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I believe many people who hate crypto are the ones that have a good life in a relatively non(or less)-corrupted government-led society, which might be a good re

I believe many people who hate crypto are the ones that have a good life in a relatively non(or less)-corrupted government-led society, which might be a good reflection of HN demographics. For them, crypto has no value because I think the biggest value proposition is decentralization, which those people don't need as they don't have a corruption problem to solve. They already have a good income, good country and system to live in, etc. Add the many scams going on in the web3 space and it's easy to see why most people don't like it. As a developer who started to turn into crypto recently: I live in a corrupted country with a corrupted government that has too much power and has no good intentions for its people. I can easily get crypto tokens or some other form of compensation for doing some work for a crypto company, which usually pays much better than regular work, while exploring new ways of thinking about how money and economy works in the first place. As a developer I feel enthusiastic about everything crypto can offer, and learning more about Solidity development and inter-chain communications and new scalable layers just excite me even more. There is not a single reason for me to not love crypto. It's all about demographics.

shafyy 5y ago
You're very naive if you think that corrupt governments won't have power over blockchain-based technologies.
- koonsolo 5y ago
  You're very naive to think that any authority can have power over distributed technology. BitTorrent is 20 years old, and today you can still download any movie you want from it. Why hasn't any company or government being able to stop it?
  - mijamo 5y ago
    It has largely stopped being common though. The supply has also gone down drastically. It used to be easy to find even confidential movies and download them, even for a non tech family. Nowadays only well informed people keep pirating and non-mainstream supply has gone down so much that it is sometimes impossible to find, which is a shame because that supply is also frequently not available through streaming so you just have some DVD on Amazon. The crackdown on pirating + streaming together really killed the scene at a point where it's no longer an inconvenience for the market actors. I would say the same is happening with crypto where KYC and AML rules will progressively apply so that you will still have crypto but the "freedom" or lawless use will be so inconvenient that it won't be a problem for governments and financial actors. It just take time for those rules to be set, but there's really not so many complicated things about it. The belief that code would beat laws is absurd, in the end you live in a physical world. Sure you could try to have an underground crypto that nobody can use officially but would that really be useful?
    - shafyy 5y ago
      Exactly, couldn't have said it better myself.
    - Intermernet 5y ago
      Pretty sure it was purely affordable streaming that killed bit-torrent. Now that the streaming providers are becoming more disparate, and the old media empires are locking everything up behind ten different streaming platforms, each of which require monthly subscriptions, you'll almost certainly see a resurgence in piracy. It's really just the free market at work ;-)
      - snovv_crash 5y ago
        Depends where you are. Somewhere like Germany you just receive a €300 bill in the mail every time you torrent something, this has a definite chilling effect on torrenting. For crypto, with all transactions being publicly available, I see this being even easier to implement.
        koonsolo 5y ago
        Not all cryptocurrencies have public transactions (see Monero for example). And next, you still have to link a wallet with a real person. Might be possible, but not necessarily so. With BitTorrent, you at least have an IP address, which is easier to link with a real person.
    - AussieWog93 5y ago
      What are you talking about? BitTorrent is absolutely alive and well, and the big sites still have everything you want as soon as it airs. I'm not talking just popular movies; I was getting Battlebots episodes from Rarbg earlier this year, in 1080p, pretty much as soon as they aired in the US.
  - martin8412 5y ago
    You don't need control over the platform. Just penalise the users.
    - koonsolo 5y ago
      If you can figure out who the users are, yes.
- x-complexity 5y ago
  > You're very naive if you think that corrupt governments won't have power over blockchain-based technologies. In the strictest sense: Yes, with enough coercion, a small blockchain could be influenced. However, from a practical standpoint, it simply makes much more sense for said government to follow the FATF's recommendations & implement a CBDC, no blockchains required. In fact, combined with AML/KYC, said government wouldn't need to bother with dissidents, as they can simply wipe the balances of anyone they deem a threat towards national security.
- can16358p 5y ago
  You're very naive if you think blockchain technology wouldn't become more privacy-friendly to the extent that governments trying to have power over it practically need to give up because it simply would become economically infeasible for them to do that.
  - hocuspocus 5y ago
    Sure governments can't easily control P2P transactions but as soon as you need money to pay taxes, rent, bills, groceries... cryptocurrencies won't take you very far, especially in a country that's banned them entirely.
    - roenxi 5y ago
      If it is a corrupt country, why will the ban be effective? Even asking how they will ban it is an interesting technical question, people would have to be cut off from the internet and anything that can run linux. I live in Australia, and was interested in buying a privacy oriented cryptocurrency the other day. It was an interesting thing to realise that the government can't stop me in the usual way (regulatory pressure on the exchange to not let me trade) because I can buy ETH then swap that on some shady foreign exchange for what I actually want. Nothing illegal going on there as far as I'm aware, but unless they send in thugs to cut my internet connection there isn't a lot the government can do to control my actions without spending serious money on actually sending people to make me do things I don't want to. It is a nice change of pace from most assets. Eventually there someone is going to figure out zero-knowledge proofs enough that the tax office can't prove who owns anything or if a capital gain was made. That is going to be an extremely interesting development.
      - martin8412 5y ago
        No, they would not need to cut anything off. They'll just need to penalise the usage. They could literally just execute you for the usage.
        AlexandrB 5y ago
d--b 5y ago
Sure but you must be very wary that this all may be temporary. Your government may decide to crack down on crypto, making it difficult to convert to your local currency (as many countries do with USD). The crypto world in the US may very well be a bubble that will burst at some point.
- can16358p 5y ago
  Sure, it might be temporary, but it makes government's job much more difficult as opposed to traditional centralized systems. And as web3 progresses, the line between the Internet and cryptocurrencies will blur even more, making it hard to define laws around crypto without banning access to the Internet in the first place, which will make their job even harder, which is good in terms of taking power back from authoritarian goverments.
- chrisco255 5y ago
  The whole financial sector in the U.S. is a bubble that will burst at some point. Have already lived through one of those just 14 years ago. And now we're getting elevated inflation, multiple international currencies experiencing hyperinflation, etc. Crypto is at least transparent and fully auditable. Loans stay solvent as they are over collateralized and automatically liquidated when they become close to under collateralization. As a result, the crypto space has and will go through many mini bubbles that resolve themselves very quickly. Crypto and blockchain are fundamentally transformative technologies. The U.S. government will make moves to co-opt it, via stable coin regulation, but they won't be able to fully control the space. It is truly international in scope, and runs on math and cryptography. They can scarcely ban seed phrases, or blockchain in general, as it is fundamentally a form of speech.
daveed 5y ago
> I believe many people who hate crypto are the ones that have a good life in a relatively non(or less)-corrupted government-led society, which might be a good reflection of HN demographics. Maybe. I hear this a lot too. But as a counterpoint, I happen to live in the USA, and have a pretty good life. I know a LOT of people who have good lives in this relatively uncorrupted society who are going into web3. And who are funded by very well off people in said country. I'm not saying that web3 can't help people in bad countries. It's that I don't think that's the end goal of a lot of this enthusiasm. Because I don't think those people were trying to help out people in your country before crypto existed (not verified, but I think this is a reasonable belief).

shafyy 5y ago

You're very naive if you think that corrupt governments won't have power over blockchain-based technologies.

koonsolo 5y ago
You're very naive to think that any authority can have power over distributed technology. BitTorrent is 20 years old, and today you can still download any movie you want from it. Why hasn't any company or government being able to stop it?
- mijamo 5y ago
  It has largely stopped being common though. The supply has also gone down drastically. It used to be easy to find even confidential movies and download them, even for a non tech family. Nowadays only well informed people keep pirating and non-mainstream supply has gone down so much that it is sometimes impossible to find, which is a shame because that supply is also frequently not available through streaming so you just have some DVD on Amazon. The crackdown on pirating + streaming together really killed the scene at a point where it's no longer an inconvenience for the market actors. I would say the same is happening with crypto where KYC and AML rules will progressively apply so that you will still have crypto but the "freedom" or lawless use will be so inconvenient that it won't be a problem for governments and financial actors. It just take time for those rules to be set, but there's really not so many complicated things about it. The belief that code would beat laws is absurd, in the end you live in a physical world. Sure you could try to have an underground crypto that nobody can use officially but would that really be useful?
  - shafyy 5y ago
    Exactly, couldn't have said it better myself.
  - Intermernet 5y ago
    Pretty sure it was purely affordable streaming that killed bit-torrent. Now that the streaming providers are becoming more disparate, and the old media empires are locking everything up behind ten different streaming platforms, each of which require monthly subscriptions, you'll almost certainly see a resurgence in piracy. It's really just the free market at work ;-)
    - snovv_crash 5y ago
      Depends where you are. Somewhere like Germany you just receive a €300 bill in the mail every time you torrent something, this has a definite chilling effect on torrenting. For crypto, with all transactions being publicly available, I see this being even easier to implement.
      - koonsolo 5y ago
        Not all cryptocurrencies have public transactions (see Monero for example). And next, you still have to link a wallet with a real person. Might be possible, but not necessarily so. With BitTorrent, you at least have an IP address, which is easier to link with a real person.
  - AussieWog93 5y ago
    What are you talking about? BitTorrent is absolutely alive and well, and the big sites still have everything you want as soon as it airs. I'm not talking just popular movies; I was getting Battlebots episodes from Rarbg earlier this year, in 1080p, pretty much as soon as they aired in the US.
- martin8412 5y ago
  You don't need control over the platform. Just penalise the users.
  - koonsolo 5y ago
    If you can figure out who the users are, yes.
x-complexity 5y ago
> You're very naive if you think that corrupt governments won't have power over blockchain-based technologies. In the strictest sense: Yes, with enough coercion, a small blockchain could be influenced. However, from a practical standpoint, it simply makes much more sense for said government to follow the FATF's recommendations & implement a CBDC, no blockchains required. In fact, combined with AML/KYC, said government wouldn't need to bother with dissidents, as they can simply wipe the balances of anyone they deem a threat towards national security.
can16358p 5y ago
You're very naive if you think blockchain technology wouldn't become more privacy-friendly to the extent that governments trying to have power over it practically need to give up because it simply would become economically infeasible for them to do that.
- hocuspocus 5y ago
  Sure governments can't easily control P2P transactions but as soon as you need money to pay taxes, rent, bills, groceries... cryptocurrencies won't take you very far, especially in a country that's banned them entirely.
  - roenxi 5y ago
    If it is a corrupt country, why will the ban be effective? Even asking how they will ban it is an interesting technical question, people would have to be cut off from the internet and anything that can run linux. I live in Australia, and was interested in buying a privacy oriented cryptocurrency the other day. It was an interesting thing to realise that the government can't stop me in the usual way (regulatory pressure on the exchange to not let me trade) because I can buy ETH then swap that on some shady foreign exchange for what I actually want. Nothing illegal going on there as far as I'm aware, but unless they send in thugs to cut my internet connection there isn't a lot the government can do to control my actions without spending serious money on actually sending people to make me do things I don't want to. It is a nice change of pace from most assets. Eventually there someone is going to figure out zero-knowledge proofs enough that the tax office can't prove who owns anything or if a capital gain was made. That is going to be an extremely interesting development.
    - martin8412 5y ago
      No, they would not need to cut anything off. They'll just need to penalise the usage. They could literally just execute you for the usage.
      - AlexandrB 5y ago

d--b 5y ago

Sure but you must be very wary that this all may be temporary. Your government may decide to crack down on crypto, making it difficult to convert to your local currency (as many countries do with USD). The crypto world in the US may very well be a bubble that will burst at some point.

can16358p 5y ago
Sure, it might be temporary, but it makes government's job much more difficult as opposed to traditional centralized systems. And as web3 progresses, the line between the Internet and cryptocurrencies will blur even more, making it hard to define laws around crypto without banning access to the Internet in the first place, which will make their job even harder, which is good in terms of taking power back from authoritarian goverments.
chrisco255 5y ago
The whole financial sector in the U.S. is a bubble that will burst at some point. Have already lived through one of those just 14 years ago. And now we're getting elevated inflation, multiple international currencies experiencing hyperinflation, etc. Crypto is at least transparent and fully auditable. Loans stay solvent as they are over collateralized and automatically liquidated when they become close to under collateralization. As a result, the crypto space has and will go through many mini bubbles that resolve themselves very quickly. Crypto and blockchain are fundamentally transformative technologies. The U.S. government will make moves to co-opt it, via stable coin regulation, but they won't be able to fully control the space. It is truly international in scope, and runs on math and cryptography. They can scarcely ban seed phrases, or blockchain in general, as it is fundamentally a form of speech.

daveed 5y ago

> I believe many people who hate crypto are the ones that have a good life in a relatively non(or less)-corrupted government-led society, which might be a good reflection of HN demographics. Maybe. I hear this a lot too. But as a counterpoint, I happen to live in the USA, and have a pretty good life. I know a LOT of people who have good lives in this relatively uncorrupted society who are going into web3. And who are funded by very well off people in said country. I'm not saying that web3 can't help people in bad countries. It's that I don't think that's the end goal of a lot of this enthusiasm. Because I don't think those people were trying to help out people in your country before crypto existed (not verified, but I think this is a reasonable belief).