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HN hates crypto so they won't recognize it, but there is a massive brain drain and innovation drain leaving the USA right now. Cryptocurrencies are the future

HN hates crypto so they won't recognize it, but there is a massive brain drain and innovation drain leaving the USA right now. Cryptocurrencies are the future of money, whether you want to believe it or not. For the first time, humans can have money free from the whims of a government and the whirr of their money printer. That's a revolutionary idea. This won't be stopped by any government, you can only put your country at a disadvantage by ignoring it or trying to impede it.

malthaus 4y ago
the US should be happy that a bunch of "get rich quick schemers" & snake-oil salesmen are leaving and losing their shirts in the process
Escapado 4y ago
I don’t have a horse in the race but I’m curious why you think that?
bushbaba 4y ago
Disagree on the brain drain. Curious as to where you believe the talent is going?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
e63f67dd-065b 4y ago
> This won't be stopped by any government, you can only put your country at a disadvantage by ignoring it or trying to impede it. Countries have tried and were pretty successful? China banned it, and now it's pretty difficult to trade crypto in China. The US can pass legislation tomorrow saying no crypto no more, and it will be effectively banned from the US. How are you going to trade crypto when nobody wants to touch it? If you don't comply, your bank will shut down your accounts, the people running the exchanges will get arrested, their websites will get seized, etc. The US financial system is pretty good at keeping track of where USD goes after all, it'll get pushed into the shadow financial sector where all the other crime lives, and that seems pretty much the end for all the new crypto projects.
- jeremyjh 4y ago
  They can make it hard to interface with the traditional fianqncial system but they really can’t stop crypto wallets from being used can they? I know this makes it useless for most people just wanting to clarify.
  - polygamous_bat 4y ago
    > They can make it hard to interface with the traditional fianqncial system but they really can’t stop crypto wallets from being used can they? Same way they can't really, with 100% precision, stop people from buying or selling fentanyl. But I don't think that says much here, does it?
spaceman_2020 4y ago
Crypto isn’t the future of money. No one uses it. Its literally a few thousand people left on-chain. The DAUs of OpenSea is down to a couple of thousand. All that hype, all that money just to serve two thousand people… Frankly, its also completely unusable. Gas cost shot up to $50/transaction on Eth mainnet because every idiot was buying memecoins named PEPE and CHAD. Even L2 solutions like Arbitrum were up to $2/transaction. ZkSync mainnet was $15-20/transaction. And that’s when there are only a few thousand active users. Imagine what happens if millions actually do come onchain. The “future of finance” is being held hostage by idiots trading shitcoins.
- jejeyyy77 4y ago
  What do you mean by no one uses it? The market cap of btc says otherwise…
  - agumonkey 4y ago
    Using as money, not trading.
    - jejeyyy77 4y ago
      Market cap is the better metric.
      - illiarian 4y ago
        It's a useless metric if no one is using it. It's a magical purely speculative number.
        jejeyyy77 4y ago
        Market cap is by definition people using it. They’ve exchanged their money for it.
        illiarian 4y ago
Quindecillion 4y ago
Bitcoin is the future, not cryptocurrencies. No one is going to use a company's token as money in any meaningful way at scale. Only Bitcoin will be used as money the way we understand money now because it's an open and neutral protocol. An internet-native money.
- yashg 4y ago
  >Bitcoin is the future Nope
  - Quindecillion 4y ago
    Yep. I can understand why you would dismiss it if you haven't taken the time to really understand it, or just been fed a stream of anti-Bitcoin propaganda to fool you into thinking you're "informed" about it. But it's going to be foundational technology to the future of the Internet, online commerce, energy, and the wider global economy. Learn why, or miss one of the biggest opportunities in your life. Your loss if you choose to ignore it.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - phatfish 4y ago
      And apparently "Satoish" is going to become the most powerful person on earth because they hold ~5% of this deflationary "foundational" global currency/commodity/whatever it is. That reason alone is why it will never happen. I would work on saving for that ticket to Mars with Elon, there is more chance of starting a new crypto-bro society there than Bitcoin going to the moon on earth.
      - LAMike 4y ago
        It's Satoshi, and good luck on Mars, I'm sure Elon would be a great leader for you
      - Quindecillion 4y ago
root_axis 4y ago
Cryptocurrency tech just plain sucks. After more than a decade this is pretty obvious to most everyone. It's not the future of money, not even close, and with LLMs siphoning all the fuel out of the crypto hype machine, most people don't even care anymore - cryptocurrency is a dead meme walking.
imtringued 4y ago
The opportunities to borrow cryptocurrencies without collateral are nonexistent and this requires a bank license either way. I don't see the innovation. If you want to look at the past of money, there is the Chiemgauer which is the most successful complementary currency in Germany and even that one only did 7 million € worth of actual consumer/business transactions in 2015 (there are no updated statistics but it is ongoing and growing). People keep using the national currency because it reduces transaction costs.
yashg 4y ago
>Cryptocurrencies are the future of money LOL
lottin 4y ago
There's nothing revolutionary about it. Commodity money was the original form of money. Crypto-currency is an attempt to create digital commodity money, except that this is obviously impossible. Instead they have created a fiat currency (because it's created out of thin air) with a promise attached that they will only print a fixed amount of it.
kledru 4y ago
Nothing new here, but from all these years of experience, the only practical applications for crypto that I've encountered have been attempts to extort money from me, to defraud me, or to simply speculate. Future of money?
PragmaticPulp 4y ago
> HN hates crypto so they won't recognize it, but there is a massive brain drain and innovation drain leaving the USA right now. That’s the narrative the crypto influencers want you to believe, but it’s not true. Web3 / crypto projects are having a huge difficulty recruiting, even in this market. Few people want to go work in crypto because the writing is on the wall.

malthaus 4y ago

the US should be happy that a bunch of "get rich quick schemers" & snake-oil salesmen are leaving and losing their shirts in the process

Escapado 4y ago

I don’t have a horse in the race but I’m curious why you think that?

bushbaba 4y ago

Disagree on the brain drain. Curious as to where you believe the talent is going?

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

e63f67dd-065b 4y ago

> This won't be stopped by any government, you can only put your country at a disadvantage by ignoring it or trying to impede it. Countries have tried and were pretty successful? China banned it, and now it's pretty difficult to trade crypto in China. The US can pass legislation tomorrow saying no crypto no more, and it will be effectively banned from the US. How are you going to trade crypto when nobody wants to touch it? If you don't comply, your bank will shut down your accounts, the people running the exchanges will get arrested, their websites will get seized, etc. The US financial system is pretty good at keeping track of where USD goes after all, it'll get pushed into the shadow financial sector where all the other crime lives, and that seems pretty much the end for all the new crypto projects.

jeremyjh 4y ago
They can make it hard to interface with the traditional fianqncial system but they really can’t stop crypto wallets from being used can they? I know this makes it useless for most people just wanting to clarify.
- polygamous_bat 4y ago
  > They can make it hard to interface with the traditional fianqncial system but they really can’t stop crypto wallets from being used can they? Same way they can't really, with 100% precision, stop people from buying or selling fentanyl. But I don't think that says much here, does it?

spaceman_2020 4y ago

Crypto isn’t the future of money. No one uses it. Its literally a few thousand people left on-chain. The DAUs of OpenSea is down to a couple of thousand. All that hype, all that money just to serve two thousand people… Frankly, its also completely unusable. Gas cost shot up to $50/transaction on Eth mainnet because every idiot was buying memecoins named PEPE and CHAD. Even L2 solutions like Arbitrum were up to $2/transaction. ZkSync mainnet was $15-20/transaction. And that’s when there are only a few thousand active users. Imagine what happens if millions actually do come onchain. The “future of finance” is being held hostage by idiots trading shitcoins.

jejeyyy77 4y ago
What do you mean by no one uses it? The market cap of btc says otherwise…
- agumonkey 4y ago
  Using as money, not trading.
  - jejeyyy77 4y ago
    Market cap is the better metric.
    - illiarian 4y ago
      It's a useless metric if no one is using it. It's a magical purely speculative number.
      - jejeyyy77 4y ago
        Market cap is by definition people using it. They’ve exchanged their money for it.
        illiarian 4y ago

Quindecillion 4y ago

Bitcoin is the future, not cryptocurrencies. No one is going to use a company's token as money in any meaningful way at scale. Only Bitcoin will be used as money the way we understand money now because it's an open and neutral protocol. An internet-native money.

yashg 4y ago
>Bitcoin is the future Nope
- Quindecillion 4y ago
  Yep. I can understand why you would dismiss it if you haven't taken the time to really understand it, or just been fed a stream of anti-Bitcoin propaganda to fool you into thinking you're "informed" about it. But it's going to be foundational technology to the future of the Internet, online commerce, energy, and the wider global economy. Learn why, or miss one of the biggest opportunities in your life. Your loss if you choose to ignore it.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - phatfish 4y ago
    And apparently "Satoish" is going to become the most powerful person on earth because they hold ~5% of this deflationary "foundational" global currency/commodity/whatever it is. That reason alone is why it will never happen. I would work on saving for that ticket to Mars with Elon, there is more chance of starting a new crypto-bro society there than Bitcoin going to the moon on earth.
    - LAMike 4y ago
      It's Satoshi, and good luck on Mars, I'm sure Elon would be a great leader for you
    - Quindecillion 4y ago

root_axis 4y ago

Cryptocurrency tech just plain sucks. After more than a decade this is pretty obvious to most everyone. It's not the future of money, not even close, and with LLMs siphoning all the fuel out of the crypto hype machine, most people don't even care anymore - cryptocurrency is a dead meme walking.

imtringued 4y ago

The opportunities to borrow cryptocurrencies without collateral are nonexistent and this requires a bank license either way. I don't see the innovation. If you want to look at the past of money, there is the Chiemgauer which is the most successful complementary currency in Germany and even that one only did 7 million € worth of actual consumer/business transactions in 2015 (there are no updated statistics but it is ongoing and growing). People keep using the national currency because it reduces transaction costs.

yashg 4y ago

>Cryptocurrencies are the future of money LOL

lottin 4y ago

There's nothing revolutionary about it. Commodity money was the original form of money. Crypto-currency is an attempt to create digital commodity money, except that this is obviously impossible. Instead they have created a fiat currency (because it's created out of thin air) with a promise attached that they will only print a fixed amount of it.

kledru 4y ago

Nothing new here, but from all these years of experience, the only practical applications for crypto that I've encountered have been attempts to extort money from me, to defraud me, or to simply speculate. Future of money?

PragmaticPulp 4y ago

> HN hates crypto so they won't recognize it, but there is a massive brain drain and innovation drain leaving the USA right now. That’s the narrative the crypto influencers want you to believe, but it’s not true. Web3 / crypto projects are having a huge difficulty recruiting, even in this market. Few people want to go work in crypto because the writing is on the wall.