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There is not one actual practical problem blockchains solve. It's a get rich quick / pyramid scheme built on top of a theoretical concept that appeals to nerds

There is not one actual practical problem blockchains solve. It's a get rich quick / pyramid scheme built on top of a theoretical concept that appeals to nerds but doesn't work in the world we live in. The same issues persist, they're just packaged/framed differently - and, due to lack of regulation and norms to mitigate them in the real world, can still be exploited. People were complaining that Google eats up so many engineers to solve ad-problems but the whole blockchain space is much worse - what a colossal waste of human and ecological resources.

mekster 5y ago
I'm amazed at the end of 2021, I still get to see these responses about blockchain on hacker news. Somehow Reddit looks smarter when it comes to blockchain topics.
- lmm 5y ago
  I'm amazed that the whole thing has somehow kept going despite the same lack of legitimate use cases that it's had from the start.
  - 0x0nyandesu 5y ago
    It's amazing that I can transfer wealth across borders with zero bank involvement using this technology and I still have to see people like you claim the sky isn't blue. Like that's nice and all but you sound like sour grapes.
    - arcticbull 5y ago
      Right, that's called regulatory arbitrage. It's not a [edit](unique) use case, it's basically crime, give or take. You're just skipping the AML and KYC checks that you'd ordinarily be required to take. Believe it or not sending money takes a few milliseconds in a classical system, except for, you know, regulatory and compliance checks that coiners pretend aren't actually needed. The use cases are: regulatory arbitrage, crime and grift. That's it and that's all folks. Nothing more. Everything else is better solved by classical means. The golden rule of blockchain is: if you think blockchain solves any given problem better than a classical solution you either don't know enough about the problem, or you don't know enough about the blockchain. > Like that's nice and all but you sound like sour grapes. [edit] As always, it's important to remind crypto folks that outside of the cult, ad hominem attacks are not suitable replacements for fact.
      - austhrow743 5y ago
        Committing crimes is absolutely a use case.
      - 0x0nyandesu 5y ago
        I always tell people of how my mother was smuggling Soviet rubles stitched into her coat when she flew to NYC to immigrate to America and in the real world people are aghast at the unjust laws of the USSR while on the internet everyone is like "but the law". Fuck the law. Law != Justice. Use some critical thinking skills for once. You earned your wealth. It's not the government's.
        deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
        sofixa 5y ago
        I'm sure there's a name for this fallacy, but to put it bluntly, you can just apply logic applicable to the fucking Soviet Union for any country and law system. > You earned your wealth. It's not the government's A common misconception among libertarians and alike; that's outright false. Pretty much everyone in a regular developed/ing country, especially in a centrally planned economy like the USSR, has wealth because a society and a government enable it. Be it with infrastructure, education, regulations, monetary system, or whatever. For examples how important those are for any wealth generation, look at Venezuela or Turkey.
        0x0nyandesu 5y ago
        Argue with nerds on the internet and someone will always claim a 100% tax is both legal and just.
        sofixa 5y ago
        Who is arguing that a 100% tax is legal and just? Is that some weird slippery slope tuned to a million? A 100% tax can't work, so any tax is bad! Is that it? Taxes are a great way for citizens to give back to the pool used on them, proportionally, and for governments to insentivise and discourage behaviour ( e.g. lower taxes on electric vehicles and raise them on more polluting types). Saying taxation is theft is a great way to out oneself as incredibly naïve and with approximately zero understanding of how anything related to government, politics or economy functions.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - throwoutway 5y ago
      Amazing, but how often do you transfer your entire wealth across borders? Because if we’re talking about thousands of Euro then I’m not impressed
- ews 5y ago
  99% of times, the top comment for anything related to crypto on HN will have a comment like this. Some people just don't get it. Unfortunately, HN became /r/buttcoin long ago, and it looks like it's not the place to have a nuanced and rational conversation about blockchain or anything crypto. There is such a wide array of rich conversation about very interesting topics happening elsewhere (monetary policy being my favorite topic after reading The Bitcoin Standard) that is just routing around HN into subreddits/discords/twitter.
  - barrkel 5y ago
    Monetary policy "debate" is deeply attractive to uninformed cranks. May it stay so routed.
- wellthisisgreat 5y ago
  What are the uses cases of blockchain that have been deployed outside of financial schemes, where the blockchain solves a problem in a unique way that could not have been addressed with non-blockchain? Sure there were probably blockchain projects that got traction and use blockchain, but the only reason it’s blockchain was that it’s easier to get funding for that. Genuinely curious.
  - HatchedLake721 5y ago
    Look into smart contracts
    - arcticbull 5y ago
      That's a financial scheme.
    - dmitriid 5y ago
      1. They don't work outside blockchain 2. You've replaced a natural language that people understand with a program in an esoteric programming language How is this a unique solution etc.?
      - okokwhatever 5y ago
        Two words: Cost, Speed. One concept: Kill the middleman Easy, next one.
        dmitriid 5y ago
        > Two words: Cost, Speed - Extremely costly - Very slow > One concept: Kill the middlemain You're not killing middlemen. The moment you step outside blockchain, you need middlemen. When you need someone to verify that this esoteric code actually encodes you contract, you need middlemen. etc. > Easy, next one. If you ignore reality, everything is easy, sure. BTW. Contracts-as-code have been done since computers became a thing.
        arcticbull 5y ago
john_alan 5y ago
Private, self sovereign money for the internet. I think that’s a use case.
- sofixa 5y ago
  Is it really private when all transactions are recorded forever and publicly visible, and one needs to pass through an on/off-ramp which follows KYC regulations anyway?
  - john_alan 5y ago
    Some are, Monero for example. I’m not here to shill. But defi and private digital money have value. Increasingly so when you look at government incompetence globally.
mrkramer 5y ago
>There is not one actual practical problem blockchains solve. Read the whitepaper; Bitcoin solves the problem of centralization of trust, fraud and it enables transparency. No more creative accounting and cooking the books. On top of that it enables microtransactions as small as faction of the cent. It is quite big innovation.
- mrkramer 5y ago
  Late edit: fraction*
dang 5y ago
Please don't post generic flamewar comments to HN. It leads to generic flamewars, which are the most tedious and predictable (and usually nastiest) format of discussion. We want just the opposite here. Arguably the greater problem is that people upvote this stuff; this subthread was at the top of the page when I saw it (I've downweighted it now—which we try to do whenever we see a generic subthread at the top of a page). But it's harder to tackle the problem at that level. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

mekster 5y ago

I'm amazed at the end of 2021, I still get to see these responses about blockchain on hacker news. Somehow Reddit looks smarter when it comes to blockchain topics.

lmm 5y ago
I'm amazed that the whole thing has somehow kept going despite the same lack of legitimate use cases that it's had from the start.
- 0x0nyandesu 5y ago
  It's amazing that I can transfer wealth across borders with zero bank involvement using this technology and I still have to see people like you claim the sky isn't blue. Like that's nice and all but you sound like sour grapes.
  - arcticbull 5y ago
    Right, that's called regulatory arbitrage. It's not a [edit](unique) use case, it's basically crime, give or take. You're just skipping the AML and KYC checks that you'd ordinarily be required to take. Believe it or not sending money takes a few milliseconds in a classical system, except for, you know, regulatory and compliance checks that coiners pretend aren't actually needed. The use cases are: regulatory arbitrage, crime and grift. That's it and that's all folks. Nothing more. Everything else is better solved by classical means. The golden rule of blockchain is: if you think blockchain solves any given problem better than a classical solution you either don't know enough about the problem, or you don't know enough about the blockchain. > Like that's nice and all but you sound like sour grapes. [edit] As always, it's important to remind crypto folks that outside of the cult, ad hominem attacks are not suitable replacements for fact.
    - austhrow743 5y ago
      Committing crimes is absolutely a use case.
    - 0x0nyandesu 5y ago
      I always tell people of how my mother was smuggling Soviet rubles stitched into her coat when she flew to NYC to immigrate to America and in the real world people are aghast at the unjust laws of the USSR while on the internet everyone is like "but the law". Fuck the law. Law != Justice. Use some critical thinking skills for once. You earned your wealth. It's not the government's.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      - sofixa 5y ago
        I'm sure there's a name for this fallacy, but to put it bluntly, you can just apply logic applicable to the fucking Soviet Union for any country and law system. > You earned your wealth. It's not the government's A common misconception among libertarians and alike; that's outright false. Pretty much everyone in a regular developed/ing country, especially in a centrally planned economy like the USSR, has wealth because a society and a government enable it. Be it with infrastructure, education, regulations, monetary system, or whatever. For examples how important those are for any wealth generation, look at Venezuela or Turkey.
        0x0nyandesu 5y ago
        Argue with nerds on the internet and someone will always claim a 100% tax is both legal and just.
        sofixa 5y ago
        Who is arguing that a 100% tax is legal and just? Is that some weird slippery slope tuned to a million? A 100% tax can't work, so any tax is bad! Is that it? Taxes are a great way for citizens to give back to the pool used on them, proportionally, and for governments to insentivise and discourage behaviour ( e.g. lower taxes on electric vehicles and raise them on more polluting types). Saying taxation is theft is a great way to out oneself as incredibly naïve and with approximately zero understanding of how anything related to government, politics or economy functions.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - throwoutway 5y ago
    Amazing, but how often do you transfer your entire wealth across borders? Because if we’re talking about thousands of Euro then I’m not impressed
ews 5y ago
99% of times, the top comment for anything related to crypto on HN will have a comment like this. Some people just don't get it. Unfortunately, HN became /r/buttcoin long ago, and it looks like it's not the place to have a nuanced and rational conversation about blockchain or anything crypto. There is such a wide array of rich conversation about very interesting topics happening elsewhere (monetary policy being my favorite topic after reading The Bitcoin Standard) that is just routing around HN into subreddits/discords/twitter.
- barrkel 5y ago
  Monetary policy "debate" is deeply attractive to uninformed cranks. May it stay so routed.
wellthisisgreat 5y ago
What are the uses cases of blockchain that have been deployed outside of financial schemes, where the blockchain solves a problem in a unique way that could not have been addressed with non-blockchain? Sure there were probably blockchain projects that got traction and use blockchain, but the only reason it’s blockchain was that it’s easier to get funding for that. Genuinely curious.
- HatchedLake721 5y ago
  Look into smart contracts
  - arcticbull 5y ago
    That's a financial scheme.
  - dmitriid 5y ago
    1. They don't work outside blockchain 2. You've replaced a natural language that people understand with a program in an esoteric programming language How is this a unique solution etc.?
    - okokwhatever 5y ago
      Two words: Cost, Speed. One concept: Kill the middleman Easy, next one.
      - dmitriid 5y ago
        > Two words: Cost, Speed - Extremely costly - Very slow > One concept: Kill the middlemain You're not killing middlemen. The moment you step outside blockchain, you need middlemen. When you need someone to verify that this esoteric code actually encodes you contract, you need middlemen. etc. > Easy, next one. If you ignore reality, everything is easy, sure. BTW. Contracts-as-code have been done since computers became a thing.
      - arcticbull 5y ago

john_alan 5y ago

Private, self sovereign money for the internet. I think that’s a use case.

sofixa 5y ago
Is it really private when all transactions are recorded forever and publicly visible, and one needs to pass through an on/off-ramp which follows KYC regulations anyway?
- john_alan 5y ago
  Some are, Monero for example. I’m not here to shill. But defi and private digital money have value. Increasingly so when you look at government incompetence globally.

mrkramer 5y ago

>There is not one actual practical problem blockchains solve. Read the whitepaper; Bitcoin solves the problem of centralization of trust, fraud and it enables transparency. No more creative accounting and cooking the books. On top of that it enables microtransactions as small as faction of the cent. It is quite big innovation.

mrkramer 5y ago
Late edit: fraction*

dang 5y ago

Please don't post generic flamewar comments to HN. It leads to generic flamewars, which are the most tedious and predictable (and usually nastiest) format of discussion. We want just the opposite here. Arguably the greater problem is that people upvote this stuff; this subthread was at the top of the page when I saw it (I've downweighted it now—which we try to do whenever we see a generic subthread at the top of a page). But it's harder to tackle the problem at that level. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html