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> It's L1 season

You say this as if it’s a valid thesis outside of CT. Solana has exploded because Alameda, Cumberland and related VCs have made it so.

> Young people are locked out of any and all assets. They can't afford real estate or any meaningful amount of stock. Savings accounts have a negative yield.

Casually ignores Robinhood and equity markets, where most of any under 50s should have most of their wealth. Fixed income is a much bigger problem for old people than young people. Real estate, I will agree with you. But none of this justifies crypto.

The rest of your comment is truly bizarre. You’re defending it pretty strongly while also seemingly admitting that there’s little real economic value being created and that will result in a crash with people getting wiped out and starting over.

Why accept this? Why not focus on the real issues, instead of just accepting degen apeing with open arms?

Well, the problem is...they have no wealth. They may have low paying jobs or even two jobs. Or a reasonable job yet high debts or living expenses. Barely getting by, with no prospect of ever building up more meaningful wealth.

It's super cool that their 5K turns into 6K in 10 years time, but that doesn't do anything. You might as well turn it into 100K. Or lose it all. Fuck it.

I don't think you understand the dire situation of younger generations. In my country, the AVERAGE home costs 485K USD.

The median salary is 36K. Young people have salaries lower than that. This allows for a mortgage of 166K.

So unless you're born rich, you won't ever get a house. Perhaps they can rent then, and meanwhile save up? No. Private rent eats up so much of their salary that there's no room to save. Which would be pointless anyway as real estate appreciates faster.

They can't move out, they can't start a family. These people have a life to live. My dad was 19 when he had a rental house, married, two kids, and 50% of disposable income on a job requiring no education. Now people are 35 and still don't have the basics in place.

Hence, crypto. Which is not just a bet. It's an expression of full distrust against the supposed "sane" traditional system.

Why not focus on the real issues? Because they are unsolvable. Wages cannot rise significantly as nations compete in global capitalism. Real estate won't become much cheaper. Jobs security will not increase and student debt is unlikely to be forgiven.

If a young person working full time cannot afford a roof over their head or start a family, is in perpetual debt, and has zero job security, perhaps some start to wonder what the point of it all is.

> It's super cool that their 5K turns into 6K in 10 years time

Ok, I get it. You’ve not actually looked at what other investments are like. 20% return over 10 years? The S&P 500 is on track to do that this year, after one of the biggest rallies in history last year. $5k invested just before the covid collapse would still be worth far more than $6k, and that’s 18 months through a global pandemic.

That said, your answered your own issue: homes are unaffordable. I’m with you on that: we turned housing into retirement plans for boomers. And now we don’t know what to do about it.

There’s an old adage in commodities trading: the best cure for high prices is high prices. The meaning behind this is that when prices are too high and people can’t or won’t buy, then prices can only go down. Over the next few decades, young people will either earn substantially more, or housing will become substantially cheaper.

You can’t sell anyone a home for $485k if they can only get a $166k mortgage. So these things will converge.

As much as I enjoy pissing on boomers, older home owners did nothing for their houses to appreciate. It's just something that happens due to monetary policy, low interest rates, local scarcity of supply and a growing population.

A lesser known reason is that since the 2008 crisis, hardly any new homes got built. Whilst the underlying demand was still in place, and growing.

"You can’t sell anyone a home for $485k if they can only get a $166k mortgage"

You only need enough buyers that can afford a 485K mortgage to meet supply. So when supply is very low (which in my country is very much true), if only 25% of the potential buyers can afford that mortgage it's still enough to buy the supply. Which they do, and they even overbid still.

So this can keep going for a long while. Not even a crash solves it. Our 2008 crash dropped prices by 20% only. Which is now the gain in a single year.

So that leaves the only other option you mention: wages.

> As much as I enjoy pissing on boomers, older home owners did nothing for their houses to appreciate. It's just something that happens due to monetary policy, low interest rates, local scarcity of supply and a growing population.

All the things you mention, boomers did that. Monetary policy was drafted by boomers, for boomers, to protect and enrich boomers (low interest rates being one outcome). We printed trillions last year to protect boomers at the expense of young people. Scarcity is a function of zoning laws, again drafted by boomers to protect the value of their nest egg. It’s 100% their fault.

>enrich boomers (low interest rates being one outcome)

Why does it matter if you pay $1000 per month on interest or $1000 per month on the principal? The monthly payment is the same. The only difference is that the bank takes less of your money.

Boomers absolutely constrained supply to raise prices.

Your problem is not with “boomers.” It’s with a population pyramid that has actually just fallen apart — but those effects won’t show up for another 20+ years.

Nope. The problem is zoning laws which are a boomer invention. The population shift may actually solve the problem as there will be enough homes to go around despite it being de facto illegal to build new ones anywhere anyone wants to live.

>population pyramid that has actually just fallen apart

True, but the effects do show up today. When people have less children, the economy also consumes less, meaning less work needs to be done leading to a scarcity of the holy "well paying full time job". Instead you get a rise in part time jobs and as wages go down you also get an increase in "meaningless" employment in the service industry.

The lack of children that are consuming more than they produce has basically created a huge demand hole in the economy that the rise of "consumerism" is trying to fill. Meanwhile working age people try to save for (early) retirement and reduce consumption themselves.

That's not a boomer thing at all, it's a human thing.

As soon as younger generations secure a home, and when they resell later, they aren't going to give discounts to the next generation. Surely you can't belief they will?

Everybody that owns a home, regardless of generation, wants their home value to at least persist and ideally grow. Likewise, people want to protect their neighborhood, as it directly affects the quality of living.

It's natural and normal behavior, and not an issue in itself. The real issue is the infinite growth mindset in a finite world.

>Wages cannot rise significantly as nations compete in global capitalism.

They can. If every country did balanced trade then there wouldn't be anything wrong with global trade. You'd get the benefits without any of the downsides. It's when countries export more than they intend to import that things are getting worse. Of course, balanced trade wouldn't allow the existence of global reserve currencies. The USD would have to give up a meaningless benefit.

I think their point is that crypto is an interactive lottery ticket. If you have $5 to spare, you can't turn it into $10 000 with Robin Hood in a year, but you might with crypto.

I really don’t get why people say this. The only periods of time when it has been true, when coins are doing 1,000x are during massive Tether fueled bubbles (2017 and 2021). If you believe the writing is on the wall for Tether, then this is not a +ev strategy.

"Solana has exploded because Alameda, Cumberland and related VCs have made it so."

By building things of value in the ecosystem.

> Nobody cares. Because they have nothing to lose anyway and will just start over. Because the underlying economic issues did not change.

If crypto was only these people, I'd have more sympathy for them. But in reality, it's some of those people, and then tons of far more sophisticated people who are trying to take advantage of the rubes. In the end, the Tether people will make out like bandits, and everyone else will be left holding the bag. It's like justifying Madoff because of the desperation of elderly people to extend their savings.

Like I said, that doesn't sound threatening or scary at all. Because it happens all the time. Crashes, rug pulls, hacks...all regular occurrences.

That's the price to pay for the incredible upside potential. People that can't stomach this, should simply not be in the game.

Alternatively, and the wiser strategy, is that you put a portion of your wealth in crypto, say 10-25%. The absolute worst thing that can happen is to lose it all, which is only possible if you don't know what you're doing. But is still survivable, as you still got your 75%.

Let's assume you're "sophisticated" and have 100K.

If you're not a complete moron, you then turn that 25K into 100K. It's stupidly easy to make money in crypto. Wait for a crash, get in, wait for the bull market. Which comes and goes. Allocate 75% to Bitcoin and ether and take more risk with the other 25% on midcap coins. Derisk by deploying a progressive profit taking scheme and auto buy small amounts using a DCA strategy. None of this requires even touching Tether.

So let's do the math. Your downside potential is from 100K to 75K. Your upside potential is from 100K to 175K. A reasonable timeline is 2-3 years, given cycles.

That's a 400% return on the crypto part. Doing only 400% in crypto terms makes you a shitty trader, it means you're very bad at it.

So that's why they call it an asymmetrical bet. The upside is many multiples of the downside. Asymmetrical bets are rare, once in a generation.

But they're not for everyone, and that's fine.

It is easy to make money right now because crypto just had one of the greatest bull runs of all time. How could you say that it would be the case in the future? 400% is easy? Easy to look at a chart and assume you can grab a chunk before it moons. How do you know there will be more 100%+ gains in the future? With the gaining popularity, bitcoin and eth will probably only fluctuate less and less over time.

Well, I don't know, obviously.

It's not just easy to make money right now, it's been like that for over a decade. Crypto in general is still growing exponentially (in usage and holders) at a rate faster than the rise of Facebook and the internet.

It's being mainstreamed, Wallstreet discovered it, the first nation has implemented it, VCs are massively investing, the first batch of musicians/artists are embracing it and Twitter is about to integrate both Bitcoin and NFTs.

There's plenty of very serious signs for further growth. It's still early in a way.

But I could be wrong, but that doesn't invalidate the point. Sizable downside risk, far larger upside potential. If you want something risk-free, just stay out.

Note that earning 400% is not only achieved by buying low and selling high. You can drastically speed up earnings using derivatives and leverage. Which is also the fastest way to lose it all, so don't. It's for the pros.

What underlying economic issue do you mean? You mean the fact that the old people don't want to give up their posts to the new generation? Real estate has almost nothing to do with the financial system. The fact that there are monopolists ripping you off will happen even in a barter system.

I'll bite. What can I use Solana for?

Well, like all crypto you can buy it and hope it goes up in value :)

But as for actual usage, it's a smart contracts blockchain that is fast, proof of stake, yet has drastically lower fees than Ethereum.

Anything can be built on top of it but this particular rush was caused by a second hype wave of NFTs. As more people want to join the NFT frenzy, it got really expensive to mint one on Ethereum, hence people rushed to this alternative.

For the record, I don't own any solana and never have, just explaining what it is. I wish I did own it a year ago though.

> Well, like all crypto you can buy it and hope it goes up in value :)

So, speculation. That's what all crypto is for.

And just like many stocks that don't plan to ever offer dividends.

There's another use case for those stocks. You can buy a whole bunch of them and then you get to run the company.

If you buy enough GM stock eventually you can give all your friends and family members Corvettes for Christmas.

Stock actually represents an enforceable claim on wealth that exists in the real world. Crypto not so much.

Both the typical stock holder and crypto holder see a number on screen and hope it goes up. That's it. Most stock trading is done by algorithms, not even people.

A typical stock holder can never claim any underlying asset nor do they have voting rights, so you're really stretching.

The difference is simply in risk appetite. People are going to keep drinking Coca Cola at large scale so owning their stock is low risk. But also low return.

Crypto is high risk, extremely high return. There's a sizable chance to lose your money but a larger chance to get returns that are astronomical. I'm talking 5x - 10x in mere months.

“There’s a sizeable chance to lose your money but a larger chance to get returns that are astronomical”

Past performance is not indicative of future returns.

Yes, and live life to the fullest. Are we exchanging cliches now?

No, but you’re strongly implying that there’s significantly more chance of making a large return than losing a lot of money, which you have no way of knowing.

The reason the rest of us on the other side of this fence aren’t being as loud is not because we consider the jury to be out - it’s because we’re being responsible with our claims. It’s why no-one is countering you with a claim that it’s all going to zero - as no-one can guarantee that will happen either.

Joining the cryptocurrency pyramid in 2021 and expecting 500% returns is foolish. Could it happen? Sure it could. It doesn’t make it as likely as those inside the religion are implying.

Skilled crypto day traders make money whether it goes up or down, that's what a large volatility makes possible. In fact, a real pro flips the charts: green when down, red when up.

tbh, Solana does offer "dividends" in the form of PoS rewards!

Buybacks are dividends. There are no companies that have no plan to ever offer buybacks or dividends.

Indeed. The only use case is gambling. Unregulated gambling at that.

The parent's comment's "For no reason at all except gambling" was implied and likely not confusing to the reader.

Also happens to pretty clearly answer the question of why people have extremely serious concerns about all this.

If you've already made up your mind that crypto is a scam and gambling only, despite it being an enormous space, there's no point in asking.

https://solana.com/ecosystem

The above shows the 400 or so things built on top of solano. I would expect for most projects to not be very useful to the masses and likely most will fail. Which isn't different at all to the typical startup scene.

I consider most of it garbage, and I would expect you to conclude the same. Which is fine. The only counter point I have is to not dismiss the entire space as a whole. Things are moving very fast, and some concepts are intellectually interesting, just poorly executed.

For example, NFTs are considered the most ridiculous thing ever now, but that doesn't mean they will be in this state forever. The next-gen NFT containing the actual art, copyright integration, and smart contract integration are a matter of time.

Imagine a photographer, currently sharing photos to stock services for pennies, with zero control over terms. Middle men milking them dry. With a fully integrated NFT chain, the photographer can claim and prove ownership and dictate terms. They can decide to sell 10 copies, and dictate that if they are resold, the photographer gets a 20% royalty. The photographer can make higher-end versions available, at higher resolution, wider color gamut and ask more for that version. This independent and advanced type of reselling is hardly possible traditionally. And importantly, 100% of the revenue goes to the creator.

NFTs can be entirely interactive, and can be anything. A photo, a song, a 3D model, a plot of land in a game.

Imagine being an amateur talented 3D model builder right now, and Hollywood directly buying your model. Which is something that won't happen right now because of B2B contracts and the complexities of dealing with small vendors. Soon it's just the click of a button, done. The possibilities of making a "digital living" will drastically expand.

Outside of objects having serious undisputed value (like 3D models), you may think nobody cares if you "own" the rights to a JPG. One can trivially copy it after all. This attitude, that all digital content is worthless and frankly has no owner, is curious. Even more so in a society almost fully digital.

Take Instagram, for example. Instagram takes everybody's photos for free and intermixes it with ads. Facebook gets 100% of the revenue and personal data, and you as the person actually creating the photo gets...fuck all. A 100% tax. In return you get "likes" or "exposure". Instagram may change terms at will, bury your photos in favor of video, or simply deplatform you.

I find this contradiction interesting. The Hackernews community rightfully challenges Big Tech on a daily basis yet refuses to spend a single thought cycle on the only concept that has the potential to break it down. Which is not regulation, it's the opposite: decentralization. Returning power and ownership to users.

I didn't say it was a scam, I said it was gambling.

There are only two killer use cases for crypto: speculation and prohibited transactions.

That's not snarky those are actually pretty great use cases that have massive demand and centuries of success behind them as a product category.

A large part of crypto is scams, but it's clear not all of it is. You couldn't really argue that bitcoin, in general, is just a scam for example.

But beyond that it's basically all gambling. People put money into crypto hoping to get more money out. Period.

That's a really fucking desirable product it should be pointed out. It's so desired by people that you can build an entire city in a desert on the concept, it's common to all societies in all eras of history. People just absolutely fucking love to gamble.

Every argument against this seems to be a variation on "Well sure, but one day they might..." and so on.

Which is cool. You're absolutely right to say that. One day it might not just be gambling.

But today, it is. That's why there's money in it.

I superficially agree that most activity is speculation, which in some cases you might as well name "saving", or "investing". I also agree that actual breakthroughs in utility (DeFi, NFT, Metaverse, Web3) haven't materialized yet.

I only disagree on details. Like the use cases you missed, some of a humanitarian nature.

For example, still a significant part of the world is unbanked, and has no access to the financial system at all. Crypto, permission-less and only requiring the internet and a smartphone provides a solution.

For people living under highly inflationary regimes (Turkey, Libya, etc), crypto can be an unconfiscatable asset to protect their savings.

Immigrants often send money back to their home country, and by means of international banking, lose a whopping 30% in transaction fees. Crypto can do it for near-zero fees.

A hardcore cynic may call these just variations of "gambling" but to me these details matter. Further, like you said, the very point of any asset is persist value and ideally grow in value. That's even true for just basic currency. So this deep moral outrage that people are trying to earn money is misplaced, it's the damn point of any participant in an economy.

>They can decide to sell 10 copies, and dictate that if they are resold, the photographer gets a 20% royalty.

Suppose that I want to sell my copy, but do not want to pay the 20% royalty. What stops me from selling it for 1 cent on-chain, but buyer paying me real price off-chain? How can a creator realistically expect to receive their royalty cut?

It's an interesting loop hole. That can actually be solved with a smart contract that wouldn't allow you to sell below the purchase price, or at least not that far below it.

Anything can be programmed in a smart contract, and they're transparent, so if the royalty rules are not acceptable to you, don't buy it.

The flip side of such a contract is that you would be locked out of selling the item if its value dropped too far (thereby depriving the creator of royalties), and if the value increased, the royalties would only be ensured on the original price.

I think this is more than just a loophole - it's a fundamental weakness of the smart contract system. The smart contract can audit things which are on the blockchain, but cannot govern external actions. This is fine when the only objects the contract cares about are digital tokens, but once you integrate things like real-world art and associated rights, it becomes very easy to circumvent.

I'm not sure I'm getting you. If you want to do things outside the blockchain against the terms set by the NFT owner, you're in violation of rights (if copyright is properly integrated, currently not the case).

Can you do that? Sure. But it's no different from pirating anything.

I think we're overstating this example. An NFT owner might also claim zero resell royalties and instead go for a higher first-sale price. Or set the royalty percentage lower. I think some balance will be found.

A far bigger issue with NFTs is a single person buying their own NFTs using different wallets. This artificially boost the price, some fool falls for this high perceived value, buys it, and is then forever stuck with it.

The other big issue is front running. Knowing ahead of time which projects will be dropped on major marketplaces. It's insider trading basically.

A separate reply on the gambling part (my other reply is about utility).

You're not listening. Crypto holders don't care about those concerns. They willingly gamble. You can ban and shut down all of crypto (in reality, you can't) and they'll move to meme stocks or betting on sports.

You can't stop it or regulate it. Because it's a culture. It's an entire generation that is fucked anyway. Even the modest ambition of a middle class life style is out of reach. So they have nothing to lose, and will bet it all.

They aren't dumb or ignorant. They are fully self-aware, and self-identify as plebs, degenerates and ape investors. They know what they're doing.

The "concern" is misplaced and fails to impress. From their point of view, "regulation" is the traditional system which is exactly the reason why they're in crypto. The traditional system failed them.

The real concern should be aimed at the economic conditions that young people face. For as long as skeptics don't get that, they will never understand crypto and its culture.

Yes this all sounds accurate to me.

The problem is as a society this isn't a positive thing, and we should put some energy into stopping runaway gambling fads because they are highly destructive when it all comes crashing down.

And it always does.

I'd prefer society puts more energy into a more balanced, sane and stable economy and financial system. To address the actual disease rather than the symptoms.

But I'll leave it at that.

Well said right the way through.

The other thing cryptocurrencies potentially offer is an alternative financial system to the status quo. There are lots of bugs to be worked out, but it's well on its way, and Solana and Ethereum (as only two examples of many) have the ability to act as the platform upon which these financial services can be built.

Crypto has the potential to break down any middle man and gate keeper. The very middle man this community bashes on a daily basis (Big Tech and all).

It's an odd contradiction, but I'm used to it.

You overestimate the power of money and underestimate reality.

Nobody will introduce land value taxes, nobody except Baden Würtemberg...

Is it though?

A whole lot of talk about middle class lifestyles being out of reach in the same sentences as “WHEN LAMBO?”.

I’m sympathetic to the widespread lack of upward mobility these days. This is confusing it with something else.

When lambo is a joke. The entire space is riddled with memes and jokes. You shouldn't take it so serious.

I get that, but it’s disingenuous to say that there aren’t a lot of people buying this stuff because they legitimately expect it to make them rich.

Is it most new buyers? There’s really no way to know.

I'd say most people hope it makes them rich, not necessarily expect it. More likely, aiming for a high return they can't get anywhere else.

It's a distribution like anything else. A handful of billionaires, a larger group of millionaires, and then comes the sweetspot.

The sweetspot for crypto is middle class (from lower middle class to higher middle class) doing a 5-10x from whatever they put in. Not enough to retire, but meaningful wealth. This return is within reach for almost anybody with some study, patience, and proper risk management.

few things I do on Solana:

1. Lend USDC and earn higher interest rate than my bank using https://mango.markets.

2. Trustlessly swap crypto using app.saber.so/#/swap.

3. Occasionally buy NFTs from artists I want to support.

AS someone who has seen his friends for years toute crypto, but never bitten.. i did this year. (those friends have passive incomes in the 10k's per month now in crypto that can be readily exchanged for dollars)

Parallel economies exist. In the mainstream economy, your mainstream interests have every aspect of the market cornered. You only get in once they have taken all the worthwhile positions.

In the crypto economy, and yes, its a fully fledged economy and social network in 1, u can get in on the ground level and ride that hype up. You dont have to know that guy at that investment firm with that connection to that hot deal.

DeFi and the blockchain are allowing you to startup international companies in the blink of eye. Just the way traditional companies outsourced to the 3rd world, then import these goods and sell to a premium in local markets - as a crypto enterprenour u can now employ these same "call centre staff" (who were layed off in covid) to "play games for you" and you are able to pay them a HIGHER RATE then Apple or insert any any "tradtional stock" "traditional company". in phillipines for instance, you can get loans against SLP, u never need fiat. You can pay for goods at corners stores with SLP. micro-transactions in e-sports is legit and it will only get bigger.

People forget that captialists have BUILT a system and REINFORCED that system to ensure THE STATUS QUO. Crypto is about giving those people the FINGER. Those people kicked and screamed, but now they are ON BOARD. Bloomberg isnt as effective at causing a dip then say Elon though. Tether, like the real-estate markets all over the world, couldnt handle a big sell off. Covid showed that.

Sorry Bloomberg, your consoles days of cornering the market as gone! Your traders now need to keep there ear to the crypto ground, cause the crypto cultists are using there social networks to come for YOU. They can organise millions of bids in minutes. Your incumbents are not the only people who can pump and dump on retail investors. Tether is simply using tactics established by centralised finance. They poineered the China hustle years ago. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_China_Hustle

Lets stop pretending that the traditional stock market is built on fair and sound princples. Lets stop pretending that bankers get held to the same accountability as the ordaniary folks. These tradtionalists are incumberant in every aspect of the mainstream socio-poltical life. Like, the whole stock section of the nightly news is just as a way placate the general public and further there position and ideaology. One that preys on moms and pops and superannuation schemes.

> In the crypto economy, and yes, its a fully fledged economy and social network in 1, u can get in on the ground level and ride that hype up.

So the utility of Solana is that you can, and I quote, "ride that hype up"? I think you've kind of proven the OP's point here.

For example, if I want to send US dollars to someone, I fill out a form and my bank charges me $20 and then emails me asking to call them and then I call them and wait on hold for half an hour and then I have successfully sent the US dollars to the person, so they'll have it within a day or so (unless there's a weekend or a holiday). If I want to send SPL USDC to someone, I do not pay $20 and I do not wait on the phone and the person has the SPL USDC within a few seconds.

> These kind of statements make me suspect the author never used crypto in their life.

Have you ever 'used' ETH or whatever? And by 'use' I mean perform a transaction, not just speculate on its price

Yes I have, mostly for staking.

But that's beyond the point. I'm not a fan of either Solano or Ether, I was pointing out that the author lacks the most basic insights into crypto.