If you ever want to see thee Ars community dogpile on a certain topic, read any article on cryptocurrencies. You will get the following comments at the top of the heap:
Crypto means I can't buy a graphics card
Crypto is a ponzi scheme and should be banned
It is immoral to own Bitcoin, and governments should punish people who do
Would you like to buy my new XCoin ha ha ha.
Elon Musk is amazing, but this crypto thing makes me a little unhappy with him.
Ad nauseum. I have been visiting that site less and less, because I think the audience has become an echo chamber.
Interesting that the negative comments so far consist entirely of ad hominem attacks on the author, arguments for blockchain (which the article doesn’t mention once), examples of fraud and bubbles in other contexts (irrelevant — no one says crypto is the only Ponzi or bubble), and libertarian attacks on fiat currency and government control of currency that don’t address the utility of crypto.
PayPal and Stripe and other financial players haven’t adopted crypto. They have inserted themselves as intermediaries, taking a cut at no risk to themselves, and with no commitment to moving from dollars to crypto. They are in the same position as every grocery store and gas station selling Beanie Babies 20 years ago: offering what people will buy to make a profit (in dollars).
I don't know what "discourse" you are talking about. I've been reading about crypto on hacker news before bitcoin hit one dollar. Other than r/buttcoin and yahoo groups, this site has been one of the most anti crypto places you can visit, to the point of being an absolute embarrassment.
It has been a lesson to me about humans and intelligence since that time.
Still love the place though, but I learned never to let comments be the source of the things I need to investigate.
My biggest issue with the entire crypto space is I have to wade through a veritable ocean of shilling, memes and straight up disinformation to find substantial comments like this one.
I think that most commentators are getting lost in the chaos that is cryptocurrency. For me, cryptocurrency is an accidental fad that will dissipate. Nvidia is still growing in AI applications.
Ive been looking for more 'technical skeptic' posts about cash-grab cryptos, so this author better post more articles like this.
Got tired of hearing about some new amazing, world changing crypto coming out and then spending hours researching only to end up with a bad taste in my mouth. Both for the community and the tech itself.
It's a reflex I see a lot when crypto comes up. Instead of refuting any claims of the article (which almost nobody in these comments has attempted to do!), any negative commentary on crypto is dismissed as the self-preservation attempts of doomed globalist elites or bitter people who missed the boat.
If only people applied the same media criticism to crypto trade publications, which are awash in conflicts of interest.
I just feel most people who are obsessed with crypto that I’ve come across in my personal life are some of the least financially responsible/educated people I’ve ever met
that and r/bitcoin comment sections are very delusional cult to me
Cryptos have become more like a cult than actual tech. Don't get me wrong, some of them are legitimate but try pointing out their deficiencies in their communities and you'll get attacked from all angles. Most people involved in crypto aren't there for the tech, they only care about money they are making from it.
I've read some of the cryptocurrency subreddits recently and it has been absolutely fascinating. The degree of group cognitive dissonance is something else.
I'm surprised to see the comments (at least at time of reading) are actually pretty positive, given the general distaste for cryptocurrency on hacker news. This reaffirms my view that the average HN commenter doesn't actually understand the innovations that are happening in the world of crypto, and merely parrots simple negative memes to get upvotes and reaffirm their belief in how it's a ponzi, or killing the environment, or enabling drug dealing and terrorism, or whatever flavor of the week thing it is. Thus when a post about a cool crypto use case (DAOs) pops up, people don't go for the immediate crypto = bad memes.
It kinda reminds me of that time period where the media was perpetuating the meme that Bitcoin = bad, blockchain = good. Which missed the entire point, because there is simply no way to separate the two. I think a lot of it comes from the moral dilemmas in the world of finance and it making people uncomfortable and prone to virtue signaling via negative comments. Like it or not, the financial system is what allows the efficient allocation of capital for all the innovations people around here love so much. It may be a slimy immoral world, but it's currently the best engine we have to power the world. The dream with crypto is to build a better financial engine to power global trade and innovation.
It's a lot harder to understand a fundamental global revolution than it is to bash it. I'd encourage everyone here to get more familiar with the world of crypto, because it's not going away and you're going to look back and feel very silly if you keep calling it tulip mania.
That “crypto bashing comment chain” is just as relevant today as it was when it was posted 16 months ago.
People are still struggling to articulate a legitimate use case for cryptocurrencies.
I made some money mining BTC way back in the day with a GPU. I bought a new computer for $1,900 last year and much more than paid for it mining ETH. I’ve spent years now listening to all the claims from BTC, BCH, BSV and a dozen more coins and web3 proponents. But I’ll be damned if I can articulate a legitimate use for it that is better than what we have today or that doesn’t fail to take human nature into consideration.
For most people, crypto is about money, not tech. Easy money, quick money. Therefore the spam level of any crypto discussion is so huge that the opinion gets drowned out by the propaganda.
This is a typical sort of projection I see from crypto-owners. They can't seem to contemplate the fact that there are people that think crypto is a bad idea _regardless_ of how much profit they might or might not have made by buying or selling at various points in history.
Despite the relatively high level of education here, collectively the community can be extremely doctrinal or knee-jerky on a number of subjects. Most articles that mention crypto bring a cohort of « Ponzi scheme » and « destructive mining » posts, when you'd expect somebody writing a lengthy post on the economics of energy were it to follow the established conventions of the site.
I think the overly trashy environment of the crypto space made it an acceptable target for behaviour that's otherwise seen as childish and unacceptable when it comes to other subjects.
Crypto means I can't buy a graphics card
Crypto is a ponzi scheme and should be banned
It is immoral to own Bitcoin, and governments should punish people who do
Would you like to buy my new XCoin ha ha ha.
Elon Musk is amazing, but this crypto thing makes me a little unhappy with him.
Ad nauseum. I have been visiting that site less and less, because I think the audience has become an echo chamber.
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