[spookthesunset]

I would say the people shilling out crypto offerings are the ones who don't understand what their product offers.

Almost every single positive feature to bitcoin or ethereum has proven to be bunk. It isn't trustless, it isn't censorship resistant, it gobbles massive amounts of electricy, it can't scale, it isn't anonymous, it isn't a good store of value, it isn't instant, it isn't free, it isn't immutable. Its advocates don't understand finance, business, government, politics, computer science, math, sociology, monetary policy, macro or micro economics, or human psychology.

There is nothing left to pick apart. Bitcoin, Ethereum and the all mighty Blockchain are completely useless. The entire space is lead by some of the scummiest scum bags around and from top to bottom the only true motive for the technology is to Get Rich Quick.

It is scams on top of scams on top of scams. The whole space is a joke. Except instead of being funny it is busy pissing away small nations worth of energy to enrich a few scummy people who got lucky and bought into the pyramid early.

[spir]

I am someone who spends a great deal of my time reading about blockchain and attempting to separate hype from fundamentals.

There is a growing body of nuanced evidence that it's not the case that "it is scams on top of scams" and "the whole space is a joke".

(This isn't the same thing as saying "the price is going to the moon".)

I'm involved with https://augur.net. In a few years time, Augur will be the backbone of a new generation of entertainment, trading, and forecasting products. These products will have lower capital requirements as they effectively outsource the financial bits to Augur. Users of these products have self-sovereign control of their assets (ie. private keys; the emerging phrase for this is "non-custodial") which is a benefit over centralized alternatives.

Most products built on Augur will constitute a form of gambling, but unlike gambling on a dice roll, this gambling is more akin to trading stocks, with randomness and strategy.

Also, Vitalik Buterin tweeted yesterday on non-financial applications of blockchains https://twitter.com/VitalikButerin/status/107215895799977164...

[nradov]

There is no such thing as "self sovereign".

[randaouser]

I agree with you on the personalities surrounding crypto in the mainstream, they dont do it any favors. However, I disagree that the industry is led by just scumbags; the aforementioned are merely the ones that jump at the opportunity at the spotlight. As we know, sensationalism sells.

There are in fact some very reputable persons in the space:Tim Berners Lee, Andreessen Horowitz, Tim Draper to name a few. More so, to get a real feeling of the development community behind eth I say check out https://ethresear.ch/. The devs on the project are very dedicated, transparent and post nearly daily updates on progress.

[whyte_mackay]

> Its advocates don't understand finance, business, government, politics, computer science, math, sociology, monetary policy, macro or micro economics, or human psychology.

Weird, I must work with a bunch of dunces who turned millionaire by sheer luck.