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2012-2013 bitcointalk forums had a lot of smart people talking about technology and building stuff. There was also dumb stuff, but I think I'd probably call it

by cwkoss 5y ago

2012-2013 bitcointalk forums had a lot of smart people talking about technology and building stuff. There was also dumb stuff, but I think I'd probably call it a "era of highly educated and high minded people"

cwkoss 5y ago
I remember when someone built a 'crypto stock exchange' (for crypto projects, not traditional stocks) in a month or so. They launched it, and was a technically sufficient stock exchange. It eventually fell apart due to too many questionable projects being listed, and perhaps some additional regulatory factors - but it "worked"! Pretty cool that a 'garage-scale' team can make a functioning technolibertarian market so rapidly. (But also helped me learn to appreciate the utility of regulation :-P) IIRC I think Trendon Shavers/pirateat40's "miner financing" ponzi's implosion was a significant factor in taking it down. There were lots of cool little projects popping up every month. Gambling sites that allowed wagers to be made directly on the blockchain - most engineering was around proving to gamblers that outcome determination was being done fairly. Accountless websites where you'd log in by sending a small fraction of a bitcoin, and your address was used as your identity. When bitcoin was less than $20, it was exciting and easy to experiment with - who cares if the $5 you sent disappears - but then the price spiked, and so fees increased and all of the 'loose change' people had everywhere was suddenly a significant amount of money - exit scams became frequent and people stopped being willing to store small amounts with others, because that small amount could 20x in 4 years. Lots of small businesses posting that they'd accept bitcoin for their products. Found a lovely beekeeper's business that made great honey caramels and beeswax chapstick. I paid a teenager to custom make perler bead pixel art of Liu Kang and Raiden from the original Mortal Kombat (I think I may have paid multiple bitcoins for those :-P - hope they hodled!)

by cwkoss 5y ago

cwkoss 5y ago

I remember when someone built a 'crypto stock exchange' (for crypto projects, not traditional stocks) in a month or so. They launched it, and was a technically sufficient stock exchange. It eventually fell apart due to too many questionable projects being listed, and perhaps some additional regulatory factors - but it "worked"! Pretty cool that a 'garage-scale' team can make a functioning technolibertarian market so rapidly. (But also helped me learn to appreciate the utility of regulation :-P) IIRC I think Trendon Shavers/pirateat40's "miner financing" ponzi's implosion was a significant factor in taking it down. There were lots of cool little projects popping up every month. Gambling sites that allowed wagers to be made directly on the blockchain - most engineering was around proving to gamblers that outcome determination was being done fairly. Accountless websites where you'd log in by sending a small fraction of a bitcoin, and your address was used as your identity. When bitcoin was less than $20, it was exciting and easy to experiment with - who cares if the $5 you sent disappears - but then the price spiked, and so fees increased and all of the 'loose change' people had everywhere was suddenly a significant amount of money - exit scams became frequent and people stopped being willing to store small amounts with others, because that small amount could 20x in 4 years. Lots of small businesses posting that they'd accept bitcoin for their products. Found a lovely beekeeper's business that made great honey caramels and beeswax chapstick. I paid a teenager to custom make perler bead pixel art of Liu Kang and Raiden from the original Mortal Kombat (I think I may have paid multiple bitcoins for those :-P - hope they hodled!)