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Comment by pyrale | Hacker News Reader

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pyrale

> deciding for people what might improve their lives

I don't believe I did this. What I do, though, is measure the actual positive impact this tech has now.

> The world needs room to experiment with interesting ideas.

Bitcoin is way past the experimental phase.

> rather than letting them decide for themselves individually.

We're talking about something that has systemic impacts. Once individual actions reach such a scale that others get impacted, it's normal for society to get involved and set rules.

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How do you objectively measure the actual positive impact of this tech exactly?

I simply hear to proponents' testimonials.

So far, the prevalent stories have been about servicing people living in countries suffering from hyperinflation, which is just as easily done with a foreign currency.

Another common point is the promotion of smart contracts. It seems to me that these tools are still anecdotal, and don't really provide a significant competitive advantage compared to standard contracts. Besides, cryptos not using pow and incorporating good tooling are much better suited for that.

The decentralized nature of the ledger is another common selling point, but proponents don't really tie it to a material benefit.

Other impacts, usually not really promoted are its support to illegal activities such as digital racketeering, money laundering, etc. For instance, the financial aspect of ransomware is usually supported by this technology.

If you feel I have missed some impacts, feel free to point them out.

You've probably missed the most important one - diversification. A lot of people (rightly or wrongly) are concerned about the U.S. Dollar after what has transpired (and is still transpiring) with this pandemic. The Fed has unleashed it's full force and we simply don't know (although many are making their best predictions) what the future holds.

There's a reason companies and major asset holders are putting 1-10% of their portfolios into Btc, and I assure you it's not only speculation.

I understand that people may be interested in finding a safe asset to diversify into, but if there is no underlying asset to anchor btc to, it's purely a social consensus.

If at some point the economy gets better and people want to invest back into actual stuff, what happens to the late leavers?

We don't really need to. The damage it does is so incredibly massive that positive impact would have to be gigantic to offset it, and it is blindingly obvious no such massive impact exists.

> What I do, though, is measure the actual positive impact this tech has now.

I don't think just measuring the carbon footprint is giving you an accurate measurement.

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