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It's always amazed me how anti-crypto and behind the times (about bitcoin) this forum has been. Remember your imagination for the possibilities of the early web

It's always amazed me how anti-crypto and behind the times (about bitcoin) this forum has been. Remember your imagination for the possibilities of the early web and computers.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
TylerE 6y ago
Bitcoin as had the better part of decade and it's still practically useless in the real world.
- trixie_ 6y ago
  Case in point I guess. It is kind of amazing how one of the most important recent technological developments has been written off for more than a decade by the users of this site. Same with TypeScript for a long time as well, and then there was a magical turning point somehow that the entire zerg all of a sudden discovered static typing was actually useful. For one of the best sites for discussing the latest happenings in the computer software world, crypto has somehow been consistently rejected as useless when it beats other stores of value in almost every metric. Crypto has value simply because it is better at storing value than the mediums that came before it.
  - TylerE 6y ago
    There is nothing anyone could say that would convince you aren't on the OneTruePath(tm) is there?
    - trixie_ 6y ago
      I would love to have an intelligent debate with you. To respond to your original post. Many people, myself included, find crypto an easier, faster, cheaper way to send large amounts of money versus ACH, wire transfers and western union.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
  - matkoniecz 6y ago
    > beats other stores of value in almost every metric. Which metrics you selected so crypto beats following in "almost every metric"? - real estate - gold - $ in cash - $ in a bank account - stocks
    - trixie_ 6y ago
      Metrics as in how easy is it to store and send, how resistant is it to inflation and manipulation. - Land - Can't send it. - Gold - Physical so more difficult to store, secure, send, and verify. - Cash - Easy to manipulate by the government. How many trillions printed for coronavirus? I wouldn't hold too much of it. - Stocks - Cant send it. More shares can be created by the board of directors. Crypto is made to do one thing - store value, and do it well.
      - sumedh 6y ago
        > Crypto is made to do one thing - store value, and do it well. Does it really do it well when your "investment" can fluctuate between $5000 to $40K?
      - quickthrower2 6y ago
        Well bitcoin in particular but some crypto is inflationary also
      - umanwizard 6y ago
        Well, technically you can own a gold ETF rather than physical, and whenever you want to send value to someone, sell it and wire them the money (free on Fidelity and takes on the order of as long as a few Bitcoin confirmations). This is not too different in effect from being able to “send gold”. Anyway... despite the theoretical limitations of cash, hard currencies in practice have proven much, much more stable than Bitcoin. There hasn’t been hyperinflation in any of the major hard currencies (USD, CNY, GBP, EUR/D-Mark, CHF) since the invention of the fiat system. You can argue that cash can be manipulated and is therefore a worse store of value than Bitcoin but it simply isn’t backed up by concrete evidence in reality
  - woodruffw 6y ago
    > Crypto has value simply because it is better at storing value than the mediums that came before it. Is this a serious claim? The last one and a half months have seen extraordinary speculation in cryptocurrency markets, even by the standards of cryptocurrencies. Lots of wealth is being produced; relatively little is being stored.
    - trixie_ 6y ago
      It's in the news everyday. Huge investment firms diversifying into crypto. So yes, value is being stored. The market cap of cypto has been rising exponentially - exactly because it is a good store of value. Which means easy to store, and highly resistant to manipulation and inflation.
      - woodruffw 6y ago
        > Huge investment firms diversifying into crypto. So yes, value is being stored. Something being a desirable investment vehicle usually makes it an undesirable store of value: a store of value should be stable and predictable, not subject to significant changes in any direction. > Which means easy to store, and highly resistant to manipulation and inflation. These are, again, negative qualities in a store of value. A good store of value is inflates and deflates exactly as much as required to retain its backing value. Inflation means loss of value; deflation represents a liquidity risk when exiting the asset. More generally, this is an indictment of the cryptocurrency community's basic financial literacy. You can't just call a speculative instrument a "store of value" because every who bought into it in the past two months has seen a positive return; that's just not what it is.
        jerrymiller 6y ago
        Case in point still. The contradictions you make are astounding. What's more astounding is that you are not even noticing them. > Huge investment firms diversifying into crypto > this is an indictment of the cryptocurrency community's basic financial literacy I suggest that maybe it's you who lacks basic financial (and econ) literacy, not investment firms or the "cryptocurrency community" > You can't just call a speculative instrument a "store of value" because every who bought into it in the past two months has seen a positive return No, everyone who bought BTC at _any point in the past_ and didn't sell are seeing positive returns. This is the definition of a good store of value. You are conflating SoV properties with volatility. They are orthogonal. SoV is a long-term play.
  - umanwizard 6y ago
    Low volatility is a pretty important metric for stores of value. By that metric almost anything other than GME shares is better than cryptocurrency: cash in any hard currency, gold, silver, luxury watches, ...
    - trixie_ 6y ago
      I guess remind me in 10 years and we'll see how returns on crypto compares to 'stocks, hard currency, gold, silver, luxury watches' Funny how all of those things are not supply constrained, so they seem to be at a disadvantage from the start. But we'll see.
      - umanwizard 6y ago
        I didn’t mention “possibility of high returns” as a metric. I said “low volatility”.
      - optimalsolver 6y ago
        >I guess remind me in 10 years and we'll see how returns on crypto compares to 'stocks, hard currency, gold, silver, luxury watches' You're literally supporting the argument of the person you're replying to without even realizing it. Disproportionately high returns indicates a highly volatile asset, and it's just as likely to go the other way, resulting in staggering losses. These are not markers of a good, long-term storage asset class.
      - alphabettsy 6y ago
        I think you misunderstand a store of value. Extremely volatility is not a positive characteristic. Would you want to be paid in a currency that regularly changes value 5-10% day to day?
    - AgentME 6y ago
      There are decentralized cryptocurrencies that have achieved low volatility, such as DAI. I don't think it's ever gotten more than a couple percent from its $1 target price since being created. (I assume it almost never gets talked about because there's no profit from investing in it and hyping it to others.)
  - underwater 6y ago
    TypeScript was about bringing traditional, proven, approaches to a trendy but immature language. That's exactly the opposite of Bitcoin.
- elif 6y ago
  Something that can continue to gain value for 10 years has no practical use? Someone had better remove the vast majority of the world GDP which is in financial markets.
  - kortilla 6y ago
    Financial markets represent ownership of companies that produce things or provide services. Or they are for debt on loans to governments, companies, or people that use it to finance something.
    - elif 6y ago
      Maybe before 1980 that is a sufficient explanation of abstract capital. It really does not resemble modern reality.
flatiron 6y ago
Nothing wrong with hearing voices not within your echo chamber. I always take voices here I don’t agree with with more weight because they might be right.
wmf 6y ago
Possibility of the early Web: getting free overnight air shipping on 50-pund bags of dog food. Possibility of cryptocurrency: becoming "fuck you" rich in a year without doing any work. Yeah, you have a point; crypto does have amazing potential.
- quickthrower2 6y ago
  Ooh I though you were setting up: Possibility of crypto: getting free overnight air shipping on 50-pund bags of weed
- KirillPanov 6y ago
  > becoming "fuck you" rich in a year without doing any work. That's how most SF tech startups appear to the average blue-collar person. It's all about perspective.
xtracto 6y ago
It may be a matter of demographics. Slashdot had the same effect with other new technology (ipod. Less space than a nomad). And Usenet or irc forums were full of people discounting myspace, FB, and other newer technologies. Hacker news has changed a lot since the time I joined. I came from /. And osnews . And initially it was strongly pro business . Now it has became more "liberal " and pro open source.
- blhack 6y ago
  Curious if you've found a place that feels the way that HN did back then.
  - 1996 6y ago
    If you do, let me know!! Somedays it really looks like I'm gonna see here AARP ads any time soon! The community is aging and getting out of touch with the market without even realizing it
  - xtracto 6y ago
    Not really but mainly because I haven't looked. I personally lean more towards left/socialist views. So the current HN groupthink is more aligned with my views. Maybe I am part of the problem: a group of people that joined HN and affected the discourse.
quickthrower2 6y ago
Yeah it’s a collective “just use Rsync” blindness. I think Defi is pretty exciting and once it’s mainstream with more regulated options with KYC and tokens backed by fully audited companies it has some amazing potential. Also see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26041057 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26041057 - HN wants it’s mp3s, so why doesn’t it want it’s money?
- xtracto 6y ago
  Exactly! I find it so surprising how on one side stories like the one you linked are heavily upvoted, and many here complain about Google, Facebook, monopolies, etc. But when it comes to z technology that is disruptive enough to solve many of the underlying problems , people are fast to discount it because a certain implementation is slow, inefficient, misused, etc. The discourse that I would LOVE to see here is HOW to make it better. Is BCH really better? Is XlM? even XRP. Like when databases are discussed, we get interesting points for Postgres or MySQL or even Mongo. That's the constructive view.
Noos 6y ago
I do, and i see what the web has become now, and it makes me less likely to be giddy about the next new thing. I think we're at a point where the net is no longer novel enough to be magical, and we see the reality is a lot more mundane and even harmful than anyone predicted. You can't just throw out grand concepts and wish for magic now; there needs to be a lot more reflection on the technologies people introduce. Are they sustainable, in that they can maintain their original purpose? Do they increase the attack surface of people, groups and societies greater than the benefit? Do they require skill and vigilance beyond the average person to use safely? I don't think optimism and "it will all work out" is a rational position any more.
vangelis 6y ago
How are your shitcoins?
- staplers 6y ago
  God they're doing so well especially today after Tesla announced buying $1.5 billion worth. Thanks for asking.

It's always amazed me how anti-crypto and behind the times (about bitcoin) this forum has been. Remember your imagination for the possibilities of the early web and computers.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

TylerE 6y ago

Bitcoin as had the better part of decade and it's still practically useless in the real world.

trixie_ 6y ago
Case in point I guess. It is kind of amazing how one of the most important recent technological developments has been written off for more than a decade by the users of this site. Same with TypeScript for a long time as well, and then there was a magical turning point somehow that the entire zerg all of a sudden discovered static typing was actually useful. For one of the best sites for discussing the latest happenings in the computer software world, crypto has somehow been consistently rejected as useless when it beats other stores of value in almost every metric. Crypto has value simply because it is better at storing value than the mediums that came before it.
- TylerE 6y ago
  There is nothing anyone could say that would convince you aren't on the OneTruePath(tm) is there?
  - trixie_ 6y ago
    I would love to have an intelligent debate with you. To respond to your original post. Many people, myself included, find crypto an easier, faster, cheaper way to send large amounts of money versus ACH, wire transfers and western union.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
- matkoniecz 6y ago
  > beats other stores of value in almost every metric. Which metrics you selected so crypto beats following in "almost every metric"? - real estate - gold - $ in cash - $ in a bank account - stocks
  - trixie_ 6y ago
    Metrics as in how easy is it to store and send, how resistant is it to inflation and manipulation. - Land - Can't send it. - Gold - Physical so more difficult to store, secure, send, and verify. - Cash - Easy to manipulate by the government. How many trillions printed for coronavirus? I wouldn't hold too much of it. - Stocks - Cant send it. More shares can be created by the board of directors. Crypto is made to do one thing - store value, and do it well.
    - sumedh 6y ago
      > Crypto is made to do one thing - store value, and do it well. Does it really do it well when your "investment" can fluctuate between $5000 to $40K?
    - quickthrower2 6y ago
      Well bitcoin in particular but some crypto is inflationary also
    - umanwizard 6y ago
      Well, technically you can own a gold ETF rather than physical, and whenever you want to send value to someone, sell it and wire them the money (free on Fidelity and takes on the order of as long as a few Bitcoin confirmations). This is not too different in effect from being able to “send gold”. Anyway... despite the theoretical limitations of cash, hard currencies in practice have proven much, much more stable than Bitcoin. There hasn’t been hyperinflation in any of the major hard currencies (USD, CNY, GBP, EUR/D-Mark, CHF) since the invention of the fiat system. You can argue that cash can be manipulated and is therefore a worse store of value than Bitcoin but it simply isn’t backed up by concrete evidence in reality
- woodruffw 6y ago
  > Crypto has value simply because it is better at storing value than the mediums that came before it. Is this a serious claim? The last one and a half months have seen extraordinary speculation in cryptocurrency markets, even by the standards of cryptocurrencies. Lots of wealth is being produced; relatively little is being stored.
  - trixie_ 6y ago
    It's in the news everyday. Huge investment firms diversifying into crypto. So yes, value is being stored. The market cap of cypto has been rising exponentially - exactly because it is a good store of value. Which means easy to store, and highly resistant to manipulation and inflation.
    - woodruffw 6y ago
      > Huge investment firms diversifying into crypto. So yes, value is being stored. Something being a desirable investment vehicle usually makes it an undesirable store of value: a store of value should be stable and predictable, not subject to significant changes in any direction. > Which means easy to store, and highly resistant to manipulation and inflation. These are, again, negative qualities in a store of value. A good store of value is inflates and deflates exactly as much as required to retain its backing value. Inflation means loss of value; deflation represents a liquidity risk when exiting the asset. More generally, this is an indictment of the cryptocurrency community's basic financial literacy. You can't just call a speculative instrument a "store of value" because every who bought into it in the past two months has seen a positive return; that's just not what it is.
      - jerrymiller 6y ago
        Case in point still. The contradictions you make are astounding. What's more astounding is that you are not even noticing them. > Huge investment firms diversifying into crypto > this is an indictment of the cryptocurrency community's basic financial literacy I suggest that maybe it's you who lacks basic financial (and econ) literacy, not investment firms or the "cryptocurrency community" > You can't just call a speculative instrument a "store of value" because every who bought into it in the past two months has seen a positive return No, everyone who bought BTC at _any point in the past_ and didn't sell are seeing positive returns. This is the definition of a good store of value. You are conflating SoV properties with volatility. They are orthogonal. SoV is a long-term play.
- umanwizard 6y ago
  Low volatility is a pretty important metric for stores of value. By that metric almost anything other than GME shares is better than cryptocurrency: cash in any hard currency, gold, silver, luxury watches, ...
  - trixie_ 6y ago
    I guess remind me in 10 years and we'll see how returns on crypto compares to 'stocks, hard currency, gold, silver, luxury watches' Funny how all of those things are not supply constrained, so they seem to be at a disadvantage from the start. But we'll see.
    - umanwizard 6y ago
      I didn’t mention “possibility of high returns” as a metric. I said “low volatility”.
    - optimalsolver 6y ago
      >I guess remind me in 10 years and we'll see how returns on crypto compares to 'stocks, hard currency, gold, silver, luxury watches' You're literally supporting the argument of the person you're replying to without even realizing it. Disproportionately high returns indicates a highly volatile asset, and it's just as likely to go the other way, resulting in staggering losses. These are not markers of a good, long-term storage asset class.
    - alphabettsy 6y ago
      I think you misunderstand a store of value. Extremely volatility is not a positive characteristic. Would you want to be paid in a currency that regularly changes value 5-10% day to day?
  - AgentME 6y ago
    There are decentralized cryptocurrencies that have achieved low volatility, such as DAI. I don't think it's ever gotten more than a couple percent from its $1 target price since being created. (I assume it almost never gets talked about because there's no profit from investing in it and hyping it to others.)
- underwater 6y ago
  TypeScript was about bringing traditional, proven, approaches to a trendy but immature language. That's exactly the opposite of Bitcoin.
elif 6y ago
Something that can continue to gain value for 10 years has no practical use? Someone had better remove the vast majority of the world GDP which is in financial markets.
- kortilla 6y ago
  Financial markets represent ownership of companies that produce things or provide services. Or they are for debt on loans to governments, companies, or people that use it to finance something.
  - elif 6y ago
    Maybe before 1980 that is a sufficient explanation of abstract capital. It really does not resemble modern reality.

flatiron 6y ago

Nothing wrong with hearing voices not within your echo chamber. I always take voices here I don’t agree with with more weight because they might be right.

wmf 6y ago

Possibility of the early Web: getting free overnight air shipping on 50-pund bags of dog food. Possibility of cryptocurrency: becoming "fuck you" rich in a year without doing any work. Yeah, you have a point; crypto does have amazing potential.

quickthrower2 6y ago
Ooh I though you were setting up: Possibility of crypto: getting free overnight air shipping on 50-pund bags of weed
KirillPanov 6y ago
> becoming "fuck you" rich in a year without doing any work. That's how most SF tech startups appear to the average blue-collar person. It's all about perspective.

xtracto 6y ago

It may be a matter of demographics. Slashdot had the same effect with other new technology (ipod. Less space than a nomad). And Usenet or irc forums were full of people discounting myspace, FB, and other newer technologies. Hacker news has changed a lot since the time I joined. I came from /. And osnews . And initially it was strongly pro business . Now it has became more "liberal " and pro open source.

blhack 6y ago
Curious if you've found a place that feels the way that HN did back then.
- 1996 6y ago
  If you do, let me know!! Somedays it really looks like I'm gonna see here AARP ads any time soon! The community is aging and getting out of touch with the market without even realizing it
- xtracto 6y ago
  Not really but mainly because I haven't looked. I personally lean more towards left/socialist views. So the current HN groupthink is more aligned with my views. Maybe I am part of the problem: a group of people that joined HN and affected the discourse.

quickthrower2 6y ago

Yeah it’s a collective “just use Rsync” blindness. I think Defi is pretty exciting and once it’s mainstream with more regulated options with KYC and tokens backed by fully audited companies it has some amazing potential. Also see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26041057 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26041057 - HN wants it’s mp3s, so why doesn’t it want it’s money?

xtracto 6y ago
Exactly! I find it so surprising how on one side stories like the one you linked are heavily upvoted, and many here complain about Google, Facebook, monopolies, etc. But when it comes to z technology that is disruptive enough to solve many of the underlying problems , people are fast to discount it because a certain implementation is slow, inefficient, misused, etc. The discourse that I would LOVE to see here is HOW to make it better. Is BCH really better? Is XlM? even XRP. Like when databases are discussed, we get interesting points for Postgres or MySQL or even Mongo. That's the constructive view.

Noos 6y ago

I do, and i see what the web has become now, and it makes me less likely to be giddy about the next new thing. I think we're at a point where the net is no longer novel enough to be magical, and we see the reality is a lot more mundane and even harmful than anyone predicted. You can't just throw out grand concepts and wish for magic now; there needs to be a lot more reflection on the technologies people introduce. Are they sustainable, in that they can maintain their original purpose? Do they increase the attack surface of people, groups and societies greater than the benefit? Do they require skill and vigilance beyond the average person to use safely? I don't think optimism and "it will all work out" is a rational position any more.

vangelis 6y ago

How are your shitcoins?

staplers 6y ago
God they're doing so well especially today after Tesla announced buying $1.5 billion worth. Thanks for asking.