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I first learned about blockchain years ago talking to some middle eastern clients who had implemented something with it. After looking at the technology from a

I first learned about blockchain years ago talking to some middle eastern clients who had implemented something with it. After looking at the technology from a data & software engineering pov, I thought it was basically useless and incredibly niche. I said as much, but they didnt believe me; they also thought ML was where you "fed data to a machine and it did everything" because that's what some lecturer had told them. For years I was mostly just confused that "crypto" was anything at all, and latterly it seemed pretty clearly insane. The pitch to replace governement-back currencies with deflationary tokens clearly a fever dream of some political moron. Then it became very clear that it was just a scam: the dream was the hook. And "tokens" fit the collectables mould, in which assets with only ephemeral value to collectors boom in speculative bubbles. Two years ago a friend wanted to get into the industry, and I said that soon it'll be a black mark on a CV and everyone will be hiding it. What is interesting is that amongst professional finance much of this has been apparent the whole time. I've spoken to senior people in UK banking and they've confirmed as much. And as much is clear by reading the FT. What is interesting is how much "elite tech" has captured the elite and silenced professional finance. The Economist article cited above, for example (and on HN the other day), was absurdly pro-crypto giving the scam-sales-pitch verbatim. Some documentary is no doubt in the works on this, and I can see an Adam-Curtis style one on "how silicon valley beat the financial elites and captured the political imagination of a generation"

automatic6131 4y ago
> I thought it was basically useless and incredibly niche Quite, I tried on and off for years to imagine a single use case for the real world. Always came up dry because the Blockchain Oracle problem is unsolvable.
leoedin 4y ago
Most of the highly technical software engineers I've spoken to have felt similarly. Blockchain is a neat solution to some very niche problems. However, there seems to be a middle ground of perhaps less technical people (the tech bros) who are attracted by the easy money and don't think too deeply about the underlying technical realities.
isthisthingon99 4y ago
I'm a tech guy, also trade, also teeter on end the fed vibes There is value in being able to anonymously and stably transfer value uncensored. But which state will stand aside while you realize this dream? Not a one.
- bluepizza 4y ago
  > There is value in being able to anonymously and stably transfer value uncensored. You mean when someone hands somebody else a 20?
  - isthisthingon99 4y ago
    I mean 50K from USA to Europe.
    - bluepizza 4y ago
      A briefcase then.
      - isthisthingon99 4y ago
        Anonymous, fail https://www.cbp.gov/travel/international-visitors/kbyg/money https://www.cbp.gov/travel/international-visitors/kbyg/money
        bluepizza 4y ago
        It's illegal to do it via crypto too. If you are willing to break the law to do it via crypto, you are willing to break the law and smuggle it too.
        isthisthingon99 4y ago
        The law isn't the arbiter of what is moral. History shows that countries enact capital controls. Morally, if I decide this is going against the contract with me and my country, I may choose to "break laws" in order to leave.
z3phyr 4y ago
> For years I was mostly just confused that "crypto" was anything at all crypto is cryptography for me, a serious and posh discipline of applied mathematics, linguistics, analytics and computer science.
htkibar 4y ago
Bad take regarding black mark. Fintech and swinging for the fences is not a bad thing per se. As long as you aren’t an executive for a scam or something; I have never seen in my career experience being treated as a bad thing. Might perhaps get some added questions to get you, but it is also a unique selling point. Crypto essentially allows you to make trust less systems with tokens, what those tokens mean or not depends on the situation. Writing that off as purely speculative isn’t necessarily fair. Utility tokens are a thing after all.
- nathansherburn 4y ago
  I'd personally see crypto experience as a very small point against someone.
- mjburgess 4y ago
  When and whether it should be a black mark is separate to whether it will be. On highly technical roles with a highly technical hiring process, sure, it'll be fine. I think, however, lots now are scrambling to decrypto their image.
- pavlov 4y ago
  Black mark is exactly right. I wouldn’t hire someone who spent more than a couple of months at a crypto job — that’s enough time to realize what’s going on and get out. If they stayed longer, it invites the question of whether they’re gullible, incompetent, pathologically greedy, or too good at compartmentalizing. Do you think “I was an accountant at Enron” is considered positive career experience in that field? Crypto is the equivalent in software engineering.
  - rojeee 4y ago
    Are you actually responsible for hiring people? If so, it's quite a narrow-minded and borderline silly take on things. I've been hiring people for the last 8 or so years and if I come across a good engineer, I really don't care what industry they worked in, as long as they are capable, motived and a pleasure to work with. I think crypto is mostly pointless but I've been working in and out of the sector for nearly 10 years. Why? 1. I have a family to look after and it pays quite well. 2. I get to work on technology which is very interesting and applicable to other domains - consensus alogirithms, security in a highly adversarial environment, peer to peer networking and associated networking alogirthms, the intersection of finance and technology, the intersection of economics and technology. 3. I get to use tools and langauges I enjoy working with. 4. I work with smart, interesting people from a variety of backgrounds. 5. The industry moves fast, so there's always something new to learn. I get constant inbound from recruiters and no-one cares that I work in crpyto.
beefield 4y ago
> What is interesting is that amongst professional finance much of this has been apparent the whole time. It is important to note, that even if from looking from far outside, finance looks like one thing, in reality there is a big divide within finance regarding how "value" is defined. On the other hand, there is a simple notion that value of a thing is whatever someone is willing to pay for it. And on the other hand, there is a bit more complex idea that if you somehow know the value of a cash flow, then if you are able to create the same cashflow in some other way, then the other cash flow must have same value. The first one is the home of powerpoints, VC capital and crypto. (It's also easy to recognize these professional financiers once you start to discuss whether sweat equity should be valued similarly to cash equity. They are completely appalled with the idea, because reasons.) The second is home of financial regulation, really fancy maths and modern banking risk management. The failure modes are different here. The first one, typical failure model is scam. The second, well, you can google LTCM for that. And what comes to crypto, there is a clear and obvious difference. The first ones see no reason why not investing into crypto, after all, someone is paying 60k for a BTC, its value is thus 60k, what more do you want? The second ones scratch their heads. They see no positive net cash flows anywhere, thus the value must be negative. And this is the reason (in addition to regulation) why banks and professional bankers for the most part keep clear from crypto and struggle seeing value, while VC money is/was pouring in.
tempera 4y ago
Bitcoin solves what is called the double spending problem without a central authority. Any other existing digital cash system, including the present-day fiat currencies and payment infrastructure relying on them as well as other digital currencies, require a central authority to maintain and dictate the true history of a monetary ledger, to make sure that the same units of money are not spent twice. Bitcoin instead decentralizes the bookkeeping and uses a proof-of-work system to maintain consensus between independent bookkeepers about the true history of the ledger.
- wil421 4y ago
  If someone steals from my bank account I’m getting that money back. Yes I’ve been scammed a couple times and had money withdrawn from an ATM in countries I’ve never been. Within 24 hours my money was back in my BoA checking. All my bank deposits are insured by the FDIC. Not to mention my $dollars (or even €/£) have not lost a huge amount of value and fluctuated like a rabid dog. Blockchain doesn’t help at all and most banks keep pretty good records.
  - tempera 4y ago
    Banks have an unpredictable money issuance policy. While Bitcoin's policy is know for the next 100 years. That will allow unseen before economic growth for entities going on to the Bitcoin Standard, with proper planning. After the first pioneers show to the world how it's done, it will become obvious to anyone that Bitcoin is the most advanced money we have as a civilization.
- imtringued 4y ago
  Ok but money has two sides. There are those who have it and those who accept it. What Bitcoin does is effectively provide a very expensive paper ledger but money is a social relationship between humans. There aren't enough people negotiating contracts denominated in Bitcoin. It is a very loose relationship that can be ended at any time.

automatic6131 4y ago

> I thought it was basically useless and incredibly niche Quite, I tried on and off for years to imagine a single use case for the real world. Always came up dry because the Blockchain Oracle problem is unsolvable.

leoedin 4y ago

Most of the highly technical software engineers I've spoken to have felt similarly. Blockchain is a neat solution to some very niche problems. However, there seems to be a middle ground of perhaps less technical people (the tech bros) who are attracted by the easy money and don't think too deeply about the underlying technical realities.

isthisthingon99 4y ago

I'm a tech guy, also trade, also teeter on end the fed vibes There is value in being able to anonymously and stably transfer value uncensored. But which state will stand aside while you realize this dream? Not a one.

bluepizza 4y ago
> There is value in being able to anonymously and stably transfer value uncensored. You mean when someone hands somebody else a 20?
- isthisthingon99 4y ago
  I mean 50K from USA to Europe.
  - bluepizza 4y ago
    A briefcase then.
    - isthisthingon99 4y ago
      Anonymous, fail https://www.cbp.gov/travel/international-visitors/kbyg/money https://www.cbp.gov/travel/international-visitors/kbyg/money
      - bluepizza 4y ago
        It's illegal to do it via crypto too. If you are willing to break the law to do it via crypto, you are willing to break the law and smuggle it too.
        isthisthingon99 4y ago
        The law isn't the arbiter of what is moral. History shows that countries enact capital controls. Morally, if I decide this is going against the contract with me and my country, I may choose to "break laws" in order to leave.

z3phyr 4y ago

> For years I was mostly just confused that "crypto" was anything at all crypto is cryptography for me, a serious and posh discipline of applied mathematics, linguistics, analytics and computer science.

htkibar 4y ago

Bad take regarding black mark. Fintech and swinging for the fences is not a bad thing per se. As long as you aren’t an executive for a scam or something; I have never seen in my career experience being treated as a bad thing. Might perhaps get some added questions to get you, but it is also a unique selling point. Crypto essentially allows you to make trust less systems with tokens, what those tokens mean or not depends on the situation. Writing that off as purely speculative isn’t necessarily fair. Utility tokens are a thing after all.

nathansherburn 4y ago
I'd personally see crypto experience as a very small point against someone.
mjburgess 4y ago
When and whether it should be a black mark is separate to whether it will be. On highly technical roles with a highly technical hiring process, sure, it'll be fine. I think, however, lots now are scrambling to decrypto their image.
pavlov 4y ago
Black mark is exactly right. I wouldn’t hire someone who spent more than a couple of months at a crypto job — that’s enough time to realize what’s going on and get out. If they stayed longer, it invites the question of whether they’re gullible, incompetent, pathologically greedy, or too good at compartmentalizing. Do you think “I was an accountant at Enron” is considered positive career experience in that field? Crypto is the equivalent in software engineering.
- rojeee 4y ago
  Are you actually responsible for hiring people? If so, it's quite a narrow-minded and borderline silly take on things. I've been hiring people for the last 8 or so years and if I come across a good engineer, I really don't care what industry they worked in, as long as they are capable, motived and a pleasure to work with. I think crypto is mostly pointless but I've been working in and out of the sector for nearly 10 years. Why? 1. I have a family to look after and it pays quite well. 2. I get to work on technology which is very interesting and applicable to other domains - consensus alogirithms, security in a highly adversarial environment, peer to peer networking and associated networking alogirthms, the intersection of finance and technology, the intersection of economics and technology. 3. I get to use tools and langauges I enjoy working with. 4. I work with smart, interesting people from a variety of backgrounds. 5. The industry moves fast, so there's always something new to learn. I get constant inbound from recruiters and no-one cares that I work in crpyto.

beefield 4y ago

> What is interesting is that amongst professional finance much of this has been apparent the whole time. It is important to note, that even if from looking from far outside, finance looks like one thing, in reality there is a big divide within finance regarding how "value" is defined. On the other hand, there is a simple notion that value of a thing is whatever someone is willing to pay for it. And on the other hand, there is a bit more complex idea that if you somehow know the value of a cash flow, then if you are able to create the same cashflow in some other way, then the other cash flow must have same value. The first one is the home of powerpoints, VC capital and crypto. (It's also easy to recognize these professional financiers once you start to discuss whether sweat equity should be valued similarly to cash equity. They are completely appalled with the idea, because reasons.) The second is home of financial regulation, really fancy maths and modern banking risk management. The failure modes are different here. The first one, typical failure model is scam. The second, well, you can google LTCM for that. And what comes to crypto, there is a clear and obvious difference. The first ones see no reason why not investing into crypto, after all, someone is paying 60k for a BTC, its value is thus 60k, what more do you want? The second ones scratch their heads. They see no positive net cash flows anywhere, thus the value must be negative. And this is the reason (in addition to regulation) why banks and professional bankers for the most part keep clear from crypto and struggle seeing value, while VC money is/was pouring in.

tempera 4y ago

Bitcoin solves what is called the double spending problem without a central authority. Any other existing digital cash system, including the present-day fiat currencies and payment infrastructure relying on them as well as other digital currencies, require a central authority to maintain and dictate the true history of a monetary ledger, to make sure that the same units of money are not spent twice. Bitcoin instead decentralizes the bookkeeping and uses a proof-of-work system to maintain consensus between independent bookkeepers about the true history of the ledger.

wil421 4y ago
If someone steals from my bank account I’m getting that money back. Yes I’ve been scammed a couple times and had money withdrawn from an ATM in countries I’ve never been. Within 24 hours my money was back in my BoA checking. All my bank deposits are insured by the FDIC. Not to mention my $dollars (or even €/£) have not lost a huge amount of value and fluctuated like a rabid dog. Blockchain doesn’t help at all and most banks keep pretty good records.
- tempera 4y ago
  Banks have an unpredictable money issuance policy. While Bitcoin's policy is know for the next 100 years. That will allow unseen before economic growth for entities going on to the Bitcoin Standard, with proper planning. After the first pioneers show to the world how it's done, it will become obvious to anyone that Bitcoin is the most advanced money we have as a civilization.
imtringued 4y ago
Ok but money has two sides. There are those who have it and those who accept it. What Bitcoin does is effectively provide a very expensive paper ledger but money is a social relationship between humans. There aren't enough people negotiating contracts denominated in Bitcoin. It is a very loose relationship that can be ended at any time.