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Comment by delabay | Hacker News Reader

Crypto speaks to aspects of humanity which people hold near and dear.

Crypto no doubt harbors shady characters, ponzi schemes, scams. You also can't deny that there are ideas which threaten state control, monetary policy, nationalistic ideals, religion its self. Just look at the magnitude of the conversation.

Its easy to dismiss me as the ramblings of somebody caught up in the scam. But when has it been a good idea to completely dismiss ideas which can shake the bedrock of society? I'm sure dinosaurs never thought an asteroid would cause them to go extinct either.

I ask the skeptics to take a Bayesian approach to skepticism. If you think in absolutes you can never accept new information. Move your skept-o-meter from 100% to 99% and allow yourself a fraction of a sliver of consideration. It might just be one of the most important things you have done.

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The basic issue with cryptocurrency is that very little of it is actually new. You talk about ideas which threaten monetary policy--except those 'ideas' were actually the typical monetary policy not a hundred years ago. So it's worth asking yourself why monetary policy was changed from your favored position before trying to convince everybody else that it should be changed back.

You know, a decade ago, I actually thought that cryptocurrency and blockchain were interesting ideas that might be well worth pursuing. But it has increasingly felt like a solution in search of a problem--it's hard to find any use cases that aren't already better solved with other solutions. And in these kinds of discussions, the cryptocurrency adherents themselves struggle to proffer any such problem that doesn't boil down to--as someone else put it--wanting to live in Galt's Gulch. Which isn't exactly a compelling problem for most of the world's population. And comments like yours aren't helping to move the needle in the direction you want it to move.

> You also can't deny that there are ideas which threaten state control, monetary policy, nationalistic ideals, religion its self.

Phew. Yeah, we all felt that. In 2010.

Now while we're reminiscing the past, I know another one! Lets provocatively ask: Isn't the colossal energy wasting worth freedom and all? - So exciting, wasn't it? And don't get me started on Wikileaks donations!

Reality has moved on, and nothing screams ponzi scheme more, than followers repeating decade old talking points, aged like milk, into dogma. Lol, I am pretty sure the vast majority of people doesn't even want that idea of ancap freedom, unregulated markets and tax evasion.

Crypto is not just Bitcoin, and crypto is not just Proof-Of-Work. Other blockchains who can be just as decentralized and censorship-resistant exist.

(In the spirit of DRY, I think it is time we collectively write all an adversarial collaboration about crypto on some wiki page. Then I can at least just respond with a link to the rebuttal of the same tired and lazy arguments that crypto-skeptics make)

> Crypto is not just Bitcoin, and crypto is not just Proof-Of-Work.

Sure. Theoretically. Are you suggesting "crypto" isn't almost entirely proof-of-work - de facto? You think those invested care for proof-of-stake? Lol.

> same tired and lazy arguments that crypto-skeptics make

HyDrOpOweR!1! (Deprecated in 2021)

But hey, I am all for the wiki. Actually, I wonder why that hasn't happened yet...

Anyway, I don't want to make the impression all innovation in crypto fanfiction in the last decade has been lost on me! For example, I do recognize, that Bitcoin isn't promoted as currency anymore - because it utterly sucks for transactions. It's "like Gold!" now, or something. Very progressive.

> You think those invested care for proof-of-stake?

Enough to stake more than 8 Million ETH (about ~35 Billion dollars) [0]

> because it utterly sucks for transactions.

Again taking Bitcoin as a whole of crypto?

Yes, Bitcoin has failed as a currency. Yes, the "digital gold" narrative is bogus. Yes, there will be a lot of Bitcoin maxis who will have to deal with the terrible realization that their "sound money" is worthless. Can we move on now?

[0]: https://etherscan.io/address/0x00000000219ab540356cbb839cbe0...

This is wrong, all PoS cryptocurrencies are extremely centralized. Try running a validator on Avalanche, see how it goes.

The merge is all but inevitable now, and it seems that there are quite a good number of validators for the Beacon chain: https://etherscan.io/address/0x00000000219ab540356cbb839cbe0...

Is this sarcasm, or are you actually saying that freedom is not worth the spent energy?

Bitcoin is now used by El Salvador to avoid borrowing money from IMF. Is that also a ponzi scheme?

No. Yes, "freedom" ain't worth it.

I don't know.

There is nothing wrong with the global financial system. I can already send money electronically to anyone by way of bank transfer. In Europe, it's even easier, faster and cheaper than sending crypto.

Indeed, and wiring money overseas has also never been easier. I regularly send money from Norway to family in Africa using online remittance services (there's quite a few to pick from) and it usually takes less than 15 minutes for the money to go through (and they get a pick up notice from their bank). Because of competition, the FX rates are very good. No crypto involved.

You have a comfortable life. Many don't. Side note: what appears to be instantaneous settlement in fact, is not.

Someone who is not comfortable should stay far away from cryptocurrencies, because they may not survive the loss of all their money to a hack.

Someone who's not comfortable is probably facing the decimation of their native currency already, as what's happening in several "modern" countries at the moment.

What would you pick? Sketchy native currency with a near guaranteed loss of 80%+ or a volatile crypto asset?

People in countries that had inflation problems had ways to cope: back in the 80s when inflation was high there were money market funds that paid interest that kept up with inflation, for example. The baby boomers got rich because they could pay back their loans with cheap money. Inflation helps debtors. On the other hand, deflation destroys economies as it gets people with money hoarding it. If you look at times in history when national currencies we're going up in value those are exactly the times when the economy was collapsing.

I'm guessing this is pretty dependent on which country in Africa you're sending to. Probably not Zimbabwe?

You'd be surprised: https://www.worldremit.com/en/zimbabwe/faq/cash-pickup

Nothing wrong in your perspective? How fortunate for you.

But you're not being a skeptic here, you're just gambling.

Skepticism considers the ways in which you assumptions could have plausible positive or negative outcomes.

I see the entirety of the DeFi "industry" being regulated to death considering how many of these protocols and DAOs behave exactly like securities or replicate existing legal structures; I see no reason that governments will not seek to regulate them the same way.

We can look at the claims of crypt enthusiasts as stores of value, which is coherent, for sure, but if we're willing to give it the benefit of doubt then we should consider other equally shaky technologies and tech scenes, which doesn't give me much hope by itself.

The place where crypto has, and will likely continue to show value, is in money laundering and tax and currency control evasion. There are all things that, while illegal, _definitely_ have value, so my lower bound here is the value of a digital instrument to bypass these controls, especially in countries in which such things are tightly regulated.

That's not an insignificant lower bound; it is at least as large as a big fraction of the remittance industry + shadow banking. It's just that it's really, really difficult to make an honest living in this industry.

Regulation will come - folks on both sides are clamoring for it. Crypto industry folks are begging the SEC to do its job, but US Gov departments need to wrap up their infighting and territory division first.

Stephen Diehl is the most eloquent skeptic I've found (stephendiehl.com/blog.html). Much of the complaints point to unregistered securities fleecing retail (absolutely happening) or just overall complaints that humans are irrational (man yells at clouds). In light of his arguments, I still side on the perspective that this is genuinely new technology capable of giving the entire globe digital property rights. It's going to be a rocky road.

You also expect to profit disproportionately from onboarding those less fortunate you refer to. How is it fair to them or anyone? Besides the technical limitations of blockchain I find the distribution of rewards grotesque.

Odd perspective to express on a website which is founded upon being early to societal trends.

> If you think in absolutes you can never accept new information.

Never? Sounds a mite like absolute thinking.

More like a mathematical certainty

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