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Comment by coldtea | Hacker News Reader

>If I had a Bitcoin for every skeptic that posts a blog on why it can't work...

And if I had a real dollar for everyone raving about some optimistic Bitcoin utopia...

>This may just be my general observation but I feel like Silicon Valley hegemony has a grudge against crypto currencies and I'm not sure why.

Because they're a solution of a problem that doesn't exist? Or rather, whose actual solution is political, not technical.

>Maybe the disrupters are being disrupted?

Or maybe the fad is over and nobody much cared?

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Your claim that "the fad is over and nobody much cared" is measurably false.

Coinbase is currently the top bitcoin exchange in the world. Have a look at their traffic: http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/coinbase.com

Not only are they in the top 1000 websites in the world, but they have set a new traffic record every day of 2017, without exception.

>Not only are they in the top 1000 websites in the world, but they have set a new traffic record every day of 2017, without exception.

For a "revolutionary" "disruptive" technology to have, after 8 years and tons of coverage and touting, its "top exchange" merely hit the top 1000 is not exactly something to write home about. There are sites even in the Top 200 - 500 that are totally irrelevant (the "power law" distribution of visitors falls quickly after the top 10-20 websites).

Now, take away developing world etc safe-keeping and money laundering motives, and add in some heightened regulations from national governments (when/if it gets to a size worthy to regulate properly), and adoption will get close to zero.

Cars were a solution to a problem that didn't exist when considered a certain way.

Texting seemed fine but yet here we are with many billions of market cap for messaging programs.

I agree there's hype on the other side of it too - look at the recent ICO craze. I'm not saying that crypto isn't getting love. But that it isn't getting much love from a very particular place. A place that traditionally has never had a problem embracing a million odd ideas. A place with a culture where 90% failure is expected because that 10% success more than makes up for it.

I just find it conspicuous.

>Cars were a solution to a problem that didn't exist when considered a certain way.

What way? Because people absolutely would have jumped at the chance to go from a place to another faster (and more comfortably) and had myriads of reasons to want to do so at any time in history.

>I'm not saying that crypto isn't getting love. But that it isn't getting much love from a very particular place. A place that traditionally has never had a problem embracing a million odd ideas. A place with a culture where 90% failure is expected because that 10% success more than makes up for it.

Well, is it getting much love from ANY other place though, except a small niche of enthusiasts?

>Because people absolutely would have jumped at the chance to go from a place to another faster (and more comfortably) and had myriads of reasons to want to do so at any time in history.

The first cars were incredibly noisy, smelly, and actually killed a lot of folks. Yet somehow, here we are something like 100 years later, evaluating how many more years we'll have to wait before we can get go place to place without even having to touch a steering wheel.

>The first cars were incredibly noisy, smelly, and actually killed a lot of folks.

And despite that their utility was evident, and adoption very fast.

Even so, bitcoin is not supposed to improve with time. It is an invention that is delivered as is (technology and algorithm wise). At best they can make better exchanges. But there are also very real possibilities of regression to those (stricter regulations imposed, etc).

What do you mean by bitcoin is not supposed to improve over time? There's active development going on, even with bitcoin. It's currently hampered by politics, but if you look at the crypto currency space as a whole, developers are constantly trying out new things and improvements.

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