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I can’t imagine why HN thinks crypto related stuff is bullshit /s So your suggestion for how blockchain is useful is something that doesn’t even make sense? Ho

I can’t imagine why HN thinks crypto related stuff is bullshit /s So your suggestion for how blockchain is useful is something that doesn’t even make sense? How does “blockchain” solve deepfakes/AI-generated images? This is why HN is hostile to this. Blockchain is a cool idea, no doubt, but the applications of it are almost solely crypto (aka scams) or ideas that make no sense and require burning a ton of power for dubious results. How does a blockchain verify a picture is not AI-generated? You’re going to put a picture hash in a chain? Ok, what stops me from putting an AI generated hash in a chain? So many of these ideas around blockchain love the idea of “trustless” but fall flat on their face when you have to trust what’s being put into it in the first place. Yes, we all can share a glorified excel document of hashes but who decides what goes into that sheet? And what stops someone with more computing power from deciding even if it’s wrong?

loveparade 3y ago
> I can’t imagine why HN thinks crypto related stuff is bullshit /s Because the vast majority of people doesn't understand anything about it. And most don't want to because they've already made up their mind. You just have to look at any thread about crypto and it's full of misinformation and idiotic takes from people who obviously have no idea what they're talking about. E.g. threads on some kind of centralized exchange scam that has with comments like "I thought crypto was decentralized" or "I thought blockchain solved this" - Everyone likes to have an opinion on crypto even when they're completely uninformed. Of course it doesn't help that 99% of crypto projects are scams, but that doesn't make the underlying protocol a scam. AI doesn't really have that problem. You don't need to understand anything about how models work to use an LLM. AI also doesn't have payments built-in at the protocol layer, so it's much harder to scam people with AI. But crypto is fundamentally different. It doesn't have easy-to-understand apps that make you more productive like an LLM does. It's highly political and ideological and operates on a layer (banking) that most people have never had exposure to and don't think about in their daily lives. > burning a ton of power for dubious results You realize that pretty much all crypto projects are built on top of Ethereum or Ethereum L2s which barely burn any electricity, right? There are (nearly) no projects built on Bitcoin because well, you can't really build anything on Bitcoin.
- joshstrange 3y ago
  > Because the vast majority of people doesn't understand anything about it. And most don't want to because they've already made up their mind. You just have to look at any thread about crypto and it's full of misinformation and idiotic takes from people who obviously have no idea what they're talking about. E.g. threads on some kind of centralized exchange scam that has with comments like "I thought crypto was decentralized" Ok but I do understand it, I also understand how cool the concept of the blockchain is _but_ real application of the blockchain outside of crypto is practically non-existent or could be better served by not using a blockchain. As for snarky comments about “I thought crypto was decentralized”. Yes it’s snarky but it’s a totally valid criticism. You don’t get to extol the virtues of something if 99% of people don’t make use of it because it’s entirely too difficult to do for the layman. “If you don’t own your keys, you don’t own your coins”, cool but if it takes a career in CS to protect and backup your keys it’s not going to catch on. Why do people put their (fiat) money in a bank instead of schlepping around all their cash or storing it themselves? Convenience, and crypto didn’t really address or fix any of that. In fact, in a number of ways, crypto is worse in things like transaction times. And don’t talk to me about lightning or similar concepts which require some level of centralization or trust outside of the base crypto guarantees. Centralized crypto was inevitable and people arguing differently don’t live in reality. That fight was lost decades ago when it comes to tech and nothing indicates that the tide is turning there.
  - loveparade 3y ago
    > Ok but I do understand it, I also understand how cool the concept of the blockchain is _but_ real application of the blockchain outside of crypto is practically non-existent or could be better served by not using a blockchain. I don't disagree with you here, I think the by far biggest use case is money/currency. I'm just commenting on how people here hate on anything related to crypto without any understanding. > As for snarky comments about “I thought crypto was decentralized”. Yes it’s snarky but it’s a totally valid criticism. I disagree here. It's like saying "SMTP sucks because I got scammed by an email from a Nigerian prince" - The criticism that wallets are hard to use is valid, but people on HN commenting on these threads don't even understand that. They just hate crypto for whatever reason without any understanding.

loveparade 3y ago

> I can’t imagine why HN thinks crypto related stuff is bullshit /s Because the vast majority of people doesn't understand anything about it. And most don't want to because they've already made up their mind. You just have to look at any thread about crypto and it's full of misinformation and idiotic takes from people who obviously have no idea what they're talking about. E.g. threads on some kind of centralized exchange scam that has with comments like "I thought crypto was decentralized" or "I thought blockchain solved this" - Everyone likes to have an opinion on crypto even when they're completely uninformed. Of course it doesn't help that 99% of crypto projects are scams, but that doesn't make the underlying protocol a scam. AI doesn't really have that problem. You don't need to understand anything about how models work to use an LLM. AI also doesn't have payments built-in at the protocol layer, so it's much harder to scam people with AI. But crypto is fundamentally different. It doesn't have easy-to-understand apps that make you more productive like an LLM does. It's highly political and ideological and operates on a layer (banking) that most people have never had exposure to and don't think about in their daily lives. > burning a ton of power for dubious results You realize that pretty much all crypto projects are built on top of Ethereum or Ethereum L2s which barely burn any electricity, right? There are (nearly) no projects built on Bitcoin because well, you can't really build anything on Bitcoin.

joshstrange 3y ago
> Because the vast majority of people doesn't understand anything about it. And most don't want to because they've already made up their mind. You just have to look at any thread about crypto and it's full of misinformation and idiotic takes from people who obviously have no idea what they're talking about. E.g. threads on some kind of centralized exchange scam that has with comments like "I thought crypto was decentralized" Ok but I do understand it, I also understand how cool the concept of the blockchain is _but_ real application of the blockchain outside of crypto is practically non-existent or could be better served by not using a blockchain. As for snarky comments about “I thought crypto was decentralized”. Yes it’s snarky but it’s a totally valid criticism. You don’t get to extol the virtues of something if 99% of people don’t make use of it because it’s entirely too difficult to do for the layman. “If you don’t own your keys, you don’t own your coins”, cool but if it takes a career in CS to protect and backup your keys it’s not going to catch on. Why do people put their (fiat) money in a bank instead of schlepping around all their cash or storing it themselves? Convenience, and crypto didn’t really address or fix any of that. In fact, in a number of ways, crypto is worse in things like transaction times. And don’t talk to me about lightning or similar concepts which require some level of centralization or trust outside of the base crypto guarantees. Centralized crypto was inevitable and people arguing differently don’t live in reality. That fight was lost decades ago when it comes to tech and nothing indicates that the tide is turning there.
- loveparade 3y ago
  > Ok but I do understand it, I also understand how cool the concept of the blockchain is _but_ real application of the blockchain outside of crypto is practically non-existent or could be better served by not using a blockchain. I don't disagree with you here, I think the by far biggest use case is money/currency. I'm just commenting on how people here hate on anything related to crypto without any understanding. > As for snarky comments about “I thought crypto was decentralized”. Yes it’s snarky but it’s a totally valid criticism. I disagree here. It's like saying "SMTP sucks because I got scammed by an email from a Nigerian prince" - The criticism that wallets are hard to use is valid, but people on HN commenting on these threads don't even understand that. They just hate crypto for whatever reason without any understanding.