4 ms·

Is Crypto Dead?

21 points by zoomzoom 4y ago

pjkundert 4y ago
No. The battle has just been joined. The drunken and stupid are being picked off. The battlefield is being set, for the first real battles. Buckle up.
colesantiago 4y ago
Not yet, but it soon will be. One word: Tether. Then crypto will never recover.
moistly 4y ago
Are MLM schemes dead? Nigerian money scams? Slot machines?
- walrus01 4y ago
  Scammers with a well prepared script calling or messaging age 65+ persons pretending to be their grandchild in need of bail money (which of course must be paid from a bitcoin ATM, or in itunes gift cards or similar) seem to be wildly successful these days. I have a theory that some of this is due to large scale data leaks that have peoples' ages in a database field so some scammers are now in possession of name, phone number and ages for millions of elderly americans.
  - moistly 4y ago
    Of course they are. Health details, too, because there have been leaks in healthcare, too, most recently in Oz. Also financial metrics: everyone’s game score was leaked by Equitax IIRC.
- dredmorbius 4y ago
  Are you saying that the principle role envisaged for cryptocurrencies is as some fringe-level scam-the-vulnerable? Because my understanding was that it was initially positioned as a total replacement for fiat currencies. From the abstract to Satoshi's initial white paper (2008): A purely peer-to-peer version of electronic cash would allow online payments to be sent directly from one party to another without going through a financial institution. Digital signatures provide part of the solution, but the main benefits are lost if a trusted third party is still required to prevent double-spending. We propose a solution to the double-spending problem using a peer-to-peer network. <https://nakamotoinstitute.org/bitcoin/ https://nakamotoinstitute.org/bitcoin/> See similar statements from Chaum and others (<https://web.archive.org/web/20141218034712/http://www.hit.bme.hu/%7Ebuttyan/courses/BMEVIHIM219/2009/Chaum.BlindSigForPayment.1982.PDF https://web.archive.org/web/20141218034712/http://www.hit.bm...>) That latter doesn't seem to be happening any time soon.
superchroma 4y ago
it has basically no use-cases that the government will permit that solve a novel problem with less friction than existing solutions, which is the criteria for success, so yeah, for the time being. Worse, the space is riddled with scammers.
ThrowawayTestr 4y ago
A cool idea ruined by the worst people.
- dredmorbius 4y ago
  99% percent spoiling it for the rest, as usual.
- oceanghost 4y ago
  There's this concept in economics that regulations last about as long as human memory-- that we create a law to stabilize a problem we saw, then the memory of why we did that is lost, and someone comes in and says "this has always been fine, lets deregulate it." In the case of crypto, we experienced 500 years of economics lessons in a decade.
  - sekh60 4y ago
    I think the same thing plagues medicine. Vaccines have been so successful in the developed world that we have forgotten the horror of diseases like smallpox and polio. I this success helped the rise of the anti-vax movement.
seydor 4y ago
Death is not a valid concept for a computer program.
halfcat 4y ago
Short term, Bitcoin may plummet, but it changes long term prospects very little. 1929 didn’t end the stock market. It wiped out a lot of value, and changed nothing long term except timelines. It’s possible we see 3-digit BTCUSD in the future, and later 7-digit.
- ddalex 4y ago
  Buy the dip? I hope that mining will become prohibitively expensive due to rising energy prices when the BTC will fall.
  - halfcat 4y ago
    Increasing the energy requirement of mining doesn’t discourage mining. It encourages more widespread use of untapped renewable energy sources. A river in an impoverished country in the middle of nowhere, which is too far from a population center to provide electricity, can mine bitcoin and store that energy across space and time.
    - ddalex 4y ago
      > can mine bitcoin and store that energy across space and time I feel that if somebody manages to break the second law of thermodynamics they will get endless Nobel prizes
      - halfcat 4y ago
        Sure, “if”, but no one said anything about breaking laws of physics. There’s no claim of perfectly efficient energy transfer. It’s just regular inefficient energy transfer, like US dollars or an electrical power grid, but available to more people and places (specifically excluding the rich, and enabling more options for those who need it most, in economically disadvantaged and emerging countries).
shagymoe 4y ago
Seems like an irresponsible and useless post. The kind of thing that isn't allowed here on HN. Nothing but heresay, so why say it. Honestly asking.
- zoomzoom 4y ago
  Mainly because PG wrote the tweet. Generally I would agree to be honest - but on this forum it feels hard to argue the rules in this case.
  - Watchwatcher 4y ago

21 points by zoomzoom 4y ago

No. The battle has just been joined. The drunken and stupid are being picked off. The battlefield is being set, for the first real battles. Buckle up.

colesantiago 4y ago

Not yet, but it soon will be. One word: Tether. Then crypto will never recover.

moistly 4y ago

Are MLM schemes dead? Nigerian money scams? Slot machines?

walrus01 4y ago
Scammers with a well prepared script calling or messaging age 65+ persons pretending to be their grandchild in need of bail money (which of course must be paid from a bitcoin ATM, or in itunes gift cards or similar) seem to be wildly successful these days. I have a theory that some of this is due to large scale data leaks that have peoples' ages in a database field so some scammers are now in possession of name, phone number and ages for millions of elderly americans.
- moistly 4y ago
  Of course they are. Health details, too, because there have been leaks in healthcare, too, most recently in Oz. Also financial metrics: everyone’s game score was leaked by Equitax IIRC.
dredmorbius 4y ago
Are you saying that the principle role envisaged for cryptocurrencies is as some fringe-level scam-the-vulnerable? Because my understanding was that it was initially positioned as a total replacement for fiat currencies. From the abstract to Satoshi's initial white paper (2008): A purely peer-to-peer version of electronic cash would allow online payments to be sent directly from one party to another without going through a financial institution. Digital signatures provide part of the solution, but the main benefits are lost if a trusted third party is still required to prevent double-spending. We propose a solution to the double-spending problem using a peer-to-peer network. <https://nakamotoinstitute.org/bitcoin/ https://nakamotoinstitute.org/bitcoin/> See similar statements from Chaum and others (<https://web.archive.org/web/20141218034712/http://www.hit.bme.hu/%7Ebuttyan/courses/BMEVIHIM219/2009/Chaum.BlindSigForPayment.1982.PDF https://web.archive.org/web/20141218034712/http://www.hit.bm...>) That latter doesn't seem to be happening any time soon.

superchroma 4y ago

it has basically no use-cases that the government will permit that solve a novel problem with less friction than existing solutions, which is the criteria for success, so yeah, for the time being. Worse, the space is riddled with scammers.

ThrowawayTestr 4y ago

A cool idea ruined by the worst people.

dredmorbius 4y ago
99% percent spoiling it for the rest, as usual.
oceanghost 4y ago
There's this concept in economics that regulations last about as long as human memory-- that we create a law to stabilize a problem we saw, then the memory of why we did that is lost, and someone comes in and says "this has always been fine, lets deregulate it." In the case of crypto, we experienced 500 years of economics lessons in a decade.
- sekh60 4y ago
  I think the same thing plagues medicine. Vaccines have been so successful in the developed world that we have forgotten the horror of diseases like smallpox and polio. I this success helped the rise of the anti-vax movement.

seydor 4y ago

Death is not a valid concept for a computer program.

halfcat 4y ago

Short term, Bitcoin may plummet, but it changes long term prospects very little. 1929 didn’t end the stock market. It wiped out a lot of value, and changed nothing long term except timelines. It’s possible we see 3-digit BTCUSD in the future, and later 7-digit.

ddalex 4y ago
Buy the dip? I hope that mining will become prohibitively expensive due to rising energy prices when the BTC will fall.
- halfcat 4y ago
  Increasing the energy requirement of mining doesn’t discourage mining. It encourages more widespread use of untapped renewable energy sources. A river in an impoverished country in the middle of nowhere, which is too far from a population center to provide electricity, can mine bitcoin and store that energy across space and time.
  - ddalex 4y ago
    > can mine bitcoin and store that energy across space and time I feel that if somebody manages to break the second law of thermodynamics they will get endless Nobel prizes
    - halfcat 4y ago
      Sure, “if”, but no one said anything about breaking laws of physics. There’s no claim of perfectly efficient energy transfer. It’s just regular inefficient energy transfer, like US dollars or an electrical power grid, but available to more people and places (specifically excluding the rich, and enabling more options for those who need it most, in economically disadvantaged and emerging countries).

shagymoe 4y ago

Seems like an irresponsible and useless post. The kind of thing that isn't allowed here on HN. Nothing but heresay, so why say it. Honestly asking.

zoomzoom 4y ago
Mainly because PG wrote the tweet. Generally I would agree to be honest - but on this forum it feels hard to argue the rules in this case.
- Watchwatcher 4y ago