Hacker News Reader

pshin45on Bitcoin’s Price Was Artificially Inflated Last Year, Researchers Say

I agree that everything you say is true or has been true of Bitcoin at some point.

However, the more important question is how all of those things will change going forwards.

Is Bitcoin's volatility decreasing? Yes.

Will Bitcoin ever become stable enough to be a reliable store of value comparable to gold or the US dollar? We'll see.

Will cryptocurrency security and management improve? Most certainly.

Will new regulations help weed out bad actors? One would hope so.

Will Bitcoin become easier to use on mobile devices? I can't see why not.

Will Bitcoin transactions become instant or near-instant? Many people in the space are working on it.

Will Bitcoin become more intuitive? I would bet yes.

pshin45on Bitcoin’s Price Was Artificially Inflated Last Year, Researchers Say

> so big that 1.3 million people were displaced to build it.

The fact that China built a large hydroelectric power plant (Three Gorges Dam) that displaced a lot of people, shouldn't be an argument against Bitcoin. There are ways to provide electricity for Bitcoin mining that are green and don't displace people.

> safeguard the proceeds of wealthy hackers' speculation

The people who get richest from the stock market are those who are already wealthier to begin with. Are you against the stock market and securities in general?

> nor ever will provide as much utility to the world as, say, Ireland.

Apples to oranges comparisons aside, a better comparison would be Bitcoin eventually becoming a popular alternative for gold investment, and/or an alternative to Western Union.

Gold mining causes direct physical destruction of landscapes and ecosystems [1]. I think Bitcoin mining largely displacing gold mining is a good thing.

Western Union charges as much as $95 to send $1,000 [2], and their customers are generally poorer working-class people. M-Pesa in Kenya has already demonstrated that mobile money services can lift hundreds of thousands of people out of poverty [3]. The Bitcoin protocol doesn't have a corporate profit motive and can become a cheaper and more globally scalable version of Western Union or M-Pesa.

[1] https://www.brilliantearth.com/gold-mining-environment/

[2] https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/banking/western-union-review...

[3] https://news.mit.edu/2016/mobile-money-kenyans-out-poverty-1...

pshin45on Bitcoin’s Price Was Artificially Inflated Last Year, Researchers Say

The same could be said for any new technology – they are always a double-sword, and it's our responsibility as technologists to do what we can to maximize the upside and minimize the downside.

The internet has changed society for the better in innumerable ways, but it's also robbed us of privacy and freedoms. Cars allow greater access to economic opportunities for people living outside urban centers, but they are also responsible for most of the world’s air pollution, and millions of people are killed each year as a result of traffic collisions.

This is the reality we have to face as people who work in technology.

pshin45on Bitcoin’s Price Was Artificially Inflated Last Year, Researchers Say

> unless you also specify how much better.

That is impossible for anyone to say with any certainty, because the future impact of new technologies are, by their nature, impossible to predict.

The oft-cited statistic is that 2 billion adults worldwide are still completely “unbanked” and don’t even have a basic checking or savings account. One percent of 2 billion is 20 million people (roughly the population of a mid-size country), many of them living in poverty.

A global decentralized currency like Bitcoin could eventually allow what happened with M-Pesa in Kenya to happen more easily in any country in the world.

I've written about this as well. You can skip to the section titled "How Bitcoin can help the poor and unbanked" to read data on how m-Pesa has improved life for many poor and rural Kenyans.

https://medium.com/@petershin45/hate-bitcoin-this-might-chan...

pshin45on Bitcoin’s Price Was Artificially Inflated Last Year, Researchers Say

I think your point about US power plants is a nitpick – The largest power plants in the world are not located in the US, and either way my point still stands because it's meant to be a rough approximation.

Unlike data centers where electricity consumption is directly correlated with internet usage, Bitcoin's electricity consumption is instead directly correlated with its price (which attracts more miners), and is very indirectly correlated with the number of users or transactions.

It's very possible that Bitcoin could be adopted by a significant (e.g. 10% or more) percentage of the world population even as its price remains fairly consistent, which would mean its total electricity consumption would remain fairly consistent as well.

pshin45on Bitcoin’s Price Was Artificially Inflated Last Year, Researchers Say

Indeed, as I mentioned in a sibling comment, to put those numbers in context, Bitcoin consumes as much power globally as a single large power plant, and roughly 10% of the world's data centers [1].

To be sure, it's the growth rate of that consumption that is more concerning. But at the same time, there are lots of reasons to believe that Bitcoin's electricity consumption will naturally moderate and flatten over time.

If you think Bitcoin has even a 1% chance of changing the world for the better e.g. via increased financial inclusion for lower-income populations, I think that amount of electricity is a reasonable "investment" to make (for now).

[1] https://medium.com/@petershin45/bitcoin-is-killing-the-plane...

pshin45on Bitcoin’s Price Was Artificially Inflated Last Year, Researchers Say

Bitcoin's absolute power consumption isn't at a critical level yet — Bitcoin consumes as much power globally as a single large power plant, and roughly 10% of the world's data centers.

However, I agree that its rapid and consistent growth rate is concerning and can't be ignored.

It's an area I'm really interested in and have been reading a lot about, because most of the news and "analysis" of the issue on both sides has been obnoxiously biased.

I tried to write a balanced summary article of the situation (below). Long-term, Bitcoin's electricity consumption could really go either way i.e. flatten or continue growing indefinitely. There are some causal factors like price that are out of our control, but there are others like the Lightning Network that are both feasible and in our control, and could significantly moderate Bitcoin's electricity consumption.

https://medium.com/@petershin45/bitcoin-is-killing-the-plane...

pshin45on Suicide rising across the US

And for those who prefer written communication, there's Crisis Text Line[1]: Text 741741 (US only)

Disclaimer: I'm a volunteer.

[1] https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/02/09/r-u

pshin45on Hundreds of Bitcoin Wannabes Show Hallmarks of Fraud

Re: Bitcoin's electricity consumption, I wasn't satisfied with how one-sided or incomplete a lot of the articles written about this topic are, so I tried writing my own* that (hopefully) more fully and objectively encapsulates the data and facts of the matter.

TL;DR – We all need to stop ignoring Bitcoin's rapidly-growing electricity consumption and making flawed "What about _____?"† arguments. The Bitcoin community (myself included) needs to start facing reality and be able to demonstrate four things:

1) Bitcoin’s energy usage is actually reasonable, when viewed in proper context

2) All that electricity is actually serving a useful purpose

3) Bitcoin’s growing energy needs can be brought under control

4) Over time, the electricity for Bitcoin will increasingly come from renewable sources

I personally believe that #1 and #4 are already true and will continue to trend in the right direction over time. As for #2 and #3, those can become true in the near future, but right now it's all hypothetical and Bitcoin needs to start delivering on its (unfulfilled) potential soon.

* https://medium.com/@petershin45/bitcoin-is-killing-the-plane...

† https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism

pshin45on US Digital Currency

To add to this point, M-Pesa has been a huge success in Kenya, but has had trouble expanding to other countries because of some inherent limitations of M-Pesa's model.

A cryptocurrency could enable the next evolution of mobile payment services like M-Pesa. I touched on this in a past blog post:

https://medium.com/@petershin45/hate-bitcoin-this-might-chan... (You can scroll down to the section titled "How Bitcoin can help the poor and unbanked")

pshin45on Uber Founder Travis Kalanick Resigns as C.E.O.

Travis Kalanick's words to that Uber driver back in Feb 2017 are very ironic now in retrospect:

"Some people don't like to take responsibility for their own shit. They blame everything in their life on somebody else."

pshin45on [dead]

I see Donald Trump running for president as being nothing more than a glorified PR campaign to build his own brand. I don't think he even cares if he wins or loses, and I think it's possible he might not even accept the presidency if he were to win it as it's not worth the headache - He's a businessman first and foremost whose primary interest is in amassing wealth.

However, I do think there is one "side benefit" to his absurd, self-serving presidential campaign, and that is he is making a mockery of the US's political process and pushing it to its logical extremes, which I think is long overdue. A good democratic process should be able to prevent potential fascists from gaining power, and the fact that Trump even got this far shows the deficiencies of the system and that it needs reform. There is literally nothing stopping popular and influential celebrities like Kanye West and Kim Kardashian from running for president and winning. In fact, they've even announced their intentions to do so[1].

I'd argue that, ironically, Trump is achieving the same ends that Larry Lessig[2] hoped to achieve, albeit through very different means.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9x92nwGf_M

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Lessig_presidential_c...

pshin45on My Immigration Story

What interesting timing - I'm organizing an Immigration-themed hackathon[1] this weekend in SF, and on Saturday morning we'll have a speaking panel called "Immigrant Founder Stories" where founders from 4 startups (big to small) will share about their struggles to gain permanent status in the US, and how it affected them as entrepreneurs.

- Laks Srini, Co-founder & CTO at Zenefits [2]

- Tri Tran, Co-founder & CEO at Munchery [3]

- Silver Keskküla, Co-founder at Teleport (ex-Skype) [4]

- Nikhil Aitharaju, Co-founder at Tint [5]

[1] http://www.up.co/communities/usa/san-francisco/startup-weeke... (Use promo code "hn" for 70% off)

[2] http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/24/technology/workers-in-sili...

[3] https://medium.com/@munchery/pitch-your-life-2f170eab933b

[4] https://medium.com/@keskkyla/good-luck-being-born-tomorrow-d...

[5] https://app.fwd.us/stories/259

pshin45on Munchery Valued at About $300M Amid Food Fight

You could say the same thing for any "on-demand" startup out there. It's this kind of intellectual laziness ("It failed in the past so it couldn't possibly succeed now.") that prevented electric cars from happening sooner.

Some on-demand startups will work out magnificently and many others will not because the economics just don't make sense. In the case of Munchery, I think their valuation is very reasonable when you consider it's an order of magnitude less than that of one of their indirect competitors Blue Apron who is seeking a $2 billion valuation (as mentioned in the article).

pshin45on Munchery Valued at About $300M Amid Food Fight

> no proof of customer base

What are you basing this on?

> is literally more work than walking down to the supermarket and picking up a pack of precooked chicken

Have you used Munchery before? If so, how exactly is it more work?

pshin45on Show HN: Visa Explorer – Salaries, lawyers, companies of all H-1B in the USA

Very impressive. I'm organizing an Immigration-themed "Startup Weekend" event[1] happening next week (in SF), and I think I'll be sharing this with participants there as an example of what can be done.

[1] http://www.up.co/communities/usa/san-francisco/startup-weeke... (Use promo code "hn" for 70% off)

pshin45on Ask HN: What makes a good hackathon?

Thanks for sharing, this is both informative and reassuring as I'm currently organizing my own hackathon coming up in 2 weeks.

It's a thematic hackathon ("Startup Weekend Immigration") happening on May 29-31 in SF.[1] We'll be hacking on ways to make it less difficult for immigrants to achieve a better life in a new country, and we have some great speakers including the CTO of Zenefits, who struggled with visa issues himself while co-founding Zenefits.

If you know anyone who would be interested, they can use the promo code "hn" on Eventbrite[2] to sign up for $25, which includes all meals during the weekend. (Early Bird pricing ends tonight at 11:59pm PST.)

[1] http://www.up.co/communities/usa/san-francisco/startup-weeke...

[2] https://www.eventbrite.com/e/startup-weekend-immigration-tic...

pshin45on Ask HN: What startups were refused from YC but became successful?

Munchery was rejected by YC after the interview[1], and they have since become arguably the most successful and fastest-growing[2] "prepared food" startup in Silicon Valley and the US.

(More than Sprig, despite Sprig receiving significantly more tech press coverage.)

[1] https://medium.com/@munchery/pitch-your-life-2f170eab933b

[2] They raised a $28 million Series B round this time last year.

pshin45on USCIS Completes the H-1B Cap Random Selection Process for FY 2016

If any of you are in the SF Bay Area, I'm organizing a hackathon[1] on May 29~31 in SF focused exclusively on immigration. Shoot me an email at my HN username at gmail dot com and I'd be happy to give you a generous discount code.

[1] http://www.up.co/communities/usa/san-francisco/startup-weeke...

pshin45on Gigaom: The Life and Death of a Venture-Funded Media Startup

The state of the media industry (i.e. failure of Gigaom and the success of Buzzfeed) seems to be a pretty strong counterexample to the oft-given advice by YC and others that "It’s better to build something a small number of users love than something a lot of users like"[1].

[1] http://blog.samaltman.com/startup-advice-briefly

pshin45on How an Undocumented Immigrant from Mexico Became a Star at Goldman Sachs

For all those wondering why she was not deported when she "came out" publicly, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (aka "ICE") generally prioritizes immigrants involved in criminal activity (e.g. smuggling, drugs, etc.) due to limited resources and a distaste for stirring controversy, so as long as you are a productive member of society who is paying taxes and not breaking the law otherwise, ICE is willing to look the other way.

In fact, Jose Antonio Vargas (who is mentioned in the article) actually once called up ICE directly to ask them why they were not trying to deport him after he had come out publicly about his status and received a lot of attention in the press about it. ICE never got back to him.

pshin45on That Didn’t Need to Take an Hour

> [1] https://groups.google.com/a/mysociety.org/forum/#!msg/mysoci...
This should be its own HN thread.

pshin45 on Putting $10M into UBeam illustrates what is wrong with tech investing

You make a perfectly valid point, but I don't think it addresses the issue at hand. I think what concerns people about uBeam is that they might be the next Clinkle i.e. a case of VCs getting overly excited by a highly charismatic young founder who talks a great game and has an extremely bold-sounding idea that could make them a lot of money.
Clinkle was able to raise the biggest Silicon Valley seed round in history ($25 million) in June 2013 with a non-working demo for a mobile payments app that had an admittedly beautiful UI and could be used to pay retailers with high-frequency sound technology, the type of technological concept that probably looks/sounds like magic to a lot of non-experts. Lucas Duplan the founder was a Stanford CS student and probably had a lot of VCs thinking "next Mark Zuckerberg!!". Smash cut to September 2014, and the product they launch is a debit card for college students that allows users to amass rewards and share those rewards with friends via a mobile app. Pretty big letdown.
In the case of uBeam, they have a confident young female founder trying to tackle a very technical problem. She talks a great game and is able to wow the press and investors with a demo that is very impressive to a layman.
It's worth noting that despite Andreesen Horowitz's great reputation, it just so happens that they were one of Clinkle's investors as well and so that can't be used as evidence that all necessary due diligence has been done and the tech/physics all check out.

pshin45 on In Search of Uber’s Unicorn

This is not based on any kind of deep analysis whatsoever, but I'm starting to get the same vibe from Uber as I got from Groupon several years ago.
Groupon's promise to local business owners was that offering a Groupon deal was an easy way to attract new long-term customers en masse, despite the sizable up-front loss. History showed that that did not happen for many businesses who used Groupon.
Similarly, so much of Uber's marketing is targeted towards the supply side (i.e. drivers) and the promise of making more than they could at any other available job, with "flexible hours" and other dubious perks. This is just the latest article to show that that is not the case.
Groupon's and Uber's business both depend on acquiring and retaining the best local businesses and drivers respectively, and as these kinds of stories keep coming to light, I wonder whether Uber will be able to retain all the drivers they acquire. Lyft has focused from the start on making their drivers happy, which is a smart way to differentiate from Uber's mercenary mindset, but I also wonder if that is enough to really differentiate itself in the eyes of drivers, at least enough to make Uber really worry.
In all honesty, I am rooting for someone to beat out Uber. When I first learned about them about 2 years ago, I marveled at their business model innovation and their ability to execute. But everything I read (and personally experience) about Uber tells me that they are becoming the new Investment Bank, both philosophically and culturally.

pshin45 on Why I Love Startup School

I was lucky enough to attend Saturday's Startup School Silicon Valley event (my first time), and I'm happy to say I thoroughly enjoyed it.
I've previously blogged about what I think makes a "great" startup event[1], and Startup School does seem to fulfill most of the criteria - Great speakers, a focused theme, a focused audience, and best of all it's free and highly accessible.
Despite all that, in the spirit of iteration and helping the event improve in the future, here are my 2 nitpicks/suggestions:
#1 - More transparency around how attendees are selected
YC already does a great job of explaining what they look for and how they choose teams that apply to their accelerator program[2], and it would be great if they could explain, even briefly, what selection criteria they use for Startup School. It's already free and open to anyone (to apply to), and I think being transparent with the selection criteria would be the cherry on top.
#2 - Expand the Office Hours segment
The speakers and their talks were excellent, but I think Startup School could be even better with more of an interactive, hands-on element as well.
The Office Hours segment, in which two YC partners simulated YC office hours with 3 teams selected from the audience (10 minutes each), is arguably the most interesting part of the event, and something that truly differentiates Startup School from other "fireside chat with [successful founder]" events. It gives the audience a good idea of how YC partners help founders ask the tough questions about their own startups that can hopefully point them in the right direction.
However, the Office Hours segment left me wanting more, and I started imagining how cool it would be if this was turned into a 1-hour breakout session, where 10~20 YC founders in different verticals would hold open office hours for anyone who wants to have their own startup or project critiqued.
Again, I think Startup School is a great resource for the community, and I'm excited to think about how it could be made even better.
[1] https://medium.com/@petershin45/what-makes-a-good-startup-ev...
[2] https://www.ycombinator.com/howtoapply/

pshin45 on Move Fast and Break Nothing

> ...is the unwritten motto...
Exactly, it's unwritten because no dev shop would explicitly market themselves as being willing to break things in the name of speed. It's an unfortunate side effect that they don't want to call attention to, whereas Facebook wears it as a badge of honor.

pshin45 on Ask HN: Has anyone found a good co-founder using “founder dating” techniques?

A good read for those interested in this topic i.e. the pros and cons of finding a co-worker through something like "founder dating" VS. with friends/relatives VS. with coworkers is "The Founder's Dilemmas"[1] by Noah Wasserman.
If you'd just like a preview/synopsis of the book, there's a podcast[2] of the author's talk at Stanford, which covers all the broad strokes and key points.
[1] http://www.amazon.com/The-Founders-Dilemmas-Anticipating-Ent...
[2] http://ecorner.stanford.edu/authorMaterialInfo.html?mid=3024

pshin45 on Startup School 2014 applications are open

Shameless plug - If you're looking for other startup-related events to attend the week of Startup School, sign up for Startup Digest's weekly events digest[1].
It's a weekly email newsletter of startup events happening in San Francisco & Silicon Valley, and DISCLOSURE I am a volunteer "Events Curator" for it.
[1] https://www.startupdigest.com/digests (search for "Silicon Valley-SF Bay Area")

pshin45 on Startup School 2014 applications are open

pshin45 on Product Hunt Is in Current Y Combinator Batch

> Second, there is a lack of diversity on Product Hunt. It’s mostly white men talking to white men. “The reason for that is that Product Hunt started out with people in my network, which is still largely guys,” Hoover said. “But we’ve been actively reaching out to women in the community to ask ‘what women do you feel we should give access to comment.’ It takes a lot of time and it’s hard to show progress.”
I feel like this will probably be Product Hunt's biggest challenge going forward. Product Hunt seems like a really well-designed and well-thought-out site, but I can't get myself to use it (for now) because it seems like a direct manifestation of one of the most criticized aspects of Silicon Valley, namely its huge monoculture in which people are only building and promoting products that solve First World Problems (i.e. their own).
With all that said, I hope Product Hunt becomes the type of diverse and open community that I'm sure its founder also wants it to be.