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Comment by yevpats | Hacker News Reader

I don't have a side in the whole crypto vs fiat war but I do wonder why HN is so anti-crypto (maybe it's just classic position speak). Re the "people who held significant amounts of bitcoin from early on would become billionaires by having provided zero value" - isn't that true to people who held Google stock very early on? what was their value?

Also, I would say inflationary token vs deflationary token is not clear what is better because it is actually highly depends on the time in history. lot's of things changed in the last 100 years and we might be entering a world where there is no need for inflationary token - For example let's say the earth is over-populated and there is going to be a decline in birth and total population - this on it's can mean we don't necessarily need an inflationary token as we don't need to build more infrastructure, buy more things and so on....

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> I do wonder why HN is so anti-crypto

Some of it is regret from selling early (I'd be a billionaire... if I had held), some of it is FOMO, some of it is that crypto is used by criminals (see bitlocker hacks), some of it is seeing people loose everything due to security breaches, and some of it is the attitude of proponents that act like all of the above is an anomaly.

It does make for strange bedfellows. Weird to see so much support for the traditional banking system and antipathy towards people advancing an alternative. Credit Suisse has a rap sheet a mile long.

I first heard about it at $250/btc, and I didn't invest then for the same reason I think it's bad now: the hype around it is exactly the same as every bubble I've heard about in history lessons, including the one in house prices and subprime mortgages leading up to the 2007 global financial crisis.

The fact that the current system has huge flaws doesn’t mean that any random alternative is superior to it. IMHO the current monetary/financial system is superior to everything that has ever been tried.

While it might be worth having a discussion about crypto using btc as a currency would be the digital equivalent of bottle caps in a post apocalyptic society. Dogecoin would make a better currency..

> isn't that true to people who held Google stock very early on? what was their value?

You mean aside from capitalising one of the most powerful money making machines in the tech industry, and a global advertising powerhouse that hundreds of millions of people use to find stuff on the internet multiple times every day. Plus Android, gmail, etc, etc. All those took money to develop, which came from early investors.

Meanwhile how much actually useful economic activity has been enabled by Bitcoin? I suppose it depends if you count money laundering, drug trading and fraud as useful economic activity.

The people who got on Google identified a company with a profitable idea and provided it funds to realize that idea.

I don’t love cryptocurrency stuff, I mean it is a bit environmentally wasteful and stupid, but lots of things are wasteful and stupid so it doesn’t give me some visceral negative reaction. I think the folks who really hate it here are just annoyed that there’s all this vaguely tech-flavored scammy behavior going on that, shows up on their favorite news sites (because it is vaguely techy), maybe gets promoted to them, etc etc.

I too think the unfairness is the problem here with the acceptability of Bitcoin as reserve currency. But not in the way the parent proposes. Bitcoin as reserve currency is such a zero sum outcome, unlike stock market investment gains, because the no coiners loose everything and the maxis gain everything that the others lost.

People who held google stock early actually provided a lot of value to society. By either investing in or working for a company that radically transformed how people use the Internet. You can argue early investors into Bitcoin are the same but in a much lesser way than if you aren’t Satoshi and didn’t contribute to the core development or advocacy of Bitcoin. Most hodlers just bought it and held on and did nothing.

The unfairness of this is so rankling that it’s hard to imagine that Bitcoin as reserve currency settles into an accepted equilibrium without significant violence on a global scale.

> isn't that true to people who held Google stock very early on? what was their value?

In theory, early investors allow Google to actually have the cash needed to make the products and services that brought in the real revenue.

An ex of mine would totally agree with you though.

Early ownership of Google means you are investor in some way. They have money, because Google itself has money. If google fails without them selling, they have no money. As in, if you believe google is societal good, they gave it money by the beginning.

If you think it is just a company, then they are just winners in economy. There is no reason for any of us to lobby for them to get more money. And, none of us lobby for it.

> is not clear what is better

Yes it is.

Imagine an economy with both ultra high interest rates and very high deflation at the same time. Let's say CPI growth somehow falls to - 20% and the Fed decides to hike interest rates to + 20%* (and has no way to tweak or stop this policy anymore) what do you think would happen?

> why HN is so anti-crypto

Because it would not work as a replacement for $/€/etc. due to very objective and clear reasons anyone with an even cursory understanding of modern economics would understand.

> let's say the earth is over-populated

Let's say a nuclear holocaust occurs and everybody starts using bottle-caps as currency. Of course you're suggesting we should start using bottle caps (a close 100% accurate physical equivalent of bitcoin in post-apocalyptic society which posses no mean to make more caps) before the nuclear holocaust for some reason...

No one is (I hope!) suggesting we use Google stock as our general currency, so if bitcoin acts like google stock, that’s another reason not to use it to replace USD.

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