it may ultimately make them untenable, but we'll just have to see. [1] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17495476 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17495476

by darawk 8y ago

hudon 8y ago

> People use cryptocurrency too. For value transfer, and to a more limited extent, for dapps like Augur. Soooo, buying drugs and illegal gambling? Sure, I'll give you that one. My argument rephrased: "Because cryptocurrency investors have repeatedly made claims that don't pan out, we can be reasonably skeptical and concerned about their energy consumption until they actually fix it or at the very least provide peer-reviewed scientific analysis on how it will be fixed."

darawk 8y ago
> Soooo, buying drugs and illegal gambling? Sure, I'll give you that one. Yes, although also remittance payments, and some usage in places with unstable currencies like Venezuela. Hard to gauge how much, though. > My argument rephrased: "Because cryptocurrency investors have repeatedly made claims that don't pan out, we can be reasonably skeptical and concerned about their energy consumption until they actually fix it or at the very least provide peer-reviewed scientific analysis on how it will be fixed." While that is, in the abstract, a fair argument I don't think there are actually that many examples of it in practice. Vitalik didn't claim Ethereum would be a world computer right away. He's always been clear and explicit about the scaling roadmap. I don't think the promises of the core devs of Ethereum or Bitcoin have been overstated or unmet. If you believe otherwise though, i'd be happy to listen to your argument.
- opencl 8y ago
  Bitcoin is a solution to unstable currencies in the same way that gasoline is a fire extinguisher. People in Venezuela that want to actually eat are using USD.
  - arisAlexis 8y ago
    they cannot send or receive usd from abroad. they can do it with bitcoin. you get now the value proposition of a global currency that is not government controlled?
    - opencl 8y ago
      People in Venezuela certainly do send and receive USD from abroad, it is obviously the only way it gets into the country. You can go to a grocery store and buy food with USD. This is what people are actually doing. I suppose you can try to convince the people at your local grocery store to accept cryptocurrencies but good luck with that. And good luck using cryptocurrencies in a country that suffers from frequent blackouts of both electricity and internet.
      - aclsid 8y ago
        I'm sorry but I currently live in Venezuela and what you are saying is wrong. Very few places in Caracas or hotels will actually take USD for payment since it is considered illegal unless you go through the regular channels with the idiotic govt exchange rate. Bitcoin not only thrives here and allows you to bypass the whole craziness with the economy by using exchanges like localbitcoins.com where somebody would deposit the amount of bitcoin you sold to your local bank account. This way you just keep your money in bitcoins if you want. This is specially true with miners.
      - arisAlexis 8y ago
        for sure people that live in Europe cannot deposit good amounts of USD to send through the bank to their relatives there. I know this for a fact. I think you are misinformed.
jMyles 8y ago
> Soooo, buying drugs and illegal gambling? Sure, I'll give you that one. Well, why is this so easy for you to brush aside? If indeed blockchain tech can successfully subvert bad public policy, isn't that pretty remarkable in its own right?
- hannasanarion 8y ago
  No it isn't. You could do the same thing with dollars in the mail. All bitcoin does is make it easier to commit shady transactions.
profalseidol 8y ago
> or at the very least provide peer-reviewed scientific analysis on how it will be fixed https://eips.ethereum.org/EIPS/eip-1011 https://eips.ethereum.org/EIPS/eip-1011 There you go. Read it then make your arguments against it. If not, then shut-up.
- dang 8y ago
  Being rude like that will get you banned on HN, so please don't do that again, regardless of how right you are or wrong someone else may be. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

gascan 8y ago

So, I said there are plans for solving the energy consumption issue. And your counter-argument is what, exactly? "I'll believe it when I see it"

tedunangst 8y ago
No, no, no. You'll see it when you believe it. It's a new paradigm.

anyfoo 8y ago

> The early internet did not have such lofty hopes, so its growth was more organic. People forget that in the early days of the Internet and its predecessors, most computers were still bigger than a washing machine, mostly available only to universities and big or specialized corporations, and data lines were limited to bandwidths many orders of magnitudes narrower than today. The Internet had an inherent hard limit on scale and availability simply by the technology that was available at the time. Not only did the Internet then grow with the available technology, filling it out, its very nature provided a great lever to all research and development, leading to the exponential advancement of information technology that we live in today. There is no comparison, at all.

wand3r 8y ago
> The Internet had an inherent hard limit on scale and availability simply by the technology that was available at the time. All technology is limited by what is available at the time. I am nowhere near as bullish as I used to be on “blockchain” but I still think it can have a huge impact. If the internet democratized informatiom the blockchain has the potential to democratize finance and some types of information. The internet had all kinds of crazy scammers during the dotcom era. I think there is still potential here and while the shape isn’t super obvious I think it’s not worth betting against. Im no koolaide drinking crypro cargo cultist but I am optimistic it will solve some problems and be a net positive.

wpietri 8y ago

> People use cryptocurrency too. For value transfer What's your evidence for this? Even major Bitcoin advocates say it's no longer useful as a payment system: https://avc.com/2017/08/store-of-value-vs-payment-system/ https://avc.com/2017/08/store-of-value-vs-payment-system/ Bitcoin's total TPS is circa 2-3. [1] And presumably a small fraction of that is actual money transfer. In contrast, M-Pesa, a digital money system that started about the same time and has millions of users, has 100x that volume and is growing rapidly. [2] So I'm entirely skeptical that it's better for any significant market than even legacy money transfer methods, let alone trying to compete with newer tech. [1] https://www.blockchain.com/charts/transactions-per-second https://www.blockchain.com/charts/transactions-per-second [2] https://www.mobileworldlive.com/money/news-money/m-pesa-reaches-6b-annual-transaction-milestone/ https://www.mobileworldlive.com/money/news-money/m-pesa-reac...

darawk 8y ago
> What's your evidence for this? I've used it for that. People use it on darknet markets for value transfer. I have seen many people claim to use it in Venezuela, though I can't confirm that (one of them posted in this thread [1]). > Bitcoin's total TPS is circa 2-3. [1] And presumably a small fraction of that is actual money transfer. In contrast, M-Pesa, a digital money system that started about the same time and has millions of users, has 100x that volume and is growing rapidly. [2] That's no longer true. The lightning network increases that to effectively infinite TPS. The infrastructure of nodes isn't that great yet, but it is now possible in principle for Bitcoin to scale to an essentially arbitrary throughput. > So I'm entirely skeptical that it's better for any significant market than even legacy money transfer methods, let alone trying to compete with newer tech. That's a fair skepticism. Though not due to slowness/throughput, as that problem is solved. And not due to environmental concerns, because that problem will be solved (in Ethereum, not Bitcoin). The legitimate objections to cryptos I see are: 1. It's not clear that decentralization, uncensorability, and irrevocability are really properties that people need. provides a value anyone really need. 2. Deflationary assets are subject to boom/bust cycles that can be toxic to modern economies. Crypto assets tend to be deflationary, and as such may not, over the longer term, serve effectively as global currencies. I think those two points are the core of any serious objection to crypto. I believe that in the case of #1, the architectural change it would induce in our financial system is worthwhile, and consumers will feel the effects of that rather than the benefits currently stated for crypto. As for #2, it's a legitimate concern, and it may ultimately make them untenable, but we'll just have to see. [1] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17495476 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17495476