I've left the field of crypto/blockchain but worked on a few projects such as the Cardano blockchain. Now I'm focusing on effective altruism and food security.

I've left the field of crypto/blockchain but worked on a few projects such as the Cardano blockchain. Now I'm focusing on effective altruism and food security. Anyway, I've been aware or involved with the crypto space since 2014 when I used to play a drinking game involving the Bitcoin ATM at Google Campus in London (guessing if the price would go up or down when it updated every minute or so, around the $300 mark if I remember correctly). In that time I've worked for several different startups in the space and not once have I worked with anyone who's trying to scam people. Yes scams exist. No, most projects are not scams. Bad ideas? Sure, maybe! Bad execution? Yep, that happens! Quickly obsolete tech? It's a fast moving scene! But when a startup is trying to build a product such as a financial account for developing countries without banking infrastructure to allow people to build a credit score, or trying to reduce international banking fees impact on remittence payments in countries like Nepal, or trying to allow people to have options in countries where their own national currency is going down the drain, I find it offensive that people on HackerNews who on the whole are smart well-experienced people default to this idea that it's all one big scam. This is in fact one of the reasons I left Crypto - because of relentless attacks on peoples character and how toxic it can be. I'm very happy if this style of conversation disappears from HN forever because 1) saying it's a scam doesn't change anyones opinions 2) the arguments have been repeated literally for years 3) it goes against HN T&Cs anyway. I hope we're at the point where we can focus on individual projects (which may well be absolutely useless products) than judging the entire space as a whole.