
Ask HN: Why is HN so against Bitcoin/cryptos? - milkytron
All these crypto posts keep appearing and the comments sections all appear to be negative towards them. Besides the insane valuations, is there any real reason to be against them, whether it&#x27;s the tech or the belief they&#x27;ll fail?
======
PaulHoule
I think it is an interesting technology but I don't think it is as
revolutionary as many people think it is.

Bitcoin-like blockchains do not scale like conventional "distributed systems"
are expected to. The Bitcoin network handles 7 transactions a second if there
are two nodes or if there are two billion. You get more durability and
possibly more trust if there are a large number of diverse nodes, but you
don't get more capacity.

The scenario where a few traders who meet around a buttonwood tree (see
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buttonwood_Agreement](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buttonwood_Agreement))
share a permissioned blockchain makes more sense. The world might need 10
copies of a ledger, but does not need millions.

I think also people have unrealistic political ideas around blockchains. When
I hear "fiat currency" I tune out; bitcoin is not the new gold. People wanted
gold 4000 years ago, they will want gold 4000 years in the future, in all
fictional worlds except for one
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Element_79_(anthology)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Element_79_\(anthology\)))
people want gold. People won't want Bitcoins 4000 years from now.

Also people have unrealistic expectations about privacy. Sure, governments
cannot control admission to the blockchain, forcing you to give over a
taxpayer id, but your whole transaction record is visible to everyone. Thus
your local government can see you ate at Subway and put the pinch on them and
everyone you transacted with. So can the mafia, some other government,
newspaper reporters, extortionists, Scientologists, etc.

Ethereum is kinda cool because people can bake applications into it, but there
is no real security story for the applications written on it. We see hacks
again and again and will continue to see hacks. The escrow model is good for
implementing a sports book or equity exchange, but you could not implement
loans, swaps, options, etc. on it.

~~~
quickthrower2
I'm sure we'll manufacturer gold from hydrogen by fusion within 3000 years. Or
were extinct. One of the two.

------
sillysaurus3
It's a mistake to anthropomorphize HN. It's a group of people, each with their
own motives. It could just be a vocal minority that are speaking out.

------
schoen
Recent thread on exactly this question:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15074139](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15074139)

I liked my answer and some other people's answers there.

Edit: something apparently not mentioned in the other thread is the way
current cryptocurrencies consume enormous amounts of power.

While this power is used for a useful purpose in some sense, the economics of
Bitcoin hardware in particular haven't produced the kind of decentralization
of mining that the original paper seems to foresee, yet there _has_ been an
incentive to use tons of energy. So, it would also be great to see
cryptocurrencies find a way to do proof-of-work that achieves greater
decentralization with significantly less energy cost. (There is of course
active research on this and I wouldn't regard it as impossible, but many
people see the energy issue as an extremely disturbing source of waste.)

~~~
jonnytran
The energy use is tremendous.

Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index was posted just recently on HN.
[https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-
consumption](https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption)

------
timbowhite
I brought up the same question awhile ago, maybe the responses there will help
[0]. My favorite one was:

"Money is a religion. Bitcoin offends some people's gods."

[0]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9711738](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9711738)

------
anigbrowl
IT isn't. There are many proponents of cryptocurrnecy as well as many
skeptics, and this community is unusually competent to have opinions on the
topic due to the high number of people who are familiar with cryptography.

