4 ms·

> But the majority of people interested in crypto don’t care about the technology, they are in it to get rich. "But the majority of people interested in TikTok

> But the majority of people interested in crypto don’t care about the technology, they are in it to get rich. "But the majority of people interested in TikTok don't care about the technology, they are on it to watch people dance and laugh." The majority of people on the planet don't care about technology except what it can do for them. Having nuanced discussions about technology usually only interesting to a small subset of people. For many other technologies, HN is a place to have that discussion. But it hasn't been for crypto. > Look at the level of discussion bitcoin had when it wasn’t realistically exchangeable for USD. Bitcoin's first block was January 3, 2009. 10,000 bitcoin were famously exchanged for two Papa John's pizzas on May 22, 2010. The first bitcoin exchange, Mt. Gox, was launched July 18, 2010. So you're talking about a year and a half window since it was first conceived to have such discussion, less than 12% of the entire time bitcoin has been in existence. And considering the name of the bitcoin paper is "Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System", there was probably some talk about it eventually being exchanged for USD right from the start. > nobody cares about the actual technology Yeah that's not true. On HN that may be more or less true (although I care about the tech and I'm on HN), but there's plenty of people that care about the tech and are discussing it in other channels. It's crazy, I've had much deeper discussions about the tech with people who can't even program on channels on Discord than I've had on HN, ever, about this space. I'm still desperately trying to play catchup, they keep dropping articles and talking about things and concepts I haven't heard of before. And intelligently, too, not just "I like the web3 makes me money go fast moon please." like it seems everyone on HN assumes these people think. There are people legitimately trying to do new and interesting (to me anyway) things with the space, and donating their time and energy and cash to try to build it and make it happen.

kortilla 5y ago
> So you're talking about a year and a half window since it was first conceived to have such discussion, less than 12% of the entire time bitcoin has been in existence. It doesn’t matter. My point is that was the only time the discussion was actually dominated by people interested in the technology. It’s a reference to a point in time and the tone of discussion around then. I was in security academia at the time and discussions were level-headed about bitcoin, hash cash, and other digital currencies. > there was probably some talk about it eventually being exchanged for USD right from the start. There was, but that wasn’t the technology talk that dominated the discussion. There is a reason it sat around for so long until the famous pizza purchase. It was about the technology at the start. > Yeah that's not true. On HN that may be more or less true (although I care about the tech and I'm on HN), but there's plenty of people that care about the tech and are discussing it in other channels. To a rough approximation, it’s about 0% of the people interested in crypto though. There are maybe a few thousand actual active crypto developers (and that’s being generous). The number of people who buy crypto to invest/gamble is now in the millions. The conversations are always going to be dominated by topics surrounding the latter because it’s so controversial. The only way to get to technical discussions is to weed out the people who don’t like it, so you basically have to stay off any general technology forums (HN, chunks of Reddit, etc). > And intelligently, too, not just "I like the web3 makes me money go fast moon please." like it seems everyone on HN assumes these people think. That’s a strawman of crypto detractors. It doesn’t help you to model opposing arguments that way. > There are people legitimately trying to do new and interesting (to me anyway) things with the space, and donating their time and energy and cash to try to build it and make it happen. Sure, but pretending to invent an entire new generation of the internet (“web3”) is overly grandiose and the better discussions happen around specific technologies.

kortilla 5y ago

> So you're talking about a year and a half window since it was first conceived to have such discussion, less than 12% of the entire time bitcoin has been in existence. It doesn’t matter. My point is that was the only time the discussion was actually dominated by people interested in the technology. It’s a reference to a point in time and the tone of discussion around then. I was in security academia at the time and discussions were level-headed about bitcoin, hash cash, and other digital currencies. > there was probably some talk about it eventually being exchanged for USD right from the start. There was, but that wasn’t the technology talk that dominated the discussion. There is a reason it sat around for so long until the famous pizza purchase. It was about the technology at the start. > Yeah that's not true. On HN that may be more or less true (although I care about the tech and I'm on HN), but there's plenty of people that care about the tech and are discussing it in other channels. To a rough approximation, it’s about 0% of the people interested in crypto though. There are maybe a few thousand actual active crypto developers (and that’s being generous). The number of people who buy crypto to invest/gamble is now in the millions. The conversations are always going to be dominated by topics surrounding the latter because it’s so controversial. The only way to get to technical discussions is to weed out the people who don’t like it, so you basically have to stay off any general technology forums (HN, chunks of Reddit, etc). > And intelligently, too, not just "I like the web3 makes me money go fast moon please." like it seems everyone on HN assumes these people think. That’s a strawman of crypto detractors. It doesn’t help you to model opposing arguments that way. > There are people legitimately trying to do new and interesting (to me anyway) things with the space, and donating their time and energy and cash to try to build it and make it happen. Sure, but pretending to invent an entire new generation of the internet (“web3”) is overly grandiose and the better discussions happen around specific technologies.