6 ms·

The amount of Bitcoin hate on Hacker News is astounding.

ddtaylor 6y ago
It's also very regular. I have been monitoring "new" and looking at it's content and I see a lot of regularly posted negative Bitcoin content. I actually don't think there are any other subjects on HN that are so universally attacked with such regularity.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
camjohnson26 6y ago
I still think it’s mostly people who knew about bitcoin early and decided not to buy it.
- hiimtroymclure 6y ago
  This is how I read things as well. so much jealousy. I stop reading any btc criticism at the endless climate impact/criminal activity discussions. Of all the things that impact climate change, this is the offender we decide to focus on? Of all the ways criminal activity is facilitated, this is currency we focus on? Such a brilliant technology seems lost on HN because people are jealous they missed the boat.
  - kd913 6y ago
    It consumes the amount of electricity comparable to nations whilst limited to 300k transactions. It is a massive enabler of corruption and crime. This whilst offering almost nothing back in return In terms of low-hanging fruit of things to hate, yes this should be pretty damn high on the list. This is as a person who originally mined coins in 2011.
  - the_gastropod 6y ago
    Let's dive in: > Of all the things that impact climate change, this is the offender we decide to focus on? Whataboutism... > Of all the ways criminal activity is facilitated, this is currency we focus on? Also whataboutism... > Such a brilliant technology seems lost on HN because people are jealous they missed the boat. What's so brilliant about it? And you're really projecting here re: the jealousy...
    - hiimtroymclure 6y ago
      Starting with 'Lets Dive in" and only using 1 word made me lol. Then only word being 'whataboutism'... which is an infinite loop of an argument. Literally the same as saying "I know you are but what am I". And clearly I'm on the crypto train. Why would I be projecting jealousy? That I secretly wanted to off the crypto train? lol
- ghastmaster 6y ago
  That makes sense. If they did not deem it viable then, and their minds have not changed, then they should not deem it viable now.
- hdsj 6y ago
  Early is subjective too. Anyone who heard about it before 2020 is probably kicking themselves a little. I imagine most inexplicably angry HN posters first read about it before 2015 (missing out on at least 100x profit; $10k -> $1M).
  - rawtxapp 6y ago
    Now they are gonna miss the 50k->1M, so need to stop it at all costs.
- epx 6y ago
  I kind of regret not buying when it was worth US$ 2 (actually it was not easy to buy with money, back then). Whatever happened after US$ 1000 is out of my preoccupations. I had the chance to participate on a Ponzi scheme once, in 1993. I declined because I could not accept the idea of getting quick money knowing that 7 every 8 people would lose money.
- munificent 6y ago
  Everyone seeks a narrative that makes them the moral protagonist. If you see a group of people describing something you yourself participate in as environmentally and economically destructive, you have to choose a framework in which to process that information. Some options are: 1. Sure it has some, ahem, negative externalities and I am somewhat bad for participating. But all of those people are just as compromised as me and they're only mad because they didn't get in first. I am no worse than them. If anything, I'm at least honest about my position. 2. They are right, I am selfishly participating in something that benefits me at the expense of the world. The problem with 2 is that acknowledging and wanting to be morally correct forces you to change your behavior. So 1 is an easy pick. But that doesn't imply that it's correct.
  - camjohnson26 6y ago
    Maybe but isn't it just as likely that people choose behavior they morally agree with? I have no strong feelings on Bitcoin right now, but I'd examine both arguments and choose to buy or not based on which side seemed stronger. If I chose to buy people could say I changed my beliefs to match my behavior, but really I chose my behavior to match my beliefs. Same if I chose not to buy.
    - munificent 6y ago
      > Maybe but isn't it just as likely that people choose behavior they morally agree with? Yes, but that moral interpretation is based on the framework they use to contextualize the behavior. Is cutting down a tree moral? Well, if it was a fire hazard next to an orphanage, maybe. If it was endangered and you were going to sell it for personal gain, probably not.
TheBlight 6y ago
Is it really surprising that a group that prides itself on knowing-it-all can't cope with missing the boat that was docked right in front of them for years?
- grassgreener 6y ago
  What boat? where is it sailing to now? Is bitcoin purpose just to make you rich? What did we miss? Maybe, I missed the latest Medium article on why we are near adoption(!?). The tech is useless and detrimental to our earth. It finances terrorism, human trafficking and other ponzi schemes. But Elon Musk... just pumping an unregulated market. The fact that he created Dogecoin is a pretty strong giveaway of his stance on the subject of the blockchain Edit: Elon Musk didn't created Dogecoin
  - cl0ne 6y ago
    Elon Musk didn't create Dogecoin.
    - grassgreener 6y ago
      Thanks, I genuinely thought he was behind it. Anyway the facts that is backing it doesn't really change my take on his involvement.
fwiwm2c 6y ago
It is another level. So many people missed the bus and are just salty or frustrated. I am so surprised that this happened given all of us are in tech (and have good income and awareness of blockchain) and it would have made sense to invest just a bit in all these years to see where that takes us. Now it is all about how Bitcoin is a ponzi, key reason for climate change and solves no issues whatsoever. Maybe all those things are correct (I don't know) but it sure was a good way to make a lot of money -- and most of the people here just missed it. And this hate is not new. Look at this well commented thread from 2015 when Bitcoin went down to $180 and HN is still filled with comments like that this is not surprising and they don't see it coming back from hereon: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8884838 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8884838 We haven't learned anything? Have we?
- 8fGTBjZxBcHq 6y ago
  So yes this is exactly why I hate it so much. Not because I personally didn't get rich from it. But because we engineered a way to magnify the wealth of the people who need it least, at a huge environmental cost for no reason. It's like all of the worst tendencies of our society reduced down and maximized.
  - fwiwm2c 6y ago
    Exactly the type of people I was referring to in my comment. Read the 2015 thread. You would find people who mirror you.
    - 8fGTBjZxBcHq 6y ago
      I mean I've had this opinion since 2010 we've always been here.
    - bostonsre 6y ago
      So what, you made money off of trading it like a commodity and that makes you correct how exactly? You just brush aside the opposing viewpoints without speaking to them or acknowledging that they have merit. You also don't think it's possible that you don't actually understand what is happening with bitcoin and you got lucky? You don't know what the end state is, no one does. Winning money at roulette doesn't make you a profit that saw into the future.
epx 6y ago
I used to believe. Bought when it was US$ 1k, sold at 1.1k when I ceased to believe, and have no regrets whatsoever. Perhaps I am missing something ("the market is always right"?), one day we will know. If Bitcoin diverts surplus money from real estate for a while, and fellow software developers/cypherpunks sell it one day before the bubble bursts, therefore taking money from boomers and FOMOs, I am happy enough.
- psychlops 6y ago
  [snarky comment removed, my apologies]
  - epx 6y ago
    I don't care. And many things could have happened between 1.1 and 52 (stolen wallets et al.). One could argue that whoever bought and held has been remunerated for the risk.
- javert 6y ago
  > If Bitcoin diverts surplus money from real estate for a while, and fellow software developers/cypherpunks sell it one day before the bubble bursts, therefore taking money from boomers and FOMOs, I am happy enough. Interesting admission. Wanting to see some group suffer seems to be the motivation for a decent amount of the bitcoin hate on HN. Guess you simply hate some other groups more than you hate bitcoiners.
  - epx 6y ago
    'Hate' is a strong word. Fact is, there are people out there with lots of money that needs to be 'parked' somewhere. Enough has been said about real estate boom caused by empty houses being bought by Chinese while the locals can't make rent. If Bitcoin absorbs this kind of surplus money, it is kind of positive. But all bubbles eventually burst.
    - javert 6y ago
      Investment money pours into real estate because the financial system is broken. Hopefully bitcoin will help fix that.
superbcarrot 6y ago
Is it just bitter people who missed out on making a lot of money? Or is it sober and relatively informed people who are assessing Bitcoin correctly? How do we tell the difference between the two?
- javert 6y ago
  That's a false dichotomy. I think bitcoin is genuinely hated, just like a lot of people and technology are hated. It doesn't necessarily come from an analysis of bitcoin, whether rational or irrational. And it doesn't necessarily come from people who are upset because they think they are too late to make money from bitcoin.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - 6510 6y ago
    If the haters were of one mind they would have killed it long ago.
- nervousvarun 6y ago
  Personally don't think it's a FOMO thing it's more of a "why is this so profitable" thing? The success of Bitcoin isn't entirely rational. And people generally (probably disproportionately so on HN) try to analyze phenomenon like this analytically. The thing is though...financial markets are not always rational. This isn't unique to BTC. Edit: typo
cwhiz 6y ago
I would say it gets about as much hate as any other Ponzi scam. It's just that other Ponzi scams aren't as wildly popular. But then again, other scams aren't causing global economic and environmental damage.
ayemiller 6y ago
I actually read the article and it has nothing to do with hating bitcoin. It delves into the logistics of a theoretical attack against Bitcoin's proof-of-work blockchain. Quite interesting if you're willing to put down your pitchfork.
- devonbleak 6y ago
  It's just a 51% attack with extra steps. PoW requires that you do the work. Making a big long fake chain with higher difficulty than the existing chain requires expending even more resources than the existing network. Not to mention you have to keep updating your fake chain every time a legit block gets accepted because all of the hashes will change. The idea is garbage.
fxtentacle 6y ago
What's wrong with disliking unnecessary environmental destruction?
mdoms 6y ago
If you find a significant portion of the communities you generally align with are fervently opposed to something it can pay to take a step back from your own entrenched position and ask why. The environmental concerns around Bitcoin are not trivial. To many of us they are very, very serious. Not to mention the very real practical concerns around usage of Bitcoin - the fees, long confirmation times, poor throughput, etc. Again, real issues.
- s_dev 6y ago
  This whole 'Bitcoin is bad for the envoirnment' reads like: "Volcanoes contribute massively to climate change we need to turn them off to save the planet"
  - mdoms 6y ago
    I don't even have words for how dumb of an analogy this is. I am speechless.
    - s_dev 6y ago
      There really is no option to turn off Bitcoin even if humanity agreed on it -- author can only imagine suggestions that might thoeretically work but won't. It was designed like the internet to be virtually indestructible.
- rawtxapp 6y ago
  That just means you didn't research it properly, if you had and stepped back, you'd know that layer 2 technologies are solving majority of your concerns around speed and fees and that the world will inevitably move to green energies sooner or later.
kache_ 6y ago
chalk it up to seething nocoiners
mumblemumble 6y ago
I'm having a really hard time seeing this as something that should just be knee-jerk dismissed as hate. Frankly, speculating on the author's motives isn't even a particularly useful line of thought. Bitcoin is supposed to be all about resiliency. And the way you achieve resiliency is by continually running thought experiments to try and probe for possible weaknesses. This article may seem far-fetched right now, but it's amazing how often novel new large-scale attacks turn out to contain elements that featured in speculative writing that was previously dismissed as being far-fetched.
z3rgl1ng 6y ago
Because it’s been ten plus years of hype, and nothing to show for it. Because it’s an obvious get-rich-quick scheme that will leave the poor as bag-holders, again. Because it sucks up the air for conversation about things that actually matter. Because the arrogance of its boosters is insufferable.
dang 6y ago
What's not so astounding is how terrible this thread is. Please don't post unsubstantive comments and especially please don't take HN threads on generic flamewar tangents and especially^2 please don't take HN threads on meta generic flamewar tangents. I know it's exciting in one way but it's boring in another way, and that's the way that matters. It only makes discussion worse. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

It's also very regular. I have been monitoring "new" and looking at it's content and I see a lot of regularly posted negative Bitcoin content. I actually don't think there are any other subjects on HN that are so universally attacked with such regularity.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

camjohnson26 6y ago

I still think it’s mostly people who knew about bitcoin early and decided not to buy it.

hiimtroymclure 6y ago
This is how I read things as well. so much jealousy. I stop reading any btc criticism at the endless climate impact/criminal activity discussions. Of all the things that impact climate change, this is the offender we decide to focus on? Of all the ways criminal activity is facilitated, this is currency we focus on? Such a brilliant technology seems lost on HN because people are jealous they missed the boat.
- kd913 6y ago
  It consumes the amount of electricity comparable to nations whilst limited to 300k transactions. It is a massive enabler of corruption and crime. This whilst offering almost nothing back in return In terms of low-hanging fruit of things to hate, yes this should be pretty damn high on the list. This is as a person who originally mined coins in 2011.
- the_gastropod 6y ago
  Let's dive in: > Of all the things that impact climate change, this is the offender we decide to focus on? Whataboutism... > Of all the ways criminal activity is facilitated, this is currency we focus on? Also whataboutism... > Such a brilliant technology seems lost on HN because people are jealous they missed the boat. What's so brilliant about it? And you're really projecting here re: the jealousy...
  - hiimtroymclure 6y ago
    Starting with 'Lets Dive in" and only using 1 word made me lol. Then only word being 'whataboutism'... which is an infinite loop of an argument. Literally the same as saying "I know you are but what am I". And clearly I'm on the crypto train. Why would I be projecting jealousy? That I secretly wanted to off the crypto train? lol
ghastmaster 6y ago
That makes sense. If they did not deem it viable then, and their minds have not changed, then they should not deem it viable now.
hdsj 6y ago
Early is subjective too. Anyone who heard about it before 2020 is probably kicking themselves a little. I imagine most inexplicably angry HN posters first read about it before 2015 (missing out on at least 100x profit; $10k -> $1M).
- rawtxapp 6y ago
  Now they are gonna miss the 50k->1M, so need to stop it at all costs.
epx 6y ago
I kind of regret not buying when it was worth US$ 2 (actually it was not easy to buy with money, back then). Whatever happened after US$ 1000 is out of my preoccupations. I had the chance to participate on a Ponzi scheme once, in 1993. I declined because I could not accept the idea of getting quick money knowing that 7 every 8 people would lose money.
munificent 6y ago
Everyone seeks a narrative that makes them the moral protagonist. If you see a group of people describing something you yourself participate in as environmentally and economically destructive, you have to choose a framework in which to process that information. Some options are: 1. Sure it has some, ahem, negative externalities and I am somewhat bad for participating. But all of those people are just as compromised as me and they're only mad because they didn't get in first. I am no worse than them. If anything, I'm at least honest about my position. 2. They are right, I am selfishly participating in something that benefits me at the expense of the world. The problem with 2 is that acknowledging and wanting to be morally correct forces you to change your behavior. So 1 is an easy pick. But that doesn't imply that it's correct.
- camjohnson26 6y ago
  Maybe but isn't it just as likely that people choose behavior they morally agree with? I have no strong feelings on Bitcoin right now, but I'd examine both arguments and choose to buy or not based on which side seemed stronger. If I chose to buy people could say I changed my beliefs to match my behavior, but really I chose my behavior to match my beliefs. Same if I chose not to buy.
  - munificent 6y ago
    > Maybe but isn't it just as likely that people choose behavior they morally agree with? Yes, but that moral interpretation is based on the framework they use to contextualize the behavior. Is cutting down a tree moral? Well, if it was a fire hazard next to an orphanage, maybe. If it was endangered and you were going to sell it for personal gain, probably not.

TheBlight 6y ago

Is it really surprising that a group that prides itself on knowing-it-all can't cope with missing the boat that was docked right in front of them for years?

grassgreener 6y ago
What boat? where is it sailing to now? Is bitcoin purpose just to make you rich? What did we miss? Maybe, I missed the latest Medium article on why we are near adoption(!?). The tech is useless and detrimental to our earth. It finances terrorism, human trafficking and other ponzi schemes. But Elon Musk... just pumping an unregulated market. The fact that he created Dogecoin is a pretty strong giveaway of his stance on the subject of the blockchain Edit: Elon Musk didn't created Dogecoin
- cl0ne 6y ago
  Elon Musk didn't create Dogecoin.
  - grassgreener 6y ago
    Thanks, I genuinely thought he was behind it. Anyway the facts that is backing it doesn't really change my take on his involvement.

fwiwm2c 6y ago

It is another level. So many people missed the bus and are just salty or frustrated. I am so surprised that this happened given all of us are in tech (and have good income and awareness of blockchain) and it would have made sense to invest just a bit in all these years to see where that takes us. Now it is all about how Bitcoin is a ponzi, key reason for climate change and solves no issues whatsoever. Maybe all those things are correct (I don't know) but it sure was a good way to make a lot of money -- and most of the people here just missed it. And this hate is not new. Look at this well commented thread from 2015 when Bitcoin went down to $180 and HN is still filled with comments like that this is not surprising and they don't see it coming back from hereon: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8884838 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8884838 We haven't learned anything? Have we?

8fGTBjZxBcHq 6y ago
So yes this is exactly why I hate it so much. Not because I personally didn't get rich from it. But because we engineered a way to magnify the wealth of the people who need it least, at a huge environmental cost for no reason. It's like all of the worst tendencies of our society reduced down and maximized.
- fwiwm2c 6y ago
  Exactly the type of people I was referring to in my comment. Read the 2015 thread. You would find people who mirror you.
  - 8fGTBjZxBcHq 6y ago
    I mean I've had this opinion since 2010 we've always been here.
  - bostonsre 6y ago
    So what, you made money off of trading it like a commodity and that makes you correct how exactly? You just brush aside the opposing viewpoints without speaking to them or acknowledging that they have merit. You also don't think it's possible that you don't actually understand what is happening with bitcoin and you got lucky? You don't know what the end state is, no one does. Winning money at roulette doesn't make you a profit that saw into the future.

epx 6y ago

I used to believe. Bought when it was US$ 1k, sold at 1.1k when I ceased to believe, and have no regrets whatsoever. Perhaps I am missing something ("the market is always right"?), one day we will know. If Bitcoin diverts surplus money from real estate for a while, and fellow software developers/cypherpunks sell it one day before the bubble bursts, therefore taking money from boomers and FOMOs, I am happy enough.

psychlops 6y ago
[snarky comment removed, my apologies]
- epx 6y ago
  I don't care. And many things could have happened between 1.1 and 52 (stolen wallets et al.). One could argue that whoever bought and held has been remunerated for the risk.
javert 6y ago
> If Bitcoin diverts surplus money from real estate for a while, and fellow software developers/cypherpunks sell it one day before the bubble bursts, therefore taking money from boomers and FOMOs, I am happy enough. Interesting admission. Wanting to see some group suffer seems to be the motivation for a decent amount of the bitcoin hate on HN. Guess you simply hate some other groups more than you hate bitcoiners.
- epx 6y ago
  'Hate' is a strong word. Fact is, there are people out there with lots of money that needs to be 'parked' somewhere. Enough has been said about real estate boom caused by empty houses being bought by Chinese while the locals can't make rent. If Bitcoin absorbs this kind of surplus money, it is kind of positive. But all bubbles eventually burst.
  - javert 6y ago
    Investment money pours into real estate because the financial system is broken. Hopefully bitcoin will help fix that.

superbcarrot 6y ago

Is it just bitter people who missed out on making a lot of money? Or is it sober and relatively informed people who are assessing Bitcoin correctly? How do we tell the difference between the two?

javert 6y ago
That's a false dichotomy. I think bitcoin is genuinely hated, just like a lot of people and technology are hated. It doesn't necessarily come from an analysis of bitcoin, whether rational or irrational. And it doesn't necessarily come from people who are upset because they think they are too late to make money from bitcoin.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- 6510 6y ago
  If the haters were of one mind they would have killed it long ago.
nervousvarun 6y ago
Personally don't think it's a FOMO thing it's more of a "why is this so profitable" thing? The success of Bitcoin isn't entirely rational. And people generally (probably disproportionately so on HN) try to analyze phenomenon like this analytically. The thing is though...financial markets are not always rational. This isn't unique to BTC. Edit: typo

cwhiz 6y ago

I would say it gets about as much hate as any other Ponzi scam. It's just that other Ponzi scams aren't as wildly popular. But then again, other scams aren't causing global economic and environmental damage.

ayemiller 6y ago

I actually read the article and it has nothing to do with hating bitcoin. It delves into the logistics of a theoretical attack against Bitcoin's proof-of-work blockchain. Quite interesting if you're willing to put down your pitchfork.

devonbleak 6y ago
It's just a 51% attack with extra steps. PoW requires that you do the work. Making a big long fake chain with higher difficulty than the existing chain requires expending even more resources than the existing network. Not to mention you have to keep updating your fake chain every time a legit block gets accepted because all of the hashes will change. The idea is garbage.

fxtentacle 6y ago

What's wrong with disliking unnecessary environmental destruction?

mdoms 6y ago

If you find a significant portion of the communities you generally align with are fervently opposed to something it can pay to take a step back from your own entrenched position and ask why. The environmental concerns around Bitcoin are not trivial. To many of us they are very, very serious. Not to mention the very real practical concerns around usage of Bitcoin - the fees, long confirmation times, poor throughput, etc. Again, real issues.

s_dev 6y ago
This whole 'Bitcoin is bad for the envoirnment' reads like: "Volcanoes contribute massively to climate change we need to turn them off to save the planet"
- mdoms 6y ago
  I don't even have words for how dumb of an analogy this is. I am speechless.
  - s_dev 6y ago
    There really is no option to turn off Bitcoin even if humanity agreed on it -- author can only imagine suggestions that might thoeretically work but won't. It was designed like the internet to be virtually indestructible.
rawtxapp 6y ago
That just means you didn't research it properly, if you had and stepped back, you'd know that layer 2 technologies are solving majority of your concerns around speed and fees and that the world will inevitably move to green energies sooner or later.

kache_ 6y ago

chalk it up to seething nocoiners

mumblemumble 6y ago

I'm having a really hard time seeing this as something that should just be knee-jerk dismissed as hate. Frankly, speculating on the author's motives isn't even a particularly useful line of thought. Bitcoin is supposed to be all about resiliency. And the way you achieve resiliency is by continually running thought experiments to try and probe for possible weaknesses. This article may seem far-fetched right now, but it's amazing how often novel new large-scale attacks turn out to contain elements that featured in speculative writing that was previously dismissed as being far-fetched.

z3rgl1ng 6y ago

Because it’s been ten plus years of hype, and nothing to show for it. Because it’s an obvious get-rich-quick scheme that will leave the poor as bag-holders, again. Because it sucks up the air for conversation about things that actually matter. Because the arrogance of its boosters is insufferable.

dang 6y ago

What's not so astounding is how terrible this thread is. Please don't post unsubstantive comments and especially please don't take HN threads on generic flamewar tangents and especially^2 please don't take HN threads on meta generic flamewar tangents. I know it's exciting in one way but it's boring in another way, and that's the way that matters. It only makes discussion worse. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html