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Two things can be true at the same time: - Bitcoin was and is a massive, historic accomplishment in creating digital scarcity for the first time and the long t

Two things can be true at the same time: - Bitcoin was and is a massive, historic accomplishment in creating digital scarcity for the first time and the long term effects are still playing out. - Virtually all of the "crypto" or Bitcoin 2.0 schemes in the 15 years since have been scams. Essentially a way for a tech founder to mint tokens out of thin air, and then try to convince others to treat them as money so he can get a huge (fiat-denominated) exit. Stablecoins are basically the only crypto innovation of note that have achieved PMF. Don't confuse the former for the latter!

zenburnmyface 3mo ago
of course you would include bitcoin in the latter, too, right? Right?
sunshine-o 3mo ago
You are forgetting Ethereum which is the defacto main standard and driver in the "crypto industry". Most of those chains are in fact EVM based (so outside of Bitcoin, XRP or Solana). The people in and around the Ethereum Foundation are solving very interesting problems but nobody talk about it on HN. For example I believe they are at the forefront of the use zero-knowledge proofs. Just dig into [0]. Is the Ethereum Foundation and broader project dedicated to pumping the cryptocurrency ETH? obviously not and they are not by far the top holder of it. The fact that the crypto is not providing real returns is actually one of the main criticism of the project. - [0] https://ethereum-magicians.org/ https://ethereum-magicians.org/
- toenail 3mo ago
  Ethereum promised smart contracts where "code is law", but rewrote the rules of their system when a bug was found in the first popular smart contract, the DAO. That's when I lost all interest in it.
  - Ar-Curunir 3mo ago
    Cool. Do you still use computers, or?
  - notpushkin 3mo ago
    I think it’s okay. Crypto devs can’t make a hard fork each time they want to revert something, and even if they do, people decide how much it’s worth to them (by staying on the old chain, like ETC in this case). People’s opinion is the ultimate law. If you find a loophole in a contract that gives you everybody’s money, people will just take it back.
- snarf21 3mo ago
  What is the main success for an Ethereum project that solves something that can't be solved without crypto or in a hugely more efficient/better way? I'm a crypto skeptic and I've never been introduced where crypto actually solves a problem.
  - xtracto 3mo ago
    Read the GP comment again. I don't know if Ethereum has, is or will ever get to whatever grandiose goal they have. But the one thing that I love has done is provide intelligent people with funds to research things like ZKSNARKs and similar cryptographic constructs. It's like war: We don't like war, we don't like people being killed, but man, the amount of technology progress made during war is good. So, even if you hate crypto; the fact that it is enabling research in cryptographic theory (even if for stupid goals) is good.
    - spopejoy 3mo ago
      > enabling research in cryptographic theory Yes but ... most/all of this research is for solving weird self-made problems created from some flawed premise like "we need a decentralized sequencer" or "we need a hash function that can't be profitably made into an ASIC". A lot of the zk research is for "roll-ups", themselves a horrifically complex "solution" for Ethereum's inability to scale its consensus.
bunderbunder 3mo ago
Though, there’s a part of me thinking that the basic idea of creating artificial scarcity for profit is hard to separate from scamminess. It’s giving De Beers.
- toenail 3mo ago
  The entertainment industry tried for decades to achieve artificial scarcity for profit. All scammers?
  - abathologist 3mo ago
    All the ones trying to do that, yes.
  - inigyou 3mo ago
    What are you talking about - the entertainment industry is the most famous scam industry ever, giving the most famous artists just enough money to keep them dependent and pocketing 90% of it themselves.
    - toenail 3mo ago
      Ah yes, independent computer game producers adding copy protection were scammers.
      - inigyou 3mo ago
        Do those represent more than a negligible share of the entertainment industry?
  - bunderbunder 3mo ago
    I do think there’s a difference between charging a price and creating artificial scarcity. This isn’t to say that the entertainment industry hasn’t pulled some awful shenanigans. But they’re generally willing to sell to as many people as are willing to pay the price they set. For the most part they haven’t tried to place hard limits on how many total people are allowed to watch a movie and control it with some sort of limited edition resellable token. That was an innovation of the NFT folks.
jayd16 3mo ago
> creating digital scarcity yay?
pphysch 3mo ago
The first thing is false or worded poorly. Before Bitcoin became globally popular, there were many examples of digital scarcity driving significant transaction volume: Early online games with tradeable game objects, gimmicks like Million Dollar Homepage, etc. Valve hired economist and future politician Yanis Varoufakis in 2012, when Bitcoin was well below $1000, to study "in-game economies" (i.e. digital scarcity) because it was such a big deal in their existing online games.
- BlueTemplar 3mo ago
  That last example postdates Bitcoin, and even Bitcoin entering public consciousness (in 2011), so why bring it up ?
  - pphysch 3mo ago
    Bitcoin was not much in the public consciousness by then. It was trading at ~$10, mainly on MTGOX. It's likely its transaction volume was much lower than other non-crypto digital assets (and MTG cards) at the time.
    - BlueTemplar 3mo ago
      2011 is when it had its first big public boom - and bust, accompanied by even generalist press reporting on it. And the nerds at Valve would have been *in particular* aware of it. So causality is more likely to be reversed in that example.
      - pphysch 3mo ago
        You claiming that Valve hired an economist to study digital scarcity, not because of Valve's booming ingame economies, but because Bitcoin was at $10. Sure.
        BlueTemplar 3mo ago
        No, I want to insist on Bitcoin's intellectual legacy. Before ~2011, only a handful of niche nerds at the intersection of cryptography and (goldbug) economics had heard of related ideas. After ~2011, everybody had, and started building their own (like Etherium).
aeve890 3mo ago
>massive, historic accomplishment in creating digital scarcity accomplishment? like, something big and good?
mrguyorama 3mo ago
Why is artificially creating digital scarcity, something that isn't actually difficult, an achievement? Scarcity is not a virtue.
spopejoy 3mo ago
Username checks out. BTC is nifty but it is far from world-changing. Nowhere near the impact of Bretton-Woods, Nixon abolishing the gold standard, securitization of mortgages, petrodollars, ZIRP, etc etc. Also, bitcoin alone would have never gained as much value if it wasn't for the 2019-21 defi explosion. Ethereum is integral to the cryptocoin story, period.

zenburnmyface 3mo ago

of course you would include bitcoin in the latter, too, right? Right?

sunshine-o 3mo ago

You are forgetting Ethereum which is the defacto main standard and driver in the "crypto industry". Most of those chains are in fact EVM based (so outside of Bitcoin, XRP or Solana). The people in and around the Ethereum Foundation are solving very interesting problems but nobody talk about it on HN. For example I believe they are at the forefront of the use zero-knowledge proofs. Just dig into [0]. Is the Ethereum Foundation and broader project dedicated to pumping the cryptocurrency ETH? obviously not and they are not by far the top holder of it. The fact that the crypto is not providing real returns is actually one of the main criticism of the project. - [0] https://ethereum-magicians.org/ https://ethereum-magicians.org/

toenail 3mo ago
Ethereum promised smart contracts where "code is law", but rewrote the rules of their system when a bug was found in the first popular smart contract, the DAO. That's when I lost all interest in it.
- Ar-Curunir 3mo ago
  Cool. Do you still use computers, or?
- notpushkin 3mo ago
  I think it’s okay. Crypto devs can’t make a hard fork each time they want to revert something, and even if they do, people decide how much it’s worth to them (by staying on the old chain, like ETC in this case). People’s opinion is the ultimate law. If you find a loophole in a contract that gives you everybody’s money, people will just take it back.
snarf21 3mo ago
What is the main success for an Ethereum project that solves something that can't be solved without crypto or in a hugely more efficient/better way? I'm a crypto skeptic and I've never been introduced where crypto actually solves a problem.
- xtracto 3mo ago
  Read the GP comment again. I don't know if Ethereum has, is or will ever get to whatever grandiose goal they have. But the one thing that I love has done is provide intelligent people with funds to research things like ZKSNARKs and similar cryptographic constructs. It's like war: We don't like war, we don't like people being killed, but man, the amount of technology progress made during war is good. So, even if you hate crypto; the fact that it is enabling research in cryptographic theory (even if for stupid goals) is good.
  - spopejoy 3mo ago
    > enabling research in cryptographic theory Yes but ... most/all of this research is for solving weird self-made problems created from some flawed premise like "we need a decentralized sequencer" or "we need a hash function that can't be profitably made into an ASIC". A lot of the zk research is for "roll-ups", themselves a horrifically complex "solution" for Ethereum's inability to scale its consensus.

bunderbunder 3mo ago

Though, there’s a part of me thinking that the basic idea of creating artificial scarcity for profit is hard to separate from scamminess. It’s giving De Beers.

toenail 3mo ago
The entertainment industry tried for decades to achieve artificial scarcity for profit. All scammers?
- abathologist 3mo ago
  All the ones trying to do that, yes.
- inigyou 3mo ago
  What are you talking about - the entertainment industry is the most famous scam industry ever, giving the most famous artists just enough money to keep them dependent and pocketing 90% of it themselves.
  - toenail 3mo ago
    Ah yes, independent computer game producers adding copy protection were scammers.
    - inigyou 3mo ago
      Do those represent more than a negligible share of the entertainment industry?
- bunderbunder 3mo ago
  I do think there’s a difference between charging a price and creating artificial scarcity. This isn’t to say that the entertainment industry hasn’t pulled some awful shenanigans. But they’re generally willing to sell to as many people as are willing to pay the price they set. For the most part they haven’t tried to place hard limits on how many total people are allowed to watch a movie and control it with some sort of limited edition resellable token. That was an innovation of the NFT folks.

jayd16 3mo ago

> creating digital scarcity yay?

pphysch 3mo ago

The first thing is false or worded poorly. Before Bitcoin became globally popular, there were many examples of digital scarcity driving significant transaction volume: Early online games with tradeable game objects, gimmicks like Million Dollar Homepage, etc. Valve hired economist and future politician Yanis Varoufakis in 2012, when Bitcoin was well below $1000, to study "in-game economies" (i.e. digital scarcity) because it was such a big deal in their existing online games.

BlueTemplar 3mo ago
That last example postdates Bitcoin, and even Bitcoin entering public consciousness (in 2011), so why bring it up ?
- pphysch 3mo ago
  Bitcoin was not much in the public consciousness by then. It was trading at ~$10, mainly on MTGOX. It's likely its transaction volume was much lower than other non-crypto digital assets (and MTG cards) at the time.
  - BlueTemplar 3mo ago
    2011 is when it had its first big public boom - and bust, accompanied by even generalist press reporting on it. And the nerds at Valve would have been *in particular* aware of it. So causality is more likely to be reversed in that example.
    - pphysch 3mo ago
      You claiming that Valve hired an economist to study digital scarcity, not because of Valve's booming ingame economies, but because Bitcoin was at $10. Sure.
      - BlueTemplar 3mo ago
        No, I want to insist on Bitcoin's intellectual legacy. Before ~2011, only a handful of niche nerds at the intersection of cryptography and (goldbug) economics had heard of related ideas. After ~2011, everybody had, and started building their own (like Etherium).

aeve890 3mo ago

>massive, historic accomplishment in creating digital scarcity accomplishment? like, something big and good?

mrguyorama 3mo ago

Why is artificially creating digital scarcity, something that isn't actually difficult, an achievement? Scarcity is not a virtue.

spopejoy 3mo ago

Username checks out. BTC is nifty but it is far from world-changing. Nowhere near the impact of Bretton-Woods, Nixon abolishing the gold standard, securitization of mortgages, petrodollars, ZIRP, etc etc. Also, bitcoin alone would have never gained as much value if it wasn't for the 2019-21 defi explosion. Ethereum is integral to the cryptocoin story, period.