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YC's best investment to date will likely be Coinbase when the IPO lands, if the price ranges are correct. The very first Hacker News comment on Bitcoin was jdo

YC's best investment to date will likely be Coinbase when the IPO lands, if the price ranges are correct. The very first Hacker News comment on Bitcoin was jdoliner's "while this is exceptionally cute, no one is ever going to take it seriously" - perhaps it's time to admit that yes, maybe, there is something going on here.

gretch 6y ago
I don’t like Bitcoin at all but I like coinbase. Coinbase gives people what they want, quickly and conveniently, with a price ppl are okay with. A great business Bitcoin is not a thing ppl should want (IMO) It’s like going in a 7-11 and buying cigarettes or scratchoffs. I still like 7-11
- rriepe 6y ago
  Everything 7-11 sells is addictive. They're literally drug dealers set up on corners. But I really enjoyed this analogy.
  - moistbar 6y ago
    Technically you're correct in that food withdrawal will kill you, but that doesn't make the observation any less obtuse.
    - rriepe 6y ago
      Is junk food addictive?
      - moistbar 6y ago
        No, but I'll bet you're about to insist that it is.
        rriepe 6y ago
        Hah! What assumptions do you think I'm making here about you?
        moistbar 6y ago
        Nothing based in reality, I'm positive of that much. I also don't particularly care.
- nipponese 6y ago
  So what you’re saying is, if someone gives you 1 BTC you will give it to me for free since it’s not useful to you?
dang 6y ago
That's not true. An earlier comment was "brilliant, this could finally end the recession!" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=600327 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=600327. I understand the fun in scouring the past for outrageously wrong comments, but let's be fair. You haven't quoted jdoliner accurately either: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=600813 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=600813. What he actually wrote was not quite that flagrantly dismissive or wrong, even in hindsight. (This reminds me a bit of the famous comment that was posted in the first Dropbox thread on HN, which people love to cite in a way that I don't think is fair to the commenter. His username keeps getting repeated as an emblem of pedantic dismissal, which is not actually what he was doing. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23229275 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23229275) Edit: FWIW, there was at least one earlier HN thread on cryptocurrency, predating Bitcoin: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=253963 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=253963. It was pretty good and even (in the case of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=253999 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=253999) prescient: The bigger problem is that everyone has a incentive to run their computers day and night cranking out solutions, which burns up lots of natural resources and processor time for a zero-sum result.
- joshuakelly 6y ago
  I appreciate the correction on the timing - I didn't check the comment ids when I discovered it initially and I've repeated the claim more than once, so mea culpa. Still, I don't think I'm outrageously wrong. Being fair, the earlier comment you cite is in the same thread. That precursor thread is excellent history, thanks also for that. EDIT: Wait, are we not both wrong here? Isn't this the first? Which, honestly, might be funnier: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=599936 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=599936
  - dang 6y ago
    That is indeed the earliest of the three.
- Wowfunhappy 6y ago
  >> The bigger problem is that everyone has a incentive to run their computers day and night cranking out solutions, which burns up lots of natural resources and processor time for a zero-sum result. In 2008! That is nuts! Thanks for sharing.

gretch 6y ago

I don’t like Bitcoin at all but I like coinbase. Coinbase gives people what they want, quickly and conveniently, with a price ppl are okay with. A great business Bitcoin is not a thing ppl should want (IMO) It’s like going in a 7-11 and buying cigarettes or scratchoffs. I still like 7-11

rriepe 6y ago
Everything 7-11 sells is addictive. They're literally drug dealers set up on corners. But I really enjoyed this analogy.
- moistbar 6y ago
  Technically you're correct in that food withdrawal will kill you, but that doesn't make the observation any less obtuse.
  - rriepe 6y ago
    Is junk food addictive?
    - moistbar 6y ago
      No, but I'll bet you're about to insist that it is.
      - rriepe 6y ago
        Hah! What assumptions do you think I'm making here about you?
        moistbar 6y ago
        Nothing based in reality, I'm positive of that much. I also don't particularly care.
nipponese 6y ago
So what you’re saying is, if someone gives you 1 BTC you will give it to me for free since it’s not useful to you?

dang 6y ago

That's not true. An earlier comment was "brilliant, this could finally end the recession!" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=600327 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=600327. I understand the fun in scouring the past for outrageously wrong comments, but let's be fair. You haven't quoted jdoliner accurately either: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=600813 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=600813. What he actually wrote was not quite that flagrantly dismissive or wrong, even in hindsight. (This reminds me a bit of the famous comment that was posted in the first Dropbox thread on HN, which people love to cite in a way that I don't think is fair to the commenter. His username keeps getting repeated as an emblem of pedantic dismissal, which is not actually what he was doing. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23229275 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23229275) Edit: FWIW, there was at least one earlier HN thread on cryptocurrency, predating Bitcoin: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=253963 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=253963. It was pretty good and even (in the case of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=253999 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=253999) prescient: The bigger problem is that everyone has a incentive to run their computers day and night cranking out solutions, which burns up lots of natural resources and processor time for a zero-sum result.

joshuakelly 6y ago
I appreciate the correction on the timing - I didn't check the comment ids when I discovered it initially and I've repeated the claim more than once, so mea culpa. Still, I don't think I'm outrageously wrong. Being fair, the earlier comment you cite is in the same thread. That precursor thread is excellent history, thanks also for that. EDIT: Wait, are we not both wrong here? Isn't this the first? Which, honestly, might be funnier: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=599936 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=599936
- dang 6y ago
  That is indeed the earliest of the three.
Wowfunhappy 6y ago
>> The bigger problem is that everyone has a incentive to run their computers day and night cranking out solutions, which burns up lots of natural resources and processor time for a zero-sum result. In 2008! That is nuts! Thanks for sharing.