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I am just surprised how much negativity is in HN towards Bitcoin. This is the first case of decentralised open source tech winning against big established power

I am just surprised how much negativity is in HN towards Bitcoin. This is the first case of decentralised open source tech winning against big established powers - governments/faceamagoos. We should be celebrating this. I sure hope that Bitcoin is going to be Linux of money/finance. Lightning might not be at the scale it needs to be now but it will improve greatly. maybe it is good enough already? Like Ruby on Rails. People keep talking about it being slow while massive web applications are being built with and billions of dollars being processed.

ausbah 5y ago
by comparing it to Linux do you mean where the backbone of finance is run by Bitcoin (like Linux running servers), or where <1% of users directly use Bitcoin themselves?
- hypnotist 5y ago
  well, Linux is hugely successful open source project. Virtually everyone is "touched" by it directly or indirectly. It is one of core components of internet infrastructure. Bitcoin could be that. (of course I am aware that desktop/direct usage is really small)
  - barnabee 5y ago
    Android users all use Linux. The fact they don’t know is one way it might feel like if most people “use” bitcoin and other decentralised tech.
- beambot 5y ago
  Linux's Unix predecessor originated in the mid-1960s and into the early 1970s. It's almost 50 years old at this point. It didn't even get POSIX compliance until the 1980s, and it was 20-25 years old (2x BTC) when Linus got around to building the Linux kernel. Bitcoin (and blockchain generally) is only 12 years old. Time will tell how well this comment ages... but it's a bit unfair to compare the two directly at their respective ages.
- AbrahamParangi 5y ago
  More people directly use linux today (in the form of Android) than windows.
Apocryphon 5y ago
If BTC used proof-of-stake or some other scheme that was less energy-intensive/made graphics cards a scarce resource there would probably be less hostility towards it.
- lolmm 5y ago
  you dont use graphics card to mine bitcoin. You use ASIC
- GaylordTuring 5y ago
  Just a small correction: You can't mine BTC using graphic cards, so BTC mining has nothing to do with the shortage of those. Ether on the other hand...
chaostheory 5y ago
I'm not. Bitcoin has stagnated, and it hasn't delivered its promise of being used as a DeFi currency. I bet if it was Ethereum that El Salvador had chosen, the opinion wouldn't be as harsh. Proof of stake doesn't have the same energy consumption concerns. imo this is still a great development for all of crypto and DeFi. It will also help protect people who aren't connected and wealthy from losing their value due to ever higher levels of inflation (it is currently much higher than 3%) http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data/inflation-charts http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data/inflation-charts
- keymone 5y ago
  Proof of stake doesn’t use the energy because it doesn’t solve the problem that bitcoin solves.
  - chaostheory 5y ago
    Yes, but what's your point?
    - keymone 5y ago
      it's part of the larger argument: proof of stake systems give up explicit and transparent cost of decentralized permissionless currency for obscure and hidden costs of centralized and permissioned currency. and that cost is generally higher, because proof of work is the most efficient known (or possible) solution of such problem.
dodobirdlord 5y ago
I think a lot of the negativity comes from the fact that this is largely a forum of technologists, and Bitcoin is objectively inferior technology. That's not necessarily a knock against Bitcoin, it was revolutionary when it was introduced, but it was the 1.0 cryptocurrency and it's already essentially fossilized and become legacy technology. Miners hold sway over the community and they're not really interested in changing anything significant about Bitcoin, so now people are talking about absurdities like Lightning layered over Bitcoin to try to mitigate some of the flaws. We can save the effort and fix the flaws of Bitcoin by just moving on from Bitcoin. It's as though we were stuck with SSL 3.0 forever or something. The only reason the vast majority of people advocating for Bitcoin are advocating for Bitcoin specifically is because they have invested in Bitcoin specifically, and they want the price of Bitcoin specifically to go up. Seeing people advocate for us all to be stuck with inferior technology forever because they have a financial stake in the inferior technology is exactly the sort of thing you should expect negativity about on HN.
- loceng 5y ago
  To add to this the blockchain solution that's likely to be adopted will ultimately be multilateral agreements between democratically elected governments deciding to use a technology not designed to align with financial incentive/greed for its adoption, unnecessarily transferring wealth from later adopters weighted tiara towards the earliest adopters.
- keymone 5y ago
  Inferior to what? It’s the first and arguably best technology that brought digital decentralized ownership to humanity. How is that not enough? Personally it seems all the negativity comes from people who don’t get it or those who are salty because they missed the boat.
  - Kbelicius 5y ago
    > Inferior to what? Not the GP but probably to crypto that followed it.
    - 5y ago

ausbah 5y ago

by comparing it to Linux do you mean where the backbone of finance is run by Bitcoin (like Linux running servers), or where <1% of users directly use Bitcoin themselves?

hypnotist 5y ago
well, Linux is hugely successful open source project. Virtually everyone is "touched" by it directly or indirectly. It is one of core components of internet infrastructure. Bitcoin could be that. (of course I am aware that desktop/direct usage is really small)
- barnabee 5y ago
  Android users all use Linux. The fact they don’t know is one way it might feel like if most people “use” bitcoin and other decentralised tech.
beambot 5y ago
Linux's Unix predecessor originated in the mid-1960s and into the early 1970s. It's almost 50 years old at this point. It didn't even get POSIX compliance until the 1980s, and it was 20-25 years old (2x BTC) when Linus got around to building the Linux kernel. Bitcoin (and blockchain generally) is only 12 years old. Time will tell how well this comment ages... but it's a bit unfair to compare the two directly at their respective ages.
AbrahamParangi 5y ago
More people directly use linux today (in the form of Android) than windows.

Apocryphon 5y ago

If BTC used proof-of-stake or some other scheme that was less energy-intensive/made graphics cards a scarce resource there would probably be less hostility towards it.

lolmm 5y ago
you dont use graphics card to mine bitcoin. You use ASIC
GaylordTuring 5y ago
Just a small correction: You can't mine BTC using graphic cards, so BTC mining has nothing to do with the shortage of those. Ether on the other hand...

chaostheory 5y ago

I'm not. Bitcoin has stagnated, and it hasn't delivered its promise of being used as a DeFi currency. I bet if it was Ethereum that El Salvador had chosen, the opinion wouldn't be as harsh. Proof of stake doesn't have the same energy consumption concerns. imo this is still a great development for all of crypto and DeFi. It will also help protect people who aren't connected and wealthy from losing their value due to ever higher levels of inflation (it is currently much higher than 3%) http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data/inflation-charts http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data/inflation-charts

keymone 5y ago
Proof of stake doesn’t use the energy because it doesn’t solve the problem that bitcoin solves.
- chaostheory 5y ago
  Yes, but what's your point?
  - keymone 5y ago
    it's part of the larger argument: proof of stake systems give up explicit and transparent cost of decentralized permissionless currency for obscure and hidden costs of centralized and permissioned currency. and that cost is generally higher, because proof of work is the most efficient known (or possible) solution of such problem.

dodobirdlord 5y ago

I think a lot of the negativity comes from the fact that this is largely a forum of technologists, and Bitcoin is objectively inferior technology. That's not necessarily a knock against Bitcoin, it was revolutionary when it was introduced, but it was the 1.0 cryptocurrency and it's already essentially fossilized and become legacy technology. Miners hold sway over the community and they're not really interested in changing anything significant about Bitcoin, so now people are talking about absurdities like Lightning layered over Bitcoin to try to mitigate some of the flaws. We can save the effort and fix the flaws of Bitcoin by just moving on from Bitcoin. It's as though we were stuck with SSL 3.0 forever or something. The only reason the vast majority of people advocating for Bitcoin are advocating for Bitcoin specifically is because they have invested in Bitcoin specifically, and they want the price of Bitcoin specifically to go up. Seeing people advocate for us all to be stuck with inferior technology forever because they have a financial stake in the inferior technology is exactly the sort of thing you should expect negativity about on HN.

loceng 5y ago
To add to this the blockchain solution that's likely to be adopted will ultimately be multilateral agreements between democratically elected governments deciding to use a technology not designed to align with financial incentive/greed for its adoption, unnecessarily transferring wealth from later adopters weighted tiara towards the earliest adopters.
keymone 5y ago
Inferior to what? It’s the first and arguably best technology that brought digital decentralized ownership to humanity. How is that not enough? Personally it seems all the negativity comes from people who don’t get it or those who are salty because they missed the boat.
- Kbelicius 5y ago
  > Inferior to what? Not the GP but probably to crypto that followed it.
  - 5y ago