[AndrewStephens]

Not sure why this was flagged. It seems a pretty well-thought out, non-troll argument even if you don't agree.

Personally I think that bitcoin-style blockchains are pretty useless outside of some very specific cases. Consensus between parties that don't trust each other is pretty much what our entire system of banks, governments, and lawyers (when things go wrong) was created to deal with. Replacing all that with an simplistic algorithm is the worse case of Engineers Disease.

I know that a some people have made a lot of money from bitcoin - good luck to them. And bitcoin does have some value if you want to move value around without those pesky government controls. But I don't see how the whole system will not just fade away once the smart people have extracted all the money from the suckers.

But I don't have any bitcoin, feel free to ascribe this comment to sour grapes.

[tigershark]

If you didn’t notice a lot of people on HN are heavily evangelising bitcoin. Probably as you say they have made millions on the shoulders of other people. Flagging anything that may deflate just a bit the bubble is part of their modus operandi.

[ttoinou]

   on the shoulders of other people

... that have contracted with the systems voluntarily

[nosuchthing]

...under false marketing pretense & propaganda

[andirk]

If you believe that a mathematical interpretation of those people and governments is more trustworthy and can stand the test of time, then blockchain technology is impressive. And if you don't, then it's not impressive.