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The truth is they’re completely irrelevant to 99% of the internet population. Pick the top 20 coins. Look at their respective block explorers and check tx/day,

The truth is they’re completely irrelevant to 99% of the internet population. Pick the top 20 coins. Look at their respective block explorers and check tx/day, unique address/day, etc. You’ll quickly come to the conclusion that maybe 100M people actually use cryptocurrencies in any meaningful way. The internet has 5B users. Cryptocurrency use is irrelevant. The cryptocurrency debate in technical circles reminds me of two extremely obscure religious sects screaming at each other while meanwhile the rest of the world doesn’t know either of them exists.

bowsamic 4y ago
There are huge crypto.com ads plastered over every F1 track, I don't think this is extremely obscure stuff. I've encountered a lot of non tech people who own crypto. I saw some number somewhere that estimated that around 17% of Ukrainians own crypto, with similar numbers for other countries. The idea that it is an extremely obscure thing also seems like a function of being in a HN tech bubble. There are crypto ads and exchanges everywhere
- kkielhofner 4y ago
  Owning crypto != actually using it. Exchanges run private order books like any other investment org. People trading (gambling?) one ticker symbol (crypto or not) vs another (crypto or not) has absolutely nothing to do with real world use or utility. I can watch the Euro move up and down on forex and buy/sell to make money in my currency of choice while never touching a Euro, using it for anything, or having any real long term confidence, understanding, or belief in anything Euro or European related. I just know it made me X in USD this day/week/month and that's all I care about. Fill in EUR with BTC, ETH, etc. No one on exchanges cares about anything other than what it means for them in their local currency. The use of exchanges is a get rich quick scheme not unlike penny stocks in the late 80s/early 90s or dot coms in the late 90s. In the late 90s very few in the general population jumping on dot com stocks had any idea what the hell any of it meant. They just heard a story about someone making $100k in a day and wanted in. Look at the FOMO ads during the SuperBowl... There was zero value or utility demonstrated and 100% of the messaging was "everyone else is getting rich quick at crypto.com so don't miss out". Their fees (in real money) are absolutely bonkers so of course they're doing everything they can to bring people in. Have you seen Wolf of Wall Street? There's a scene where the main character gets taken to lunch by an experienced broker. Long story short the lesson was this: "Fuck the clients. Best case scenario let them think they're getting rich on paper while meanwhile we take home cold hard cash every time they trade via commission." Be careful with surveys you "read somewhere"... The often cited "300 million crypto users worldwide" stat[0] (for example) comes from a blockchain payments company (surely they're unbiased, right?) that for some reason estimated this number from a Central Bank of Canada phone survey extrapolated to the worldwide population... It's really interesting that whenever I bring up blockchain explorers and the fact that blockchain has the most transparent and reliable adoption metrics ever no one takes me up on an analysis of the data and deflects to virtually anything else instead. Adoption and use data is there without bias. It requires some interpretation to determine something more akin to MAU/DAU but even very generous measure will show that 13 years after the launch of bitcoin blockchain is the most poorly adopted technology platform in recent history[1]. 0 - https://triple-a.io/crypto-ownership/ https://triple-a.io/crypto-ownership/ 1 - https://blog.cryptostars.is/blockchain-the-most-poorly-adopted-platform-in-recent-history-6f5d97f7d51f https://blog.cryptostars.is/blockchain-the-most-poorly-adopt...
  - bowsamic 4y ago
    Is this supposed to be a critique of all financial investment or speculation? I'm not sure what else I'm supposed to take from this. Also talk about moving the goalposts, we've gone from "no one knows about crypto or cares about if its good or bad" to "they don't really use it they just trade it"
    - kkielhofner 4y ago
      It's not a critique of financial investment or speculation. It's calling all of it what it is - financial investment and/or speculation. If someone claimed they were participating in changing the world and building the future of everything by shuffling Euros around on some forex platform and taking it home as USD you would be skeptical, correct? How is trading BTC any different? You misunderstand me. Many people trade crypto but this doesn't equate to actual use. Crypto exchanges run order books just like a forex exchange or other investment platform with a SQL or whatever backend. Do you really consider people speculating on insert-random-coin-ticker-on-exchange-here as use? It moves on an internal order book, it doesn't touch the blockchain itself. That is not use. That is people investing or speculating with an asset just like any other asset. It has nothing to do with the underlying technology or use. Nothing. Looking at the chains themselves you will see that very few people actually transact off exchanges on actual blockchains (real use). This is what I mean when I say cryptocurrency USE is irrelevant. Buying and selling BTC to take it home in USD to buy a Lambo is not USE of BTC. It's financial investment/speculation on some random asset and USE of USD.
      - bowsamic 4y ago
        I do consider it a use of crypto, in this case it is a highly volatile speculative investment that can be moved into a hardware wallet where it can be kept safe from theft, and also transferred into fiat. Even if crypto never becomes more than that, I still think this is a valuable thing. With DeFi things get more interesting
        kkielhofner 4y ago

bowsamic 4y ago

There are huge crypto.com ads plastered over every F1 track, I don't think this is extremely obscure stuff. I've encountered a lot of non tech people who own crypto. I saw some number somewhere that estimated that around 17% of Ukrainians own crypto, with similar numbers for other countries. The idea that it is an extremely obscure thing also seems like a function of being in a HN tech bubble. There are crypto ads and exchanges everywhere

kkielhofner 4y ago
Owning crypto != actually using it. Exchanges run private order books like any other investment org. People trading (gambling?) one ticker symbol (crypto or not) vs another (crypto or not) has absolutely nothing to do with real world use or utility. I can watch the Euro move up and down on forex and buy/sell to make money in my currency of choice while never touching a Euro, using it for anything, or having any real long term confidence, understanding, or belief in anything Euro or European related. I just know it made me X in USD this day/week/month and that's all I care about. Fill in EUR with BTC, ETH, etc. No one on exchanges cares about anything other than what it means for them in their local currency. The use of exchanges is a get rich quick scheme not unlike penny stocks in the late 80s/early 90s or dot coms in the late 90s. In the late 90s very few in the general population jumping on dot com stocks had any idea what the hell any of it meant. They just heard a story about someone making $100k in a day and wanted in. Look at the FOMO ads during the SuperBowl... There was zero value or utility demonstrated and 100% of the messaging was "everyone else is getting rich quick at crypto.com so don't miss out". Their fees (in real money) are absolutely bonkers so of course they're doing everything they can to bring people in. Have you seen Wolf of Wall Street? There's a scene where the main character gets taken to lunch by an experienced broker. Long story short the lesson was this: "Fuck the clients. Best case scenario let them think they're getting rich on paper while meanwhile we take home cold hard cash every time they trade via commission." Be careful with surveys you "read somewhere"... The often cited "300 million crypto users worldwide" stat[0] (for example) comes from a blockchain payments company (surely they're unbiased, right?) that for some reason estimated this number from a Central Bank of Canada phone survey extrapolated to the worldwide population... It's really interesting that whenever I bring up blockchain explorers and the fact that blockchain has the most transparent and reliable adoption metrics ever no one takes me up on an analysis of the data and deflects to virtually anything else instead. Adoption and use data is there without bias. It requires some interpretation to determine something more akin to MAU/DAU but even very generous measure will show that 13 years after the launch of bitcoin blockchain is the most poorly adopted technology platform in recent history[1]. 0 - https://triple-a.io/crypto-ownership/ https://triple-a.io/crypto-ownership/ 1 - https://blog.cryptostars.is/blockchain-the-most-poorly-adopted-platform-in-recent-history-6f5d97f7d51f https://blog.cryptostars.is/blockchain-the-most-poorly-adopt...
- bowsamic 4y ago
  Is this supposed to be a critique of all financial investment or speculation? I'm not sure what else I'm supposed to take from this. Also talk about moving the goalposts, we've gone from "no one knows about crypto or cares about if its good or bad" to "they don't really use it they just trade it"
  - kkielhofner 4y ago
    It's not a critique of financial investment or speculation. It's calling all of it what it is - financial investment and/or speculation. If someone claimed they were participating in changing the world and building the future of everything by shuffling Euros around on some forex platform and taking it home as USD you would be skeptical, correct? How is trading BTC any different? You misunderstand me. Many people trade crypto but this doesn't equate to actual use. Crypto exchanges run order books just like a forex exchange or other investment platform with a SQL or whatever backend. Do you really consider people speculating on insert-random-coin-ticker-on-exchange-here as use? It moves on an internal order book, it doesn't touch the blockchain itself. That is not use. That is people investing or speculating with an asset just like any other asset. It has nothing to do with the underlying technology or use. Nothing. Looking at the chains themselves you will see that very few people actually transact off exchanges on actual blockchains (real use). This is what I mean when I say cryptocurrency USE is irrelevant. Buying and selling BTC to take it home in USD to buy a Lambo is not USE of BTC. It's financial investment/speculation on some random asset and USE of USD.
    - bowsamic 4y ago
      I do consider it a use of crypto, in this case it is a highly volatile speculative investment that can be moved into a hardware wallet where it can be kept safe from theft, and also transferred into fiat. Even if crypto never becomes more than that, I still think this is a valuable thing. With DeFi things get more interesting
      - kkielhofner 4y ago