4 ms·

Do you have anything in the way of a rebuttal to the hundreds of factual claims in the video?

by muglug 5y ago

dmitriid 5y ago
In true crypto fashion the answer to this is probably "just go to crypto Twitter and hundreds of Discord channels, and see for yourself"
andrewxhill 5y ago
You know that feeling when you see comment threads online and you are just like... _it's not worth it_. I think many of the good/honest/intellectually curious people inside crypto are ghosting through HN these days with that feeling. So it's mostly become void of any interesting discussions on the topic. If you are genuinely interested, let's narrow it down. Which of his claims are the strongest/most distressing to you? Maybe some of those folks will stop ghosting and get into real conversation.
- muglug 5y ago
  I think the strongest claim (one I've also arrived at independently) is that NFTs (aka digital collectibles on the blockchain) are mainly popular because they provide a thing for people who already own cryptocurrencies to spend their digital cash on, without feeling like they're "cashing out" (which has negative connotations in crypto). Instead NFTs are seen as an investment vehicle — they will appreciate in price over time, just look at BAYC. One of the other claims is that cryptocurrency largely favours existing pools of wealth and capital. Anecdotally this matches my experience — the people I know who have done really well from crypto investments are those who were already incredibly well-off in the early 2010s, and were looking for interesting places to invest. The last claim (that I've also heard first-hand) is it's really easy to raise VC money if your startup centres around "decentralisation", which means a ton of entrepreneurs have a strong vested interest in believing that all this stuff is the future. The big irony there is a lot of the companies in this space (e.g. Coinbase) are de facto advertising themselves as the centralised hub for decentralised systems, creating big points of failure that contradict the entire ethos of the blockchain.
  - andrewxhill 5y ago
    Okay, I'll write back with three comments in case people want to sink their teeth into these responses distinctly :D Your first argument: NFTs are primarily successful because crypto-holding individuals see them as a place to invest without cashing out. On trend with all my answers, I think this is true to an extent too. But what it misses is a vibrant ecosystem of experimentation that is happening with NFTs below the easily visible surface. The ecosystem is driven by creative people and consumed by people that truly believe these are worthwhile experiments to undertake. Just a few diverse examples: - Loot provided NFTs that is simply your inventory in a yet-to-be-made game. The creator essentially said, here, this is an open, ownable, and composable building block. Now, the owners are stakeholders in the development and success of those games. Of course the people that bought these were already holding ETH, but many of those people think something cool is happening here. Otherwise, nothing will get built. https://hackmd.io/@XR/lootwars https://hackmd.io/@XR/lootwars - Sam Harris's plans to use the membership/association behind the rise of Pfps to create a community that gives away its wealth and then virtue signals that in ways to encourage others to do the same https://docs.google.com/document/d/1u_YeUyztgJhWgLZ9YJh6eVKZlL9Ky_c_cBNHlsTZG2E/edit https://docs.google.com/document/d/1u_YeUyztgJhWgLZ9YJh6eVKZ... - CryptoVoxels sell parcels of land as NFTs. Taken together, they generate a metaverse of spaces that the owners fill out with their imagination. https://www.cryptovoxels.com/ https://www.cryptovoxels.com/ These people are passionate about something new and different, they are building. I personally even find the memberships and DAOs driving many of the popular Pfps (e.g. Doodles, Creature World, Coolman's Universe) to be a bit contrary to your main argument. Many of them have highly active communities that you only get to be part of by owning the NFT. So for many, it's not really a place to park or spend their ETH. The economy of those closed communities is pretty fascinating. Recall, the NFT creators (core team) get a cut every time an NFT is sold. But it's not like the 5% is going to some artist's pocket, they are building teams of devs etc to world build. It's worth taking to pen and paper and figuring out the economic game being played between the core teams that build the community and the collectors/traders that want to be part of it. They are revenue generating creative organizations... let's see where they go.
    - andrewxhill 5y ago
- dmitriid 5y ago
  > I think many of the good/honest/intellectually curious people inside crypto are ghosting through HN these days with that feeling If there were any such people, we would have any number of good articles and materials on crypto explaining how crypto is good actually, and that also: - understand how the world works - don't rely on circular references - actually show the need for a blockchain in the proposed solutions However, there are none. > So it's mostly become void of any interesting discussions on the topic. Of course it's void. And it's due to the countless crypto shills who invariably run away from this discussions with a combination of: - there are honest people in crypto space - there are good projects in crypto space, not just scams - just follow crypto twitter/discord, do your research
  - andrewxhill 5y ago
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lskpNmUl8yQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lskpNmUl8yQ "Dooooes radio ring a bell?" and the crowd all laughs.
    - dmitriid 5y ago
      Yes, of course, anything crypto is the next Internet, and not Juicero. Additionally your answer is a great illustration for my point.

Do you have anything in the way of a rebuttal to the hundreds of factual claims in the video?

by muglug 5y ago

Do you have anything in the way of a rebuttal to the hundreds of factual claims in the video?

In true crypto fashion the answer to this is probably "just go to crypto Twitter and hundreds of Discord channels, and see for yourself"

andrewxhill 5y ago

You know that feeling when you see comment threads online and you are just like... _it's not worth it_. I think many of the good/honest/intellectually curious people inside crypto are ghosting through HN these days with that feeling. So it's mostly become void of any interesting discussions on the topic. If you are genuinely interested, let's narrow it down. Which of his claims are the strongest/most distressing to you? Maybe some of those folks will stop ghosting and get into real conversation.

muglug 5y ago
I think the strongest claim (one I've also arrived at independently) is that NFTs (aka digital collectibles on the blockchain) are mainly popular because they provide a thing for people who already own cryptocurrencies to spend their digital cash on, without feeling like they're "cashing out" (which has negative connotations in crypto). Instead NFTs are seen as an investment vehicle — they will appreciate in price over time, just look at BAYC. One of the other claims is that cryptocurrency largely favours existing pools of wealth and capital. Anecdotally this matches my experience — the people I know who have done really well from crypto investments are those who were already incredibly well-off in the early 2010s, and were looking for interesting places to invest. The last claim (that I've also heard first-hand) is it's really easy to raise VC money if your startup centres around "decentralisation", which means a ton of entrepreneurs have a strong vested interest in believing that all this stuff is the future. The big irony there is a lot of the companies in this space (e.g. Coinbase) are de facto advertising themselves as the centralised hub for decentralised systems, creating big points of failure that contradict the entire ethos of the blockchain.
- andrewxhill 5y ago
  Okay, I'll write back with three comments in case people want to sink their teeth into these responses distinctly :D Your first argument: NFTs are primarily successful because crypto-holding individuals see them as a place to invest without cashing out. On trend with all my answers, I think this is true to an extent too. But what it misses is a vibrant ecosystem of experimentation that is happening with NFTs below the easily visible surface. The ecosystem is driven by creative people and consumed by people that truly believe these are worthwhile experiments to undertake. Just a few diverse examples: - Loot provided NFTs that is simply your inventory in a yet-to-be-made game. The creator essentially said, here, this is an open, ownable, and composable building block. Now, the owners are stakeholders in the development and success of those games. Of course the people that bought these were already holding ETH, but many of those people think something cool is happening here. Otherwise, nothing will get built. https://hackmd.io/@XR/lootwars https://hackmd.io/@XR/lootwars - Sam Harris's plans to use the membership/association behind the rise of Pfps to create a community that gives away its wealth and then virtue signals that in ways to encourage others to do the same https://docs.google.com/document/d/1u_YeUyztgJhWgLZ9YJh6eVKZlL9Ky_c_cBNHlsTZG2E/edit https://docs.google.com/document/d/1u_YeUyztgJhWgLZ9YJh6eVKZ... - CryptoVoxels sell parcels of land as NFTs. Taken together, they generate a metaverse of spaces that the owners fill out with their imagination. https://www.cryptovoxels.com/ https://www.cryptovoxels.com/ These people are passionate about something new and different, they are building. I personally even find the memberships and DAOs driving many of the popular Pfps (e.g. Doodles, Creature World, Coolman's Universe) to be a bit contrary to your main argument. Many of them have highly active communities that you only get to be part of by owning the NFT. So for many, it's not really a place to park or spend their ETH. The economy of those closed communities is pretty fascinating. Recall, the NFT creators (core team) get a cut every time an NFT is sold. But it's not like the 5% is going to some artist's pocket, they are building teams of devs etc to world build. It's worth taking to pen and paper and figuring out the economic game being played between the core teams that build the community and the collectors/traders that want to be part of it. They are revenue generating creative organizations... let's see where they go.
  - andrewxhill 5y ago
dmitriid 5y ago
> I think many of the good/honest/intellectually curious people inside crypto are ghosting through HN these days with that feeling If there were any such people, we would have any number of good articles and materials on crypto explaining how crypto is good actually, and that also: - understand how the world works - don't rely on circular references - actually show the need for a blockchain in the proposed solutions However, there are none. > So it's mostly become void of any interesting discussions on the topic. Of course it's void. And it's due to the countless crypto shills who invariably run away from this discussions with a combination of: - there are honest people in crypto space - there are good projects in crypto space, not just scams - just follow crypto twitter/discord, do your research
- andrewxhill 5y ago
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lskpNmUl8yQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lskpNmUl8yQ "Dooooes radio ring a bell?" and the crowd all laughs.
  - dmitriid 5y ago
    Yes, of course, anything crypto is the next Internet, and not Juicero. Additionally your answer is a great illustration for my point.