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Just recently there was a comment thread on HN about Reddit being used as a place for financial advice, with many of the HN commentators complaining about the c

Just recently there was a comment thread on HN about Reddit being used as a place for financial advice, with many of the HN commentators complaining about the collective mentality and tribalism of the entire Reddit forum and many of its subreddits. Yes, just as you say, the tribalism that gets taken to absurd degrees here on HN with regards to crypto and blockchains is amusingly obvious and emotional ,regardless of numerous pieces of evidence and case studies showing exactly the opposite, but if you point many of them out, you risk being persistently downvoted. What makes the entire tendency so frustrating is that most here self-identify as intelligent, reasoned people who avoid her mentalities, yet visibly practice these tendencies for all the same very human reasons you see them elsewhere. Also, yes, it's extremely obvious to my eye that blockchains and cryptocurrencies are here to stay and expand even. For those of us who do indeed use them here and there, the value of having something that lets you send money to someone else on the other side of the world almost instantly with very few if any intermediaries being able to block the transaction is wonderful. Yes some of you in here who send money inside the EU or inside the US markets keep insisting from within your bubbles that money transfers are easy and instant, but really, try sending money to someone on the literal other side of the world, outside your market, without spending unreasonable money on fees or dealing with terrible customer services, then perhaps reconsider the value of crypto.. In addition to this, there are indeed many legitimate uses for them in the form of anonymous payments for services that ARE NOT illegal, and the market for such products and services could easily grow in a number of ways.. But easier to ignore that and wave ones hands about the crypto scam and the supposedly pending collapse of everything. (It's been several years already and things slowly, sometimes haphazardly but persistently keep growing in this whole sphere, so, don't hold your breath)

Nursie 7y ago
> but really, try sending money to someone on the literal other side of the world, outside your market, without spending unreasonable money on fees or dealing with terrible customer services, I have done, many times, for small and large amounts. No problems with the traditional system, way more protections too. The fact is that cryptocurrency continues to fail to make inroads in this space, despite cheerleaders having shouted about it for years now.
- shadowprofile77 7y ago
  Wonderful, your single anecdote negates a whole litany of international payments problems that many people right here on HN have complained about repeatedly in numerous comments across numerous threads. International payments outside of major mutually coordinated markets are a known, frequently mentioned difficulty for many businesses and people. This is something that should be as easy as sending an email, but it doesn't even come close to that on a global scale. Crypto needs to be ironed out very thoroughly but it at least offers one possible avenue for avoiding these problems, with the added benefit of giving users access to a certain degree of anonymity and resiliance to arbitrary institutional payment/account freezes.
  - Nursie 7y ago
    Wonderful, your single rebuttal negates the actual market response to cryptocurrency as an international remittance tool, which so far has has been utterly negligible, because it turns out not to actually solve any of those problems where they are felt, and where they aren't it's rendered irrelevant by the lack of protections and inability to compete, either on ease of use or fees.
shadowprofile77 7y ago
And naturally, my comment gets downvoted, way to stay so predictable HN crowd-mind, keep patting yourselves on the back about how much you disdain these tendencies in places like Reddit. It's frankly amazing that crypto and the blockchains behind these digital currencies can't be perceived by so many here for the potential they have despite the obvious attractions of the concept. You simply point to their errors and deride the whole concept as a scam, ponzi scheme, pie-in-the-sky and etc, while then complaining about all the nonsense and bullshit that institutionalized payment processing causes for many of you and others. It's not possible to see something flawed and look beyond its defects to how the basic concept of a global anonymized near instant payment system that doesn't depend on heavily regulated institutions might just possibly not be such a bad thing?
- Nursie 7y ago
  > It's frankly amazing that crypto and the blockchains behind these digital currencies can't be perceived by so many here for the potential they have They've been around over a decade, generated an absolute ton of hot air and fanboyism, but have made next to zero impact on the real world or even on the rest of the tech world. Ten years is long enough for anything 'with potential' to show at least some signs of realising that potential. But nothing much has come of it other than gambling and scams. It's looking like a bust.
  - shadowprofile77 7y ago
    In 10 years they've gone from being a trivial little quirk that's shared by a tiny handful of people to digital asset tools with multibillion dollar market caps and growing (admittedly still limited) use by at least several hundred thousand frequent users and likely a few million or more dabblers. Blockchain technology has a ways to go before we see some sort of concrete, widespread development for it and the same goes for crypto tokens but to say either is looking like a bust is grossly, almost absurdly premature. To see this repeated ad nauseum almost as a dogmatic mantra in a hardcore technology-loving site is sort of sad. The analogy is a bit worn but valid I think: The internet also spent decades as a little-used niche system before it combined with the right market and additional technologies to start exploding in the early 90's.

Nursie 7y ago

> but really, try sending money to someone on the literal other side of the world, outside your market, without spending unreasonable money on fees or dealing with terrible customer services, I have done, many times, for small and large amounts. No problems with the traditional system, way more protections too. The fact is that cryptocurrency continues to fail to make inroads in this space, despite cheerleaders having shouted about it for years now.

shadowprofile77 7y ago
Wonderful, your single anecdote negates a whole litany of international payments problems that many people right here on HN have complained about repeatedly in numerous comments across numerous threads. International payments outside of major mutually coordinated markets are a known, frequently mentioned difficulty for many businesses and people. This is something that should be as easy as sending an email, but it doesn't even come close to that on a global scale. Crypto needs to be ironed out very thoroughly but it at least offers one possible avenue for avoiding these problems, with the added benefit of giving users access to a certain degree of anonymity and resiliance to arbitrary institutional payment/account freezes.
- Nursie 7y ago
  Wonderful, your single rebuttal negates the actual market response to cryptocurrency as an international remittance tool, which so far has has been utterly negligible, because it turns out not to actually solve any of those problems where they are felt, and where they aren't it's rendered irrelevant by the lack of protections and inability to compete, either on ease of use or fees.

shadowprofile77 7y ago

And naturally, my comment gets downvoted, way to stay so predictable HN crowd-mind, keep patting yourselves on the back about how much you disdain these tendencies in places like Reddit. It's frankly amazing that crypto and the blockchains behind these digital currencies can't be perceived by so many here for the potential they have despite the obvious attractions of the concept. You simply point to their errors and deride the whole concept as a scam, ponzi scheme, pie-in-the-sky and etc, while then complaining about all the nonsense and bullshit that institutionalized payment processing causes for many of you and others. It's not possible to see something flawed and look beyond its defects to how the basic concept of a global anonymized near instant payment system that doesn't depend on heavily regulated institutions might just possibly not be such a bad thing?

Nursie 7y ago
> It's frankly amazing that crypto and the blockchains behind these digital currencies can't be perceived by so many here for the potential they have They've been around over a decade, generated an absolute ton of hot air and fanboyism, but have made next to zero impact on the real world or even on the rest of the tech world. Ten years is long enough for anything 'with potential' to show at least some signs of realising that potential. But nothing much has come of it other than gambling and scams. It's looking like a bust.
- shadowprofile77 7y ago
  In 10 years they've gone from being a trivial little quirk that's shared by a tiny handful of people to digital asset tools with multibillion dollar market caps and growing (admittedly still limited) use by at least several hundred thousand frequent users and likely a few million or more dabblers. Blockchain technology has a ways to go before we see some sort of concrete, widespread development for it and the same goes for crypto tokens but to say either is looking like a bust is grossly, almost absurdly premature. To see this repeated ad nauseum almost as a dogmatic mantra in a hardcore technology-loving site is sort of sad. The analogy is a bit worn but valid I think: The internet also spent decades as a little-used niche system before it combined with the right market and additional technologies to start exploding in the early 90's.