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Comment by kkjjkgjjgg | Hacker News Reader

I went to some workshops when Ethereum was developed (sadly I decided against investing in the ICO because some aspects didn't convince me or I didn't understand them well enough). Even back then the discussion was that they were trying to do too much and it would be difficult to make it work reliably. Bitcoin deliberately chose a more conservative approach. Bitcoin also actually has a scripting language and allows for smart contracts, but they were much slower with unlocking its features for real. (I don't know the current state of it).

Just to say, it really doesn't make sense to judge "crypto" by the state of Ethereum. There are different philosophies, different approaches, different people.

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Domains where the basics are still being actively researched should never be part of the backbone of human society, though.

Maybe they'll find solutions. Cool, let them put those solutions in practice in 2040 when all the bugs have been worked out.

Frankly that is the best case scenario for crypto. It's similar to the dot com bubble in 1999 actually, it's 20 years later and the internet is finally somewhat useful and intergrated into our lives. Originally it was just a bubble inflated with ad revenue inflated with investor money

Yeah, but the web was instantly useful for a huge array of legitimate uses.

It was never a solution in search of a problem.

In 1999 the tech wasn't there but everyone could see where it was going, like all investments, it was a matter of timing.

Crypto is still at the fundamental research phase and we don't even have consensus that it does more good than bad, yet.

It does good when your bank accounts get shut down, as happened to Wikileaks for example.

That's a super niche application, not a mass market use.

And yes, I know about the supposed use for people in countries with unstable regimes but I'm not convinced at the moment. Plus that use case, being that of people generally having low disposable incomes (barring China) absolutely doesn't justify the market value of crypto at the moment.

Inflation hits the masses, or in general money supply manipulation schemes. In the last few weeks, markets tanked just because the FEDs announced they plan to increase interest rates. Is that really how we want to go on?

Cryptocurrencies are only used for speculation.

That's your best argument against regular currencies? That they're being manipulated, too? :-)

Bitcoin is not being manipulated. You may be confusing it with Bitcoin markets and Bitcoin trading. Nobody can conjure Bitcoin out of thin air or manipulate interest rates on it.

Bitcoin has been working pretty well for years now.

Working well for what? It's useless as currency.

Working well at letting people keep and transfer crypto coins.

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