Everybody Hates Chia

It's healthy for crypto to have detractors, but as an extremist with a rigid belief system, David is just as bad as the Crypto Maximalists he rails against.

He may end up being more right than wrong, and I suppose he balances out the extremists at the other end of the spectrum (a good thing), but I expect HN readers to take his thoughts with a grain of salt. He's got books and subscriptions to sell you after all. Note: this article was self-submitted to HN. Make of that what you will.

The guy just doesn't come across as someone genuine interested in the truth, regardless of where that may lead. His internet presence reeks of being in it for the notoriety and money. This post is no exception.

"Look everybody! I was in a documentary! It's not relevant to this article, but hey - aren't I important?" - David Gerard

David claims decentralization is chasing a phantom because it's at odds with financial incentives. Apparently, he's has never heard of the Internet. Or at least, he fails to articulate why the Internet is different in this context. Big oops.

David, please do some actual thoughtful analysis if you expect to be taken seriously. While you're at it, consider cutting back on the sensationalist clickbait declarations ("Everybody hates Chia") for something more tempered and professional. It's kind of gross.

PS - Please dear reader, don't click the down arrow on this comment because it comes across as pro-crypto. It's not pro-anything, it's anti-extremist. As with all things, the truth of complex matters lies somewhere in the middle of what the extremists believe.

Beware of those peddling extremist views in the interest of self-promotion and financial gain. Yes, that includes both sides of the crypto debate.

“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” ― Upton Sinclair

Very low quality article with several inaccuracies.

You can rent all the space you want from AWS, you still need to create the plots. Creating them on AWS isn't very economical (which is why no one is doing that) and creating them at home means you have transfer terrabytes out to AWS which won't happen quickly or cheaply.

There's some conflation between plotting (which is one off and intensive) and farming (which is extremely low power and can be done by a rpi)

You might plot on fast NVMEs and transfer to slow HDDs (usually recycled). It's possible to burn out the NVMEs but you're only going to plot as much as you can store.

As with most things it's more complicated than it seems on the surface.