Yes, this and her previous projects have started to look more of a crusade to me, than a critique of "cryptocurrency", whatever that is, bundling them all together rather than analysing the merits and faults of each.
Mind you, given the deep bias HN has against cryptocurrencies of any shape or form, I feel here she has her ideal audience here and we're the ones swimming against the current.
Where is the "crusade"? This just shows political donations. Is the FEC engaging in a "crusade" by publishing details on PACs?
There are constantly HN commenters on a crusade to extol and defend the alleged virtues of various "crypto" projects. We could accuse these folks of having a "bias against government-backed currency".
Perhaps HN has a bias _for_ true stories of fraud, corruption and crime rather than a bias _against_ all crypto projects.
Perhaps. HN also has stories of random software libraries and deep discussions of those. Whenever a mismanaged business in other sectors is discussed its only about that business, not the entire sector that business operates in. Whenever a devastating hack occurs directly on an end user, its a discussion of the browser and tools that can be improved to thwart it.
Crypto sector has many libraries that power it too with extremely active discussions in other tech forums, and thats totally missing from HN in favor of discussion of random mismanaged businesses and phishing attacks as representative of the entire concept of crypto. When that’s further from reality, as the tooling has improved a lot and is constantly evolving. There are many best practices that are actively discussed and worked on, elsewhere.
While the crowd on HN peculiarly acts completely segregated from that with a blissful ignorance filled with glee over frauds in the crypto sector, an extremely strange and impossibly different standard then how everything else is discussed.
HN also has stories of random software libraries and deep discussions of those. Whenever a mismanaged business in other sectors is discussed its only about that business, not the entire sector that business operates in.
The major difference seems to be that there doesn’t seem to be anything in the entire crypto industry that isn’t fraud or crime. And a lot of vague promises that typically turn out to be just more fraud in a year or two. It’s not prejudice if it’s true.
the libraries don’t have anything to do with fraud, crime, vague promises
the governance proposals don’t have anything to do with fraud, crime, vague promises
the software standards don’t have anything to do with fraud, crime, vague promises
same for nodes, consensus mechanisms, package management, type safety, languages, operator instructions, smart contract auditing space, financial auditing and transparency space, block and transaction indexing, legislation that leverages the technology to reduce redundancy, and the list goes on
its an approach and what I would expect to see on HN more often regarding the crypto asset space
Almost every “Show HN” that’s about a library has someone ask what the library actually does and why is it useful. If the only answer is “crpyto” and essentially all crypto is fraud, I can’t imagine why people aren’t more excited.
I think vague promises is exactly how you could sum up most crypto-related libraries as well. There’s supposedly some useful usecase, but right now it only contributes to North Korean nuclear program.
Nakamoto consensus (the combination of longest chain rule for consensus and PoW for sybil resistance) was a minor innovation in distributed computing, specifically state machine replication. That had previously been solved in the late 1990s in the permissioned setting with BFT-type protocols (such as PBFT).
What's new in crypto is permissionlessness which enables decentralisation [1]. That has
a) basically no benefits that cannot be achieved through (permissioned) distributed computing, except censorship resistance, or, as normal people call it, regulation dodging, and
b) it comes at enormous costs (in terms of inefficiency, cumbersomeness, etc.)
Crypto is systematically and inherently designed for and suitable for crime.
[1] You can claim that LCR also expanded the design space in the partially synchronous model from always consistent and eventually available to always available and eventually consistent, but again, not a huge benefit.
so, your main supposition about crypto being all fraud is inaccurate, and the standards you present apply to fields you respect as well. for example, north korean expropriation and fraud is happening across the entire tech space, even a bunch of remote roles in the US are and were filled with north koreans, hence supporting the nuclear program [1]
this is a common theme I’ve seen that reinforced my perspective: the criticism applies to things the critic respects and the critic saying it doesn't seem to know that, and they also don’t seem to even be aware of other benign things in the crypto space that are working fine and fit the social contract of all participants. I don't know if thats you, but it is applicable to the responses you chose
so that observation, in combination with how so many intelligent researchers and programmers take a different approach ultimately towards improving the crypto space due to its malleability, keeps me interested and confused by the unsubstantive and reductive nature of HN consensus on this one topic
so, your main supposition about crypto being all fraud is inaccurate
Sure, but what are some actual generally useful non-fraud uses? I know Marc Andreesen failed to come up with a single credible one after investing billions into the industry.
for example, north korean expropriation and fraud is happening across the entire tech space, even a bunch of remote roles in the US are and were filled with north koreans, hence supporting the nuclear program
The difference is again the share of North Koreans working remotely in the US tech industry vs the amount of fraud in crypto.
the use cases for me are where DTCC and the transfer agent industry are disintermediated as an option for people that want an option, and there are a lot of competitors trying different approaches using distributed ledgers. that's useful for me and I use that every day, and I don't expect financial plumbing to be "actual generally useful" to everyone else. most people go their entire lives unaware of DTCC and the transfer agent industry.
the settlement time of 1 block is great for me.
chaining transactions within 1 block creates trading opportunities that are otherwise reserved for banks participating in the Overnight Reverse Repurchase Agreement facility
I don't really think you not being the target audience is an "actual useful" goal post to determine whether something is worth discussing on a tech forum, since the question is about non-fraud, but your bar is something that has to then be debated per use case based on whether you unilaterally derive utility from that.
the observation is that there is a group of people that have caked yourself in layers of news only about fraud, and my observation is that that's not the only news there is. that's the aberration in this tech community that's otherwise more discerning, I mean - crypto people are absolutely here - the contributors to all those parts of the stack are here and have been for over a decade. Brian Armstrong initially posted about Coinbase here. Its just the consensus is odd and has only chiseled away, while people have continued to build and grow the industry just in other forums.
The difference is again the share of North Koreans working remotely in the US tech industry vs the amount of fraud in crypto.
Why is Marc Andreesen the voice of cryptocurrencies? He is ONE voice. A loud one for sure, one I do not like either, but he's got no more authority than a random joe in Indonesia, for example.
1-2. ETFs are not uses for crypto. They’re a vehicle to hold crypto, not a usecase. Blackrock doesn’t even use the blockchain and doesn’t have custody of it’s own keys. It’s a bit of an own goal as far as crypto adoption goes.
3. Tether totally has $110+B in holdings, though they’ve never produced a financial audit and they try to pass off attestations and non-financial audits as such to believers. Both times they’ve been forced to open their books, they turned out to be unbacked. Also, Circle and Tether are centralized entities who have full control of their currency and can and will censor transactions and block accounts, just like a regular bank.
4. Sure, cool, but is it actually used for anything anywhere or is that more of a “vague distraction”
Commenting sporadically on a forum in favour of cryptocurrencies is not being a crusader.
On the other hand, building and paying for (in resources and time) two websites against crypto, buulding your entire social media persona around it and being recognizable by name for that effort, you will have to agree is a couple orders of magnitude more effort and "involvement" in a cause, compared to a disinterested anonymous coward like me.
Comments
Yes, this and her previous projects have started to look more of a crusade to me, than a critique of "cryptocurrency", whatever that is, bundling them all together rather than analysing the merits and faults of each.
Mind you, given the deep bias HN has against cryptocurrencies of any shape or form, I feel here she has her ideal audience here and we're the ones swimming against the current.
Where is the "crusade"? This just shows political donations. Is the FEC engaging in a "crusade" by publishing details on PACs?
There are constantly HN commenters on a crusade to extol and defend the alleged virtues of various "crypto" projects. We could accuse these folks of having a "bias against government-backed currency".
Perhaps HN has a bias _for_ true stories of fraud, corruption and crime rather than a bias _against_ all crypto projects.
Perhaps. HN also has stories of random software libraries and deep discussions of those. Whenever a mismanaged business in other sectors is discussed its only about that business, not the entire sector that business operates in. Whenever a devastating hack occurs directly on an end user, its a discussion of the browser and tools that can be improved to thwart it.
Crypto sector has many libraries that power it too with extremely active discussions in other tech forums, and thats totally missing from HN in favor of discussion of random mismanaged businesses and phishing attacks as representative of the entire concept of crypto. When that’s further from reality, as the tooling has improved a lot and is constantly evolving. There are many best practices that are actively discussed and worked on, elsewhere.
While the crowd on HN peculiarly acts completely segregated from that with a blissful ignorance filled with glee over frauds in the crypto sector, an extremely strange and impossibly different standard then how everything else is discussed.
The major difference seems to be that there doesn’t seem to be anything in the entire crypto industry that isn’t fraud or crime. And a lot of vague promises that typically turn out to be just more fraud in a year or two. It’s not prejudice if it’s true.
the libraries don’t have anything to do with fraud, crime, vague promises
the governance proposals don’t have anything to do with fraud, crime, vague promises
the software standards don’t have anything to do with fraud, crime, vague promises
same for nodes, consensus mechanisms, package management, type safety, languages, operator instructions, smart contract auditing space, financial auditing and transparency space, block and transaction indexing, legislation that leverages the technology to reduce redundancy, and the list goes on
its an approach and what I would expect to see on HN more often regarding the crypto asset space
Almost every “Show HN” that’s about a library has someone ask what the library actually does and why is it useful. If the only answer is “crpyto” and essentially all crypto is fraud, I can’t imagine why people aren’t more excited.
I think vague promises is exactly how you could sum up most crypto-related libraries as well. There’s supposedly some useful usecase, but right now it only contributes to North Korean nuclear program.
Emphasis mine.
There can be no intelligent conversation with someone whose confirmation bias is so deep they live in a black-and-white world.
You have no interest in a conversation, only shouting slogans and exaggerated claims.
Nakamoto consensus (the combination of longest chain rule for consensus and PoW for sybil resistance) was a minor innovation in distributed computing, specifically state machine replication. That had previously been solved in the late 1990s in the permissioned setting with BFT-type protocols (such as PBFT).
What's new in crypto is permissionlessness which enables decentralisation [1]. That has
a) basically no benefits that cannot be achieved through (permissioned) distributed computing, except censorship resistance, or, as normal people call it, regulation dodging, and
b) it comes at enormous costs (in terms of inefficiency, cumbersomeness, etc.)
Crypto is systematically and inherently designed for and suitable for crime.
[1] You can claim that LCR also expanded the design space in the partially synchronous model from always consistent and eventually available to always available and eventually consistent, but again, not a huge benefit.
so, your main supposition about crypto being all fraud is inaccurate, and the standards you present apply to fields you respect as well. for example, north korean expropriation and fraud is happening across the entire tech space, even a bunch of remote roles in the US are and were filled with north koreans, hence supporting the nuclear program [1]
this is a common theme I’ve seen that reinforced my perspective: the criticism applies to things the critic respects and the critic saying it doesn't seem to know that, and they also don’t seem to even be aware of other benign things in the crypto space that are working fine and fit the social contract of all participants. I don't know if thats you, but it is applicable to the responses you chose
so that observation, in combination with how so many intelligent researchers and programmers take a different approach ultimately towards improving the crypto space due to its malleability, keeps me interested and confused by the unsubstantive and reductive nature of HN consensus on this one topic
https://www.axios.com/2024/05/21/north-korea-it-workers-us-h...
Sure, but what are some actual generally useful non-fraud uses? I know Marc Andreesen failed to come up with a single credible one after investing billions into the industry.
The difference is again the share of North Koreans working remotely in the US tech industry vs the amount of fraud in crypto.
the use cases for me are where DTCC and the transfer agent industry are disintermediated as an option for people that want an option, and there are a lot of competitors trying different approaches using distributed ledgers. that's useful for me and I use that every day, and I don't expect financial plumbing to be "actual generally useful" to everyone else. most people go their entire lives unaware of DTCC and the transfer agent industry.
the settlement time of 1 block is great for me.
chaining transactions within 1 block creates trading opportunities that are otherwise reserved for banks participating in the Overnight Reverse Repurchase Agreement facility
I don't really think you not being the target audience is an "actual useful" goal post to determine whether something is worth discussing on a tech forum, since the question is about non-fraud, but your bar is something that has to then be debated per use case based on whether you unilaterally derive utility from that.
the observation is that there is a group of people that have caked yourself in layers of news only about fraud, and my observation is that that's not the only news there is. that's the aberration in this tech community that's otherwise more discerning, I mean - crypto people are absolutely here - the contributors to all those parts of the stack are here and have been for over a decade. Brian Armstrong initially posted about Coinbase here. Its just the consensus is odd and has only chiseled away, while people have continued to build and grow the industry just in other forums.
be the change you want to see
Why is Marc Andreesen the voice of cryptocurrencies? He is ONE voice. A loud one for sure, one I do not like either, but he's got no more authority than a random joe in Indonesia, for example.
I am downvoting you for your purely BS hyperbole. FYI, here are a few examples of what's not fraud in crypto industry.
1. Bitcoin. There are 11 BTC ETFs approved by SEC.
2. Ethereum. Many ETH ETFs are on the way to be approved
3. Stablecoins. Circle foundation issues billions of USDC and is closely affiliated with wall street and USG
4. ZK technology (pure research in many premier universities)
1-2. ETFs are not uses for crypto. They’re a vehicle to hold crypto, not a usecase. Blackrock doesn’t even use the blockchain and doesn’t have custody of it’s own keys. It’s a bit of an own goal as far as crypto adoption goes.
3. Tether totally has $110+B in holdings, though they’ve never produced a financial audit and they try to pass off attestations and non-financial audits as such to believers. Both times they’ve been forced to open their books, they turned out to be unbacked. Also, Circle and Tether are centralized entities who have full control of their currency and can and will censor transactions and block accounts, just like a regular bank.
4. Sure, cool, but is it actually used for anything anywhere or is that more of a “vague distraction”
Commenting sporadically on a forum in favour of cryptocurrencies is not being a crusader.
On the other hand, building and paying for (in resources and time) two websites against crypto, buulding your entire social media persona around it and being recognizable by name for that effort, you will have to agree is a couple orders of magnitude more effort and "involvement" in a cause, compared to a disinterested anonymous coward like me.