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Comment by koonsolo | Hacker News Reader

It always surprises me how a tech/startup oriented forum like HN is so negative towards crypto.

I think it's insane that someone invented an algorithm to transfer value over the internet, without the involvement of a central party. Basically as soon as it has a tiny bit of value, you can transfer it, and so it has value.

It goes so far that you could store the private key in your head, and therefore use your head as basically a bank account, only accessible to you.

Plus, if you're living in Hong Kong and want to get paid for something the government thinks is illegal, you can always get paid in Monero, like this guy: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31996612

Ok, you want to focus on all the scams and get-rich-quick schemes. It's more than that you know.

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> It always surprises me how a tech/startup oriented forum like HN is so negative towards crypto.

Maybe because people here are more likely to understand it?

Edit: added a missing quote

So your claim is that all the developers working on Bitcoin, Ethereum and Monero are not able to understand it?

I have a master's degree in CS, and I'm not able to understand it?

No, the claim is that technical people which do not have a conflict of interest are more likely to share their real understanding.

Of course Solidity developers of the latest rugpull DeFi know very well what they are doing, but they are unlikely to come out in the open and confess it. Some do anonymously though, go read some Coinfessions horror stories.

> do not have a conflict of interest are more likely to share their real understanding.

Understanding of what? The technical side? It seems HN seems hell bent over discussing all the scams and get-rich schemes, and completely discards the cool technology and things that it enables (see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31996612 again, as stated before).

> the latest rugpull DeFi

Yep, exactly as I stated, focus on all the scams. That has absolutely nothing to do with technical expertise you know.

Edit: crypto is a cool technology, and has at least 1 use-case (see link above). Try to argue with that instead of sidetracking the discussion towards the scams and get-rich-quick schemes.

You cannot divorce the technical side from the garbage crypto brings. Yes, crypto has good privacy preserving properties, that unfortunately are equally effective for $5 as they are for $5 billion. The legitimate use case for that is infinitesimal compared to the abuse potential, and even if we accept the whole black-market use of crypto as legitimate, that's still a small fraction of the speculation-driven valuation.

Those who understand the technical features can see there is nothing there to justify the hype, and rightly conclude it's largely a scam on a fundamental level.

Just because something is overhyped doesn't mean it's total crap.

> You cannot divorce the technical side from the garbage crypto brings.

> Those who understand the technical features can see there is nothing there to justify the hype,

I'm confused, is it bad tech or is it undesirable effects?

Technical critics flatter themselves too much about their supposed understanding. It's political, not technical. We need crypto for the same reason why need to keep the cash economy alive.

Let me quote again the section relevant to your confusion:

> even if we accept the whole black-market use of crypto as legitimate, that's still a small fraction of the speculation-driven valuation.

So the major problem is the financial overvaluation relative to the real technical abilities, the minor problem is that even those features are predominately enablers of nefarious activities such as money laundry. The second problem is indeed a political objection of mine, but there is no contradiction with the technical lack of value which most HNers object to.

> We need crypto for the same reason why need to keep the cash economy alive.

But that's not the reason the crypto bubble inflated, far from it. We could talk about privacy enabling features inspired by crypto in electronic payment systems without trying to reinvent fiat currencies in the form of private money which we know full well are a bad idea.

Physical cash is to crypto what amateur rocketry is to sending ITAR info to North Korea, or personal handguns to nuclear proliferation: there is a scale where a certain behavior that is acceptable and beneficial at the individual level becomes a major problem for society as a whole.

Ah come on, crypto a "major problem for society", get real.

Is it though?

I am pretty sure that building an anonymous payment system for illegal trades is possible without crypto.

I have not seen a legitimate use of crypto yet. Not even once.

> I am pretty sure that building an anonymous payment system for illegal trades is possible without crypto.

How? And then it turns out this system is owned by the FBI, like the ANOM phone. Oops.

At least with Monero you know it's peer reviewed, and can check what is running on your system.

You see that is the strange part here. There is a cool algorithmic solution, and HN says "Nah, some central authority could do that with software too".

I think if we were trying to build a payment system for illegal use, what we would end up would look very much like crypto. This in itself should speak volumes.

Of course, for my part I certainly wouldn't be able to independently come up with proof of work chains, the major contribution of Satoshi. Something like Wei b-money with a super-peer network that broadcasts transactions and countersigns those that are legitimate/first. It wouldn't have the strong anti-double-spending features of Bitcoin, but it would work much as current proof of stake coins, as long as the super-peer cabal was not majority-compromised.

I know I could come up with it because I toyed with these concepts in the space of filesharing protocols before 2010, but decided the whole e-cash approach was too heavy. Always wondered what it could have led to if I implemented it back then.

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