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Comment by colesantiago | Hacker News Reader

Please don't start yet another instance of the same old generic flamewar on HN. The issue isn't whether you're right or wrong, it's that we've had this flamewar hundreds of times already and nothing new comes of it. That makes if off topic for this site, which is supposed to be for curiosity. Curiosity withers under repetition and fries under indignation.

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Happy to see you’re taking this approach now Dang. It’s really killed a lot of threads and I hope conversations can now go up a level to the technical uses rather than generic ‘ponzi scheme’ claims.

> I hope conversations can now go up a level to the technical uses

Most if not all of the "technical uses" rely on rent extraction so it's really hard to talk about the technical uses without focusing on that major sticking point. Cryptocurrencies/dApps et al only work because of a network of miners on top of existing Internet infrastructure. They all add some extra cost onto every transaction. This in addition to the fantastic number of hucksters and scammers that need suckers to buy into the system so they can cash out.

The whole subject of crytocurrencies cannot be separated from the implementation details. Talking about "technical uses" as if the economic considerations didn't exist is pointless.

Yes I understand how blockchains work. Having that extra layer allows for these projects so, as an end user, we should shift the focus on things like the costs of using an app rather than the implementation (except maybe for PoS v PoW for environmental reasons). Instead of technical uses maybe I should have said projects and products.

We've been taking this approach for a long time - it's just hard to get the word out.

slippery slope dang, HN soon the place to be for promoting NFT's about tech

oh it is already, does Stripe gets an exception because it is "backed by YC"?

https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/stripe

It should be tagged as such

More transparency dang, please

> does Stripe gets an exception because it is "backed by YC"

Neither Stripe nor any other YC startup. It's the other way around actually: we moderate less, not more, when a YC startup is the story. See https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu... for many years' worth of explanations.

This technology does not work as designed, advertised and towards the environment.

And this announcement is an endorsement of the entire space which is full of scams, is this what you are also endorsing?

I'm not endorsing anything except good threads on Hacker News.

I don't understand how a big company endorsing crypto scams is a good thread for HN.

Any thread where commenters fulminate about the same thing over and over is a bad thread for HN.

I've left the field of crypto/blockchain but worked on a few projects such as the Cardano blockchain. Now I'm focusing on effective altruism and food security. Anyway, I've been aware or involved with the crypto space since 2014 when I used to play a drinking game involving the Bitcoin ATM at Google Campus in London (guessing if the price would go up or down when it updated every minute or so, around the $300 mark if I remember correctly). In that time I've worked for several different startups in the space and not once have I worked with anyone who's trying to scam people. Yes scams exist. No, most projects are not scams. Bad ideas? Sure, maybe! Bad execution? Yep, that happens! Quickly obsolete tech? It's a fast moving scene! But when a startup is trying to build a product such as a financial account for developing countries without banking infrastructure to allow people to build a credit score, or trying to reduce international banking fees impact on remittence payments in countries like Nepal, or trying to allow people to have options in countries where their own national currency is going down the drain, I find it offensive that people on HackerNews who on the whole are smart well-experienced people default to this idea that it's all one big scam. This is in fact one of the reasons I left Crypto - because of relentless attacks on peoples character and how toxic it can be. I'm very happy if this style of conversation disappears from HN forever because 1) saying it's a scam doesn't change anyones opinions 2) the arguments have been repeated literally for years 3) it goes against HN T&Cs anyway.

I hope we're at the point where we can focus on individual projects (which may well be absolutely useless products) than judging the entire space as a whole.

Isn't it classified as "curiosity" when people question whether crypto works?

By labeling the criticisms as a "flamewar" you/HN are tacitly endorsing it.

But this is a valid question? I am sure other Stripe customers are upset with this as much as I am to call it what it is.

Are you going to flag them too?

It is not established that cryptocurrencies in general are scams. I could make my own cryptocurrency and use it for completely legitimate reasons.

Sounds like a scam

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