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Comment by louwrentius | Hacker News Reader

After thirteen years this is what crypto gives us. A few people get rich at the cost of all the rest. From coins getting hacked/stolen to ransomware, to just cryto-gambling.

But there is something positive to say about crypto too.

The failings of crypto teach a lot of people about how and why societies work the way they do. And that no amount of tech can ever replace our institutions and human trust.

I'm 100% with Stephen Diehl on this one: the entire 100% of crypto needs to be burned down to the ground. It needs to go because of the enormous harm it does to people and our larger society, for no gains at all.

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I’m no crypto maximalist, and would struggle to argue against the position that crypto today is pretty much all scams, pump&dumps and pixie dust selling.

To me it’s a shame though, crypto as a concept is very interesting in many ways. Algorithmic money, defined by serverless programs, not COBOL behemoths. Massively distributed, yet consistent mutable database. A space where you can bootstrap an idea on a shoestring budget. A bit like internet vs cable TV and trad banks.

Except in this analogy, the “crypto” internet seems to have gone straight from Arpanet to nothing but ads, child porn, dark net and gambling, skipping past Wikipedia, Google, dotcoms (when they were plucky upstarts not to vil conglomerates). Shame.

> crypto as a concept is very interesting in many ways.

The examples you give mean nothing to me. What real problem is being solved by any of your examples of 'interesting'?

We already have something that allows you to bootstrap an idea on a shoestring budget: the cloud.

“100% of crypto needs to be burned down to the ground. It needs to go because of the enormous harm it does to people and our larger society, for no gains at all.”

well you’ve convinced me

Every investment has risks, stocks are not that different from crypto in that regard.

Regulation, once it comes, will help better protect retail investors.

Crypto is still in the early stages, the technology is revolutionary though and I think it's here to stay.

There is truly nothing revolutionary about an extremely inefficient write once read many linked list.

>After forty years this is what the internet gives us. A few people get rich at the cost of all the rest.

Sure, if you want to focus on the negative you can focus on the negative.

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