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Never forget that cryptocurrencies are essentially software, therefore it can most likely change to overcome its present pitfalls. You don’t like the negative e

Never forget that cryptocurrencies are essentially software, therefore it can most likely change to overcome its present pitfalls. You don’t like the negative environmental impact that PoW has? There are many eco-friendly cryptocurrencies that don’t use PoW. Don’t like that the fees are too high? There are feeless cryptocurrencies. Don’t like that many cryptos are VC money schemes? There are many with fair distribution, etc… You get the point. This is why cryptos are here to stay. The underlying technology is valuable and the problems it may have today can be overcome.

anhner 5y ago
It hasn't been overcome in 15 years but they will fix it soon. Sure... Software isn't some magic that can wish away its shorcomings. Also, do you think the next instagram that will most like support its own crypto will allow you to switch to a different crypto? ETA: the transaction cost is based on the cryptocurrency, so if now the cost per transaction is 1 cent then in 10 years it might cost 10 dollars if the value of the coin goes up.
- MadSudaca 5y ago
  Because cryptocurrencies are dependent on the reliability of distributed systems and cryptography. Both concepts are extremely tricky, the only true way of validating them is by trying to break them and failing, this takes time. But the floodgates have been opened. Also, who cares if there are several cryptocurrencies? If they have good properties (fundamentals) and people find them valuable, why not?
JellyYelly 5y ago
You don't get these tradeoffs for free though. Anyone can make a "crypto currency" that is entirely centralised and has no fees and minimal environmental impact. Nobody would use it. I think much of the desire of crypto comes from being decentralised, and I am yet to see a crypto that doesn't use PoW that doesn't just favor those who are already rich.
- MadSudaca 5y ago
  Well, I can honestly tell you such a cryptocurrency exists. Cryptocurrencies are byzantine-fault-tolerant consensus algorithms. These are tricky algorithms to get right, but I can assure you that Bitcoin is not the only viable solution. In fact, I don't understand people's pessimism. In the universe of all possible algorithms of this kind, known and unknown, I find extremely unlikely that Bitcoin-like ones would be the best and only possibility!
  - rvz 5y ago
    There you go. Cryptocurrencies are here to stay no matter how much they hate it or continue to waste time on repeating the same old arguments even though there are far better cryptocurrencies out there that already exist. The fact that they are unable to ignore them and continue to spread the same debunked nonsense tells you that it is not going away and it is getting boring. Just look at the first few sentences: > a slow distributed, append only spreadsheet technology which is destroying the planet we live on. So Solana, Stellar and Algorand are destroying the planet? > Blockchain isn't new. It has been around for as long as the iPhone. Look how much the iPhone has changed the world. Blockchains one claim to fame in this period is the creation of $5.2B/year ransomware industry, societal damage in the form of gambling and the loss of irreplaceable photos. The internet isn't new. Its 'killer app' (The world wide web) came decades afterwards and it took decades more for adoption. I don't know why one would try to use ransomware on transparent and traceable blockchains these days, where everyone can see where it is going, unless you are using 'privacy coins' which those are getting banned due to regulations. All of that did not stop Stripe to continue supporting cryptocurrencies for payments [0], did it? It's really getting boring repeating the same old arguments from critics like Stephen Diehl [1] who is unable to ignore the whole thing after his failed blockchain startup venture Adjoint. [2] That's why he is grieving and wasting his energy towards cryptocurrencies. [0] https://stripe.com/gb/use-cases/crypto https://stripe.com/gb/use-cases/crypto [1] https://twitter.com/smdiehl https://twitter.com/smdiehl [2] https://twitter.com/dystopiabreaker/status/1470126927818067969 https://twitter.com/dystopiabreaker/status/14701269278180679...
    - 5y ago
audunw 5y ago
> The underlying technology is valuable Is it though? Valuable how? Has it been proven? The core of the issue is that PoW is fundamentally a sort of algorithmic cancer that threatens to basically take over on the order of half of the worlds computational power to fuel worthless speculative trading. IMO there's an important argument to be had that trading on PoW blockchains should be outright banned. Yes, you can't get rid of it completely, but you can get the impact down to a manageable level.. like with cancers. And yeah, then you have PoS and PoA blockchains. But it's yet to be proven that PoS provides the same level of security as PoW, and there's solid arguments that it never possibly could. PoA is fundamentally different from PoW and PoS, so you can argue whether it's even the same underlying thing. It's no longer truly decentralized. I think it could be very useful. It's just not as sexy and susceptible to fueling pyramid schemes, so it's less popular. So to me it seems like we really don't know at all yet if the "underlying technology" is even providing a net positive value to society. If the "underlying technology" here is trustless distributed blockchains (that is, PoA doesn't really apply), then I think there's an argument that the core of the idea is fundamentally broken. There is perhaps no such thing as a truly trustless system (for PoW/PoS blockchain, you're just converging on concentrating de-facto trust with a small clique of trading platforms and mining/wallet app developers), so maybe it's better to just be more explicit about where we're placing our trust (through solid cryptography if we can) and to make sure that those entities are democratic institutions worthy of our trust. But this quickly becomes a very deep and philosophical argument, so it's outside the scope of this comment. I support further research and development into blockchain-related technology, I certainly think it could be truly valuable. But it's yet to be proven IMO.
- MadSudaca 5y ago
  > But it's yet to be proven that PoS provides the same level of security as PoW, and there's solid arguments that it never possibly could. Could you direct me to some of these arguments? My thought is the opposite, that something in the lines of PoS is more secure in the long-run because it tends towards decentralization. I guess the devil is in the details.
  - dlubarov 5y ago
falcolas 5y ago
> The underlying technology is valuable and the problems it may have today can be overcome. I'm pretty sure that's been said about email and its encryption/validation problem. And while it's still used, other products have come in and eaten its biggest market - asynchronous communication. Inertia's a bitch, and when you have millions of users, you can't change things willy-nilly. At least, not if you want the product to be viewed as legitimate.
breadbreadbread 5y ago
Listen, people understand that technology has value outside of the scams and stupid memes. The problem is that crypto-evangelists seem to think that good intentions are all you need to build a functioning alternate economy. "Don't mind the bugs, we'll fix them later, for now entrust us with all of your money and information". It is precisely because it is flawed software that people hate on NFTs and blockchain and web3. Fix your shit and self-regulate before you promise the future to people who are already struggling in the existing economy.

anhner 5y ago

It hasn't been overcome in 15 years but they will fix it soon. Sure... Software isn't some magic that can wish away its shorcomings. Also, do you think the next instagram that will most like support its own crypto will allow you to switch to a different crypto? ETA: the transaction cost is based on the cryptocurrency, so if now the cost per transaction is 1 cent then in 10 years it might cost 10 dollars if the value of the coin goes up.

MadSudaca 5y ago
Because cryptocurrencies are dependent on the reliability of distributed systems and cryptography. Both concepts are extremely tricky, the only true way of validating them is by trying to break them and failing, this takes time. But the floodgates have been opened. Also, who cares if there are several cryptocurrencies? If they have good properties (fundamentals) and people find them valuable, why not?

JellyYelly 5y ago

You don't get these tradeoffs for free though. Anyone can make a "crypto currency" that is entirely centralised and has no fees and minimal environmental impact. Nobody would use it. I think much of the desire of crypto comes from being decentralised, and I am yet to see a crypto that doesn't use PoW that doesn't just favor those who are already rich.

MadSudaca 5y ago
Well, I can honestly tell you such a cryptocurrency exists. Cryptocurrencies are byzantine-fault-tolerant consensus algorithms. These are tricky algorithms to get right, but I can assure you that Bitcoin is not the only viable solution. In fact, I don't understand people's pessimism. In the universe of all possible algorithms of this kind, known and unknown, I find extremely unlikely that Bitcoin-like ones would be the best and only possibility!
- rvz 5y ago
  There you go. Cryptocurrencies are here to stay no matter how much they hate it or continue to waste time on repeating the same old arguments even though there are far better cryptocurrencies out there that already exist. The fact that they are unable to ignore them and continue to spread the same debunked nonsense tells you that it is not going away and it is getting boring. Just look at the first few sentences: > a slow distributed, append only spreadsheet technology which is destroying the planet we live on. So Solana, Stellar and Algorand are destroying the planet? > Blockchain isn't new. It has been around for as long as the iPhone. Look how much the iPhone has changed the world. Blockchains one claim to fame in this period is the creation of $5.2B/year ransomware industry, societal damage in the form of gambling and the loss of irreplaceable photos. The internet isn't new. Its 'killer app' (The world wide web) came decades afterwards and it took decades more for adoption. I don't know why one would try to use ransomware on transparent and traceable blockchains these days, where everyone can see where it is going, unless you are using 'privacy coins' which those are getting banned due to regulations. All of that did not stop Stripe to continue supporting cryptocurrencies for payments [0], did it? It's really getting boring repeating the same old arguments from critics like Stephen Diehl [1] who is unable to ignore the whole thing after his failed blockchain startup venture Adjoint. [2] That's why he is grieving and wasting his energy towards cryptocurrencies. [0] https://stripe.com/gb/use-cases/crypto https://stripe.com/gb/use-cases/crypto [1] https://twitter.com/smdiehl https://twitter.com/smdiehl [2] https://twitter.com/dystopiabreaker/status/1470126927818067969 https://twitter.com/dystopiabreaker/status/14701269278180679...
  - 5y ago

audunw 5y ago

> The underlying technology is valuable Is it though? Valuable how? Has it been proven? The core of the issue is that PoW is fundamentally a sort of algorithmic cancer that threatens to basically take over on the order of half of the worlds computational power to fuel worthless speculative trading. IMO there's an important argument to be had that trading on PoW blockchains should be outright banned. Yes, you can't get rid of it completely, but you can get the impact down to a manageable level.. like with cancers. And yeah, then you have PoS and PoA blockchains. But it's yet to be proven that PoS provides the same level of security as PoW, and there's solid arguments that it never possibly could. PoA is fundamentally different from PoW and PoS, so you can argue whether it's even the same underlying thing. It's no longer truly decentralized. I think it could be very useful. It's just not as sexy and susceptible to fueling pyramid schemes, so it's less popular. So to me it seems like we really don't know at all yet if the "underlying technology" is even providing a net positive value to society. If the "underlying technology" here is trustless distributed blockchains (that is, PoA doesn't really apply), then I think there's an argument that the core of the idea is fundamentally broken. There is perhaps no such thing as a truly trustless system (for PoW/PoS blockchain, you're just converging on concentrating de-facto trust with a small clique of trading platforms and mining/wallet app developers), so maybe it's better to just be more explicit about where we're placing our trust (through solid cryptography if we can) and to make sure that those entities are democratic institutions worthy of our trust. But this quickly becomes a very deep and philosophical argument, so it's outside the scope of this comment. I support further research and development into blockchain-related technology, I certainly think it could be truly valuable. But it's yet to be proven IMO.

MadSudaca 5y ago
> But it's yet to be proven that PoS provides the same level of security as PoW, and there's solid arguments that it never possibly could. Could you direct me to some of these arguments? My thought is the opposite, that something in the lines of PoS is more secure in the long-run because it tends towards decentralization. I guess the devil is in the details.
- dlubarov 5y ago

falcolas 5y ago

> The underlying technology is valuable and the problems it may have today can be overcome. I'm pretty sure that's been said about email and its encryption/validation problem. And while it's still used, other products have come in and eaten its biggest market - asynchronous communication. Inertia's a bitch, and when you have millions of users, you can't change things willy-nilly. At least, not if you want the product to be viewed as legitimate.

breadbreadbread 5y ago

Listen, people understand that technology has value outside of the scams and stupid memes. The problem is that crypto-evangelists seem to think that good intentions are all you need to build a functioning alternate economy. "Don't mind the bugs, we'll fix them later, for now entrust us with all of your money and information". It is precisely because it is flawed software that people hate on NFTs and blockchain and web3. Fix your shit and self-regulate before you promise the future to people who are already struggling in the existing economy.