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Comment by rvz | Hacker News Reader

> Too bad most of the Rust jobs right now seem to be in crypto.

What is the problem with that?

Potential criminal liability and resume stench. Would you hire ex scammer/ponzi to maintain your backend? I wouldn't.

Yeah, I wouldn't hire someone from a company who caused mass genocide and ran a fake news propaganda machine and then and profited billions from it [0] and is also using Rust as well then. /s

[0] https://www.globalwitness.org/en/campaigns/digital-threats/r...

Having FB on your resume can leave a stench indeed. Depends a bit on context though, it's a big place. Going into crypto today, that's a pretty clear lack of judgement.

> resume stench

This is such a bogus argument. I am working in Crypto and have no trouble getting offers from non crypto companies. My resume also carries other evils such as the surveillance overlord and the evil empire, among others. I always found it easy to waltz into a new job with those names.

I have also hired dozens of people coming from companies which were pinatas of du jour. Neither I nor any of the other people involved (sourcers, recruiters, execs, HR) gave even a minimal amount of shit regarding "resume stench". If a candidate passed our hiring bar, we hired them.

So stop spreading this FUD.

I hire candidates based on skill, core values and judgment. I completely accept that others might use different criteria.

So you think someone who worked at a crypto startup showed a lack of judgement? Do you have a blacklist of companies or sectors (adtech, surveillance tech, data collection, weapons manufacturers, pharma, lottery, porn, ...)? I would love to see that list.

> So you think someone who worked at a crypto startup showed a lack of judgement?

Yes, yes I do. I've had a candidate with 2 crypto rug pull startups under his belt, otherwise brilliant and passionate about tech. He went back in for a hat trick. I do not think he displayed proper judgement, do you?

Depends on the details of the prior two startups and the third one. It may or may not be poor judgement. But to get back to your original post, will you blacklist every single candidate who has had a stint in the Crypto space?

Do you also think that someone who worked on two Google chat apps (which are obviously discontinued) and now working on their third one is showing a lack of judgement?

> But to get back to your original post, will you blacklist every single candidate who has had a stint in the Crypto space?

Not if they recognize the mistake and learn from it.

> Do you also think that someone who worked on two Google chat apps (which are obviously discontinued) and now working on their third one is showing a lack of judgement?

No, it's not fraud and the paycheck checks out. On the other hand, can you imagine? Do you know someone like that?

> if they recognize the mistake

what if they don't think it was any mistake and was just an honest job?

> can you imagine? Do you know someone like that?

Yes, personally know someone at Google in that space who worked on multiple chat apps and nicely climbed the career ladder.

It's a bubble, 99/100 crypto companies are going to crash and burn, or already have. If you manage to land on the 1/100 that actually does something useful and survives, well, better odds than the lottery I suppose.

Sounds a lot like Silicon Valley circa. 1999

That's my feeling, you might pick the company that becomes the google of crypto, or you might end up in one of the ones you haven't even heard about because they disappeared without a trace.

Except that cryptomoney isn't adding insane amounts of value in any niche, outside of extortion and evading government controls.

Evading government controls sounds like a valuable attribute.

Yes and no, both. That really depends on what government and what control.

But anyway, the amount of value you can provide there is severely limited, as you can only at most undo the value your government is destroying. You can't ever get in a better situation than what you would get with a competent liberal-ish government and no cryptomoney.

That means some business can exist there, and a small amount of it can even be morally acceptable. But it is completely different from the internet boom.

> You can't ever get in a better situation than what you would get with a competent liberal-ish government and no cryptomoney.

And what if you have only an incompetent authoritarian government? How would you help fight citizens of those governments? Crypto is a great tool there. Just because there are insufferable crypto-bros peddling shitcoins to make a quick buck doesn't mean entire Crypto field is useless. That'd be like blacklisting the entire data mining field because surveillance tech and adtech exist.

> And what if you have only an incompetent authoritarian government?

Then cryptomoney can give you a limited, non-zero amount of value. Still less than fixing the government, but it is easier to deploy.

Even then, comparing it with the internet boom is bullshit.

> Then cryptomoney can give you a limited, non-zero amount of value.

Glad we agree on this. Everything else (eg. comparison with internet boom) is a matter of degree and only time will tell.

oh hi there, would you like to hire a few super expensive accountants to optimize taxes like the other big corporations?

(in case it isn't obvious, yes, I fully agree that evading government control/taxation is a hugely lucrative market).

Ability to evade government controls sounds like a great thing in a lot of circumstances. I have compiled a list of specific examples around that topic: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32406095

Why do you think governments are always right? Haven't you learned any history?

> It's a bubble, 99/100 crypto companies are going to crash and burn, or already have.

I'm sure this is the 990th time that I have heard this. The fact is, it isn't going away and it seems even more crypto companies have taken interest in using Rust and that is good.

Even some (crypto) companies are sponsoring the Rust Foundation as silver members. Nothing wrong with that. [0]

[0] https://foundation.rust-lang.org/members

VC typically has an investment horizon of 10 years, and the latest crypto surge is only ~2 years old. A lot of the companies from the last (circa 2018) ICO bubble did crash and burn. I don’t think it can be taken as fact that the ones from this round are “here to stay”.

What are crypto companies doing that I should care about? Give me something I could go check out and use that is:

(1) Not speculation, gambling, or some variation thereof.

(2) Useful for something other than crypto itself.

(3) Actually works and can be used today.

(4) Continues to make sense even in a crypto bear market. (In other words: I will still buy milk even if the US dollar is falling because the point is the milk not the dollar. What in crypto is like that?)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32406095

I prepared that post since the question you posed comes up every week here, if not more frequently.

That’s cryptocurrency in its original use case: virtual money.

This was all technically possible in 2009. What I was getting at was… what’s new? Billions and billions have been poured into all kinds of app development and R&D in this space and all we have is still what we had when Bitcoin launched.

What are all these people in crypto building? Where is it? Where can I use it?

Imagine if 25 years after the dot com era after hundreds of billions had been spent we still just had e-mail, static html4, and text chat protocols over dialup modem.

> what’s new?

Increased social and political acceptance of Bitcoin as virtual money? That is a big deal.

> ...all we have is still what we had when Bitcoin launched.

False. In 2009, a very very small minority took it seriously. Now you have Blackrocks of the world getting in that business and SEC approving a Bitcoin ETF. So after Billions and billions of investment, now Crypto is a "serious business". Which is exactly why people in Afghanistan and Venezuela can rely on Bitcoin. They wouldn't have done so in 2009.

Another use case is digital art. Until NFTs, I am not sure how artists made money with their digital collections. Now, the creators of Bored Apes can fetch ~75 ETH (~100K USD)[1] per Ape, even today after the Crypto market has crashed. That is durable value and Crypto has enabled that avenue for artists. If you think NFTs are scam for laundering black money, burden of proof would be on you to make a case about why that is different from traditional paintings. And if you think traditional art too is nothing more than an avenue for money laundering, then... I'd propose we agree to disagree.

Yet another use case is branding. Just look at the adoption of NFTs[2] among top brands like Nike, D&G, Tiffany, Gucci, NFL, NBA, La Liga or Australian Open. If legit businesses and sports leagues are adopting Crypto for branding purposes, that is a resounding proof about the viability of this particular use case.

[1] https://opensea.io/collection/boredapeyachtclub

[2] https://www.coindesk.com/web3/top-brands-in-web3-nfts-and-th...

Arguably Brave.

Does anyone actually use BAT or just the Brave browser? I would consider paying for a privacy-first browser in regular money, but have no interest in the BAT thing which seems entirely shoehorned in.

According to Eich, something like 20% of their userbase or so. I personally have no interest in it, but don't mind their ad model. The company does sell real money services - perhaps most notably in the "pay for the browser" type category, they offer a paid, ad-free version of Brave Search.

Well, considering that 90% of all startups fail, that number isn't unrealistic

True, but that's the investor's problem, not the employees. They'll end up losing their jobs in the end and move on, but it's not like people in other tech company never lose their job either. The good thing when it eventually happens is that there will be a lot of senior Rust developers that are needed by most company to even start doing things in Rust.

Is their work pointless? Sure. But aren't Googlers' jobs not pointless too? That's the sad state of the 21th century: most people have a bullshit job but they need it to pay their mortgage.

There are still other options available :) For example, Qdrant vector search engine. It's written in Rust, and it's not about crypto. And currently they are hiring Rust developer. Check job openings in LinkedIn

I imagine if you're not a cryptographer, you don't have a chance getting those jobs.

I don't think there are that many people with deep knowledge of crypto working in the 'crypto' scene.

Here are a few prominent cryptographers in the 'cryptocurrency' scene with 'deep knowledge':

Matthew Green from John Hopkins University [0]

Zhenfei Zhang of Ethereum, Mina, Algorand blockchains who co-created the NIST post-quantum cryptography standard for digital signatures called Falcon [1]

Nadim Kobeissi creator of cryptocat now created Capsule Social [2]

Silvio Micali, Turing Award Winner for his work on Zero-Knowledge Proofs [3]

So, I'm afraid that there are some credible people like those above who have a significant and documented background in cryptography who are also working in the cryptocurrency industry.

[0] https://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/

[1] https://falcon-sign.info/

[2] https://nadim.computer/

[3] http://people.csail.mit.edu/silvio/

A lot of crypto nerds swarmed to this field because the tech is undeniably fun, and the whole space is rather interesting and is fun to play in. Kinda like it's more fun writing a multiplayer game than a singleplayer game?

I don't think most of these people are into cryptocurrencies specifically.

> I don't think most of these people are into cryptocurrencies specifically.

They are? Especially the creator of Algorand (a cryptocurrency) Silvio Micali. In his CV [0]

> "Scientific Interests, Cryptocurrencies, Blockchains"

At the bottom of his CV:

> "Technology Transfer: Algorand, Founder and Inventor of the Core Technology"

If that is not 'into' cryptocurrencies, then I don't know what is.

[0] http://people.csail.mit.edu/silvio/CV.pdf

Probably better if you are not a cryptographer. Because you have fewer inclination to write “your own cryptographic algo”.

Sadly crypto in this context refers to cryptocurrencies, not cryptography.

You'd be surprised. Most legitimate cryptographers I know won't touch this space with a ten-foot pole. That should you to guess who the people actually implementing it are.

Sorry to be explaining the joke, but I think GP (deliberately) misunderstood what was meant by the term "crypto".

Very scummy companies. They often try to pull tricks like paying your wage in mostly their own coin which they plan to rug pull before you are able to cash it out.

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