[errantmind]

Side note, a good portion of the HN crowd has turned its back on crypto. Honestly this site doesn't feel like it used too, there is very little hacker spirit around anymore.. mostly rigid-minded corporate types finding ways to rationalize their defeatism or enable their escapism.

You can find more intelligent and interesting conversation on anonymous message boards (which should tell you something)

[codegeek]

"rigid-minded corporate types finding ways to rationalize their defeatism"

A bit of hyperbole there. I personally am nothing close to a rigid-minded corporate type but give me one good reason to feel good about crypto right now other than trying to get rich quick. Give me a good practical reason.

[errantmind]

I've wasted enough time on this site explaining my position. Too few care about overcoming their own bias. However, one more time:

* Yes, cryptocurrency is overvalued with respect to its current adoption. That doesn't make it a ponzi scheme, tulip mania, etc.

* Yes, a LOT of people are more interested in getting rich from crypto than they are in the real benefits of decentralized finance. That doesn't mean there is absolutely no underlying utility

* Yes, current volatility impairs its value as a 'currency' for most people, however this will stabilize over time as adoption increases.

My nuanced opinion as to the value of (some) cryptocurrencies: Forced, un-directed inflationary monetary policy leads to wasteful spending and low standards with regards to investments. This is meant to preserve economic growth at all costs, but people refuse to consider the idea that economic growth at all costs may not always be beneficial for society over longer timelines. It somewhat makes sense in a vacuum, but not when you need to consider issues like climate change and institutional corruption.

If you believe this like I do, you don't want your money to be continually devalued to prop up failing financial institutions, nor to feed multi-sector speculative bubbles, nor to prop up (by way of low interest rates) poor investments. However, the FED cannot be trusted not to devalue money to preserve short-term economic stability. In fact, people in general cannot be trusted with this.

That is the value of cryptocurrency, to me anyway. It cannot be unilaterally tampered with. That is enough of a value proposition for me to prefer it over fiat.

[VoodooJuJu]

If you want to hedge against devaluation of your currency, then buy land, grow olive trees, not bits.

[errantmind]

I'm arguing I shouldn't have to hedge against the devaluing of my currency (although I do), instead my currency shouldn't be continually devalued. Why is it a given that I have to buy stuff to retain value?

[anthony_barker]

hard to pay for a apartment in paris in land or olives in Argentina - but I can use bitcoin.

Meanwhile it is almost impossible to send out Argentine money without government approval. This is the case for most non OECD countries....

[jstx1]

> It cannot be unilaterally tampered with.

Perhaps the tokens on the blockchain can't be tampered with but their real value is manipulated by small groups of people all the time. Bitcoin lost around 40% of its value in the 10 days after Elon Musk sent out a negative tweet about it in May. In less extreme examples, the daily price changes are subject to the action of small groups of wealthy traders. This is everything but decentralised; it's happening regardless of how many nodes are validating the network and I don't know why you're assuming that it will change over time.

> you don't want your money to ... feed multi-sector speculative bubbles, nor to prop up (by way of low interest rates) poor investments.

I really don't think that cryptocurrencies are saving us from speculative bubbles and poor investments.

[errantmind]

> Perhaps the tokens on the blockchain can't be tampered with but their real value is manipulated by small groups of people all the time

One of the only reasons people focus on its exchange rate against the dollar is the dollar has disproportionately more adoption. As adoption of cryptocurrency increases, its volatility against other currencies will decrease

> I really don't think that cryptocurrencies are saving us from speculative bubbles and poor investments

People messing around with defi get-rich-quick schemes don't fundamentally affect my ability to buy a house. The FED keeping interest rates near zero, along with QE, does. It is driving up the prices of houses and other assets, which effectively punishes people who prefer to save as opposed to taking on debt.

This is hard for some people to wrap their head around, but not everyone wants to take on loans to buy stuff. Contrived example: if a house sells for $300k with interest rates at 2.5%, but $600k with interest rates at 0.1%, I'm in a worse position in the latter situation if I want to pay cash for the house from my savings.

We could have a whole separate discussion on the usefulness of debt financing, and ways to profit off investing money in assets that appreciate faster than debt interest rates.. another time.

[herbst]

Get rich, slowly.

But seriously what about just having a faster and cheaper way to transfer money without over regulation. Banks close on weekends, over Easter I waited 5 days for a national transaction that is so not 2021

And I dont even life in a country where banking is complicated, think about transferring money to or from Asia or Africa.

[codegeek]

"transfer money without over regulation"

That was the idea yes. But is there where we really are today ? I want currency to be stable. Something I can use in a grocery store. Something I can use to buy milk.

In terms of transferring money, it is already solved by services like transferwise/xoom etc these days. I literally can send money in minutes to most countries.

[herbst]

Well I do buy groceries with crypto, I don't see why that should be an issue. There are even crypto credits cards these days in case the shop doesn't support it.

Price stability is relative, I do earn some money in USD and always exchange it asap because USD is loosing value relative to my currency. Sure crypto tanked more in the last month's, but it could very well go up as well next week and is still way more than when I bought them like 7 months ago. Something that is unlikely with $

Also TransferWise as well as Xoom don't work in every country do they? Also likely they have high fees? I don't know, I never had any need for those. Can I transfer 10000$ without any stupid checks that slow everything down?

[anthony_barker]

Main issue is sending outbound from maybe 50 countries.