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> What people are really excited about is the exchanges and the on-ramps and off-ramps, which have nothing to do with the blockchain or cryptography. Isn't tha

by beachy 5y ago

> What people are really excited about is the exchanges and the on-ramps and off-ramps, which have nothing to do with the blockchain or cryptography. Isn't that like saying that what gets people really exciting about beer is the euphoric feeling after consuming it, which has nothing to do with the liquid itself? If it wasn't for the exchanges and on- and off-ramps then cryptocurrencies wouldn't exist at all. Potentially spending it one day is the only thing that makes the crypto world go around.

PragmaticPulp 5y ago
> If it wasn't for the exchanges and on- and off-ramps then cryptocurrencies wouldn't exist at all. Potentially spending it one day is the only thing that makes the crypto world go around. "Spending" it doesn't require cashing it out in a hypothetical cryptocurrency future. People can, and do, transact in cryptocurrencies. Though it's actually quite painful, slow, expensive, and lacks all of the benefits of traditional transactions so everyone avoids it if possible. But this exposes another flaw in the currency argument: If the on-ramps and off-ramps were to become so cheap, fast, and ubiquitous that we could transact instantly in cryptocurrencies for free, then suddenly the underlying coins wouldn't need to have any speculative value. If I could click "buy" on a product and the exchange into crypto, transfer, and end-user exchange out of crypto was basically instant, then the exchange rate doesn't actually matter at all because I'm only holding for a brief instant. Yet that would break the speculative use case entirely, so the hype tends to follow the deliberately inefficient coins. Crypto proponents don't actually want cryptocurrency to be easy to use. They only want you to buy it, then do nothing with it. Ever. If you lose it, even better (for everyone else).
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- 3np 5y ago
  > Though it's actually quite painful, slow, expensive, and lacks all of the benefits of traditional transactions so everyone avoids it if possible. It’s really not. For several years, paying with crypto has been faster and easier than credit card or PayPal. No arbitrary blocks, guessing traffic lights, aligning shipping and billing names and zip codes, figuring which card will work for what country and payment processor, biyearly renewals, SMS confirmations, risk of having it abused despite having good opsec, being on the phone with PayPal, etc etc. I just open my wallet, unlock it used my preferred method, [scan a qr code/copy-paste something], click OK, done. I understand that many people on HN get profiled “white” enough by “the algorithms” to not have to experience the Kafkaesque frustration of the status quo. For the rest of us, cryptocurrency is faster, easier, and sometimes cheaper. Today.

by beachy 5y ago

PragmaticPulp 5y ago

> If it wasn't for the exchanges and on- and off-ramps then cryptocurrencies wouldn't exist at all. Potentially spending it one day is the only thing that makes the crypto world go around. "Spending" it doesn't require cashing it out in a hypothetical cryptocurrency future. People can, and do, transact in cryptocurrencies. Though it's actually quite painful, slow, expensive, and lacks all of the benefits of traditional transactions so everyone avoids it if possible. But this exposes another flaw in the currency argument: If the on-ramps and off-ramps were to become so cheap, fast, and ubiquitous that we could transact instantly in cryptocurrencies for free, then suddenly the underlying coins wouldn't need to have any speculative value. If I could click "buy" on a product and the exchange into crypto, transfer, and end-user exchange out of crypto was basically instant, then the exchange rate doesn't actually matter at all because I'm only holding for a brief instant. Yet that would break the speculative use case entirely, so the hype tends to follow the deliberately inefficient coins. Crypto proponents don't actually want cryptocurrency to be easy to use. They only want you to buy it, then do nothing with it. Ever. If you lose it, even better (for everyone else).

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
3np 5y ago
> Though it's actually quite painful, slow, expensive, and lacks all of the benefits of traditional transactions so everyone avoids it if possible. It’s really not. For several years, paying with crypto has been faster and easier than credit card or PayPal. No arbitrary blocks, guessing traffic lights, aligning shipping and billing names and zip codes, figuring which card will work for what country and payment processor, biyearly renewals, SMS confirmations, risk of having it abused despite having good opsec, being on the phone with PayPal, etc etc. I just open my wallet, unlock it used my preferred method, [scan a qr code/copy-paste something], click OK, done. I understand that many people on HN get profiled “white” enough by “the algorithms” to not have to experience the Kafkaesque frustration of the status quo. For the rest of us, cryptocurrency is faster, easier, and sometimes cheaper. Today.