[nobleach]

I remember people scoffing at the internet like there no legitimate use-cases for it. "Yeah, we have places for information, it's called Grolier's Encyclopedia on CD-ROM, and it's cheap!". "I already have yellow pages delivered for free by C&P Bell". While cryptocurrency may be quite a bit more narrow, blockchain is most likely a far more interesting technology.

[mrspeaker]

I remember people scoffing at the Segway, Zune, RJ Reynold's smokeless cigarettes, Flooz, Nintendo Virtual Boy, the Digital Compact Cassette, Apple Newton, Microsoft Songsmith.... All also quite interesting!

I think bitcoin is a really innovative idea (and kicking myself for not acting on my initial instincts when I read about it on HN in 2010 - when mining software said "please don't use your GPU"!) but I don't buy this "people laughed at the internet too, so bitcoin must be important!" line.

[iamaelephant]

> blockchain is most likely a far more interesting technology.

Why? Really, I would like to know why you think this. Append-only data structures have existed almost since the dawn of computing. Making it distributed and trustless doesn't seem to solve any real problems, which is why over a decade since they entered the public consciousness they are used for almost nothing interesting, and nothing that couldn't be done better in a centralised system.

[hanniabu]

> Making it distributed and trustless doesn't seem to solve any real problems

Tell that to all the people that are either denied bank accounts, denied loans, have had their Paypal accounts frozen or funds held for apparently no reason, etc.

> which is why over a decade since they entered the public consciousness they are used for almost nothing interesting, and nothing that couldn't be done better in a centralised system

The infrastructure and tools are being developed. And please don't say you've been hearing that for 10 years. Literally everything needs to be recreated from the ground up for a new protocol and financial system. This takes a lot of discussion on proposals, development, and testing. Not to mention that all improvements are being done on a live system so everything needs to be backwards compatible.

[Geee]

> doesn't seem to solve any real problems

If you don't see the current monetary systems as a problem, then I guess you don't really have a way to understand Bitcoin.

I think it's one of the most important innovations of our civilization; a 'next step', if you will.

Personally, it solves my problem of storing value of my work indefinitely.

[laurus]

Are you against private banks being able to create money when they make loans? If so, why?

[vinniejames]

Banks don't create money, they create debt.

[laurus]

It's only a debt for the business who receives the loan.

When a business receives a loan it shows up as an asset to them in the form of a bank deposit. The business then usually uses that demand deposit to purchase goods and services, so people who don't owe debt to the bank get those deposits in their accounts, and spend the deposits, etc., etc. So effectively, private banks create money.

[vinniejames]

You missed the part where the business gives the money for those goods and services back to the bank plus interest and the fact that the bank already had the money to give, nothing was created

[vehementi]

It is, but approximately 100% of startups (ICOs) formed around it have failed right?

That's not to say there are none, but a fuck ton of people have tried to come up with cool ideas and approximately zero worked out, like at all.

[rolltiide]

Was the same in the second half of the 90s with tech/internet companies. Only in hindsight can you point to the 5 that didn't fail, but at the time you wouldn't have been able to pick them out from the lineup, or the graveyard, they probably weren't your favorites or you hadn't heard of them. Many programmers and sales people weren't able to get jobs and had to question their life choices. Its not so different with the digital asset and ledger space, fortunately this time it is just an extension of "tech" so there is no real drought for people that were knowledgeable in the niche.

[vehementi]

Definitely not the same -- we're not talking about 2% of ICOs going on to become cool Google -- nothing of the sort is happening and it's been years. Moreover, despite the dot com bust, there were many legitimate companies that did have proven business strategies that weren't doing bubble stuff. People were using the internet to sell things, to advertise their sites, etc. and it was effective. Even that category of companies doesn't exist. Nobody's using bitcoin for any practical purpose... aside from dark market purchasing :)

[Pumpmaster6000]

Tezos raised around $200 million in 2017 and has had a current market cap of something close to $1 billion lately