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the salt on this board when it comes to crypto only gets worse as time goes on

by dylkil 6y ago

staplers 6y ago
I have distanced myself from hn GREATLY over the last year. The decline is seemingly exponential.
jeremyjh 6y ago
Yes, perhaps this is correlated with the fact that the successive number of years that crypto has been hyped and failed to deliver anything of value only grows as time goes on.
- chrisco255 6y ago
  I would reply to you and describe the burgeoning ecosystem of economic activity and the speed at which the entire sector is growing, but I have a feeling that convo will not go anywhere. Crypto is eating finance. It's going to eat everything else too. The longer you fight that, the harder the 21st century is going to be for you.
  - randomopining 6y ago
    Yeah but how does Crypto make stuff happen in the real world? Like a bank can repossess people's houses and stuff and have the law applied. Crypto only has power over what's on that specific blockchains contracts.
    - chrisco255 6y ago
      On blockchain, the code is the law, for better or worse. It brings a lot of powerful advantages but certainly comes with some tradeoffs. Loans on DeFi today, tend to be overcollateralized, so that a loan's collateral can be liquidated by a "watcher" if the loan goes into default or is at risk of becoming undercollateralized. Arbitration, insurance, etc. can also be recreated on-chain and already exist to some extent although it is quite early days still.
  - Judgmentality 6y ago
    What problem does crypto solve apart from being a digital alternative to gold? It's not anonymous (except Monero which is centralized), transaction fees and times tend to be high (depends on which currency and exchange you're using), there's zero recourse for stolen funds currently (which makes it ripe for fraud). And in addition to that, at least for Bitcoin, it's an environmental disaster. What do you think makes crypto useful?
- dylkil 6y ago
  At its bare bones crypto is a perimissionless payments system, you dont see any value here?
- galactus 6y ago
  And also that people are starting to seriously worry for the energy consumption of something that provides no useful value.
Shacklz 6y ago
And I think there are good reasons for that: 1) The energy consumption of bitcoin mining alone is estimated to have reached the levels of entire countries (Argentina was the latest country I've heard it being compared to), while actual usage of bitcoin (except for speculation) is still a fringe niche thing 2) When shown that the coins do not scale, instead of moving on to an improved version, those coins continue to grow. Instead of 'okay, proof of concept done, it does not scale, let's move on to an improved version', the bonanza just continues. There are probably more reasons like these, but I think it would be straight-up weird if the technically versed audience of HN would disregard the reasons above as much as the current crypto-markets do.

the salt on this board when it comes to crypto only gets worse as time goes on

by dylkil 6y ago

the salt on this board when it comes to crypto only gets worse as time goes on

staplers 6y ago

I have distanced myself from hn GREATLY over the last year. The decline is seemingly exponential.

jeremyjh 6y ago

Yes, perhaps this is correlated with the fact that the successive number of years that crypto has been hyped and failed to deliver anything of value only grows as time goes on.

chrisco255 6y ago
I would reply to you and describe the burgeoning ecosystem of economic activity and the speed at which the entire sector is growing, but I have a feeling that convo will not go anywhere. Crypto is eating finance. It's going to eat everything else too. The longer you fight that, the harder the 21st century is going to be for you.
- randomopining 6y ago
  Yeah but how does Crypto make stuff happen in the real world? Like a bank can repossess people's houses and stuff and have the law applied. Crypto only has power over what's on that specific blockchains contracts.
  - chrisco255 6y ago
    On blockchain, the code is the law, for better or worse. It brings a lot of powerful advantages but certainly comes with some tradeoffs. Loans on DeFi today, tend to be overcollateralized, so that a loan's collateral can be liquidated by a "watcher" if the loan goes into default or is at risk of becoming undercollateralized. Arbitration, insurance, etc. can also be recreated on-chain and already exist to some extent although it is quite early days still.
- Judgmentality 6y ago
  What problem does crypto solve apart from being a digital alternative to gold? It's not anonymous (except Monero which is centralized), transaction fees and times tend to be high (depends on which currency and exchange you're using), there's zero recourse for stolen funds currently (which makes it ripe for fraud). And in addition to that, at least for Bitcoin, it's an environmental disaster. What do you think makes crypto useful?
dylkil 6y ago
At its bare bones crypto is a perimissionless payments system, you dont see any value here?
galactus 6y ago
And also that people are starting to seriously worry for the energy consumption of something that provides no useful value.

Shacklz 6y ago

And I think there are good reasons for that: 1) The energy consumption of bitcoin mining alone is estimated to have reached the levels of entire countries (Argentina was the latest country I've heard it being compared to), while actual usage of bitcoin (except for speculation) is still a fringe niche thing 2) When shown that the coins do not scale, instead of moving on to an improved version, those coins continue to grow. Instead of 'okay, proof of concept done, it does not scale, let's move on to an improved version', the bonanza just continues. There are probably more reasons like these, but I think it would be straight-up weird if the technically versed audience of HN would disregard the reasons above as much as the current crypto-markets do.