Much of the problem with crypto-skepticism is that basically every problem it raises is true.
The argument is effectively boiled down to “here are a bunch of people working on very hard problems. Hard problems are hard, and therefore crypto won’t work”.
If you were to replace the word crypto with “computers” or “space travel”, most folks here would push back, saying that “yes these are hard problems, but there’s a lot of people working on it, and there’s lots of different solutions in many different directions.” And that would be a perfectly reasonable counter.
Most pro-crypto and anti-crypto have attached their identity to liking or dislike crypto.
If you disagree, ask yourself if, upon meeting someone who likes crypto, your brain naturally likes or dislikes the person. If you see someone talk about crypto in a positive light on the internet, do you instinctively upvote or downvote them?
This identity makes it very hard to make rational predictions about crypto. It’s too easy to weigh the same evidence in favor of crypto if you like crypto, or against crypto if you don’t like crypto.
Since most folks on HN dislike crypto, you may want to ask “what evidence would cause me to think crypto would work? What evidence would cause me to think it was good? Say crypto worked in 20 years, what would now like?”
If, when you’re attempting to answer those questions, your brain instead starts to answer the opposite questions (ex: “here is why crypto can’t possibly work”), then you know you’ve been trapped by the soldier mindset, and are not thinking rationally.
If your mind draws a blank or thinks “there is no evidence that crypto will work”, then either you are living in a bubble, your brain refuses to see information counter to your prior, or you have to figure out what makes you more able to understand the situation.
Most of the crypto-enthusiasts I’ve met in the real world seem to be motivated more by narrow-minded self-enrichment rather than a genuine belief that society can be reshaped to serve humanity better. The more ideological ones seem to be driven by an arsonist’s enthusiasm for destroying and subverting existing systems rather than an architect’s enthusiasm for building something better.
I can appreciate the potential of the technology, but that doesn’t mean I embrace the community.
> I can appreciate the potential of the technology, but that doesn’t mean I embrace the community.
That seems fine, and is basically the opinion I hold.
The intellectually challenging thing about crypto is that it is very easy to go from “I don’t like these people” to “these people’s predictions are wrong”.
Hacker news seems so caught up in disliking a subset crypto people, that they assume that not only are they “bad people”, but they’re wrong.
I agree. I think in general if you’re saying anything interesting there’s at least some risk that you’re wrong—if you only say things that everyone already knows are true, why bother talking?
Some crypto people may be wrong a bit more than baseline because their judgement is more clouded by the dollar signs in their eyes, compared to people talking about e.g. open-source distributed databases.
> If you were to replace the word crypto with “computers” or “space travel”
Sputnik was launched in 1957 [0] - it did nothing except orbit and beep. Telstar, the first commercial communications satellite was launched in 1962 (5 years later) - it relayed television signals, photos and phone calls [1].
Blockchain cryptocurrencies started with Bitcoin in 2009, and it's now 2022 (13 years). How long are we supposed to wait for a practical application that solves a real problem? I guess we're supposed to conclude that making literally any broadly useful blockchain application is in fact much harder than commercial space travel or computers.
- it has a moving goal post on what “a real problem” is
- it creates an arbitrary start date and end date
Or in other words, it’s not falsifiable.
What would count as a “real problem”? Why does “money” not count? Why does “1000x cheaper storage compared to s3” (filecoin) not count?
The argument implies that, if some important use case is new and just getting off the ground now, then it’s inception is predated 10 years ago, and is judged as such.
The equivalent would be to say “space has had 70 years to get us to mars, therefore the 2030 missions to mars will fail” only to follow up with “if the 2030 missions succeed, then space must explain why it has not gotten us to Jupiter”.
On the contrary, you and other crypto-boosters forever claiming "we're still early" is what's completely unfalsifiable. When will you admit that it's a failure? 2030? 2050?
I think my argument is very clear:
- It took 5 years to get from a working proof-of-concept of a satellite to something that has absolutely inarguable utility. No one can make a good-faith claim that transatlantic radio and television broadcasts are pointless.
- Cryptocurrency has had 13 years and the only genuine use-case I can see is evading regulation, buying drugs or paying for ransomware. Everything else is hand-waving vaporware bullshit "well maybe we could track X on the blockchain"[0]
I spent a lot of time reading into crypto, trying out some dApps and trying to understand whether or not there was some usefulness beyond online value transmission. We’ve all read the same articles here but long story short I see no reason to buy or hold and unless something changes I think it’s so far been a terrible waste of energy. Both electricity and human energy.
I’ll reevaluate in a year or two. I think something like ripple could work, and maybe some non eth based dapp platform. But currently none of the coins really seem like a good investment and I’ll continue working on regular ass applications.
I wanted to find something new and amazing, but it feels like more of a religion to me. I guess it’d be cool if something incredible precipitated in a couple decades but I’m not holding my breath.
Well said. I certainly agree with this. It is a good approach into understanding what works and what doesn't work in crypto and what would most likely happen in the future. What I think will happen is quite simple:
Not all crypto projects and their technologies will survive, a few of them will stand the test of time especially when regulations do come and all of them won't be completely and 'totally destroyed' as the anti-crypto folks keep saying that 'all of them must be destroyed'. They also won't overthrow and 'replace the current system' as the crypto-maximalists keep saying that it will.
The hint in seeing which ones will survive are the ones that aim to co-exist with the current system. Take this from Stripe [0] and Moneygram [1] and Checkout.com as good examples of all of them using a stablecoin like USDC for payments. I'm sure they all waited for regulatory clarity before implementing these projects. It is not what either camp would want to see, but it is what is really happening right now, even for the case of some of them with CBDCs and the ISO 20020 standard.
> Most pro-crypto and anti-crypto have attached their identity to liking or dislike crypto.
Exactly. This is the problem.
Either you have those who have invested heavily in the coin so they need to keep shilling it on social media or you have those who make a living or gain a following disliking all of crypto on social media or even selling books on why it will be destroyed. What's definitely common with both extremes is the attachment of identity to either camp which does bring out the most irrational and absolute claims and predictions seen with a very high chance of them being both incorrect.
The only absolute that exists is: There are no absolutes. When either side continues to make absolute claims, they will realise that they will be disappointed with the actual reality that is being shown to them doesn't match their utopian goals and absolute beliefs.
The argument is effectively boiled down to “here are a bunch of people working on very hard problems. Hard problems are hard, and therefore crypto won’t work”.
If you were to replace the word crypto with “computers” or “space travel”, most folks here would push back, saying that “yes these are hard problems, but there’s a lot of people working on it, and there’s lots of different solutions in many different directions.” And that would be a perfectly reasonable counter.
Most pro-crypto and anti-crypto have attached their identity to liking or dislike crypto.
If you disagree, ask yourself if, upon meeting someone who likes crypto, your brain naturally likes or dislikes the person. If you see someone talk about crypto in a positive light on the internet, do you instinctively upvote or downvote them?
This identity makes it very hard to make rational predictions about crypto. It’s too easy to weigh the same evidence in favor of crypto if you like crypto, or against crypto if you don’t like crypto.
Since most folks on HN dislike crypto, you may want to ask “what evidence would cause me to think crypto would work? What evidence would cause me to think it was good? Say crypto worked in 20 years, what would now like?”
If, when you’re attempting to answer those questions, your brain instead starts to answer the opposite questions (ex: “here is why crypto can’t possibly work”), then you know you’ve been trapped by the soldier mindset, and are not thinking rationally.
If your mind draws a blank or thinks “there is no evidence that crypto will work”, then either you are living in a bubble, your brain refuses to see information counter to your prior, or you have to figure out what makes you more able to understand the situation.