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> All the interest in Bitcoin is in the price going up. For years I have been interested in blockchain and cryptocurrency technologies for what they are techni

> All the interest in Bitcoin is in the price going up. For years I have been interested in blockchain and cryptocurrency technologies for what they are technically and what they could enable, not what profit I can make. There are certainly others like me. There's some really fascinating stuff being worked on in the cryptocurrency community, things like ZK-SNARKS or automated market makers. The original bitcoin paper is at the very least an interesting and novel solution to the double spend problem. I think I could make a similar argument to yours about how the vast majority of people in the hackernews community are just there because they want to become rich. Or perhaps how the vast majority of anti-cryptocurrency arguments break down to soemthing like "I didn't buy bitcoin, so I don't want it to become the currency of the future since I will have missed out on being rich". There are elements of truth to both of those, but they're both pretty uninteresting takes on an interesting topic.

ramoz 5y ago
Fascinating cryptology work exists without cryptocurrencies, the reverse is not true.
- teekert 5y ago
  Since fascination is subjective you should never make that statement. Edit: Scrap that, you are right, cryptography is a necessary building block of crypto-currencies. What you are actually saying is: Fascinating bricks exist without brick-houses, the reverse is not true. Which is logical.
  - kybernetikos 5y ago
    Sure, some fascinating bricks would be created even without brick houses, but having brick houses means that many more people are thinking about and creating fascinating bricks, and using those bricks for more purposes. It's like saying we shouldn't be pleased that pharmaceutical research is giving us greater insights into genetics because genetic science would exist even without pharmaceutical research. It's true that genetic science would exist, it's false that therefore pharmaceutical research adds no value to it.
    - teekert 5y ago
      So we agree then ;)

ramoz 5y ago

Fascinating cryptology work exists without cryptocurrencies, the reverse is not true.

teekert 5y ago
Since fascination is subjective you should never make that statement. Edit: Scrap that, you are right, cryptography is a necessary building block of crypto-currencies. What you are actually saying is: Fascinating bricks exist without brick-houses, the reverse is not true. Which is logical.
- kybernetikos 5y ago
  Sure, some fascinating bricks would be created even without brick houses, but having brick houses means that many more people are thinking about and creating fascinating bricks, and using those bricks for more purposes. It's like saying we shouldn't be pleased that pharmaceutical research is giving us greater insights into genetics because genetic science would exist even without pharmaceutical research. It's true that genetic science would exist, it's false that therefore pharmaceutical research adds no value to it.
  - teekert 5y ago
    So we agree then ;)