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Speaking as someone who was deeply interested in bitcoin in ~2013, cryptocurrency today is a wretched hive of scum and villainy. When someone tells me today tha

Speaking as someone who was deeply interested in bitcoin in ~2013, cryptocurrency today is a wretched hive of scum and villainy. When someone tells me today that they are working on something related to crypto I make a mental note to never work with them or take anything they do seriously.

kilroy123 7y ago
I feel exactly the same way.
asenna 7y ago
This quite an ignorant comment. I've been working with Blockchain tech (Crypto by extension) for a while now and there's a lot of experimenting, genuine projects being built right now. A lot of smart people are in this space building solutions. Major companies like Samsung / Facebook have teams working on PoCs. Unfair to imply that everyone in Crypto is selling snake oil.
- lalaland1125 7y ago
  > Unfair to imply that everyone in Crypto is selling snake oil. So, who isn't? Look throughout the blockchain ecosystem and all you will see are scams, illegal activity and get rich quick fools. I have personally yet to see a use of blockchain tech for useful legal purposes. Yes, you will see some companies "announce" that they are "investigating" blockchain or whatnot to get some free PR, but you don't ever see them actually release anything useful. (I fully accept that blockchain has revitalized criminal enterprises such as child pornography, extortion, and Ponzi schemes, but I don't see any reason to celebrate that).
  - tim333 7y ago
    There seems to be a real project afoot with the Depository Trust & Clearing Corp but I'll give you that a) it hasn't released and b) they could probably do the same with MySQL https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaeldelcastillo/2019/04/16/blockchain-goes-to-work/#470a6e552a40 https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaeldelcastillo/2019/04/16/b... It is hard finding legal and useful. There's a lot of legal but not that great like gambling.
  - deveac 7y ago
    So, who isn't? Look throughout the blockchain ecosystem and all you will see are scams, illegal activity and get rich quick fools. A tiny fraction of companies in the blockchain ecosystem: Pfizer, Fidelity, Microsoft, Rutgers University, T-Mobile, National Bank of Canada, John Hancock Life Insurance, J.P. Morgan Chase Bank, Ernst and Young. If all you are able to see when you look at blockchain engineers are scammers, lawbreakers, and "get rich quick" fools, I'll humbly suggest that you haven't really been looking.
- hocuspocus 7y ago
  > Major companies like Samsung / Facebook have teams working on PoCs. Samsung has entire teams working on PoCs for just about anything. Including a lot of terrible ideas that end up in the trash (I personally worked on some of them :) Facebook wanting to enter payments and money transfers through Whatsapp makes a lot of sense. But the fact it might be backed by some internal and centralized stablecoin is completely irrelevant to end-users.
avinium 7y ago
I feel the same about 99% of crypto participants - but you can't deny there are a handful of legitimate areas. IPFS and Golem come to mind.
- tim333 7y ago
  I'm not sure IPFS uses blockchain? It seems to work like bittorent. Golem I'll give you might be a legit use.
  - avinium 7y ago
    Sorry, should have been clearer. Filecoin (from the same company) sits atop IPFS, acting as a cryptocurrency for distributed file storage. IIRC, their ICO was massively oversubscribed a year or two ago, so they're sitting on a great big pile of cash. I don't think it's a viable business model yet, but it's definitely not a scam.
magnamerc 7y ago
I can say the same about people making sweeping generalizations. Maybe you're not as intelligent as you think you are, and you're in fact missing something due to your clouded judgement.

kilroy123 7y ago

I feel exactly the same way.

asenna 7y ago

This quite an ignorant comment. I've been working with Blockchain tech (Crypto by extension) for a while now and there's a lot of experimenting, genuine projects being built right now. A lot of smart people are in this space building solutions. Major companies like Samsung / Facebook have teams working on PoCs. Unfair to imply that everyone in Crypto is selling snake oil.

lalaland1125 7y ago
> Unfair to imply that everyone in Crypto is selling snake oil. So, who isn't? Look throughout the blockchain ecosystem and all you will see are scams, illegal activity and get rich quick fools. I have personally yet to see a use of blockchain tech for useful legal purposes. Yes, you will see some companies "announce" that they are "investigating" blockchain or whatnot to get some free PR, but you don't ever see them actually release anything useful. (I fully accept that blockchain has revitalized criminal enterprises such as child pornography, extortion, and Ponzi schemes, but I don't see any reason to celebrate that).
- tim333 7y ago
  There seems to be a real project afoot with the Depository Trust & Clearing Corp but I'll give you that a) it hasn't released and b) they could probably do the same with MySQL https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaeldelcastillo/2019/04/16/blockchain-goes-to-work/#470a6e552a40 https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaeldelcastillo/2019/04/16/b... It is hard finding legal and useful. There's a lot of legal but not that great like gambling.
- deveac 7y ago
  So, who isn't? Look throughout the blockchain ecosystem and all you will see are scams, illegal activity and get rich quick fools. A tiny fraction of companies in the blockchain ecosystem: Pfizer, Fidelity, Microsoft, Rutgers University, T-Mobile, National Bank of Canada, John Hancock Life Insurance, J.P. Morgan Chase Bank, Ernst and Young. If all you are able to see when you look at blockchain engineers are scammers, lawbreakers, and "get rich quick" fools, I'll humbly suggest that you haven't really been looking.
hocuspocus 7y ago
> Major companies like Samsung / Facebook have teams working on PoCs. Samsung has entire teams working on PoCs for just about anything. Including a lot of terrible ideas that end up in the trash (I personally worked on some of them :) Facebook wanting to enter payments and money transfers through Whatsapp makes a lot of sense. But the fact it might be backed by some internal and centralized stablecoin is completely irrelevant to end-users.

avinium 7y ago

I feel the same about 99% of crypto participants - but you can't deny there are a handful of legitimate areas. IPFS and Golem come to mind.

tim333 7y ago
I'm not sure IPFS uses blockchain? It seems to work like bittorent. Golem I'll give you might be a legit use.
- avinium 7y ago
  Sorry, should have been clearer. Filecoin (from the same company) sits atop IPFS, acting as a cryptocurrency for distributed file storage. IIRC, their ICO was massively oversubscribed a year or two ago, so they're sitting on a great big pile of cash. I don't think it's a viable business model yet, but it's definitely not a scam.

magnamerc 7y ago

I can say the same about people making sweeping generalizations. Maybe you're not as intelligent as you think you are, and you're in fact missing something due to your clouded judgement.