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Many HN'ers like myself were crypto enthusiasts in the early days, because there were so many promising things it seemed like it could be used for. Over the la

Many HN'ers like myself were crypto enthusiasts in the early days, because there were so many promising things it seemed like it could be used for. Over the last 13 years, every last use case with the arguable exception of Ponzi schemes and ransomware scams has turned to shit. Payments, store of value, distributed computing, NFTs, nope all across the board. You can't even buy drugs with Bitcoin anymore!

mathieuh 4y ago
You want drugs you use Monero these days (or so I understand). Dark net markets are still pretty big (or so I'm lead to believe).
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BLKNSLVR 4y ago
Payments, store of value, and NFTs I don't think has turned to shit. Distributed computing I don't know much about, but if you're talking smart contracts that seems to be pretty healthy and well, but if you're talking decentralized AWS then I think there's a ways to go before that's a realistic expectation. Payments, can work well in certain scenarios and better / worse for different cryptocurrencies. Cross border large value transfers Bitcoin can still be a cheaper and faster option than some (countries) banks. Store of value is an interesting one, more so because we're (maybe?) near a local bottom down 80-odd percent from all time highs, but on a single line from inception to now, it's outperformed much of the stock market (I have no direct citation for this, but have heard it from a number of not necessarily trustworthy sources). The whole stock market being down a large percentage takes some of the stink off Bitcoin's store of value argument as well. Gold seems fairly consistent; boring, but boring can be good as an investment or store of value. NFTs, that's all just in fashion mode at the moment, the new application of cryptocurrency / blockchain. Better applications of NFTs will surely appear.

mathieuh 4y ago

You want drugs you use Monero these days (or so I understand). Dark net markets are still pretty big (or so I'm lead to believe).

deleted 4y ago
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BLKNSLVR 4y ago

Payments, store of value, and NFTs I don't think has turned to shit. Distributed computing I don't know much about, but if you're talking smart contracts that seems to be pretty healthy and well, but if you're talking decentralized AWS then I think there's a ways to go before that's a realistic expectation. Payments, can work well in certain scenarios and better / worse for different cryptocurrencies. Cross border large value transfers Bitcoin can still be a cheaper and faster option than some (countries) banks. Store of value is an interesting one, more so because we're (maybe?) near a local bottom down 80-odd percent from all time highs, but on a single line from inception to now, it's outperformed much of the stock market (I have no direct citation for this, but have heard it from a number of not necessarily trustworthy sources). The whole stock market being down a large percentage takes some of the stink off Bitcoin's store of value argument as well. Gold seems fairly consistent; boring, but boring can be good as an investment or store of value. NFTs, that's all just in fashion mode at the moment, the new application of cryptocurrency / blockchain. Better applications of NFTs will surely appear.