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That four-year-old submission has just two comments: one expressing doubt, one expressing optimism. Interestingly, despite growing worldwide adoption of Bitcoi

by cs702 13y ago

That four-year-old submission has just two comments: one expressing doubt, one expressing optimism. Interestingly, despite growing worldwide adoption of Bitcoin, comments about it on HN continue to be more or less evenly split between doubters and optimists. And I wouldn't be surprised if comments to this submission are evenly split between those same two camps. No amount of evidence or reasoning seems to persuade either camp to change its views!

antr 13y ago
and one [dead] comment: ram1024 1655 days ago | link [dead] | fold i'm having trouble wrapping my head around the logistics of this...
- baby 13y ago
  it looks like a spam comment.
  - mtrimpe 13y ago
    Not really: https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=ram1024 https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=ram1024
    - coherentpony 13y ago
      His comments seem entirely reasonable to me. Why are they all grey?
      - chops 13y ago
        He is definitely Hellbanned. He made a poor-taste attempt at humor on a mental health post (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=407576 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=407576) which was voted to oblivion, and every post since then is [dead]. Looks like it took him a few months to find it (I had to go back like 10 "more" clicks to get to his non-dead posts).
      - jamesbritt 13y ago
        Account may have been hellbanned.
        Psyvho 13y ago
        its a great example of the failure of the hellbanned concept. time to ditch it and stop looking like "TOTAL ASSHOLE HACKER NEWS YCOMBINATOR"? Or are the admins/moderators really this oversensitive? Cry more. Grow up noobs.
        dasil003 13y ago
        So HN can be more like every other internet forum since Usenet in 1985 and angry repressed basement dwellers can unleash their fury anonymously to make up for the fact that they can barely look other human beings in the face? Plenty of places to do that on the internet, I'm happy for one place enforce a higher standard.
      - johnchristopher 13y ago
        Not using capital letters for the first word of sentences ?
        thatthatis 13y ago
        Possibly. Hacker news is a rough neighborhood if you use improper grammar, have bad spelling, or make typos.
VLM 13y ago
Religious in outlook; faith based. If we must have faith based psuedo-discussion its more fun to talk about evolution. One interesting observation about the two comments, is both authors are still occasionally posting to HN, if you click thru. Its a long lived community.
sentenza 13y ago
But it is not that black and white, is it? While it is quite clear that Bitcoin has "value" as long as people are willing to trade it (i.e., indefinitely), there is still no reason to assume that it will ever stop having these extreme fluctuations. To the contrary, I'd say that, as time progresses, we observe Bitcoin having the same problems that the gold standard had, mixed with an additional proneness to speculation.
- Joeri 13y ago
  The value of a currency lies entirely in the perception of that value. I don't consider bitcoin different from a traditional currency, except that its rate of production is known in advance. It will keep having value because by now enough people think it does.
  - fragsworth 13y ago
    It's in a strange position right now, though. Its value is not based on anything that makes any sense. Public perception - yes - but public perception of what? Nothing is priced in bitcoin. Once things begin to be priced in bitcoin, proponents hope its value will stabilize. This might happen. It did with fiat, but fiat had the advantage of a stable start and slow detachment from gold. The real funny thing to me is, I believe the currency could do its job just as well no matter what the value per bitcoin. And I don't think volatility matters at all, because companies like BitPay assume the volatility risk for you (both the merchant and the consumer) I don't know that bitcoin can be used as a store of value, especially for future adopters. But it is definitely a great method for real transactions of wealth.
    - dasil003 13y ago
      > I don't know that bitcoin can be used as a store of value, especially for future adopters. All else being equal, it seems to be designed to be a perfect store of value because it is deflationary by design. Obviously it is far more volatile and risky than something backed by major world governments at this stage, however it does come with certain guarantees that no central bank could credibly make (if the crypto holds). For people who have had their wealth stolen by governments this could prove a very attractive pull.
soneca 13y ago
But is noteworthy that there was no all-negative comment, or a hater one.
mbetter 13y ago
One expressing doubt, one expressing schizophrenia.
njharman 13y ago
Selection bias. If you lack strong opinions you are unlikely to comment. As with almost everything; small number of doubters and supporters on the ends, huge number of 'meh' in center of bell curve.
- chavesn 13y ago
  That's a good point, but I don't think the point is that its dividing the whole population into one group or the other. Instead, I think the point is that the volume of doubters and supporters still seems to be about equal; whereas many technologies appear to shift proportion of support vs. doubt more significantly over time.
ThomPete 13y ago
It actually has three :) But it's ram1024 and he is hellbanned: ram1024 1656 days ago | link [dead] | fold i'm having trouble wrapping my head around the logistics of this... -----
etler 13y ago
What about the middle? I think bitcoin has a myriad of great uses, but is also addled by inherent problems that prevent it from being a standard currency.

by cs702 13y ago

antr 13y ago

and one [dead] comment: ram1024 1655 days ago | link [dead] | fold i'm having trouble wrapping my head around the logistics of this...

baby 13y ago
it looks like a spam comment.
- mtrimpe 13y ago
  Not really: https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=ram1024 https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=ram1024
  - coherentpony 13y ago
    His comments seem entirely reasonable to me. Why are they all grey?
    - chops 13y ago
      He is definitely Hellbanned. He made a poor-taste attempt at humor on a mental health post (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=407576 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=407576) which was voted to oblivion, and every post since then is [dead]. Looks like it took him a few months to find it (I had to go back like 10 "more" clicks to get to his non-dead posts).
    - jamesbritt 13y ago
      Account may have been hellbanned.
      - Psyvho 13y ago
        its a great example of the failure of the hellbanned concept. time to ditch it and stop looking like "TOTAL ASSHOLE HACKER NEWS YCOMBINATOR"? Or are the admins/moderators really this oversensitive? Cry more. Grow up noobs.
        dasil003 13y ago
        So HN can be more like every other internet forum since Usenet in 1985 and angry repressed basement dwellers can unleash their fury anonymously to make up for the fact that they can barely look other human beings in the face? Plenty of places to do that on the internet, I'm happy for one place enforce a higher standard.
    - johnchristopher 13y ago
      Not using capital letters for the first word of sentences ?
      - thatthatis 13y ago
        Possibly. Hacker news is a rough neighborhood if you use improper grammar, have bad spelling, or make typos.

VLM 13y ago

Religious in outlook; faith based. If we must have faith based psuedo-discussion its more fun to talk about evolution. One interesting observation about the two comments, is both authors are still occasionally posting to HN, if you click thru. Its a long lived community.

sentenza 13y ago

But it is not that black and white, is it? While it is quite clear that Bitcoin has "value" as long as people are willing to trade it (i.e., indefinitely), there is still no reason to assume that it will ever stop having these extreme fluctuations. To the contrary, I'd say that, as time progresses, we observe Bitcoin having the same problems that the gold standard had, mixed with an additional proneness to speculation.

Joeri 13y ago
The value of a currency lies entirely in the perception of that value. I don't consider bitcoin different from a traditional currency, except that its rate of production is known in advance. It will keep having value because by now enough people think it does.
- fragsworth 13y ago
  It's in a strange position right now, though. Its value is not based on anything that makes any sense. Public perception - yes - but public perception of what? Nothing is priced in bitcoin. Once things begin to be priced in bitcoin, proponents hope its value will stabilize. This might happen. It did with fiat, but fiat had the advantage of a stable start and slow detachment from gold. The real funny thing to me is, I believe the currency could do its job just as well no matter what the value per bitcoin. And I don't think volatility matters at all, because companies like BitPay assume the volatility risk for you (both the merchant and the consumer) I don't know that bitcoin can be used as a store of value, especially for future adopters. But it is definitely a great method for real transactions of wealth.
  - dasil003 13y ago
    > I don't know that bitcoin can be used as a store of value, especially for future adopters. All else being equal, it seems to be designed to be a perfect store of value because it is deflationary by design. Obviously it is far more volatile and risky than something backed by major world governments at this stage, however it does come with certain guarantees that no central bank could credibly make (if the crypto holds). For people who have had their wealth stolen by governments this could prove a very attractive pull.

soneca 13y ago

But is noteworthy that there was no all-negative comment, or a hater one.

mbetter 13y ago

One expressing doubt, one expressing schizophrenia.

njharman 13y ago

Selection bias. If you lack strong opinions you are unlikely to comment. As with almost everything; small number of doubters and supporters on the ends, huge number of 'meh' in center of bell curve.

chavesn 13y ago
That's a good point, but I don't think the point is that its dividing the whole population into one group or the other. Instead, I think the point is that the volume of doubters and supporters still seems to be about equal; whereas many technologies appear to shift proportion of support vs. doubt more significantly over time.

ThomPete 13y ago

It actually has three :) But it's ram1024 and he is hellbanned: ram1024 1656 days ago | link [dead] | fold i'm having trouble wrapping my head around the logistics of this... -----

etler 13y ago

What about the middle? I think bitcoin has a myriad of great uses, but is also addled by inherent problems that prevent it from being a standard currency.