Ask HN: What is the HN of Cryptocurrency?

HN is extremely skeptical about everything, because being skeptical about unproven things is a pretty important part of being an engineer

astoor · 4 years ago

HNers are often skeptical of all new unproven technology, but have a begrudging acceptance of established and proven technology. The thing with cryptocurrency is that it has now been around for over a decade, and not delivered on any of its ever evolving promises in that time. As a result, most knowledgeable and impartial observers would say it has fundamental flaws that it will prevent it from ever being able to do so.

Speaking personally, I know I was really interested in some of the Bitcoin technology in the early days, and super excited about the idea of a "world computer" that could never be shut down with Ethereum. But the more I dug into the technology, the more I realised the gap between what was promised and what was possible was pretty much insurmountable. However, the more time I spent in tech meetups etc. and understood the human nature angle to it, the more I realised that the gap wasn't actually important - most cryptocurrency people weren't particularly interested in delivering a genuine functioning new financial system (albeit one lacking the basic consumer protections of the existing financial system) they were just interested in convincing enough people that it was possible for long enough to get rich quickly.

oauea · 4 years ago

> they were just interested in convincing enough people that it was possible for long enough to get rich quickly.

A million times this. I used to be a huge bitcoin fan in the early days. It's become obvious that it's failed and will never be a usable currency. Now it's just destroying the environment as a get-rich-quick scheme for unscrupulous people.

luka-birsa · 4 years ago

I've had a lot of interesting debates in the comment section and I fully agree with the OP. He's calling it skeptical, but I'd say HN is an order of magnitude more skeptical about blockchain than any other topic. I'd pick a much harsher word.

As a blockchain / crypto enthusiast I'm actually unable to have a meaningful discussion on HN. It's gotten to the point where I can't even bother to share my views in the comments as it's not worth it. People are so dismissive and set that blockchain is a scam, that every debate becomes so heated with people reiterating the same position over and over.

So I fully agree with OP - a HN-like community, where people can discuss the non-price aspect of crypto and BC would be nice. I hate reddit and twitter as most of discussions seem price driven.

subhro · 4 years ago

> People are so dismissive and set that blockchain is a scam

I have never heard/read anyone on HN saying blockchain is a scam. Blockchain is a mathematical construct. If anyone says blockchain is a scam, he/she/they may as well say addition is a scam, so is subtraction.

What IS scam, in my opinion, is the ability to exchange crypto currency for tangible and non abstract products that has a meaningful value in day to day life. Crypto is not backed by any real assets, hence my problem.

cle · 4 years ago

This is something I struggle with personally, because over the years I've trained my brain to look for weaknesses and reasons to say "no". It drives my wife nuts, because she sees it as being pessimistic about everything. To some extent it is, because I can very easily rattle off lists of "why that won't work" or "what's wrong with that", but it's a challenge for me to come up with lists of "why that would work".

So unsuprisingly, she's CEO of a growing and successful startup, while I still nitpick design and code reviews all day!

Personally, I try to be mindful of my kneejerk "pessimism" and skepticism, and try to balance it with optimism and acknowledging that it's a lot harder for me to identify opportunities than weaknesses.

JumpCrisscross · 4 years ago

> I can very easily rattle off lists of "why that won't work" or "what's wrong with that", but it's a challenge for me to come up with lists of "why that would work"

A framework I have found to temper this instinct involves shifting from predicting whether something will or won’t work to finding the smallest, most-plausible set of assumptions which need to be true (or false) for the idea to work. You’re still identifying potential weaknesses. But instead of resolving the question around that weakness with flippant dismissal or a gut-feel guess , you’re considering how to solve it and being explicit about the boundaries between what you know, what you could learn, and what you cannot know.

namdnay · 4 years ago

On the plus side, if you ever move to France, you'll fit right in!

enumjorge · 4 years ago

To be fair, I remember HN being initially pretty positive on Bitcoin and blockchains. That’s when crypto discussions were mostly centered around the potential of the tech. But once Bitcoin became a speculative trading darling, the distance between the hype (remember when everyone wanted to use blockchain for everything?) and the reality of what the tech could do grew bigger and bigger. I think that’s when opinions soured and you started seeing more skepticism on HN.

So yes, the HN crowd as a group aren’t cheerleaders for crypto, but IMHO it’s for good reason.

ceilingcorner · 4 years ago

Sorry but no. While every community that portrays itself as “rational” would like to think that it is unbiased and skeptical toward everything, the same basic human social dynamics still apply. HN is aggressively anti-crypto to the point where I don’t even bother reading comments on related links. It’s become a Pavlovian 2 minutes hate, every. Single. Time.

monkeyfacebag · 4 years ago

I don't understand. How have you determined the anti crypto sentiment is due to pavlovian hate and not rational disagreement?

adamrezich · 4 years ago

well if you think about it, there aren't very many people who are fully on-board with any given cryptocurrency, conceptually, who don't also have literally vested interests in said cryptocurrency. when you have literally vested interests in something, you're going to be defensive about your investment, possibly to the point of emotional irrationality. this makes conversation between the invested and the skeptics pretty useless most of the time—if a skeptic were to convince an investor that their cryptocurrency is bad, then they would pull out of investing in it. if an investor were to convince a skeptic that their cryptocurrency is good, then they would likely also become an investor.

put another way, there are broadly four possible types of people who would discuss cryptocurrencies on a website like this:

A) crypto fans who have invested in crypto

B) crypto fans who have not invested in crypto

C) crypto skeptics who have invested in crypto

D) crypto skeptics who have not invested in crypto

for obvious reasons, you aren't going to find many—if any—people in categories B and C, so that leaves categories A and D arguing with each other, and largely unlikely to change each others' minds—especially category A, because, again, they are literally invested in the thing they're a fan of.

jstummbillig · 4 years ago

Is it though? Being a skeptic is fairly easy and not that valuable when it comes to doing stuff.

skummetmaelk · 4 years ago

On the other hand being overly optimistic about ideas that are clearly silly/inefficient/worse than every other option is how you waste millions of dollars on things like solar roadways or the Dodger stadium dugout loop.

ecocentrik · 4 years ago

Skepticism does not mean inaction. It's about using the energy, time and resources you have to build useful things. While cryptocurrency has defiantly inspired the masses to forfeit their money, it still hasn't proven to be much more than an elaborate wealth consolidation device.

dkdbejwi383 · 4 years ago

That's the idea

ourcat · 4 years ago

I agree. I see HN as a kind of "peer review" of submitted links and information.

uberswe · 4 years ago

I always like to look back at the "Show HN: Dropbox" thread (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863) and look at the comments like "For a Linux user, you can already build such a system yourself quite trivially by getting an FTP account" :)

I think most engineers try to think more critically than the general population.

ceilingcorner · 4 years ago

More likely that engineers are more likely to think that they are more critical than the general population and that basic human social facts somehow don’t apply to them.

https://stacker.news/ Is really fun if you’re interested in primarily bitcoin.

You can authenticate yourself with a tiny tiny bitcoin payment over the lightning network.

k00b · 4 years ago

Hey, I'm the founder on SN. Thanks for the mention! You generated some extra traffic today.

There actually isn't a cost to using Lightning Login (lnurl-auth). It operates without really touching the Lightning Network, i.e. a channel. It just uses your Lightning wallet's key pair to authenticate you.

More on login: through the QR code (or lnurl string), I effectively send your wallet a randomly generated string, a challenge, it signs it using a deterministically derived key pair using my domain and your wallet key pair, then hits an endpoint on my server with the signature which authenticates you.

k00b · 4 years ago

The site however does use the Lightning Network to provide Sybil resistance. Upvotes/posts/comments cost 1 sat, ~1/2000 of a dollar. This helps gate the site allowing mostly Bitcoiners in and imports an incentive structure - those more like in person social interactions.

Rather than staking your reputation, you're staking Bitcoin. Rather than earning just reputation, you're earning Bitcoin (your earned karma/upvotes is Bitcoin you can withdrawal from SN at anytime).

bubersson · 4 years ago

Stacker News has some solid content and features. Yeah, check it out!