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11 years of evolution and counting, and still nothing to show for it besides the now habitual pump-and-dump cycle. If cryptocurrencies are so good at transferr

by simias 5y ago

11 years of evolution and counting, and still nothing to show for it besides the now habitual pump-and-dump cycle. If cryptocurrencies are so good at transferring money what's stopping them from replacing existing solutions? Literal billions have been poured in the tech and it still fails to reach any significant adoption outside of get-rich-quick schemes. In 2017 during the previous bubble I asked people on this forum how long it'd be before cryptocurrencies actually delivered on that mythical "tech" and we'd get actual mainstream real world applications. A couple of people replied that it would take a year or two. Can I get an update on that?

xvector 5y ago
> 11 years of evolution and counting, and still nothing to show for it besides the now habitual pump-and-dump cycle What, precisely, are you looking for cryptocurrencies to “show” you? Transactions work today. Plenty of people use them for exchanging actual value, quickly and anonymously (or pseudonymously) across the world. > If cryptocurrencies are so good at transferring money what's stopping them from replacing existing solutions? Why would the financial industry do anything to encourage the adoption of crypto? It strips them of their power. They rely on you keeping and sending money with them - the democratized platform of cryptocurrencies are a potential threat. > Literal billions have been poured in the tech Sorry, billions have been poured into a worthless speculative market. The developers are not receiving billions, they are still volunteers. And yet there has been a massive amount of development in the crypto space over the past 12 years. NANO enabling instant transactions, XMR allowing for privacy, etc. > how long it'd be before cryptocurrencies actually delivered on that mythical "tech" and we'd get actual mainstream real world applications […] Can I get an update on that? I ask again, what exactly are you looking for? In terms of real-world usage, well, crypto has been used for years. Drug/Darknet markets, for one. Ransomware for another. These are stress-tests for any currency and prove that crypto can work to exchange value in a real market setting. Further adoption is really up to people, and it will likely happen anyways as the technology improves. A lot of work has been done, but there is a long way to go.
- jlokier 5y ago
  > The developers are not receiving billions, they are still volunteers. This has not been true for some years. There's been a lot of ICO money, and some of it is used to pay full time developers.
  - xvector 5y ago
    I really suppose it depends on the crypto you are talking about. Still, most cryptocurrencies are undergoing rapid development today, so I don’t see why people are complaining and calling it dead.
  - moosebear847 5y ago
    Most ICO money has already been spent in the bahamas. This is probably less of a joke than it appears :)
- skytreader 5y ago
  > Drug/Darknet markets, for one. Ransomware for another. These are stress-tests for any currency and prove that crypto can work to exchange value in a real market setting. Those aren't real market environments by a long shot and far from stress tests. These markets have transactions that are low-volume but high-value. Me, what I'm looking for is something along the lines of "How many grocery transactions globally can crypto do per second?", i.e., high-volume, low-value. Now _that's_ a stress test. Quick Google survey tells me that BTC can do 10 transactions per second _tops_. That's far from a workable state of affairs. It's not even "promising tech".
  - xvector 5y ago
    > Those aren't real market environments by a long shot and far from stress tests. They are definitely real markets. You buy something at a free market price and get something in return. They are definitely stress tests in that they prove that crypto can be used as digital cash. You can not buy drugs safely with a PayPal, Zelle, wire transfer, or ACH, but you can with Monero. This fulfills the original vision of cryptocurrency: decentralized, uncensored exchange of value without being at the mercy of another. There is not really a more difficult stress test that tests the ideal and purpose of cryptocurrency. > Me, what I'm looking for is something along the lines of "How many grocery transactions globally can crypto do per second?" Again, why does HN expect crypto to be perfect today? It will improve over time. For what it’s worth, today, - NANO transactions confirm instantly. The network can handle over 7000 TPS, more than Visa’s peak of 4000 TPS. Nano TPS scales with the size of the network. - XMR transactions confirm in <2 minutes. XMR can max out at about 1700 TPS, which is much more than what is actually needed. XMR TPS will scale with the capabilities of XMR nodes (mainly network speed). In the coming years, - ETH2 with Optimistic Rollups can scale to 100,000 TPS. - Lightning on BTC will enable millions of TPS. Again, this is a technology in its infancy. I do not understand the disappointment - Rome wasn’t built in a day. Replicating the concept of exchange of cash digitally, in a global, decentralized, trustless manner is no small feat. If it works, we free will users of digital currency from the mercy of banks, and give them back their financial privacy.
atweiden 5y ago
There never was any real world application to cryptocurrency beyond what Satoshi invented in 2009 with Bitcoin — a global currency of fixed supply controlled by computer algorithms. Every coin launched subsequent to Bitcoin has been a money grab dressed up in heaps of ludicrous marketing lingo, defended by paid-off law firms and celebrity VCs on the take, obscured via technobabble, and powered exclusively by FOMO and greed.
- xvector 5y ago
  > There never was any real world application to cryptocurrency beyond what Satoshi invented in 2009 with Bitcoin All this shows is that you haven’t spent even 5 minutes trying to understand crypto, and yet you judge it regardless. - The introduction of true anonymity (as opposed to mere pseudonymity) with XMR has been significant. - The introduction of rapid, feeless transactions with NANO has been significant. - The introduction of smart contracts with Ethereum has been significant. Each of these solutions completely change the crypto sphere and significantly expand its potential use case. Each of these provide something at the protocol layer that Bitcoin does not. And there have been plenty of significant developments beyond these. But bitterness is blinding. I would be fascinated to hear your evidence for why these are “a money grab dressed up in heaps of ludicrous marketing lingo, defended by paid-off law firms.”
- hparadiz 5y ago
  You should read about the Helium Network.
  - csharptwdec19 5y ago
    I'm frankly excited about Helium and did go ahead and buy a 'miner' access point. Will it pan out? IDK. But the use case and implementation (For those not aware, a Helium 'miner' is providing a low data rate wireless access point, and you get coins for providing coverage over an area) seem far more feasible from a conceptual standpoint.

by simias 5y ago

xvector 5y ago

> 11 years of evolution and counting, and still nothing to show for it besides the now habitual pump-and-dump cycle What, precisely, are you looking for cryptocurrencies to “show” you? Transactions work today. Plenty of people use them for exchanging actual value, quickly and anonymously (or pseudonymously) across the world. > If cryptocurrencies are so good at transferring money what's stopping them from replacing existing solutions? Why would the financial industry do anything to encourage the adoption of crypto? It strips them of their power. They rely on you keeping and sending money with them - the democratized platform of cryptocurrencies are a potential threat. > Literal billions have been poured in the tech Sorry, billions have been poured into a worthless speculative market. The developers are not receiving billions, they are still volunteers. And yet there has been a massive amount of development in the crypto space over the past 12 years. NANO enabling instant transactions, XMR allowing for privacy, etc. > how long it'd be before cryptocurrencies actually delivered on that mythical "tech" and we'd get actual mainstream real world applications […] Can I get an update on that? I ask again, what exactly are you looking for? In terms of real-world usage, well, crypto has been used for years. Drug/Darknet markets, for one. Ransomware for another. These are stress-tests for any currency and prove that crypto can work to exchange value in a real market setting. Further adoption is really up to people, and it will likely happen anyways as the technology improves. A lot of work has been done, but there is a long way to go.

jlokier 5y ago
> The developers are not receiving billions, they are still volunteers. This has not been true for some years. There's been a lot of ICO money, and some of it is used to pay full time developers.
- xvector 5y ago
  I really suppose it depends on the crypto you are talking about. Still, most cryptocurrencies are undergoing rapid development today, so I don’t see why people are complaining and calling it dead.
- moosebear847 5y ago
  Most ICO money has already been spent in the bahamas. This is probably less of a joke than it appears :)
skytreader 5y ago
> Drug/Darknet markets, for one. Ransomware for another. These are stress-tests for any currency and prove that crypto can work to exchange value in a real market setting. Those aren't real market environments by a long shot and far from stress tests. These markets have transactions that are low-volume but high-value. Me, what I'm looking for is something along the lines of "How many grocery transactions globally can crypto do per second?", i.e., high-volume, low-value. Now _that's_ a stress test. Quick Google survey tells me that BTC can do 10 transactions per second _tops_. That's far from a workable state of affairs. It's not even "promising tech".
- xvector 5y ago
  > Those aren't real market environments by a long shot and far from stress tests. They are definitely real markets. You buy something at a free market price and get something in return. They are definitely stress tests in that they prove that crypto can be used as digital cash. You can not buy drugs safely with a PayPal, Zelle, wire transfer, or ACH, but you can with Monero. This fulfills the original vision of cryptocurrency: decentralized, uncensored exchange of value without being at the mercy of another. There is not really a more difficult stress test that tests the ideal and purpose of cryptocurrency. > Me, what I'm looking for is something along the lines of "How many grocery transactions globally can crypto do per second?" Again, why does HN expect crypto to be perfect today? It will improve over time. For what it’s worth, today, - NANO transactions confirm instantly. The network can handle over 7000 TPS, more than Visa’s peak of 4000 TPS. Nano TPS scales with the size of the network. - XMR transactions confirm in <2 minutes. XMR can max out at about 1700 TPS, which is much more than what is actually needed. XMR TPS will scale with the capabilities of XMR nodes (mainly network speed). In the coming years, - ETH2 with Optimistic Rollups can scale to 100,000 TPS. - Lightning on BTC will enable millions of TPS. Again, this is a technology in its infancy. I do not understand the disappointment - Rome wasn’t built in a day. Replicating the concept of exchange of cash digitally, in a global, decentralized, trustless manner is no small feat. If it works, we free will users of digital currency from the mercy of banks, and give them back their financial privacy.

atweiden 5y ago

There never was any real world application to cryptocurrency beyond what Satoshi invented in 2009 with Bitcoin — a global currency of fixed supply controlled by computer algorithms. Every coin launched subsequent to Bitcoin has been a money grab dressed up in heaps of ludicrous marketing lingo, defended by paid-off law firms and celebrity VCs on the take, obscured via technobabble, and powered exclusively by FOMO and greed.

xvector 5y ago
> There never was any real world application to cryptocurrency beyond what Satoshi invented in 2009 with Bitcoin All this shows is that you haven’t spent even 5 minutes trying to understand crypto, and yet you judge it regardless. - The introduction of true anonymity (as opposed to mere pseudonymity) with XMR has been significant. - The introduction of rapid, feeless transactions with NANO has been significant. - The introduction of smart contracts with Ethereum has been significant. Each of these solutions completely change the crypto sphere and significantly expand its potential use case. Each of these provide something at the protocol layer that Bitcoin does not. And there have been plenty of significant developments beyond these. But bitterness is blinding. I would be fascinated to hear your evidence for why these are “a money grab dressed up in heaps of ludicrous marketing lingo, defended by paid-off law firms.”
hparadiz 5y ago
You should read about the Helium Network.
- csharptwdec19 5y ago
  I'm frankly excited about Helium and did go ahead and buy a 'miner' access point. Will it pan out? IDK. But the use case and implementation (For those not aware, a Helium 'miner' is providing a low data rate wireless access point, and you get coins for providing coverage over an area) seem far more feasible from a conceptual standpoint.