Everything you need to know about crypto today can be found at https://web3isgoinggreat.com/
One example is all the amazing new research in zero-knowledge proofs, MPC, FHE, and modern cryptography in general, that is motivated and funded by cryptocurrency projects.
Just as, in days of old, those who wished to do legitimate (and costly) science had frame their research as supporting alchemical beliefs leading to discovery of immortality, or means to make gold from lead.
and astronomers who wished to build an observatory had to go along with some highly flimsy justification about how it could serve as a means to prognosticate the birth of an heir or victory in battle for some petty murderous strongman.
One interpretation is that crypto companies need security and privacy, while big tech doesn't seem to care all that much.
(i'm having a hard time thinking of a successful "crypto" company other than a handful of exchanges, of which coinbase will probably be the only one that survives, at least in the US)
This is actually a worry i have about in regards to crypto, the BTC network uses a staggering amount of power.
Ai is next of my power hungry worry list.
Crypto has alternative consensus methods available today and a former PoW blockchain (Ethereum) was able to cut their emissions by 99.9% by moving to a efficient alternative with Proof-of-Stake. For crypto it is possible.
AI (Deep Learning) on the other hand has no efficient alternative methods available for training, fine-tuning and inference and continues to waste tons of water and consume more resources.
> Ai is next of my power hungry worry list
It should be the main concern. The top of your list even, hence the aforementioned points today. Deep Learning has no efficient solutions to its energy problem which remains to this day after decades of its existence.
Actually, bitcoin uses a ridiculously small amount of power for what it provides. See for example here https://www.lynalden.com/bitcoin-energy/ for an introduction to clear up this misconception.
Bitcoin allows for instant money transfer, and so does Visa.
The fact that bitcoin has no collateral is a whole other topic.
> The fact that bitcoin has no collateral is a whole other topic.
That's actually the main topic. Both Gold and Bitcoin are valuable because we as a society decided that they are valuable.
So far it seems that Bitcoin mainstream use is to create speculative markets. Any other intended objective is a drop in the bucket.
Because I cannot fathom a system where either currency or banking does not work, and the preferable alternative is to rely on a highly volatile asset that requires vast amounts of energy and time to work.
> That your peers primarily use it for speculation says more about them than about bitcoin.
We are not in 2011 anymore. Bitcoin did not become a widespread vehicle for commercial transactions. Countries with defenestrated economies did not find an alternative in Bitcoin. Instead, we have whales, among them large banks and corporations, controlling over a third of the market, and most transactions are made in exchanges with arbitrage or speculation purposes.
Suffice to say, I don't consider JPMorgan or Goldman Sachs my "peers".
Here you go, I have compiled some examples for you: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32406095
> Because I cannot fathom a system where either currency or banking does not work, and the preferable alternative is to rely on a highly volatile asset that requires vast amounts of energy and time to work.
May I ask you where you were born and raised? A lot of people do actually have to face shitty systems where Bitcoin is a godsend.
Isn't it a bit disingenuous to think that common people have moved $50bn in Bitcoin out of China? Or have moved ~$2.4bn worth of Bitcoin in Nigeria in a single month?
> A lot of people do actually have to face shitty systems where Bitcoin is a godsend.
I would say that a handful of examples, of which some are highly questionable, constitute anecdotal evidence, at best. Some of these scenarios are indistinguishable from using any other stable foreign currency, or even commodities, with the added difficulty of requiring certain technology literacy most people don't have.
> May I ask you where you were born and raised?
I could ask the same, because I haven't found many ardent defenders of cryptocurrency outside the tech circles of the so called developed world.
Well, Bitcoin price is still 30K USD and the market cap is almost 600B USD. That is a very good macro proof that people value Bitcoin.
> I could ask the same
I was born in a third world country where the leader decided to demonetize 87% of currency in circulation on a whim. And the society doesn't trust government at all - people buy gold or land as soon as they can. Where are you from?
> I haven't found many ardent defenders of cryptocurrency outside the tech circles of the so called developed world.
Have you actually bothered to talk to anyone? I have had in-person conversations with people from multiple despotic or shitty regimes (Nigeria, Sri Lanka, Iran) to understand how and why they use Bitcoin. You talk to them, understand how it is used and you will also realize that Bitcoin is here to stay and grow.
Let’s not forget that Bitcoin price averages a volatility of ~4% daily. With Bitcoin, any given individual could have sold goods or services and make a profit one day, and lose pretty much everything in a week.
If that is not a sign of Bitcoin being used as a vehicle for speculative markets, I don’t know what it is.
> Have you actually bothered to talk to anyone? I have had in-person conversations with people from multiple despotic or shitty regimes (Nigeria, Sri Lanka, Iran) to understand how and why they use Bitcoin.
Using Bitcoin properly requires a certain level of tech and financial literacy most people just don’t have. It also relies on expensive infrastructure that is highly dependent on mining being profitable. Again, this is not 2011 anymore, nowadays only the very wealthy can expect to profit from Bitcoin mining.
I guess the question is, what is so different between a crappy hyper inflated currency, controlled by an authoritarian government, and a crappy volatile cryptocurrency, controlled by a few wealthy individuals?
On that regard, If I were to call any friend from Venezuela and ask them about starting to use Bitcoin right now, they would surely get some 2014 vibes.
But most of the users don't mine - they just buy and hold. It is pretty simple and is as complicated (or simple) as buying and holding gold.
> a crappy volatile cryptocurrency, controlled by a few wealthy individuals
No idea how that is relevant since we are discussing Bitcoin :-p. In seriousness, that is where the social belief comes from. If people believe Bitcoin to be controlled by a few wealthy individuals, then either they will stay away. If they believe Bitcoin to be a truly decentralized store of value not controlled by any single government or entity, they will flock to it. If they are right, they will be rewarded with an asset which will appreciate in the long run. If they are wrong, they will get burned.
So far, believers in Bitcoin seem to be getting rewarded handsomely and naysayers are proven wrong multiple times (https://99bitcoins.com/bitcoin-obituaries/).
> If I were to call any friend from Venezuela and ask them about starting to use Bitcoin right now, they would surely get some 2014 vibes.
I met a Venezuelan last week and he regularly sends Bitcoin back home to help his family. Fiat exchange rate is artificially suppressed so his family would receive less if he sends USD. Gold is hard to send from the US to Venezuela. No one can stop Bitcoin transfers though and it is more trusted than the local currency.
You can literally sell one Bitcoin on Coinbase right now and get >30K USD back (minus commission). No idea how USDT is relevant here.
Not surprising, you live in a media bubble filled with people from the "developed world".
Btw, lumping Bitcoin with web3 is as pointless as lumping penny stocks with AAPL or BRK.A.
I'd estimate it as...oh...98% speculation, and I think I'm being generous.
47% investment and central1 banks
45% jewellery
7% tech/industrial applications
See https://www.statista.com/statistics/299609/gold-demand-by-in... and https://natural-resources.canada.ca/our-natural-resources/mi... - don't exactly agree, but close.
(and, importantly, it doesn't require terawatt-hours to maintain gold once you've mined it).
> (and, importantly, it doesn't require terawatt-hours to maintain gold once you've mined it).
I am pretty sure collective security spent on gold worldwide exceeds terawatt hours once you account for all the physical security as well.
Bitcoin purposefully wastes lots of energy to provide something of extremely dubious value.
Maybe you should stop flying on airplanes for the rest of your life?
I'll tell lots of other people how you live your life is hypocritically contributing to a massive increase of financial leverage on the part of "rationally self interested" sociopaths and criminals at everyone else's expense( in direct opposition to its putative purpose of undermining predatory central bankers, yet is simply shifting the power to predatory anon-ish ransomware purveyors and sex traffickers and bullshit gambling token insta-twit "influencers" seeking to exploit the naivety of children for their own financial gain), and generally promoting the enshittification of everything that touches the internet, and should be mocked and discouraged at every opportunity.
You don't like the free market of ideas when it turns against you? tough.
This is no defense of Bitcoin/crypto, but the above paragraph relatively concisely describes how I feel as part of the underclasses in the traditional world. Except that all the fears it encapsulates have already occurred for my family, generations back.
There are people in this thread who get a yearly payrise (which translates to increased selfish expenditure on plastic toys and air flights and fancy petrol burning machines) that's greater than my entire household's income, and I'm just an ordinary person in a western country. How many household bitcoin miners does that equal, environmentally speaking? For that one person?
The hypocrisy embedded in fervent hatred of crypto, as though extravagant & hugely unbalanced wastage of resources wasn't practiced by us all daily, implies a moral distance that, imo, barely exists. Bitcoin and crypto are mere reflections of the wastage that we as a species have normalised, and still do, via our lifestyles.
It's "industry" and "business" that have fucked this world.
And the and the relative handful of people at the center of the so-called decentralized crypto world are well aware of this and don't give a flying f**.
It's the human behaviour, what our species turns the protocol to, that we're really complaining about.
It sure doesn't help that the earliest adopters went on the social media of the time crowing about how they were the new wealthy elite.
<insert improve the world somewhat meme here>