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Comment by ianai | Hacker News Reader

I really wonder whether cryptocurrency would have been better received if it were named differently. From inception, I’ve only heard it pitched as a currency replacement. This immediately marred it with all of the currency “counterculture”/conspiracy theories. But it seems better suited as a way to trustless-ly track and verify transactions in an actual, traditional currency. That there are ultimately finite amounts of crypto coins available for transaction better serves this purpose.

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It certainly didn’t help that the crypto community was choke-full of conspiracy theorists, libertarians that never read anything else after falling in love with Ayn Rand as teenagers, and get-rich-quick schemers.

The idea was fascinating, and Bitcoin has held up marvelously considering it was essentially a prototype with high barriers to change after becoming popular. There’s a Nobel Prize waiting if the rightful owner ever wants to come forward to claim it.

But, at least for me, it was the culture, especially around Ethereum, that ultimately stopped me from wanting to have anything to do with it. Which is ironic, because a large part of that culture was the denial that anything like “culture” exists, that “trust” and “institution” are terms with meaning, etc.

> It certainly didn’t help that the crypto community was choke-full of conspiracy theorists, libertarians that never read anything else after falling in love with Ayn Rand as teenagers, and get-rich-quick schemers.

I agree. Because of the nature of cryptocurrency, the industry has always just been wrought with fraud.

It has something to do with Telegram chats, the "wild west" feeling, semi-anonymous currency transactions, and the feeling most people have that there is (or was) a real possibility that they could gamble and win big with little effort.

The entire industry can almost be seen as a giant, anonymous slot machine.

What's wrong with the culture around Ethereum?

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