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I think basically because there is nothing interesting left to discus. One camp (where I am in) basically believes it is an environmental disaster, unsuitable

I think basically because there is nothing interesting left to discus. One camp (where I am in) basically believes it is an environmental disaster, unsuitable for its stated purpose and most likely as scam by the "whales" manipulating the price, and with a potential 51%-disaster. The other camp believes that it is the future of money, untraceable wealth storage and inflation/"confiscation proof" and that all the environmental impact is just a temporary problem, that is solved when proof-of-stake is ready (which IMHO will never happen). The tech itself is quite simple in concept with a few novel key insights in the old days (which by now are generally accepted). So all in all, it is back to good old politics and do you believe in "it" nor not. I think that I see in my network of people that the more technically apt they are, the less they believe in it - but I am not sure whether I just project my own skepticism ... EDIT: typo proof-of-state -> proof-of-stake

roenxi 5y ago
I basically agree; but this oversimplifies the diversity of opinion in both camps. For example, it might well be worth the environmental damage to shift control of international monetary flows from the US government to a true free market. Although the US has been as good a steward as can be hoped for no entity should have that much control over international finance.
- svennek 5y ago
  Sure it oversimplified (most opinions that are somewhat transferable are). I agree with the hope for a better stewardship, but as all people end up moving cryptocurrencies in and out of the "old" financial system (creditcards, swift etc). I fail to see how crypto would help me.. I for one cannot pay for my rent, food, heat, water, power, internet with crypto, can you?
  - pcthrowaway 5y ago
    I can't pay my rent in US dollars, that doesn't make them worthless. Although, to be fair, I did pay a security deposit in bitcoin 6 years ago. Actually, in El Salvador, Bitcoin is now the national currency, so I suspect a lot of people are paying their rent in bitcoin
    - seanmcdirmid 5y ago
      Isn’t El Salvador completely dollarized? It wouldn’t be surprising if most landlords still demanded rent paid in dollars rather than bitcoin (a difference in “the” national currency vs “a” national currency).
      - pcthrowaway 5y ago
        It's illegal to conduct business and not accept bitcoin in El Salvador.. it's the national currency now. I don't know for certain if this applies to landlords however.
        seanmcdirmid 5y ago
        Legal and enforced are also different things (especially when an autocrat is in charge). There are articles on how many poor people lack internet and are completely unbanked. That it is extremely unpopular in El Salvador. https://www.fool.com/the-ascent/amp/cryptocurrency/articles/the-ups-and-downs-of-bitcoins-first-month-in-el-salvador/ https://www.fool.com/the-ascent/amp/cryptocurrency/articles/...
yardstick 5y ago
Interesting comments! Do you mind sharing your thoughts on why proof of stake won’t happen?
- svennek 5y ago
  IMHO because it depends on uncloneability of digital assets.. Which I believe is not possible. The whole thing that makes cryptocurrencies work now is the un-cloneability of the amount of work done (which is why the 51% problem exists in the first place). The only good way of doing it would be through a cartel with strict enforcement of hashrates etc.. And welcome to the financial banking system...
  - dom96 5y ago
    I'm also curious about this but don't really understand this explanation. Can you elaborate more on what "uncloneability of digital assets" means exactly and why it's a pre-requisite of proof-of-stake? Happy to take some links if there are any that explains this well.
    - svennek 5y ago
      All kind of trade depends on value and value depends (mostly) on scarcity. In the real world cloning money (historically precious metals) is really really hard (and btw. much easier with paper money that the metals that have a basket of physical attributes that cannot be emulated at once). Digital bits on the other hand are indefenately cloneable (by design, that is one of the base properties of "digital"). Just for you to see my text here, along the way somewhere around 20 perfect copies were made by various routers (i.e. computers)..
  - vbs_redlof 5y ago
    You're confusing concepts and blockchain fundamentals. "Uncloneability" is the double-spending problem solved by proof-of-work/hashcash scheme. The 51% attack is not the problem, it's just a requirement for a PoW based blockchain to work. Just like how you have 1/3 honest node requirements in traditional BFT distributed database designs.
ajg4 5y ago
Why will proof-of-stake never happen?
- leroman 5y ago
  Not op but will give my thoughts- The only theory I'm aware of, which the "proof-of-stake" approach is based on, is some form of "game theory", my translation - "people won't do evil stuff since it's against their interest", which generally aligns with people being rational and basing economic theories on top of this thesis.
  - cliftonk 5y ago
    Every major chain except bitcoin and ethereum is proof-of-stake now. And in less than a year, ethereum will be proof of stake. People that say proof-of-stake "won't work" have no idea what they're talking about.
    - ashwagary 5y ago
      >People that say proof-of-stake "won't work" have no idea what they're talking about. My understanding is every POS blockchain is centralized and not secure. Can you name a POS blockchain that you think has achieved sufficient decentralization and security so we can test your claim? PS: How about answering the question instead of preemptively downvoting and attempting to shutting down the conversation. If POS truly works, you should be happy to provide an example or even multiple examples. Any reluctance is a red flag...
- speedgoose 5y ago
  In my opinion it's because it has not happened yet. Yes I know about the etherium experiment that has been delayed many times but may be running currently, but the crypto community seem to prefer the proof of work.
  - ashwagary 5y ago
    They prefer POW because it's actually more secure and decentralized. ETH POS results in a smaller group of people controlling the network, majority of fully validating nodes running on AWS, and introduces massive collusion/attack risks. ETH POS has many of the bad characteristics current central banks have...
onethought 5y ago
The environmental argument is a straw man, and not really related to crypto, but actually related to our energy mix. If crypto was mined only on renewables there is no environmental argument. Ergo, not related to crypto technology itself.
- Ekaros 5y ago
  Burning electricity as heat just so our currency is little bit more resilient doesn't really seem in anyway efficient way to do things. And any efficiency gains are negated because we will just do more of it. Any other industry including financial one will try to minimise the waste if it becomes unreasonable. Not so with proof of work crypto.
- Scarblac 5y ago
  Energy is fungible, we don't have 100% green energy and won't for a very long time, we make up the difference with fossil. Even if crypto used green energy only, it means more fossil burned. To continue human civilization we need to stop fossil burning as much as possible, crypto is unnecessary and should therefore be stopped.
  - onethought 5y ago
    But that is solved with a price on carbon. That would make mining without renewables unprofitable. How do you argue that something is unnecessary? Aluminum uses heaps of energy… we haven’t needed in for 1000s of years, is it neccersary?
- gjulianm 5y ago
  It's not a straw man. Yes, if the energy mix was only reliant of renewables, energy usage wouldn't be as much as a problem. But it is not, and won't be in years, decades, so we can't just brush off the energy usage of crypto as "well it's the energy mix fault". You cannot evaluate a technology in isolation of its real world, practical context. Not to mention that even with renewables, energy usage would be still a concern. Renewables will still have issues around distribution, power peaks, energy storage, price, and crypto wouldn't be helping any of them. A discussion of how would crypto affect the rest of the people compared to the benefit it brings would still be relevant.
Semaphor 5y ago
There is a 3rd camp I count myself in that sits somewhere in the middle and stays out of most HN CC discussions because there seem to be almost only extremists discussing.
- svennek 5y ago
  I actually belong more to camp three than the "no/scam" camp... But I do lean towards no real purpose, that cannot be better (i.e. more efficiently) done otherwise...
  - kayamon 5y ago
    Indeed, which is why the inefficiency in Bitcoin is deliberate. People seem to overlook that. If you goal is simply to send numbers around the world, of course there are better methods.
larrysalibra 5y ago
In fairness to the present, the first post on HN about bitcoin[1] had 3 comments: 1) this is amazing and will save humanity 2) this is dumb no one will ever use it 3) this is confusing That ratio doesn’t seem that much different than recent posts. I think you’re right that most people at least on HN have decided what they believe when it comes to bitcoin. Ultimately money is a belief and not just any belief but one so central to our identities that we often organize our lives around how we can get enough money. Strong beliefs get tied into our identities so that threats to those beliefs will be viewed as many as attacks on their identities. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=599852 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=599852
- reginold 5y ago
  Is there a place for the #1 group to go for curious conversation? (Curious conversation requires subtracting out the speculation about price and money)
  - kayamon 5y ago
    I've been following Alex Gladstein[1] on Twitter and there's been lots of interesting podcasts and other discussions worth checking out. [1] https://twitter.com/gladstein https://twitter.com/gladstein
    - reginold 5y ago
      Thanks for the suggestion! Looks like a great rec, I see he retweeted some kind of debate that looks interesting. I'm pretty dubious of Twitter as a platform though. There's so much other stuff, and Twitter injects its own crapola into the feeds too. I've bookmarked his profile instead, look forward to checking it out.
      - glenvdb 5y ago
        If you're interested, but want to skip the noise on Twitter, uou can read most of his work in regards to Bitcoin and its humanitarian impact here: https://bitcoinmagazine.com/authors/alexgladstein https://bitcoinmagazine.com/authors/alexgladstein
delusional 5y ago
I think it goes a little deeper. The whole discussion basically mirrors real life politics. One camp want's more collective action to help the unfortunate, the other wants absolute freedom for the individual.
- svennek 5y ago
  How do you see bitcoin fit into that axis, i.e. how does bitcoin help the unfortunate (that is VERY late to the "game") ? That might disprove my "nothing interesting to discus.
  - throwaway554 5y ago
    Bitcoin is an unconfiscable, permissionless inflation hedge. It's a big deal for people that live in authoritarian countries that coincidentally always have huge inflation numbers.
    - svennek 5y ago
      Until you end up in jail... sadly. That is my point. If your country is "sufficiently bad" bitcoin will not (and cannot) help you in the long run.
      - throwaway554 5y ago
        Until you cross the borders and move all your wealth with you by memorizing 12 words.
        svennek 5y ago
        Tell that to the the people of the ex-DDR, the North Korea and REALLY targeted individuals.. Sadly there exists no sure way to secure you belongings if the other party is sufficiently motivated to strip you of them (or your life).. You can also be killed/robbed outside of your country by intelligence officers of your country...
munhitsu 5y ago
proof-of-stake already exists - we call it "traditional bank"
prohobo 5y ago
Yeah, I'd say your entire approach is antithetical to healthy discussion: insinuating anyone who is interested in crypto is technically inept, and turning the discussion into a 2-sides polarization. There's no use in talking about crypto in a sincere way now because of the way its been politicized. I tried recently to explain to someone that cryptographically codifying law and contracts can be beneficial in a lot of ways (like transparency/enforcement in governance), in a purely theoretical sense - but they just kept making disgusted faces and saying bitcoin is a scam (?). I'm not sure there's any rational energy behind any of it, it seems to me like any other political "issue" since 2016, like the Rittenhouse trial.
- gjulianm 5y ago
  > I tried recently to explain to someone that cryptographically codifying law and contracts can be beneficial in a lot of ways (like transparency/enforcement in governance) There's another trend with crypto discussions which relates to this idea you said. I see a lot of discussions on applications that follow the template: X has not been done, and X can be done with crypto, so now that crypto is available X will be done. It is very hard to discuss that maybe X wasn't done before not because of technology, but because of other issues. For example, the problem of transparency and enforcement in governance is not that we lack the technology: it's that we lack the initiative and the detailed procedures. I also see a lot of discussions around NFTs being used to sell used digital games: again, it hasn't been done not because tracking ownership is difficult but because allowing that would take a large bite of game sellers/developers profits. 99% of the applications I see discussed can be done without blockchain, but people never seriously ask themselves why is that and instead say that crypto will solve it.
  - prohobo 5y ago
    You're wrong about "lacking initiative and the detailed procedures" - that's exactly what blockchains were created for: As a response to opaque and unreliable systems. This is the solution to a systematic problem in governance. Blockchains simply add verifiability of claims. Yes, you could create a central system which flags "bad actions" or something, but it'd be difficult to prove someone scammed you without the cooperation of the central authority. Breaking the rules digitally shouldn't be possible in a properly designed system, which is what some blockchains can provide. Currently if someone says "no I didn't scam you", the truth of their statement is ambiguous without cooperative investigation. On a blockchain it's inherently unambiguous and the information is immediately available for all parties involved to know how to proceed. Obviously this has more applications than scammers/cheaters, which is why blockchain tech is so heavily experimented with and being integrated in so many other areas of tech.
anonymoushn 5y ago
lots of PoS chains are live today. As I regularly post whenever it comes up, SPL USDC is a dramatically better payment experience than wire transfers or debit cards or whatever, and I wish I could accept all payments this way and pay all bills this way.
rocqua 5y ago
I disagree. There is a lot of interesting things to discuss. But all of them start from the premise "blockchain works as a distributed ledger". People in the camp you are in are not that interested in those discussions, because you disagree with the premise. These interesting things are about how to do privacy, build second layers, make other smart functionality, etc. In general there are actual cryptographic innovations coming out of these systems. Zcash was truly positive to research into Zero Knowledge Proofs. At the same time, discussions often get muddied by a few vocal people who are trying to hype up their investments. I imagine some of these people are just hyping, and others have bought into the believe, and cannot handle the cognitive dissonance of 'maybe there is something wrong with this'.
- svennek 5y ago
  Oh, it works as a distributed ledger (that is already proven). I just fail to see how it is better than so many other alternatives on a case-by-case basis... mostly on efficiency... And just because I don't believe in the idea itself, I acknowledge that some good can come of it.. See for example wars, where most cutting edge innovation happens. I think wars are bad (but sometimes necessary), but we are reaping the benefits of generals wanting to throw more cannonballs further (If you are unsure I mean our computers where developed mostly because of that), also microwaves, the internet (a cold war though) and lots and lots of other stuff...
glenvdb 5y ago
> I think that I see in my network of people that the more technically apt they are, the less they believe in it This is because they just see the blockchain as an inefficient database, rather than really understanding the problems Bitcoin solves and why Satoshi made the choices they did. There are important trade-offs between efficiency, redundancy, decentralisation, and robustness in an adversarial environment. The other aspect is that they just look at Bitcoin through a technological lens and judge it inferior to other networking & data storage technologies. They don't have a deep grasp of the concept of money and what properties makes for a sound form of money. Vijay Boyapati (ex-Google engineer) does a pretty good job explaining it from that perspective [1]. It's a shame that so many, otherwise smart, people are sleeping on such a revolutionary change in the world. The idea of Bitcoin has been thought about and predicted for many years by people held in high-regard among HN readers, such as Buckminster Fuller [2], Henry Ford [3], and Friedrich Hayek [4], and they'll still dismiss it out of hand. Such a massive lost opportunity for great skills, knowledge, and talent to be applied to what I think is one of the most important innovations of our civilisation. [1] https://vijayboyapati.medium.com/the-bullish-case-for-bitcoin-6ecc8bdecc1 https://vijayboyapati.medium.com/the-bullish-case-for-bitcoi... [2] https://news.bitcoin.com/look-at-how-buckminster-fuller-predicted-bitcoin-realistic-scientific-accounting-system-what-is-wealth/ https://news.bitcoin.com/look-at-how-buckminster-fuller-pred... [3] https://news.bitcoin.com/how-henry-ford-envisaged-bitcoin-100-years-ago-a-unique-energy-currency-that-could-stop-wars/ https://news.bitcoin.com/how-henry-ford-envisaged-bitcoin-10... [4] https://twitter.com/janpaul_f/status/1461596623038038017?s=21 https://twitter.com/janpaul_f/status/1461596623038038017?s=2...
- LispShmisp 5y ago
  Your post comes off strongly as cultish/MLMish. Sorry I don't know how to phrase it so it doesn't come as a personal attack. Most of the crypto posts sound like it. > This is because they just see the blockchain as an inefficient database I think it's crazy that you feel this way, I can only speak for myself and a few others, but we do in fact fully understand it and why it works this way. Satoshi is not some god that has come to save us. He saw something that fraction of people in society consider to be a problem and attempted to solve it. He did not consider complex ways that his solution would interact with the society. A lot of us think that crypto causes more problems than it solves.
newacc9 5y ago
You could have written this summary in 2015, you're not keeping current.
OJFord 5y ago
I think Ethereum (as in its contracts) is interesting, there's just too much get rich quick fud, SNR too low, for me to confidently be 'actively interested'. Some kind of novel things could be done with it, like that distributed storage thing is sort of interesting. There's a peer to peer betting thing based on (somewhow the outcomes are available to the program?) it I saw on HN a while ago which is sort of interesting.
- reginold 5y ago
  A way to decrease the noise would be most appreciated. I'm confident there's lifetimes worth of signal, even in crypto developments in the last year. But there is an ungodly amount of noise over price, outrage, etc. I asked in a new thread about where to go for curious conversations about cryptocurrencies: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29297611 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29297611
  - superfad 5y ago
    I think this is pretty much the same question that was discussed a couple of weeks ago. Worth a read, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29139813 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29139813
    - reginold 5y ago
      Oh wow missed this! Will link to it from the thread I started as well. Thank you! For anyone else who reads that thread -- the good links and suggestions are near the bottom of the thread.
deleted 5y ago
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przeor 5y ago
paper money is also enviromental disaster. How many trees were cut just for it and how many people were paid to keep the paper money innovation going eg. bank employees siting on chairs waiting for customers while doing harm for the enviroment by producing CO2 (opportunity cost)
- babygoat 5y ago
  Paper money is not actually made of paper.
reginold 5y ago
Agreed, there is nothing left for the HN community to discuss about cryptocurrencies. There is plenty worth discussing for others though. I posted a thread here asking where to go to find curiosity driven discussions about the topic: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29297611 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29297611
carl_misj 5y ago
> the more technically apt they are, the less they believe in it your network seem to be opposite of general population, where less technically apt less believe (economists, news people, etc.) i suspect it has more to do with political leaning, i.e. more center-conformist less believe, outside center more believe

roenxi 5y ago

I basically agree; but this oversimplifies the diversity of opinion in both camps. For example, it might well be worth the environmental damage to shift control of international monetary flows from the US government to a true free market. Although the US has been as good a steward as can be hoped for no entity should have that much control over international finance.

svennek 5y ago
Sure it oversimplified (most opinions that are somewhat transferable are). I agree with the hope for a better stewardship, but as all people end up moving cryptocurrencies in and out of the "old" financial system (creditcards, swift etc). I fail to see how crypto would help me.. I for one cannot pay for my rent, food, heat, water, power, internet with crypto, can you?
- pcthrowaway 5y ago
  I can't pay my rent in US dollars, that doesn't make them worthless. Although, to be fair, I did pay a security deposit in bitcoin 6 years ago. Actually, in El Salvador, Bitcoin is now the national currency, so I suspect a lot of people are paying their rent in bitcoin
  - seanmcdirmid 5y ago
    Isn’t El Salvador completely dollarized? It wouldn’t be surprising if most landlords still demanded rent paid in dollars rather than bitcoin (a difference in “the” national currency vs “a” national currency).
    - pcthrowaway 5y ago
      It's illegal to conduct business and not accept bitcoin in El Salvador.. it's the national currency now. I don't know for certain if this applies to landlords however.
      - seanmcdirmid 5y ago
        Legal and enforced are also different things (especially when an autocrat is in charge). There are articles on how many poor people lack internet and are completely unbanked. That it is extremely unpopular in El Salvador. https://www.fool.com/the-ascent/amp/cryptocurrency/articles/the-ups-and-downs-of-bitcoins-first-month-in-el-salvador/ https://www.fool.com/the-ascent/amp/cryptocurrency/articles/...

yardstick 5y ago

Interesting comments! Do you mind sharing your thoughts on why proof of stake won’t happen?

svennek 5y ago
IMHO because it depends on uncloneability of digital assets.. Which I believe is not possible. The whole thing that makes cryptocurrencies work now is the un-cloneability of the amount of work done (which is why the 51% problem exists in the first place). The only good way of doing it would be through a cartel with strict enforcement of hashrates etc.. And welcome to the financial banking system...
- dom96 5y ago
  I'm also curious about this but don't really understand this explanation. Can you elaborate more on what "uncloneability of digital assets" means exactly and why it's a pre-requisite of proof-of-stake? Happy to take some links if there are any that explains this well.
  - svennek 5y ago
    All kind of trade depends on value and value depends (mostly) on scarcity. In the real world cloning money (historically precious metals) is really really hard (and btw. much easier with paper money that the metals that have a basket of physical attributes that cannot be emulated at once). Digital bits on the other hand are indefenately cloneable (by design, that is one of the base properties of "digital"). Just for you to see my text here, along the way somewhere around 20 perfect copies were made by various routers (i.e. computers)..
- vbs_redlof 5y ago
  You're confusing concepts and blockchain fundamentals. "Uncloneability" is the double-spending problem solved by proof-of-work/hashcash scheme. The 51% attack is not the problem, it's just a requirement for a PoW based blockchain to work. Just like how you have 1/3 honest node requirements in traditional BFT distributed database designs.

ajg4 5y ago

Why will proof-of-stake never happen?

leroman 5y ago
Not op but will give my thoughts- The only theory I'm aware of, which the "proof-of-stake" approach is based on, is some form of "game theory", my translation - "people won't do evil stuff since it's against their interest", which generally aligns with people being rational and basing economic theories on top of this thesis.
- cliftonk 5y ago
  Every major chain except bitcoin and ethereum is proof-of-stake now. And in less than a year, ethereum will be proof of stake. People that say proof-of-stake "won't work" have no idea what they're talking about.
  - ashwagary 5y ago
    >People that say proof-of-stake "won't work" have no idea what they're talking about. My understanding is every POS blockchain is centralized and not secure. Can you name a POS blockchain that you think has achieved sufficient decentralization and security so we can test your claim? PS: How about answering the question instead of preemptively downvoting and attempting to shutting down the conversation. If POS truly works, you should be happy to provide an example or even multiple examples. Any reluctance is a red flag...
speedgoose 5y ago
In my opinion it's because it has not happened yet. Yes I know about the etherium experiment that has been delayed many times but may be running currently, but the crypto community seem to prefer the proof of work.
- ashwagary 5y ago
  They prefer POW because it's actually more secure and decentralized. ETH POS results in a smaller group of people controlling the network, majority of fully validating nodes running on AWS, and introduces massive collusion/attack risks. ETH POS has many of the bad characteristics current central banks have...

onethought 5y ago

The environmental argument is a straw man, and not really related to crypto, but actually related to our energy mix. If crypto was mined only on renewables there is no environmental argument. Ergo, not related to crypto technology itself.

Ekaros 5y ago
Burning electricity as heat just so our currency is little bit more resilient doesn't really seem in anyway efficient way to do things. And any efficiency gains are negated because we will just do more of it. Any other industry including financial one will try to minimise the waste if it becomes unreasonable. Not so with proof of work crypto.
Scarblac 5y ago
Energy is fungible, we don't have 100% green energy and won't for a very long time, we make up the difference with fossil. Even if crypto used green energy only, it means more fossil burned. To continue human civilization we need to stop fossil burning as much as possible, crypto is unnecessary and should therefore be stopped.
- onethought 5y ago
  But that is solved with a price on carbon. That would make mining without renewables unprofitable. How do you argue that something is unnecessary? Aluminum uses heaps of energy… we haven’t needed in for 1000s of years, is it neccersary?
gjulianm 5y ago
It's not a straw man. Yes, if the energy mix was only reliant of renewables, energy usage wouldn't be as much as a problem. But it is not, and won't be in years, decades, so we can't just brush off the energy usage of crypto as "well it's the energy mix fault". You cannot evaluate a technology in isolation of its real world, practical context. Not to mention that even with renewables, energy usage would be still a concern. Renewables will still have issues around distribution, power peaks, energy storage, price, and crypto wouldn't be helping any of them. A discussion of how would crypto affect the rest of the people compared to the benefit it brings would still be relevant.

Semaphor 5y ago

There is a 3rd camp I count myself in that sits somewhere in the middle and stays out of most HN CC discussions because there seem to be almost only extremists discussing.

svennek 5y ago
I actually belong more to camp three than the "no/scam" camp... But I do lean towards no real purpose, that cannot be better (i.e. more efficiently) done otherwise...
- kayamon 5y ago
  Indeed, which is why the inefficiency in Bitcoin is deliberate. People seem to overlook that. If you goal is simply to send numbers around the world, of course there are better methods.

larrysalibra 5y ago

In fairness to the present, the first post on HN about bitcoin[1] had 3 comments: 1) this is amazing and will save humanity 2) this is dumb no one will ever use it 3) this is confusing That ratio doesn’t seem that much different than recent posts. I think you’re right that most people at least on HN have decided what they believe when it comes to bitcoin. Ultimately money is a belief and not just any belief but one so central to our identities that we often organize our lives around how we can get enough money. Strong beliefs get tied into our identities so that threats to those beliefs will be viewed as many as attacks on their identities. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=599852 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=599852

reginold 5y ago
Is there a place for the #1 group to go for curious conversation? (Curious conversation requires subtracting out the speculation about price and money)
- kayamon 5y ago
  I've been following Alex Gladstein[1] on Twitter and there's been lots of interesting podcasts and other discussions worth checking out. [1] https://twitter.com/gladstein https://twitter.com/gladstein
  - reginold 5y ago
    Thanks for the suggestion! Looks like a great rec, I see he retweeted some kind of debate that looks interesting. I'm pretty dubious of Twitter as a platform though. There's so much other stuff, and Twitter injects its own crapola into the feeds too. I've bookmarked his profile instead, look forward to checking it out.
    - glenvdb 5y ago
      If you're interested, but want to skip the noise on Twitter, uou can read most of his work in regards to Bitcoin and its humanitarian impact here: https://bitcoinmagazine.com/authors/alexgladstein https://bitcoinmagazine.com/authors/alexgladstein

delusional 5y ago

I think it goes a little deeper. The whole discussion basically mirrors real life politics. One camp want's more collective action to help the unfortunate, the other wants absolute freedom for the individual.

svennek 5y ago
How do you see bitcoin fit into that axis, i.e. how does bitcoin help the unfortunate (that is VERY late to the "game") ? That might disprove my "nothing interesting to discus.
- throwaway554 5y ago
  Bitcoin is an unconfiscable, permissionless inflation hedge. It's a big deal for people that live in authoritarian countries that coincidentally always have huge inflation numbers.
  - svennek 5y ago
    Until you end up in jail... sadly. That is my point. If your country is "sufficiently bad" bitcoin will not (and cannot) help you in the long run.
    - throwaway554 5y ago
      Until you cross the borders and move all your wealth with you by memorizing 12 words.
      - svennek 5y ago
        Tell that to the the people of the ex-DDR, the North Korea and REALLY targeted individuals.. Sadly there exists no sure way to secure you belongings if the other party is sufficiently motivated to strip you of them (or your life).. You can also be killed/robbed outside of your country by intelligence officers of your country...

munhitsu 5y ago

proof-of-stake already exists - we call it "traditional bank"

prohobo 5y ago

Yeah, I'd say your entire approach is antithetical to healthy discussion: insinuating anyone who is interested in crypto is technically inept, and turning the discussion into a 2-sides polarization. There's no use in talking about crypto in a sincere way now because of the way its been politicized. I tried recently to explain to someone that cryptographically codifying law and contracts can be beneficial in a lot of ways (like transparency/enforcement in governance), in a purely theoretical sense - but they just kept making disgusted faces and saying bitcoin is a scam (?). I'm not sure there's any rational energy behind any of it, it seems to me like any other political "issue" since 2016, like the Rittenhouse trial.

gjulianm 5y ago
> I tried recently to explain to someone that cryptographically codifying law and contracts can be beneficial in a lot of ways (like transparency/enforcement in governance) There's another trend with crypto discussions which relates to this idea you said. I see a lot of discussions on applications that follow the template: X has not been done, and X can be done with crypto, so now that crypto is available X will be done. It is very hard to discuss that maybe X wasn't done before not because of technology, but because of other issues. For example, the problem of transparency and enforcement in governance is not that we lack the technology: it's that we lack the initiative and the detailed procedures. I also see a lot of discussions around NFTs being used to sell used digital games: again, it hasn't been done not because tracking ownership is difficult but because allowing that would take a large bite of game sellers/developers profits. 99% of the applications I see discussed can be done without blockchain, but people never seriously ask themselves why is that and instead say that crypto will solve it.
- prohobo 5y ago
  You're wrong about "lacking initiative and the detailed procedures" - that's exactly what blockchains were created for: As a response to opaque and unreliable systems. This is the solution to a systematic problem in governance. Blockchains simply add verifiability of claims. Yes, you could create a central system which flags "bad actions" or something, but it'd be difficult to prove someone scammed you without the cooperation of the central authority. Breaking the rules digitally shouldn't be possible in a properly designed system, which is what some blockchains can provide. Currently if someone says "no I didn't scam you", the truth of their statement is ambiguous without cooperative investigation. On a blockchain it's inherently unambiguous and the information is immediately available for all parties involved to know how to proceed. Obviously this has more applications than scammers/cheaters, which is why blockchain tech is so heavily experimented with and being integrated in so many other areas of tech.

anonymoushn 5y ago

lots of PoS chains are live today. As I regularly post whenever it comes up, SPL USDC is a dramatically better payment experience than wire transfers or debit cards or whatever, and I wish I could accept all payments this way and pay all bills this way.

rocqua 5y ago

I disagree. There is a lot of interesting things to discuss. But all of them start from the premise "blockchain works as a distributed ledger". People in the camp you are in are not that interested in those discussions, because you disagree with the premise. These interesting things are about how to do privacy, build second layers, make other smart functionality, etc. In general there are actual cryptographic innovations coming out of these systems. Zcash was truly positive to research into Zero Knowledge Proofs. At the same time, discussions often get muddied by a few vocal people who are trying to hype up their investments. I imagine some of these people are just hyping, and others have bought into the believe, and cannot handle the cognitive dissonance of 'maybe there is something wrong with this'.

svennek 5y ago
Oh, it works as a distributed ledger (that is already proven). I just fail to see how it is better than so many other alternatives on a case-by-case basis... mostly on efficiency... And just because I don't believe in the idea itself, I acknowledge that some good can come of it.. See for example wars, where most cutting edge innovation happens. I think wars are bad (but sometimes necessary), but we are reaping the benefits of generals wanting to throw more cannonballs further (If you are unsure I mean our computers where developed mostly because of that), also microwaves, the internet (a cold war though) and lots and lots of other stuff...

glenvdb 5y ago

> I think that I see in my network of people that the more technically apt they are, the less they believe in it This is because they just see the blockchain as an inefficient database, rather than really understanding the problems Bitcoin solves and why Satoshi made the choices they did. There are important trade-offs between efficiency, redundancy, decentralisation, and robustness in an adversarial environment. The other aspect is that they just look at Bitcoin through a technological lens and judge it inferior to other networking & data storage technologies. They don't have a deep grasp of the concept of money and what properties makes for a sound form of money. Vijay Boyapati (ex-Google engineer) does a pretty good job explaining it from that perspective [1]. It's a shame that so many, otherwise smart, people are sleeping on such a revolutionary change in the world. The idea of Bitcoin has been thought about and predicted for many years by people held in high-regard among HN readers, such as Buckminster Fuller [2], Henry Ford [3], and Friedrich Hayek [4], and they'll still dismiss it out of hand. Such a massive lost opportunity for great skills, knowledge, and talent to be applied to what I think is one of the most important innovations of our civilisation. [1] https://vijayboyapati.medium.com/the-bullish-case-for-bitcoin-6ecc8bdecc1 https://vijayboyapati.medium.com/the-bullish-case-for-bitcoi... [2] https://news.bitcoin.com/look-at-how-buckminster-fuller-predicted-bitcoin-realistic-scientific-accounting-system-what-is-wealth/ https://news.bitcoin.com/look-at-how-buckminster-fuller-pred... [3] https://news.bitcoin.com/how-henry-ford-envisaged-bitcoin-100-years-ago-a-unique-energy-currency-that-could-stop-wars/ https://news.bitcoin.com/how-henry-ford-envisaged-bitcoin-10... [4] https://twitter.com/janpaul_f/status/1461596623038038017?s=21 https://twitter.com/janpaul_f/status/1461596623038038017?s=2...

LispShmisp 5y ago
Your post comes off strongly as cultish/MLMish. Sorry I don't know how to phrase it so it doesn't come as a personal attack. Most of the crypto posts sound like it. > This is because they just see the blockchain as an inefficient database I think it's crazy that you feel this way, I can only speak for myself and a few others, but we do in fact fully understand it and why it works this way. Satoshi is not some god that has come to save us. He saw something that fraction of people in society consider to be a problem and attempted to solve it. He did not consider complex ways that his solution would interact with the society. A lot of us think that crypto causes more problems than it solves.

newacc9 5y ago

You could have written this summary in 2015, you're not keeping current.

OJFord 5y ago

I think Ethereum (as in its contracts) is interesting, there's just too much get rich quick fud, SNR too low, for me to confidently be 'actively interested'. Some kind of novel things could be done with it, like that distributed storage thing is sort of interesting. There's a peer to peer betting thing based on (somewhow the outcomes are available to the program?) it I saw on HN a while ago which is sort of interesting.

reginold 5y ago
A way to decrease the noise would be most appreciated. I'm confident there's lifetimes worth of signal, even in crypto developments in the last year. But there is an ungodly amount of noise over price, outrage, etc. I asked in a new thread about where to go for curious conversations about cryptocurrencies: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29297611 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29297611
- superfad 5y ago
  I think this is pretty much the same question that was discussed a couple of weeks ago. Worth a read, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29139813 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29139813
  - reginold 5y ago
    Oh wow missed this! Will link to it from the thread I started as well. Thank you! For anyone else who reads that thread -- the good links and suggestions are near the bottom of the thread.

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przeor 5y ago

paper money is also enviromental disaster. How many trees were cut just for it and how many people were paid to keep the paper money innovation going eg. bank employees siting on chairs waiting for customers while doing harm for the enviroment by producing CO2 (opportunity cost)

babygoat 5y ago
Paper money is not actually made of paper.

reginold 5y ago

Agreed, there is nothing left for the HN community to discuss about cryptocurrencies. There is plenty worth discussing for others though. I posted a thread here asking where to go to find curiosity driven discussions about the topic: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29297611 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29297611

carl_misj 5y ago

> the more technically apt they are, the less they believe in it your network seem to be opposite of general population, where less technically apt less believe (economists, news people, etc.) i suspect it has more to do with political leaning, i.e. more center-conformist less believe, outside center more believe