[ahdeanz]

The shifting goalposts of this argument have been interesting to watch over the last 3-4 years.

Stablecoins: I remember plenty of commenters being quite certain that volatility made cryptocurrency unusable. And yet a short time later we have successful decentralized stable coins.

DeFi: Just in the past months Uniswap has rivaled centralized exchange volume as a decentralized exchange. It's permissionless composability appears to be spinning off an interesting group of experimental financial instruments.

These are a couple huge concrete examples of successes that make the ~show me something real~ argument difficult for me to accept. Nobody has built skyscrapers yet, but skyscrapers aren't built in a day. We have some pretty solid architecture going up it seems.

And if you've been following the space long enough most of this article is tedious and inconsequential:

1) "For instance, hundreds of links to child pornography and revenge porn were placed in the bitcoin blockchain by malicious users."

This is a tired argument from 2013 which nobody cares about: https://www.wired.com/story/why-porn-on-the-blockchain-wont-...

2) "Also, in a blockchain you aren’t anonymous, but “pseudonymous”: your identity is linked to a number, and if someone can link your name to that number, you’re screwed. Everything you got up to on that blockchain is visible to everyone."

Blockchains have many different properties. Some have more stringent privacy measures than others. Many HN readers are likely familiar with privacy coins employing things like zero-knowledge proofs or ring signatures. Not to mention the burgeoning research into the implementations of homomorphic encryption. How about Harvard putting your genome on the blockchain in such a way where you retain full control over it's rights? Doesn't sound completely useless to me: https://nebula.org/whole-genome-sequencing/

3) "The fact that no one is in charge and nothing can be modified also means that mistakes cannot be corrected. A bank can reverse a payment request. This is impossible for bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. So anything that has been stolen will stay stolen."

First of all huge amounts of digital theft occurs today that goes unreversed. Also infrastructure reducing errors in cryptocurrency is being improved all the time. Transaction finality has cons but also pros and can be modified. And one can also imagine insurance for these types of losses becoming commonplace.

4) "And then there’s the environmental problem."

This is probably the most legitimate concern so far. All I can say is I hope we get serious about investing in clean energy production as a country/globe. Many things use energy, including cryptocurrency, and that isn't stopping anytime soon whether we like it or not.

5) His complaint that a specific project is not using the blockchain correctly and individuals couldn't explain the blockchain well isn't very convincing.

Of course lots of experimentation will fail. Pets.com didn't make the internet wrong. And even the experts have trouble describing possibilities that don't exist yet. If that isn't reminiscent of the early days of the internet then I don't know what is. If you've seen Bill Gates get mocked by Letterman while trying to describe the early internet then you understand this difficulty.

It's worth remembering that this area is still incredibly young. If you can't at least see the potential then maybe you aren't looking in the right places. Like here: https://a16z.com/2018/02/10/crypto-readings-resources/

[anon9001]

The DeFi thing has finally pushed me to look at crypto again, which turned me on to metamask (via Brave), and after experiencing the UX, it's glaringly obvious that this is the next big thing. Nobody even talks about it, but the fact that I can "sign in" to my "brokerage account" simply by visiting dydx or unisawp and authenticating securely with my browser is pretty incredible.

People are claiming to be excited about DeFi because everyone loves unregulated derivatives and lending at insane APYs, but I think the real reason this has taken off is because the UX makes the future feel so real and achievable.

I'm just scratching at the surface now, but it's clear we've come a long way since bitcoin. I won't be shocked if it turns out bitcoin becomes seen as worthless old technology, but blockchains will never go away.

[csande17]

> Nobody even talks about it, but the fact that I can "sign in" to my "brokerage account" simply by visiting dydx or unisawp and authenticating securely with my browser is pretty incredible.

There's an experimental browser that provides this functionality for all kinds of websites, not just financial ones. You set up an account once when you install the browser, and then you can use it for one-click logins.

It's made by Alphabet Inc, but I can't seem to remember what it's called. Vanadium? Manganese? Ultron? Something like that anyway...

[anon9001]

Go install Brave and visit https://trade.dydx.exchange/. Congratulations, you can now trade leveraged derivatives. No signup required.

Seriously, go see what the process looks like. Just by not being full of A/B tested bullshit and free of regulation, you can get a glimpse of the future.

It feels powerful in a way that registering a Google account doesn't.

[godelski]

> 1

Well clearly someone cares

>2 How about Harvard putting your genome on the blockchain in such a way where you retain full control over it's rights?

I've never understood how the argument of putting private data on the blockchain is "good". To me this has seemed to be one of the worst ideas that is constantly pushed. It makes one strong assumption: the security of the network is and will always be unable to be decrypted. This seems naive. I am much less concerned with a centralized database where encryption of my data can be updated as new standards are adopted.

> Stablecoins

At the rare times I see people accept crypto as payment the options I see are: Bitcoin and Ether (and maybe bitcoin cash). I've never seen stable coin. Never seen stable. So not only is it not in practice but you're also illustrating my point about

>> You can talk all you want about solutions to some of the (minor) problems addressed here (ignoring the rest of the problems) but unless it is in use then the article's commentary still stands.

Great, you checked off one of the many boxes and created a coin that no one uses. Personally I don't count that as a success. (We can say the same thing about ZKP coins. I've never seen it accepted as payment anywhere) You need to check off ALL the (major) boxes in a single coin.

> 3

Is your comment seriously that "stealing happens, so it doesn't matter if we make it easier?" Seriously? Many people I know, including myself have had CC info stolen (often not our fault, other sites get hacked and dumped). Getting that fixed is pretty simple with a centralized source. I couldn't imagine having a significant chunk of my savings in an account that could be removed and not returned. The FDIC guarantees I'm safe with at least $250k and I'm pretty confident I'm practically safer than that. I get a lot of safety, stability, security, and privacy with fiat currencies. None of those are perfect, but cryptocurrencies need to check all the boxes here (plus fast transactions) to replace it. Better in a single aspect but worse in others does not warrant replacement and that's why we see it.

> 4

Please stop with the lemmings arguments. You also have to consider the utility of the electricity use. Cryptocurrencies aren't providing much utility. They aren't saving lives. The AC in your house has more utility.

> 6 (not a typo)

You ignored one of the most important arguments. Time. That has been a killer feature of cryptocurrencies since the beginning and people have been shouting that it will be solved with POS, POB, whatever. It is still non-viable unless the transaction times are brought down to at least a few seconds.

> It's worth remembering that this area is still incredibly young.

It is, but it is also very much hyped. Many technologies get hyped when young and go bust. In fact, this is more common than the other way around. So read my comment as asking for compelling reasons to think blockchain isn't one of them. Your argument has just been assuming I don't know about all the things you listed. Sorry to break it to you, but I already did. I feel confident many other HN users did as well.