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Comment by Layke1123 | Hacker News Reader

Anyone ever consider the possibility that crypto isn't needed in a society that is based on trust, and if we all trusted each other, then none of this is necessary? It is almost as if the powers that be want crypto because they don't trust anyone, and therefore perpetuates the problem of needless abstraction?

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Western countries are rapidly moving from being high-trust to low-trust societies. The reasons for this are multifaceted, complex, and self-reinforcing, and it isn't likely that the trend will be reversed any time soon. Certainly not within our lifetimes. So we can either stick our heads in the sand about it, or develop technologies to deal with it as best we can. I'm not a crypto fan myself, but I understand why it exists and why it will probably be increasingly important as time goes on.

No one will ever trust a completely trustless coin, because if you can't trust each other, putting trust in an abstract concept isn't exactly a winning solution.

Human trust matters, not mathematical trust.

Unfortunately you don’t understand what trustless means in this context. “No one trusts a trustless coin” makes no sense, there is no trust required for it to function (theoretically). It works as expected whether your counterparty is a saint or entirely corrupt.

I do, I think. No one wants to use a coin that also let's criminals do dark things with even less scrutiny than fiat currencies.

And we can see this across all levels of society, from cryptocurrency to grade inflation to George Floyd to political corruption to school shootings. The loss of trust in institutions is particularly accelerated today, whereas people of the "Greatest Generation" who are dying now grew up in a world where teachers, police, and politicians were generally trusted.

> and if we all trusted each other, then none of this is necessary?

I mean, maybe, but that's never going to happen so it really doesn't matter

Why do you say that?

Your periodic reminder that talking about "trustlessness" in distributed systems only means that the consensus can be verified independently and that there is no central authority.

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