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Comment by Kiro | Hacker News Reader

I don't understand how a forum called Hacker News is so dismissive of an invention that should be right up a hacker's alley. Innovative, technical, cryptographic and decentralized. Cryptocurrencies feel like something straight out of a cyberpunk novel.

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Because it doesn't work.

I wish it worked! It does feel like something out of a cyberpunk novel. I loved "Crypronomicon." There's nothing punk about Bitcoin anymore, though. IBM, the least punk organization in the history of mankind, wants to sell you a blockchain. The promise of Bitcoin is the idea that individuals, not large financial concerns, have the power. Coinbase just IPO'd for an eye watering amount of money on the premise that people who want to buy and sell Bitcoin are probably going to have to do it through them. What's less punk than an IPO?

> The promise of Bitcoin is the idea that individuals, not large financial concerns, have the power.

Bitcoin is not the only cryptocurrency out there.

Besides, the fact that coinbase just had an IPO doesn't mean they control bitcoin, I don't need them or anyone else to move around cryptocurrencies however I want.

That’s a weird argument, because the big guys are trying to get into cryptocurrencies doesn’t make it less punk.

it literally does mean that. Punk is a rebellion against the system, which is made out of the big guys.

Maybe the rebellion is happening and Bitcoin&friends are slowly winning

Oh - just like punk did?

>Because it doesn't work.

Bitcoin works well in plenty of ways. Bitcoin just doesn't work very well as a currency, but that ship has sailed and it's ok.

> that ship has sailed and it's ok.

I've seen this comic, and the dog is melting in the next panel.

That's the weirdest take on why blockchain doesn't work I've seen so far. The entire point of these projects is that people do whatever they want with them. Monero exists if you want a purist approach and so does ergo.

> Cryptocurrencies feel like something straight out of a cyberpunk novel.

And that is exactly why I dislike it. At least among ones that I encountered cyberpunk is strongly dystopian.

> I don't understand how a forum called Hacker News is so dismissive of an invention that should be right up a hacker's alley

I hope that Chia dies and falls on its face before SSD and HDD will repeat story of GPU.

I like to use this resources for actually useful things, not gambling.

> decentralized

So far BTC-like stuff is centralized, just in a novel toxic way.

> At least among ones that I encountered cyberpunk is strongly dystopian.

Back in the day when we were sitting in dark basements with big Unix beards drinking Jolt cola, we all dreamed of living in a crypto-anarchy, becoming cyborgs with chip implants and fully submerge in the Metaverse. I guess times have changed.

As someone who started reading cyberpunk as a young teenager this is definitely the future I imagined, just with different names.

Cryptocurrency, the internet, mobile devices, huge powerful corporations, Anonymous, black hat hackers, hi tech protests like DDoS, electric vehicles, shady IT security companies, Moxie Marlinspike, billionaires going into space...

Cyberpunk is corporate oligarchy, and we are getting there.

Glasses is as far as I am happy to go with cyborgization. Maybe implant in case of total hearing/eyesight loss.

I know how buggy software is, I would not feel safe with it directly coupled to myself.

> living in a crypto-anarchy

I know how well communism went, I hope that next radical society reengineering will happen sufficiently far away to not impact me.

Wasting massive amounts of mostly carbon-producing electricity as the planet dies to do absolutely nothing productive is a pretty cyberpunk evil megacorp thing to do, agreed.

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