[eecks]

Hacker News is pushing the "bitcoin is bad" narrative a bit too hard recently. I am not sure I have seen anything like it on this site before. It feels completely unnatural. I normally see more nuanced discussions about things here.

[rawtxapp]

That's been the case for a very long time, example: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20385116 is flagged.

I might be wrong, but I think it comes down to a lot of tech people on here being aware of Bitcoin early on, yet they didn't research it more or invested in it, wrote it off and now it's value is constantly increasing. I suspect they resent others who have invested and are much better off because of it.

This is just personal opinion and I'm sure there are other people who disagree with the electricity consumption or some other things as well.

[kobalsky]

My opinion is that many missed out and take a moral stance as a compensation mechanism, and some live in privileged situations and just don't see the need for it. No wonder you don't see the benefits if you live in a superpower with a currency that is used as a global reserve. One of the news today here is that gas stations are preparing price signs to have an extra digit, come talk here about the volatility of Bitcoin.

[gher-shyu3i]

> One of the news today here is that gas stations are preparing price signs to have an extra digit, come talk here about the volatility of Bitcoin.

Do you have the link to the article? I can't seem to find it.

[kobalsky]

https://www.lavoz.com.ar/politica/estaciones-de-servicio-ya-...

[BoorishBears]

What about me?

I live in the US but am originally from a 3rd world country, have family there, regularly send money back home

I didn't invest in Bitcoin but I did have made x000% returns from the same mania that us driving the latest BTC rallies, so I don't have FOMO

And I fucking hate Bitcoin.

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Here's the thing, Bitcoin minus speculation would be great. The idea of decentralized currency is not problematic.

The idea it takes "burning" electricity to facilitate that is not a problem.

The problem is because of speculation the actual amount of energy that goes into the actual use of a currency is dwarfed to a truly mind breaking degree by speculators.

Entire factories literally converting electricity into monopoly money.

Someone brought up how much internet traffic is porn, at least porn satiates some basal wants!

Gold mining is nasty business but at least gold is an intrinsically useful metal, same with silver

99.999999% of Bitcoin hashing is truly useless at this point, only happening because of speculation.

And no I don't have a source for this other than the fact literal factories exist to cash in on speculation, which poor 3rd world people securing their few dollars in BTC is unlikely to compete with...

I just can't believe that now of all the goddamn times we want to add crypto into all the damn waste we're making.

People say stuff like "oh it's only half a percentage point of global electricity usage"... please point me to another place where we can cut half a percentage point of global power consumption without spending a dime and disrupting people's quality of life (because remember, without the speculation decentralized currency can exist and not even be a blip on the amount if electricity used)

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Also I have no idea what the gas station sign comment is meant to mean. Please point me to a currency that hasn't already failed that experienced the volatility BTC has?

If gas prices were in BTC equivalents of dollars how many extra digits would we need since 5 years ago?

[motoboi]

Nah, it's more like people bitcoin friendly have no interest in winning debates when the price is up.

When the price is down, the opposite is very much true.

[eecks]

So it's like BTC fans are distracted by the price so and/or don't see the need to argue their position? Interesting theory

[motoboi]

When the price is up, bitcoin adopters spend the year feeling vindicated for the 3 years of mockery.

When the price is down, they spend three years reassuring the world this is fine.

If you plot bitcoin price vs time in a log-log plot, you can connect the tops and the bottoms with a straight line.

I shit you not and this is at the same time very reassuring and satisfactory when the price is up and very stressful when it is down, as you'll spend 24/7 asking yourself and the world if it will hold this time again.

[christiansakai]

If you want to argue from a purely tech perspective as "Hacker" news, then Bitcoin by any measure of tech in the blockchain space is indeed already an outdated technology.