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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 top

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.
    - 0x0nyandesu 5y ago
      TIL private transactions and paying with cash should be illegal according to articbull of HN.
      - arcticbull 5y ago
        Not at all, cash is a terrible way of conducting illegal transactions, doubly so at scale. There's a reason the cartels used to use binders of gift cards - and now, well, Bitcoin. It's practically impossible to get meaningful quantities of it without having a SAR or CTR filed against you. Denominations are small so having a large amount is visible, risky, bulky and inefficient. Not to mention hard to explain away. And it's practically impossible to deposit meaningful quantities of it without having a SAR or CTR filed. The whole modern financial system is designed to catch criminals using cash. Cash does a good job of threading the needle, taking into consideration the need for individuals to have a peer-to-peer, anonymous, offline decentralized currency while also taking into consideration regulatory and compliance needs. I've nothing against cash, it has it's place, and no need to put words in my mouth.
  - 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

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.
  - 0x0nyandesu 5y ago
    TIL private transactions and paying with cash should be illegal according to articbull of HN.
    - arcticbull 5y ago
      Not at all, cash is a terrible way of conducting illegal transactions, doubly so at scale. There's a reason the cartels used to use binders of gift cards - and now, well, Bitcoin. It's practically impossible to get meaningful quantities of it without having a SAR or CTR filed against you. Denominations are small so having a large amount is visible, risky, bulky and inefficient. Not to mention hard to explain away. And it's practically impossible to deposit meaningful quantities of it without having a SAR or CTR filed. The whole modern financial system is designed to catch criminals using cash. Cash does a good job of threading the needle, taking into consideration the need for individuals to have a peer-to-peer, anonymous, offline decentralized currency while also taking into consideration regulatory and compliance needs. I've nothing against cash, it has it's place, and no need to put words in my mouth.
- 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