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Comment by putlake | Hacker News Reader

Bitcoin today is where computers were in 1979. A little embarrassed to admit it but I feel like the short-sighted interviewer who fails to see the applications of the technology.

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Are you saying that bitcoin has the potential to revolutionize the world economy, create trillions of dollars worth of industry across many fields? Create 100s of millions of jobs. Create new forms of arts, new ways of communications, help find cures for illness, help accelerate human conditions 100s of ways that I can't even comprehend at 5 in the morning, before my coffee.

No, I don't think bitcoin has any such potential. Yes, some people made quick bucks at the expense of some other gullible people losing quick bucks. In the realm of human history, bitcoin/altcoin will be considered a mildly interesting idea, a lot of noise but eventually a major dud. No sane and major government will give up central control of currency, If bitcoin eventually ends up being centrally controlled (if not banned first), it defeats the existential angst of having cryptocurrency.

Its an extremely environmentally inefficient way to screw people over, so please stop propping up cryptocurrency. Let it die.

Bitcoin isn't rocket science, a lot of people understands what it is and its potential benefits. It's just people are confused what the hell do we need this in the first place.

If you looked back to 1979 you'd find a dozen other technologies that didn't pan out.

Just because something new-ish exists doesn't mean it's the root of something society-changing. Bitcoin might be a steam engine.

> Bitcoin might be a steam engine.

I think it's fairly safe to say that steam engines revolutionised society (the industrial revolution and all that), arguably more so than those engines that replaced it.

Sure. But they never worked on airplanes, and they're only a distant ancestor to the jet and rocket engine. You don't see people investing in steam engines these days.

> Just because something new-ish exists doesn't mean it's the root of something society-changing. Bitcoin might be a steam engine.

this is a great comment, i can interpret it at least two entirely different ways.

by "might be a steam engine" do you mean that bitcoin might be one of the key drivers of a major process of economic/industrial revolution?

I mean it might be completely obsolete in five years. It has caused a great deal of innovation, even if much of that doesn't come to fruition.

Bitcoins are tulips.

Or Cabbage Patch dolls

Cabbage Patch Kids and tulips wear out and disintegrate like any other organic matter. We will be lucky if bitcoin wallets from a decade ago are able to be cracked a thousand years from now.

How original. I imagine you can show how the tulip craze fomented great innovation in the floristry field, and spawned a few actually good products despite being inherently misguided?

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