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I agree with the bottom line, but the form, why does the author have to exaggerate like this? Cryptocurrencies are not "useless except for criminals"... Blockc

I agree with the bottom line, but the form, why does the author have to exaggerate like this? Cryptocurrencies are not "useless except for criminals"... Blockchain is also not useless. It's just much less useful than the hype makes it out to be. Making absolute statements like this isn't helpful, it makes it easy to demolish the argument for the actual scammers.

bertman 4y ago
>Cryptocurrencies are not "useless except for criminals"... Blockchain is also not useless. You say this, and yet fail to mention a legitimate use case, which is exactly what a big part of the article is about.
- illiac786 4y ago
  I thought that was obvious, apologies: anonymous payments. Do you also require an example of why anonymous payments are useful to non-criminals?
  - only_human 4y ago
    >I thought that was obvious, apologies: anonymous payments. That isn't a legitimate use case. Cash is still largely superior at anonymous transactions, and it always will be because every crypto transaction inherently leaves a rather large paper trail. This can be obfuscated with cryptography techniques but can't be totally eliminated, traditional network tracking still goes a long way. >Do you also require an example of why anonymous payments are useful to non-criminals? No because they largely aren't. Any activist use case you think you have is disproportionately benefiting criminals. The larger the sum of money they're trying to launder, the more they gain from this. The problem with your line of thinking is that "anonymous payments" isn't actually a feature, it's the default state of things. Big corporations and shady governments would absolutely love to not tell anybody anything about what they're spending money on unless they can put a marketing spin on it. The transparency, accounting and reporting requirements are things that society built because we acknowledge that those who have large amounts of money have more power and therefore deserve more scrutiny.
  - ethanbond 4y ago
    But actually conducting an anonymous payment, even on a blockchain, is not straightforward at all, and it’s almost certainly a bad idea to do so on a permanent public ledger.
    - illiac786 4y ago
      Well I am not super savvy and I managed to use MobileCoin in Signal... What other mean of online anonymous payments exist? I'm not very up to date on this front.
      - ethanbond 4y ago
        Neat! I haven’t tried that, and someone above said Monero is actually pretty easy. But people imagine e.g. Bitcoin transactions to be anonymous (they’re not), and zcash is (last I saw) the most private option but also (last I saw) it was extremely nontrivial to actually set up a transaction. Edit: Going through MobileCoin info it’s not super clear to me how you deposit/withdraw currency but keep in mind that this is historically a plenty sufficient amount of information to put your entire transaction’s privacy at risk (from certain adversaries anyway). I.e. if you are suspected of a crime but the only info available to prosecutors is you deposited $N and then your alleged conspirator withdrew $N out the other end, the fact the transaction itself was private is not going to save you.
    - zeroclip 4y ago
      Running a server is not straight forward, but people still manage to do it. These UX problems can be solved. An example is Aztec protocol[1] which makes it easy to send and receive anonymous payments without running a private blockchain node. [1] https://zk.money/ https://zk.money/
dwgebler 4y ago
Hi, author here. So the first thing is as something meant to be an engaging (though casual) read and one which is targeted at an audience who might not all be tech buffs, of course there's some simplification, glossing over some things and yes, a bit of hyperbole here and there for dramatic effect. The opening paragraph, for example, obviously lays out a strong and provocative position to immediately engage the reader and establish the post's theme as a critical piece. The other part is the article already comes in at something like 3800 words. I could write five, ten times that on the subject and still not be done. I have to pick and choose what I cover and in what detail. The primary use case of cryptocurrencies (and in particular Bitcoin) today, when used directly as currency, as a means of purchase, is criminal activity. The article glossed over that there are other niche use cases where coins are used as currencies but they are very much a niche, particularly when weighed against the biggest use of crypto today which is simply as a form of something analogous to stock trading only without the regulation. But this is almost a secondary point; the article is about "Web 3" hype, these points are relevant insofar as the thing which is really being challenged is this idea that crypto and blockchain will be the foundation of a major new era in the web. I'll certainly take it as constructive feedback on my writing if that isn't clear enough. Thanks.
- only_human 4y ago
  I disagree with the comment you're responding to. Please be more aggressive about dismissing crypto and blockchains as a fraud. It's actually shameful how reluctant some engineers are to do this. This isn't just about using them as a currency. They're bad at literally everything else too. There are no actual niche use cases. More software engineers need to be honest and up front about this before the scams continue. The irrational levels of hype must end. Crypto and blockchains are actually just completely useless. It's been 13 years and still every single person I've ever seen who says they're useful can't name a single actual use case that you can't do better with just a normal database. Even you're getting sucked into this trap. Like, I get people's reluctance to seem biased, but how long are we going to let this charade continue? How long before we can say enough is enough? "Enterprise blockchain" is a marketing buzzword. Nobody actually wants them except to tick a box on a checklist. They never gained any real traction, because they're useless. They have to be managed by a centralized admin anyway, so what's the point? There just isn't one. Part of this is intentional confusion on the part of promoters, people labeling anything that uses paxos or merkle trees as "blockchain" for marketing reasons, but I hope people also start pushing back against that for what they are: obvious attempts to cash in on the crypto hype by using the word blockchain.

bertman 4y ago

>Cryptocurrencies are not "useless except for criminals"... Blockchain is also not useless. You say this, and yet fail to mention a legitimate use case, which is exactly what a big part of the article is about.

illiac786 4y ago
I thought that was obvious, apologies: anonymous payments. Do you also require an example of why anonymous payments are useful to non-criminals?
- only_human 4y ago
  >I thought that was obvious, apologies: anonymous payments. That isn't a legitimate use case. Cash is still largely superior at anonymous transactions, and it always will be because every crypto transaction inherently leaves a rather large paper trail. This can be obfuscated with cryptography techniques but can't be totally eliminated, traditional network tracking still goes a long way. >Do you also require an example of why anonymous payments are useful to non-criminals? No because they largely aren't. Any activist use case you think you have is disproportionately benefiting criminals. The larger the sum of money they're trying to launder, the more they gain from this. The problem with your line of thinking is that "anonymous payments" isn't actually a feature, it's the default state of things. Big corporations and shady governments would absolutely love to not tell anybody anything about what they're spending money on unless they can put a marketing spin on it. The transparency, accounting and reporting requirements are things that society built because we acknowledge that those who have large amounts of money have more power and therefore deserve more scrutiny.
- ethanbond 4y ago
  But actually conducting an anonymous payment, even on a blockchain, is not straightforward at all, and it’s almost certainly a bad idea to do so on a permanent public ledger.
  - illiac786 4y ago
    Well I am not super savvy and I managed to use MobileCoin in Signal... What other mean of online anonymous payments exist? I'm not very up to date on this front.
    - ethanbond 4y ago
      Neat! I haven’t tried that, and someone above said Monero is actually pretty easy. But people imagine e.g. Bitcoin transactions to be anonymous (they’re not), and zcash is (last I saw) the most private option but also (last I saw) it was extremely nontrivial to actually set up a transaction. Edit: Going through MobileCoin info it’s not super clear to me how you deposit/withdraw currency but keep in mind that this is historically a plenty sufficient amount of information to put your entire transaction’s privacy at risk (from certain adversaries anyway). I.e. if you are suspected of a crime but the only info available to prosecutors is you deposited $N and then your alleged conspirator withdrew $N out the other end, the fact the transaction itself was private is not going to save you.
  - zeroclip 4y ago
    Running a server is not straight forward, but people still manage to do it. These UX problems can be solved. An example is Aztec protocol[1] which makes it easy to send and receive anonymous payments without running a private blockchain node. [1] https://zk.money/ https://zk.money/

dwgebler 4y ago

Hi, author here. So the first thing is as something meant to be an engaging (though casual) read and one which is targeted at an audience who might not all be tech buffs, of course there's some simplification, glossing over some things and yes, a bit of hyperbole here and there for dramatic effect. The opening paragraph, for example, obviously lays out a strong and provocative position to immediately engage the reader and establish the post's theme as a critical piece. The other part is the article already comes in at something like 3800 words. I could write five, ten times that on the subject and still not be done. I have to pick and choose what I cover and in what detail. The primary use case of cryptocurrencies (and in particular Bitcoin) today, when used directly as currency, as a means of purchase, is criminal activity. The article glossed over that there are other niche use cases where coins are used as currencies but they are very much a niche, particularly when weighed against the biggest use of crypto today which is simply as a form of something analogous to stock trading only without the regulation. But this is almost a secondary point; the article is about "Web 3" hype, these points are relevant insofar as the thing which is really being challenged is this idea that crypto and blockchain will be the foundation of a major new era in the web. I'll certainly take it as constructive feedback on my writing if that isn't clear enough. Thanks.

only_human 4y ago
I disagree with the comment you're responding to. Please be more aggressive about dismissing crypto and blockchains as a fraud. It's actually shameful how reluctant some engineers are to do this. This isn't just about using them as a currency. They're bad at literally everything else too. There are no actual niche use cases. More software engineers need to be honest and up front about this before the scams continue. The irrational levels of hype must end. Crypto and blockchains are actually just completely useless. It's been 13 years and still every single person I've ever seen who says they're useful can't name a single actual use case that you can't do better with just a normal database. Even you're getting sucked into this trap. Like, I get people's reluctance to seem biased, but how long are we going to let this charade continue? How long before we can say enough is enough? "Enterprise blockchain" is a marketing buzzword. Nobody actually wants them except to tick a box on a checklist. They never gained any real traction, because they're useless. They have to be managed by a centralized admin anyway, so what's the point? There just isn't one. Part of this is intentional confusion on the part of promoters, people labeling anything that uses paxos or merkle trees as "blockchain" for marketing reasons, but I hope people also start pushing back against that for what they are: obvious attempts to cash in on the crypto hype by using the word blockchain.