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Comment by thepasswordis | Hacker News Reader

>Maybe those days are back, with altcoins riding the hype wave again.

For perhaps the most egregious example of this, look at the "Cardano" project. It does nothing, without any apparent plans to even change that. Even their hello world example doesn't run. And yet it is the #4 ranked cryptocurrency, with a market cap of $44 BILLION dollars.

All of it appears to have stemmed from their founders doing these creepy aspirational youtube live streams. If you're still investing in cryptocurrencies at this point, seriously look at that project and tell me that this space is reasonable. This is the 4th most popular project behind Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Tether (an obvious fraud).

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That's not true. Cardano already works as a decentralized currency, and it also supports native third-party tokens and NFTs. Their smart contracts should go live in a few months. Cardano has one of the most detailed development roadmaps and their development has been maybe the most active of all blockchain projects. They have also released a lot of peer-reviewed research papers on blockchains, rather than relying on genius hackers. Cardano is based on a provably secure proof-of-stake protocol called Ouroboros. They also have Philip Wadler on their team developing their smart contract language.

https://docs.cardano.org/en/latest/explore-cardano/relevant-...

That said, I don't believe that there's an actual demand or need for smart contract platforms, or that it makes sense to build new currencies that are tied into these platforms.

Also, proof-of-stake is not very secure, and Cardano has admitted this by supporting Ergo, which is a new smart contract protocol based on proof-of-work. However, PoW needs a lot of hashing power to be secure, so Bitcoin with secondary smart contract layers such as Rootstock and RGB are actually the best option (if there's a need for them).

> the most detailed development roadmaps

> the most active of all blockchain projects

> peer-reviewed research papers

"it does nothing"

> proof-of-stake is not very secure, and Cardano has admitted this by supporting Ergo

so what can it do if the base protocol is not secure?

It's hard to know the truth in this space. Most blockchain development and discussion is driven by greed.

Proof-of-stake has various problems, depending on who you ask. In this case, as far as I understand it, the issue is related to large positions locked as collateral in DeFi. PoS security assumes that most of the available currency is used for staking, but the security assumption breaks if most of the currency is locked as collateral in DeFi (which can offer better interest rates vs. staking).

The question is for me -- what is the developer experience like? How much friction before you can get something out there?

I mean everything they've launched works. Yes they don't have smart contracts live yet, but they do have sound tech[0] and some cool partnerships[1].

I'm no Cardano shill and would never buy at the current prices, but if I believed they had what it takes (which is more than just sound tech) to siphon off much of the Ethereum crowd and bring in more nation-state level projects in the coming years then the valuation isn't that crazy.

Again, I don't have such lofty assumptions and will be waiting for smart contracts before I consider investing, but to say it does nothing is patently false- and if my time horizon were in the multiples of years then I'd probably consider inclusion in the large pool I'd spread my play-money across.

Is it worth $44B right now? Obviously not, but investment is a bet on the future, not current performance- and I've been wrong a lot.

[0] https://iohk.io/en/research/library/

[1] https://www.coindesk.com/from-paper-to-cardano-blockchain-io...

>Cardano is a blockchain platform for changemakers, innovators, and visionaries, with the tools and technologies required to create possibility for the many, as well as the few, and bring about positive global change.

This is identical to every other project that claims these exact same things.

Yup it is. I don't disagree with you- there's plenty of other projects with the same goals.

> I'm no Cardano shill...but

If you have to say you're not a shill, it's probably not working in your favor. You sound defensive. For what it's worth I don't think you're a shill but I think you're naive about cryptocurrency.

And if it's not worth $44 billion today then you're an idiot to buy at that price, because why not wait until the price is right? And if the price is just going to go up then clearly it is worth that today. This isn't even unique to crypto this is just investing 101. Why would you ever overpay for something if your goal is to make money?

Hah, fair enough. I just see a lot of closed-mindedness when it comes to discussions around blockchain tech on HN specifically, and it's hard to advocate for more nuanced discussion without sounding like I have an agenda.

Yeah it's probably overpriced and not a smart idea to buy. I'm not saying it isn't.

I've seen highest rated comments where people are ragging on cryptocurrency and some on blockchain tech itself. I usually skip these because I think blockchain is interesting. I see it as a secure highly replicated database.

Cardano has a lot going for it from my time looking at it (3 months now). I'm going to keep paying attention to it.

That said, I hope it succeeds in staying cheap to write transactions unlike the other projects in order for poorer countries to be able to take advantage. And hope it is successful convincing African and Asian governments/institutions in keeping important things like education credentials and property deeds onto its chain given the lack of documentation and authenticity in a lot of these places.

Lots of cryptocurrency speculation going on, but I can ignore that and be interested in where Cardano is going with regards to improving lives in countries where they are essentially neglected.

Why would they use a blockchain rather than a certificate authority?

If you are really asking this, you failed to understand the fundamental concept of DLTs.

Why would they use DLT for exchange of (promised) value rather than using banks?

Why would they use DLT for token issuance rather than the monetary policy of the fed?

I always assumed that market cap is mostly related to speculation rather than real world usefulness.

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