7 ms·
>It was a cryptocurrency company, and it had been running for a while - but it didn't have a blockchain. "So we need you to build a blockchain," he went on. I
by daenz 5y ago
>It was a cryptocurrency company, and it had been running for a while - but it didn't have a blockchain. "So we need you to build a blockchain," he went on.
I have seen this first hand, on a much smaller scale, at a startup that was riding the blockchain hype with investors. It is really incredible and eye-opening to me what you can accomplish with hype and trust, with absolutely nothing backing it. It makes you realize that it doesn't matter if what you build is cool or innovative, if you can't get people to trust you, it won't succeed.
- 46756e 5y agoThis is very true for crypto. The amount of people hyped on it without understanding much about it seems crazy high to me. Granted, I recently graduated college, so I may be bias from experience. I just have seen a giant amount of finance frat bros that pour money into Bitcoin cause “banks are like the horse and buggy”.
- hanniabu 5y agoThe amount of people that discredit it without understanding is also crazy high. Just because scams exist doesn't mean there aren't real projects and use cases.
- saagarjha 5y ago…which are?
- EvilEy3 5y agoName one. Crypto is one huge scam and pyramid. Period.
- ccortes 5y agoUSDC
- heavyset_go 5y agoSo far, the only valid use case I've seen is buying or selling things on the grey/black market.
- miohtama 5y agoRemittance is a huge use case.
- naturalauction 5y agoRemittance has (at least for me) become way easier in the last few years, using Wise (Transferwise) or even my own bank. The fees are smaller than I'd pay buying and selling crypto for way less hassle and price risk. Unless you mean circumventing capital controls, which is definitely a grey market thing.
- heavyset_go 5y agoDepends on the size of the remittance and whether the receiver is well banked, has photo ID and a smart phone. You can send $50 via Western Union for $1.25, but it might cost 10x to 20x that in BTC transaction fees alone. The receiver can pick up cash at any WU location without an ID, but the last time I checked, to cash out cryptocurrency into a currency people actually use, exchanges require bank accounts, photo IDs and smart phones with cameras that can verify identities, and they charge their owns fees on top of the network's transaction fee.
- ccortes 5y ago> The receiver can pick up cash at any WU location without an ID In which country does this happens? Makes no sense to me.
- heavyset_go 5y agoAny country, the sender just has to set a test question and the receiver has to have the transfer number and the answer.
- miohtama 5y agoIf you call cryptocurrencies pyramid and that implies scam, then you need to call a lot of other things scams as well if new money is paying out old money. This includes notably most of pension funds which are underfunded and underyielding. Here is my post that has more discussion on the topic: https://capitalgram.com/posts/history-of-cryptocurrencies/ https://capitalgram.com/posts/history-of-cryptocurrencies/
- psychstudio 5y agoSam Altman (among others) is an investor in https://reserve.org/ https://reserve.org/. Is that a scam?
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- bluetwo 5y agoThere is an interesting use case, web monetization API. https://webmonetization.org https://webmonetization.org It is a proposed standard (not accepted) that allows you to use micro-payments in crypto to pay for access to sites as you browse the web. While it isn't perfect, a web free of paywalls and ads is something I would pay for, if it was easy to use, secure, and integrated into the browser. I'm not sure it will have enough momentum to become a thing, but it is an interesting idea. And, to your point, the only legit use case for crypto I have seen.
- jsutton 5y agoEthereum? This is a pretty small minded view, considering the amount of talent and resources dedicated to building blockchain and crypto infrastructure.
- ALittleLight 5y agoI like the idea of distributed computation but I've not really understood a good use case for it. I know you can use smart contacts to make tokens and NFTs and what not, but that all seems like saying a thing isn't useless because you can use it to make stuff that is useless. It's not much of a use. Do you have an example of something useful or valuable done with ethereum?
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- OnuRC 5y agoEntire financial system is a bigger scam and pumped by unlimited fiat printing that lend to certain people/banks/business at no cost. What are you talking about?
- Nasrudith 5y agoThey are an especially pathological manifestation of Buzzword Zombies who shamble around brainlessly suggesting use of their golden hammer in all contexts. Actual finance graduated though? What the fuck were they doing in class all of those years to even think of the two as comparable?! For one let me know when I can get a mortgage or auto loan from bitcoin itself.
- amelius 5y agoI think this is because "cool startup" works as a signal for speculation. It doesn't matter that there is no value backing it, investors have this unwritten agreement that cool sounding projects get investments and with money behind the project, it automatically becomes more valuable.
- tudorw 5y agoLet's not knock it, vast swathes of internet were built with hype money, if something is really novel, it takes a leap of faith to invest.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- alisonkisk 5y agoNot really. Government grants, paying telecom customers, ad buyers, porn buyers.
- pessimizer 5y agoThe only difference between selling bullshit and selling quality is that quality will get you more positive word-of-mouth advertising per sale. If you're selling bullshit, you need to either actively suppress the word-of-mouth, drown it out with marketing spend, or offer a cut of future profits (or something that looks like a cut of future profits) to buyers.
- varsketiz 5y agoWhat about recurring customers? Clearly this is not the only difference.
- imiric 5y agoCon artistry is an old profession, this is just the modern take on it. It's the Theranos approach. With a charismatic and strong character as founder you can build hype and get investments without even having a product. Being on friendly terms with investors also helps to establish trust.
- Nasrudith 5y agoHere is something which struck me as obvious yet would get furiously disputed: if you care about the charisma of a company head, or any other superficial aspect like City of London fashion etiquette you are being an idiot and are asking to get scammed by privileging what you expect to see above talent. It is what they do that is the important part.
- alisonkisk 5y agoTheranos desperately tried to build a product. They failed and lied about it. The plan wasn't to profit from the fake stuff and exit.
- nradov 5y agoYou're being too charitable to Theranos. Elizabeth Holmes was lying and faking almost from the beginning.
- lottin 5y agoOne thing I've noticed about the crypto crowd is many of them seem to genuinely struggle to differentiate a scam from a legitimate business. Some are obviously scammers, but others it seems they don't really know what they're doing... they think they're running a business.
- kordlessagain 5y agoMost of them would struggle to understand how the shit works as well.
- miohtama 5y agoLike with all businesses, there is a difference between failing for right reasons (tried hard, run out of runway) and wrong reasons (lied to the investors). Unfortunately unsophisticated investors do not understand the difference. I have collected some of the cases and different points on my post here, including the infamous OneCoin: https://capitalgram.com/posts/history-of-cryptocurrencies/ https://capitalgram.com/posts/history-of-cryptocurrencies/
- snotrockets 5y agoNo wonder: there aren’t any legitimate businesses. It’s all speculation and money laundering. No other reason to not use real money
- tootie 5y agoTheranos springs to mind. When you can dazzle enough rich people with FOMO over technologies they don't understand, it can be pretty easy.