Ask HN: Why is there so much hate to blockchain in Hacker News? - blocked_again
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vorpalhex
1\. The vast majority of blockchain/ICO/cryptocurrency startups are buzzword
abusing scams and schemes

2\. Everyone else seems to want to use the blockchain for wildly inappropriate
applications

3\. There's a small subset of people who have realized and monetized that
adding the word "blockchain" will result in more money magically appearing

4\. There's a fair segment that just want to use cryptocurrency to commit
illegal acts and evade taxes (we're going to use Monero to run prostitution
rings!)

There are some people doing some genuinely awesome things in this space, but
for every person using smart contracts for low-cost electricity arbitrage,
there's a dozen other people using ICOs to create distributed-blockchains-
over-bittorrent that will use "machine learning" and "AI" to solve the
unsolvable.

Throwing buzzwords in the mix doesn't create solutions, it only attracts dumb
investors.

~~~
bb88
I'd like to add:

5\. Proof of work increases energy usage, and increases the price of energy,
making things like burning coal even more profitable than it should be.

6\. Lack of regulation on online wallet holders. There is no FDIC on hosted
coin wallets. Mt. Gox died a horrible horrible death where people lost tons of
money, and even though it acted like a bank, there was no regulation on those
hosted wallets.

7\. Lack of regulation in the exchange markets. This allowed the rise of
"shitcoins." (See "Shitcoin and Buttcoin":
[https://www.naturalnews.com/counterthink/Shtcoin-
Buttcoin.ht...](https://www.naturalnews.com/counterthink/Shtcoin-
Buttcoin.html) )

8\. Coins are generally speculative in nature, instead of making their money
charging for exchanging of money (like ATMs do) or to transfer money (Bank
wire transfer). The business is built on hoping their coin becomes popular.

9\. Blockchain has become a cult, where a large segment of society see the
newly minted millionaires, and refuse to confront larger issues with
blockchain in general. They literally have their reality distortion fields up
to 11.

~~~
friede
Proof of Work should be called Proof of Waste.

------
CM30
Well, the amount of scammers and get rick quick merchants starting
cryptocurrencies and blockchain based products has likely left a sour taste
for many people here, especially when they hear about yet another million
dollar ICO that seemingly came out of nowhere.

And it's also meant a lot of people who nothing about tech are starting
businesses and projects revolving around blockchains and what not despite not
have any real reason to use them or a need that said technology actually
solves. So people here end up seeing these projects as the equivalent to 'Uber
for dog walkers' or a 'distributed basket weaving platform'.

Oh, and maybe because the topic has been done to death already and people are
getting sick of discussing it.

------
PaulHoule
For one thing, IBM got people to say "blockchain" instead of "blockchains" the
same way that they got people to say "cloud" instead of "clouds" or "the
cloud".

Blockchains attract people who know very little about computers or currency.
You keep having the same discussions over and over again.

For instance there is the privacy maximalist who thinks Bitcoin is great
because the U.S. government can't track his transactions. What he doesn't
realize is that the blockchain is public so the U.S. government as well as the
governments of France, China, Israel, Iran, organized criminals,
extortionists, advertisers, spammers, etc. can all track his activity.

~~~
nicky0
Only if they know which addresses are his...

~~~
0x7f800000
Your transactions are recorded in the ledger FOREVER.

Are your addresses going to stay private forever? Are you sure?

------
LeoPanthera
I have yet to come across _any_ problems that are solved better with a
blockchain than with any other traditional technology - except for the
original one, a distributed electronic currency.

And I'm totally not against the concept. This is definitely a "prove me wrong"
moment. It's just that I've been looking for a long time, and so far, nothing.

~~~
realusername
> I have yet to come across any problems that are solved better with a
> blockchain than with any other traditional technology - except for the
> original one, a distributed electronic currency.

On my case, I can see another one (for now): Namecoin, which is a
decentralised DNS. I can't see any other way to build it apart from a
blockchain, it's difficult to create a spam-resistant trustless key/value
store without that.

------
neom
I would imagine because of the amount of conflation that goes on with
blockchain and cryptocurrencies and because of the amount of conflation that
goes on with the use cases for blockchain and cryptocurrencies. From what I've
seen locally, the number of people I've met at startup events/meetups/etc NYC
starting a "blockchain" startup without being able to articulate the value
prop of the use for a distributed ledger or equivalent implementation in their
idea is mind boggling. Someone I know in the music industry told me just last
week they're starting to "pivot their career into the blockchain industry".

------
pippolong
1\. Organized lists are not a magical new technology. A lot better database
tech already exists. 2\. Almost everything associated with blockchain is
fruad-like, skirting nations’ established laws and decreasing security. 3\.
This type of trading is zero sum. The funds come from a bad place or from
someone who has more information than/hidden info from the person they sell it
to (manipulated). When you help launder money you’re harming your neighbors,
yourself, and your country.

------
notacoward
It's a direct reaction to all the _hype_ for blockchain on HN and elsewhere.
There are some interesting things about blockchain technology, but it's not
the world-changing panacea some make it out to be. There's a too-high
concentration of shady characters and internal politics among people trying to
influence things toward their own benefit. These set off all sorts of alarms
for true techies, so they push back.

------
madrox
I can't speak for the community, but I can speak for myself. I've always found
the noise-to-value ratio way off. Blockchain is not a new idea, but it's
gained popularity because of bitcoin, and if it didn't survive the 90s on its
own merit then how much value is there, really?

I'm happy to be proven wrong, but I'm not going to be the one to going out of
my way to prove it right.

------
mabynogy
Because it's a scam disguised as an investment or a currency. It's inefficient
and it's sole purpose is to serve itself.

------
ageitgey
I work in a shared office space (a WeWork). For a few months at the end of
last year and through this year, there was a wave of "crypto bros" who
suddenly appeared and all claimed to be doing ICOs. Having to listen to them
talk literally gave me headaches.

Every single one of them would talk about how crypto was "changing the world"
and "saving Africa's banking system" and all kinds of nonsense. But when I'd
ask them if they or anyone they knew had _ever_ bought anything with crypto
besides other crypto, almost all of them said "no". Somehow this technology
was changing lives even though they did not know a _single person_ who used it
for it's intended, non-speculative purpose.

In other words, watching the the whole crypto fad pass is like watching the
British version of "The Office" \- just painfully awkward to live through.
From the outside looking in, it seems so clearly overridden with scam ICOs and
clueless investors.

For example, a friend tried to get me to invest in an ICO for a "Blockchain
Bank." The idea was that by using blockchain, the startup could offer anyone
in the world a completely legit, low fee UK bank account - all without
personal identity verification (again, because "blockchain"). It would destroy
traditional banks AND PayPal!

When I asked very basic questions like how they planned to get around Know
Your Customer banking regulations, my friend said "Don't worry, it's all in
the white paper!" But I read the white paper and it essentially just said
"we'll figure it out!" There was absolutely no explanation of how it would
ever work. But my friend was not interested in learning more - they just
wanted enough of an appearance of legitimacy that they thought the ICO price
would pop.

These are the kind of lame startup pitches that would normally get laughed out
of an investors office for having huge conceptual holes. But because they said
"blockchain", people are lining up to literally throw money at them. It's not
because anyone actually believes (or even cares) the technology will
eventually work. It's just because they are afraid that they will miss out on
quick returns on the immediate speculation of the ICO.

This doesn't even touch on the widespread fraud, currency manipulation, pump
and dump schemes, etc, that infest the crypto world in general.

The point is that even if you are doing something really amazing with
blockchain, now you have to rise above the general stink of the cesspool of
the wider crypto world. Lots of people already have a pretty bad taste in
their mouth.

------
realusername
Because like any trendy technology it was way oversold. We are mainly tech
people here and when we look at the current state of the art, it's very easy
to see the technical shortcomings (the state of the art is still pretty bad).
What the blockchain critics on HN generally don't see is the future potential
of the current (mostly half-backed) technologies.

------
SAI_Peregrinus
Most of the talk about blockchain seems to be from the intersection of the set
of people who don't understand cryptography with the set of people who don't
understand economics, perhaps with the set of people who don't understand
databases thrown in for good measure. >99% of the time there's a better
solution for the problem.

Blockchains aren't useless. They're just a lot less useful than what they're
currently promised to be.

------
tenryuu
I still haven't been told about the benefits of a blockchain at all

------
icedchai
Probably because many people here missed out on all that easy money.

~~~
asdsa5325
_Easy_ money? It's down > 60%.

~~~
icedchai
You must be late to the party.

It's easy money when your cost basis is only a few dollars, like mine.

~~~
randomfinn
Only if you can turn it into real dollars, and don't end up losing it
afterwards as gains from a ponzi scheme.

~~~
icedchai
I have. For a while I was dumping $10K/month on GDAX. I haven't had any
issues.

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DoofusOfDeath
This reason is probably down in the statistical noise surrounding 0% of HN
readers, but: it's made PC gaming more expensive.

------
nunez
Because people associate blockchain with gambling (ICOs being advertised on
billboards solidifies this), people that didn't Gamble and win big are jealous
of those that did (crypto-millionaires are definitely a thing) and its
usefulness outside of being digital currency are still limited (though I would
REALLY like to see it replace centralized ledgers and give the banks/VISA a
run for their money).

------
handbanana
It always appears like most on HN don't actually know much on the subject. So
partly that

