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Comment by Karrot_Kream | Hacker News Reader

This hasn't been my experience at all. I feel like this is just pandering to group sentiment. My work (household name so we work with a lot of companies) has been seeing increased spend from crypto companies and so we've talked with a few folks from these companies and they've been hiring headcount like crazy. We've had lots of our own engineers churn to crypto companies also. Yeah they won't get the anti-crypto-bubble engineer or Stephen Diehl (who's been astroturfing crypto because he works on his own blockchain company), but there's no need to project your personal biases into the entire industry. It is a gold rush though, so there's a high likelihood it will all go bust soon. Let them fail if you hate them but stop spreading inaccurate statements.

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> Stephen Diehl (who's been astroturfing crypto because he works on his own blockchain company)

If you criticise crypto based on general software engineering experience, the cryptobros say: "You don't know what you're talking about!"

If you criticise crypto based on experience trying to actually use it, the cryptobros say: "You're astroturfing!"

Thus the only people allowed to discuss crypto are seemingly those with a financial interest in token prices going up. Funny how that works.

> Thus the only people allowed to discuss crypto are seemingly those with a financial interest in token prices going up. Funny how that works.

> Funny how that works.

This rhetorical device is tiring and divisive, please stop. I have no interest in crypto other than some coins I bought years ago that constitute a negligible portion of my portfolio and a passing interest in IPFS. I think the space is full of fraud and it would take a full-time enthusiast to find what's not. But there's no need to spread FUD like the person I responded to, nor is there any reason to say silly things like "funny how that works" and wink derisively at some cryptobro conspiracy. If crypto fails it will fail, and then you can laugh at it all day like everyone does to Theranos and WeWork. Until then stick to factual statements. The GP claims that nobody wants to work on crypto. I have no idea how your "funny how that works" sneer has anything to do with the original claim. Stop moving the goalposts to score internet points in an anti-crypto echo chamber.

You're the one implying that Diehl's criticism isn't valid because he has worked for a blockchain company.

That's a genuinely bizarre line of argument that I've only ever heard in crypto circles.

Astroturfing means what?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astroturfing

> Astroturfing is the practice of masking the sponsors of a message or organization (e.g., political, advertising, religious or public relations) to make it appear as though it originates from and is supported by grassroots participants. It is a practice intended to give the statements or organizations credibility by withholding information about the source's financial connection.

thank you

The source (etymology) of the phrase is a play on words:

* "grass roots" support is an 'authentic' community response on an issue

* AstroTurf® is an artificial playing surface used in some sports facilities (especially indoor ones), instead of a one made from real grass

So "astroturfing" is the creation of an 'artificial community response'.

that makes sense. thank you.

I was surprised by the claim about Stephen Diehl so I did a little googling. I don't think it's correct to say he "works on his own blockchain company". However, relatively recently he was working on smart contracts with a company called Adjoint.

https://web.archive.org/web/20180220171955/https://www.steph...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFlu61wJe2Y

He seems to have been interested in smart contracts but found the current implementations appalling. He wanted to use functional programming, particularly Haskell, to create something like a smart contract with better guarantees. But he is also careful to say that a smart contract doesn't imply a blockchain; he's talking more generally about code that executes over distributed databases.

This stuff is scrubbed from his website, and Adjoint doesn't even appear on his LinkedIn profile. But I can easily see why that might be the case if he's decided the whole field is rubbish and left the industry, or if his work is being misconstrued.

That said, having examined blockchains in depth gives him more credibility, not less. And it would be a rather bizarre business model to continually decry blockchains if he was actually working on one.

---

EDIT: Found an interview where he distinguishes cryptocoins from other technologies sometimes labelled web3, like IPFS. https://www.coywolf.news/podcast/episode-12-stephen-diehl-in...

I think it's fair to say the guy is not an indiscriminate hater. On the other hand, I also personally was already convinced that crypto "currencies" are terrible but IPFS and decentralized organizations might be cool, so I guess I like him more now.

I appreciate your reply. You dug into a claim I made and lay out your criticisms dispassionately, thanks. This is the kind of discourse I'd like to see more of.

> This stuff is scrubbed from his website, and Adjoint doesn't even appear on his LinkedIn profile. But I can easily see why that might be the case if he's decided the whole field is rubbish and left the industry, or if his work is being misconstrued.

Gives his passionate publishing against Blockchains I'd prefer he not hide this aspect of his past and actually talk about it. I guess I didn't know that he had moved on from Adjoint so that does add more credibility to his beliefs. But removing it from his website, removing it from LI, and neglecting to talk about it in public can certainly cast some doubt. I'm sympathetic to your view as well though.

Thank you for a response in the spirit of good discourse.

Anyway, I don't even know if he has moved on from Adjoint.

I agree there's something odd about this, but I've also seen how people who are vocal critics on the internet have to be less public about their associations. Not sure what to think about it.

You added more data to my view and definitely made me think. Thanks for that!

just to clarify this a little, stephen is/was (the status of adjoint is unclear but from what i can see it is now defunct) the CTO and co-founder of adjoint and he blocks anyone who raises this in public. https://twitter.com/billywhizz1970/status/146927786616050074...

he now seems to be a full-time anti-crypto propagandist. i'm not sure how he makes a living from that, but he seems to spend all day every day talking about it for at least the last 6 months and has gained a large following on twitter due to it. personally, i find it hard to trust anyone on either side of the debate who is this invested in their extreme position and unwilling to engage in any meaningful debate with anyone who critiques their positions.

here are some more links about adjoint for anyone interested in some more background.

http://internetofagreements.com/2017/12/18/stephen-diehl-adj...

https://medium.com/humanizing-the-singularity/adjoint-distri...

https://web.archive.org/web/20190513032812/https://www.adjoi... "Adjoint empowers enterprises to achieve new levels of efficiency and control by delivering blockchain technology built specifically for the needs of the financial industry"

https://medium.com/b2b-buzz/adjoints-interconnections-dd619e...

http://web.archive.org/web/20210316021048/https://www.forbes...

https://www.finextra.com/pressarticle/79619/tech-mahindra-pa...

https://medium.com/humanizing-the-singularity/adjoint-distri...

https://www.pymnts.com/news/b2b-payments/2019/treasury-manag...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFlu61wJe2Y

How is OP spreading inaccurate statements? He/she shared their perspective, just as you have shared yours. And my personal experience as a tech employee in SF mirrors the OP - a lot of my friends and colleagues have been job hopping over the past couple of years, but very few to crypto. None of us can make broad generalizations based on our own rather limited points of view.

Maybe you have a better view, but I don't understand what you mean here: "My work (household name so we work with a lot of companies) has been seeing increased spend from crypto companies and so we've talked with a few folks from these companies and they've been hiring headcount like crazy."

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