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The religious wars within the cryptocurrency community are fascinating to watch and are the single biggest reason I doubt we'll ever see a meaningful use for cr

The religious wars within the cryptocurrency community are fascinating to watch and are the single biggest reason I doubt we'll ever see a meaningful use for cryptocurrency or blockchain other than speculation.

rolltiide 7y ago
But is this one of those? HEX is a lulzworthy new issuance stretching the imagination of the market by someone I’m not even sure could pass KYC with any bank It’s like if WeWork actually did become publicly traded by issuing shares at different prices over 365 days. It would be a non-sequitur for an outside observer to dismiss the problems - and some actual religious affinity towards Adam Neumann - as why the US markets won’t go anywhere. Itd would be A) what are you talking about and B) nonsense drivel like that is just giving WeWork a pass by criticizing the whole market instead of a shitty offering and organization
loceng 7y ago
Bitcoin et al is indoctrination into religion tied to financial incentive, greed.
- djohnston 7y ago
  faith is the foundation of any economic system
  - loceng 7y ago
    Faith in that someone giving you $1 means that you trust you'll be able to spend that $1 for something of equal value?
    - djohnston 7y ago
      from the time it was given to you, yes
- solotronics 7y ago
  I think you can make the exact same argument about any form of money. Fiat currency is definately has some religious aspects.
  - loceng 7y ago
    Actual currency - crypto-"currency" which misappropriate the term - doesn't increase in value transferring wealth to the earlier adopters, that's why currencies don't mimic Ponzi-Pyramid schemes. Currency is tied to tangibles of a nation and the intangibles of trusting that society is stable, meaning the value of the currency will be relatively stable.
- codehalo 7y ago
  "In God we trust"?
  - loceng 7y ago
    That's a marketing statement - doesn't mean currency is a religious structure.
wolco 7y ago
It's similiar in the programming world but the language wars don't prevent work from getting work done. I feel like the cryto has a different story. There is a struggle to find utility because the structure of the system has too many holes. For bitcoin electrical usage is the true currency + specialized gpus. Anyone who has unlimited power + boards can take all. The side effect is wasting resources for no reason. For other coins each has there own story. At the core we want people to do something valuable as side effect of obtaining prove. I'm not sure we're close.
- flyingfences 7y ago
  > Anyone who has unlimited power + boards can take all So, nobody can take all, then. Even putting aside power, nobody has unlimited boards. The supply of GPUs is very tightly limited by real-world factors, as anybody who tried to buy an AMD GPU a few years ago found out.
- mrosett 7y ago
  > It's similiar in the programming world but the language wars don't prevent work from getting work done. I worked for a crypto startup in ~2017. Our product wrote a decent number of transactions to the Bitcoin blockchain, so when transaction fees went from a dime to $20 it caused a lot of headaches and I ended up dealing with it. When I asked questions online about managing transaction fees, I inadvertently wandered into a holy war and was thoroughly flamed for my trouble. It was the least pleasant experience I've had trying to get help as a dev. How can such a toxic community grow and achieve anything meaningful?
  - tom812 7y ago
    Crypto currency is a cancer community where even the sanest people are convinced they hold some sort of power to see the future.
doublement 7y ago
To me it seems mired in contradiction. The use case for cryptocurrencies is motivated by (though perhaps doesn't require) the assumption that accountable government is a lost cause; yet it also assumes that society provides enough stability for the protocol to operate, instead of devolving toward anarchy or totalitarianism.
- bdcravens 7y ago
  I think that's the public ideology, but the reality is the largest percentage of those who own cryptocurrency are using as nothing more than a speculative investment, and therefore, a proxy for fiat.
  - bb88 7y ago
    The original arguments for BTC are long abandoned. Store of value, cheap transactions, etc. Once those were proven to be invalid, they couldn't talk out of both sides of their mouth anymore. But it seems like the primary use cases are speculation, criminal and terrorist funding schemes, tax evasion, and money laundering.
    - jraedisch 7y ago
      What's bad about speculation? Or do you mean short term speculation? There are many bitcoins that did not move for many years. I do not get why speculation in ETFs, land/housing and other assets is accepted as normal, and with Bitcoin it is somehow bad.
      - bdcravens 7y ago
        Nothing is wrong at all with speculation. What feels wrong is the disingenuousness of claiming the anti-government, anti-bank ideology when that's not its primary pragmatic use case.
        bb88 7y ago
        Actually I disagree speculation for the pure sake of speculation is bad. Otherwise it's no different than gambling that some random number will be worth more or less in the future. It's like roulette, only for the nerdy-set. If I buy Apple stock, technically that's tied to a corporation named Apple that has assets and revenue (more or less, maybe less these days than you might assume). But bitcoins are just numbers, some more valuable than others. But more to the point, hoarders were encouraging the use of bitcoin as a store of value, lying about their true use cases (speculation), hoping the big fish would start investing so the early people would cash out. It turned out to be one massive pump and dump scheme, but with cryptography, so that makes it okay.
gimmeThaBeet 7y ago
I read a recent opinion piece that sort of mellowed my feelings on the space, basically that crypto was never made to be mainstream (I'd argue many would view widespread use as 'meaningful'). Most of my thinking you can read crypto as bitcoin i.e. some general payment system, where in bitcoin's case its stated purpose is sort of this inexorable transaction system, it feels intuitive that the meaningful use space is intrinsically going to be fringe/taboo, because it's outside government, outside permission. I know its cliche that freedom isn't free, but what is the honest practical value of freedom unless it's scarce i.e. its impossible or someone it trying to stop you? But the point is that crypto may be an inherently fringe construct, it may provide no benefit to society because its value add might solely live in activities outside the confines of society at large. Now you can argue whether that is a net positive or negative for humanity, but I think that if "that's it", you know, I think that is a meaningful use.

rolltiide 7y ago

But is this one of those? HEX is a lulzworthy new issuance stretching the imagination of the market by someone I’m not even sure could pass KYC with any bank It’s like if WeWork actually did become publicly traded by issuing shares at different prices over 365 days. It would be a non-sequitur for an outside observer to dismiss the problems - and some actual religious affinity towards Adam Neumann - as why the US markets won’t go anywhere. Itd would be A) what are you talking about and B) nonsense drivel like that is just giving WeWork a pass by criticizing the whole market instead of a shitty offering and organization

loceng 7y ago

Bitcoin et al is indoctrination into religion tied to financial incentive, greed.

djohnston 7y ago
faith is the foundation of any economic system
- loceng 7y ago
  Faith in that someone giving you $1 means that you trust you'll be able to spend that $1 for something of equal value?
  - djohnston 7y ago
    from the time it was given to you, yes
solotronics 7y ago
I think you can make the exact same argument about any form of money. Fiat currency is definately has some religious aspects.
- loceng 7y ago
  Actual currency - crypto-"currency" which misappropriate the term - doesn't increase in value transferring wealth to the earlier adopters, that's why currencies don't mimic Ponzi-Pyramid schemes. Currency is tied to tangibles of a nation and the intangibles of trusting that society is stable, meaning the value of the currency will be relatively stable.
codehalo 7y ago
"In God we trust"?
- loceng 7y ago
  That's a marketing statement - doesn't mean currency is a religious structure.

wolco 7y ago

It's similiar in the programming world but the language wars don't prevent work from getting work done. I feel like the cryto has a different story. There is a struggle to find utility because the structure of the system has too many holes. For bitcoin electrical usage is the true currency + specialized gpus. Anyone who has unlimited power + boards can take all. The side effect is wasting resources for no reason. For other coins each has there own story. At the core we want people to do something valuable as side effect of obtaining prove. I'm not sure we're close.

flyingfences 7y ago
> Anyone who has unlimited power + boards can take all So, nobody can take all, then. Even putting aside power, nobody has unlimited boards. The supply of GPUs is very tightly limited by real-world factors, as anybody who tried to buy an AMD GPU a few years ago found out.
mrosett 7y ago
> It's similiar in the programming world but the language wars don't prevent work from getting work done. I worked for a crypto startup in ~2017. Our product wrote a decent number of transactions to the Bitcoin blockchain, so when transaction fees went from a dime to $20 it caused a lot of headaches and I ended up dealing with it. When I asked questions online about managing transaction fees, I inadvertently wandered into a holy war and was thoroughly flamed for my trouble. It was the least pleasant experience I've had trying to get help as a dev. How can such a toxic community grow and achieve anything meaningful?
- tom812 7y ago
  Crypto currency is a cancer community where even the sanest people are convinced they hold some sort of power to see the future.

doublement 7y ago

To me it seems mired in contradiction. The use case for cryptocurrencies is motivated by (though perhaps doesn't require) the assumption that accountable government is a lost cause; yet it also assumes that society provides enough stability for the protocol to operate, instead of devolving toward anarchy or totalitarianism.

bdcravens 7y ago
I think that's the public ideology, but the reality is the largest percentage of those who own cryptocurrency are using as nothing more than a speculative investment, and therefore, a proxy for fiat.
- bb88 7y ago
  The original arguments for BTC are long abandoned. Store of value, cheap transactions, etc. Once those were proven to be invalid, they couldn't talk out of both sides of their mouth anymore. But it seems like the primary use cases are speculation, criminal and terrorist funding schemes, tax evasion, and money laundering.
  - jraedisch 7y ago
    What's bad about speculation? Or do you mean short term speculation? There are many bitcoins that did not move for many years. I do not get why speculation in ETFs, land/housing and other assets is accepted as normal, and with Bitcoin it is somehow bad.
    - bdcravens 7y ago
      Nothing is wrong at all with speculation. What feels wrong is the disingenuousness of claiming the anti-government, anti-bank ideology when that's not its primary pragmatic use case.
      - bb88 7y ago
        Actually I disagree speculation for the pure sake of speculation is bad. Otherwise it's no different than gambling that some random number will be worth more or less in the future. It's like roulette, only for the nerdy-set. If I buy Apple stock, technically that's tied to a corporation named Apple that has assets and revenue (more or less, maybe less these days than you might assume). But bitcoins are just numbers, some more valuable than others. But more to the point, hoarders were encouraging the use of bitcoin as a store of value, lying about their true use cases (speculation), hoping the big fish would start investing so the early people would cash out. It turned out to be one massive pump and dump scheme, but with cryptography, so that makes it okay.

gimmeThaBeet 7y ago

I read a recent opinion piece that sort of mellowed my feelings on the space, basically that crypto was never made to be mainstream (I'd argue many would view widespread use as 'meaningful'). Most of my thinking you can read crypto as bitcoin i.e. some general payment system, where in bitcoin's case its stated purpose is sort of this inexorable transaction system, it feels intuitive that the meaningful use space is intrinsically going to be fringe/taboo, because it's outside government, outside permission. I know its cliche that freedom isn't free, but what is the honest practical value of freedom unless it's scarce i.e. its impossible or someone it trying to stop you? But the point is that crypto may be an inherently fringe construct, it may provide no benefit to society because its value add might solely live in activities outside the confines of society at large. Now you can argue whether that is a net positive or negative for humanity, but I think that if "that's it", you know, I think that is a meaningful use.