Ask HN: How many of you changed your mind about Bitcoin?

[lumannnn]

I'm curious of the current sentiment regarding Bitcoin.

Did you change your opinion about Bitcoin, blockchain and e.g. its energy consumption?

By changing your opinion I mean in any direction. From "I was pro to I'm now against Bitcoin" or "I was against to I'm now pro Bitcoin".

What changed your mind?

[webspaceadam]

First i thought it is a promising idea and a cool new technology. But after some research and usage in an university project i really changed my mind. Most "use"-cases that come to mind are better served with classical "money". And what really gets me furious is the fact, that everyone tries to use the solution blockchain for their problem. When really it is ONE solution for a specific kind of problems. So that's my changing thoughts on the topic blockchain. Would really appreciate informative links that don't praise it as an asset in the end.

[hansvm]

One property cash has is that you can transfer it freely -- Visa can't decide they don't like your business and shut you down overnight if all your customers are paying in cash. Cryptocurrencies afford a similar guarantee for long-distance payments, without the fraud potential in, e.g., wire transfers.

Classical solutions running out of a database almost certainly could work better, but historically the middlemen involved have been unwilling to relinquish that level of control and just serve as dumb infrastructure.

[webspaceadam]

You can use other service providers where you can send money as you want, don't you? paysafe and other stuff that is used primarly on adult content sites :D

You are right regarding visa and other middleman of course. But it is not a problem most people have, isn't it?

[lowkey]

I haven't changed my mind on Bitcoin. Ever since I learned about this scarce digital good with an automated central bank inflation policy that cannot be manipulated by any politician, company or government, I was on the bus.

Now that we are in inflationary times with seemingly no limits to the fiscal stimulus and endless money printing, Bitcoin is more relevant than ever.

I would love to understand how those who are anti-Bitcoin think about inflation and stimulus and the debasement of the fiat money supply.

[amanaplanacanal]

I was a gold bug from way back. Thinking more deeply about inflation, any asset can be an inflation hedge. The answer is simply not to hold the inflating currency. Bitcoin doesn't do this any better than gold, real estate, company ownership through stocks, or even toilet paper.

The actual use cases for crypto-currencies seem like really extreme edge cases to me. I don't think they will ever see widespread usage.

[unyttigfjelltol]

I ran a Bitcoin full node for a while years ago to learn and contribute, also coming from a perspective that appreciates any viable alt-money. I lost interest when the network centralized and speculation came to dominate. Then there were the governance-- I'll call them failures-- that resulted in multiple forks. I mean, c'mon, parallel systems are one thing but it illustrates that no one even is available to dig a moat around the relevant trademarks. And finally what caused me to disengage was a lack of-- I'll call it honesty about this being a secure long-term store of value. This is a distributed, Internet-dependent software program with a minimally-functional development contingent, that absolutely is a creature of this technological moment-- relative to network structure, laws and the security of the various layers of encryption baked into the system. It's a very human system and not pre-determined at all. If those systems fail for a day, or a week, I sort of doubt BTC ever would recover.

These days I follow the price to infer which direction black market money exchangers in China are running-- are the illegal capital flows toward or away from China today? I also think it's neat that sorta 'banking as a commodity item' has a sticker price in BTC. That is all.

[feisar]

what do you mean by BTC got centralized?

[unyttigfjelltol]

@feisar , I was referring to mining pools.[1]

[1] https://www.bitcoinmining.com/bitcoin-mining-centralization/

[coralreef]

> Bitcoin doesn't do this any better than gold, real estate, company ownership through stocks, or even toilet paper.

VS physical gold it has a lower storage cost, lower transfer cost, faster to transfer, easier to divide, harder to steal, etc. Houses can't be divided up very easily, have high transaction costs (listing, agent commission, paperwork/mortgage, etc.). Stocks can't be custodied, can be frozen, diluted, etc. Toilet paper can be printed at will.

[chromatin]

Sorry that it appears you are being downvoted for simply answering the Ask HN question honestly, albeit with an unpopular-on-HN position. Perhaps I misunderstand the voting system here but when I disagree with an opinion I just don’t vote it up. I reserve downvoting for trash and rule breaking that doesn’t belong on the platform.

[seanw444]

I'm pretty sure that's just common forum etiquette. And I don't mean that as an insult to you. That's a good thing, since it doesn't seem to be common on most forums anymore.

[CarelessExpert]

Still think it's a worthless waste of time that's now contributing to global warming by incentivizing things like reactivating dormant coal power plants.

More broadly, blockchain technology will forever be my go-to example of a (bad) solution in search of a problem.

But I also have a small percentage of my portfolio allocated to an ETF indexed to the price of Bitcoin because the last ten years have proven that, in the crypto market, there's apparently always a greater fool willing to participate in this multi-billion dollar Keynesian beauty contest.

[thomascgalvin]

Personally, I have not.

I saw the use of blockchain as wildly inefficient, and now that bitcoin processing is using up more energy than some countries, I think that has born out.

And I still don't see the inherent value of bitcoin. People like to rail against "fiat currency," but bitcoin is also fiat currency; its value simply comes from the decree of a different group of people. I trust the full faith and credit of the US government more than I trust the folks on /r/crypto.

[relax88]

I never really changed my mind about Bitcoin.

I always thought that Bitcoin is an interesting and novel technology, and risky speculative asset.

I’ve also always thought that most of the crypto ecosystem is fraudulent schemes designed to separate people from their dollars, and that this unforgiving nature and lack of institutional and state control will likely preclude mass adoption as an actual currency.

So no, not much has changed, though the second point has gotten much, much worse.

[majora2007]

This is spot on with my belief. Cool tech, but for the most part, all I see Crypto being used for is scams. Meme coins, pump and dump, token offerings only to cash out.

I haven't seen anything that actually makes Crypto worth the mining.

[relax88]

Agreed. The only clearly justified use cases I’ve seen are illegal or unsanctioned activity.

The only things Bitcoin and Monero really excel at is avoiding sanctions, buying drugs on the dark web, ransomware, and as an alternative if your entire country goes to shit (e.g Venezuela).

I think for this reason crypto will always be around in some form, but I doubt it will ever be mainstream.

Central Bank Issued crypto currencies will almost certainly be a thing though.

[avgDev]

I was pro bitcoin when it first started. It seemed exciting and I was just getting my feet wet in programming as a hobbyist. When I started my CS degree I sold all my bitcoin(funded a lot of my education). My current sentiment is that bitcoin is an awful way to store money. It is too volatile. Contrary to the popular belief that it is completely untraceable, it is actually more traceable than using cash. It is too easy to get scammed or lose all your bitcoin. There is 0 oversight and regulation. Mt.Gox is a perfect example.

My bank account is FDIC insured up to $250k. My investments are in stable index funds. I feel much better now, I woke up several times to watch my money lose half of its value overnight with bitcoin.

[godot]

My journey was almost the opposite of yours. I first heard of bitcoin back in 2011 or so when a coworker (at the company I worked in, not in crypto industry at all) was excited about it and wouldn't stop talking about it. I thought it was like a joke.

Years later in the 2017 bubble I took it a lot more seriously, but still not serious enough to put real money in it. I put a very small amount into it and also played with ethereum/solidity coding. I didn't find myself enjoying the coding part of it and I just left the scene after the bubble popped.

Come early 2021 I found the few hundred dollars I did put into btc/eth went up a very decent amount by then, and by this year the industry is a lot more mature and it doesn't feel like it was going to collapse any minute. I put in a lot more money into it (but still keeping it under 10% of my liquid assets) and feel pretty good about the diversity of my liquid investments (i.e. money outside of real estate). I don't think it's right to put 100% (or even 50%) of your money in crypto like the crypto-twitter or wsb crowd always do, but keeping a small percentage (under 10%) seems reasonable as a hedge for my own portfolio. Also I don't take the decentralization/untraceability of bitcoin/crypto very seriously. I just own my crypto through coinbase (a very centralized way to do so) which I'm sure is a disagreeable position for the real crypto proponents.

[plainnoodles]

I've changed, but not in my overall opinion.

At first, I didn't like bitcoin because of its energy use and lack of regulation (which protects end users, believe it or not).

Now, I don't like it because it's become this bizarre quasi-legal gambling addiction predating upon an entire generation of tech-forward but economically downtrodden youth. I see ads on 4chan that shill shitcoins, for heavens' sake.

[agentdrtran]

Was very excited about it back in 2012-2014ish, when it looked like a global currency rather than infinitely fractalizing pyramid scheme.

[xqyf]

Do you mean "pyramid scheme" specifically or just "scheme"? A pyramid scheme recruits members for enrolling others into the scheme, and not in an abstract sense. Bitcoin is decentralized and there's no way to enroll in it, no one to enroll people.

[zepto]

> Bitcoin is decentralized and there's no way to enroll in it,

Buying Bitcoin is how you enroll.

> no one to enroll people.

This is laughable. Everyone who owns Bitcoin is incentivized to get other people to buy Bitcoin.

[xqyf]

> not in an abstract sense

...and everyone that owns (is "enrolled" in) AAPL is "incentivized to get other people to buy" Apple products. So Apple is a "pyramid scheme" right?

"Pyramid scheme" is a real thing with a real meaning. Someone posting "BTC to the moon!" on Twitter does not make BTC a pyramid scheme. Typically people are describing market manipulation, and they just don't know what a pyramid scheme is (your post).

[zepto]

> ..and everyone that owns (is "enrolled" in) AAPL is "incentivized to get other people to buy" Apple products. So Apple is a "pyramid scheme" right?

Yes, to a mild extent and indeed they do, but for the most part Apple itself does this work, so the owners don’t have much extent.

With Bitcoin there is nothing other than the owners, and there is no product.

> "Pyramid scheme" is a real thing with a real meaning. Someone posting "BTC to the moon!" on Twitter does not make BTC a pyramid scheme.

No, it’s a symptom of the fact it is structurally a pyramid scheme.

> they just don't know what a pyramid scheme is (your post)

Or they do, and they can see that in the context of decentralization, Bitcoin in fact is one.

The no true Scotsman fallacy doesn’t work here.

[xqyf]

> yes, to a mild extent and indeed they do

Thank you for agreeing. So your definition is so bad Apple qualifies as a pyramid scheme under it. That makes it appear that you have no idea what a pyramid scheme is.

> so the owners don’t have much extent

...but "to a mild extent" they do, so your definition calls this a pyramid scheme. The no true Scotsman fallacy doesn’t work here.

> [BTC] is structurally a pyramid scheme

The decentralized blockchain? You haven't posted a specific reason to say this that isn't abstract, despite two desperate tries. There are no recruiters, there's no one actively distributing funds for getting new recruits.

Just curious, do you know the difference between market manipulation and pyramid schemes? Pyramid schemes and Ponzi schemes? Pyramid schemes and other MLM schemes?

Or you just use them all interchangeably because you have no idea what they mean?

[knorker]

That's exactly what bitcoin is.

Every HODLer spends half their time virtually knocking on doors trying to make you the greater fool, by buying into bitcoin.

These big conferences and coiners on HN are constantly doing PR to make more people buy into bitcoin, to make their stash grow in value. And this speculation and pumping the only reason to do it, because it's a failure as a currency.

[theogravity]

I was pro, now against. Energy usage being one, utility and transaction speed being another. There are other crypto projects that serve multiple purposes (other than being a volatile "store of value" with faster transaction times and limited energy usage.

Outside of the lightning network, which I haven't seen become mainstream yet, I don't see bitcoin evolving to compete with the other coins out there that do a much better job.

[horsawlarway]

I was also pro - Now against.

The only utility that makes any sense is the same one that originally made me pro - You can use it to buy drugs online (spent 41 bitcoin on a 1/4 of weed in the early days).

These days - I'll firmly state that it's a pyramid scheme.

[rfd4sgmk8u]

I love it. Nothing changed my mind, ever -- from the moment I bought from MtGox many years ago, I knew this was the most valuable asset on the planet.

I knew those keys would have to be protected with my life. I loved the fact that it is ultimately the responsibility of the individual. Life is too 'safe', living on the edge where one mistake can mean bankruptcy builds character. No man nor state could take this from me, at least without direct, physical violence (and this can be mitigated through things like time lock contracts and physical security).

I knew one day people would hate for me for it, and would create a thousand excuses on why energy is bad, why money is bad, why Bitcoin is bad.. blah blah blah

I am even more bullish today than when I started! I only wish I had more!

[coralreef]

Initially didn't care about Bitcoin, thought it would just get banned by the government.

Then the price went volatile and I thought more about it. I did the MIT Blockchain course, and it just seemed so clever.

Then I learned more about monetary policy and how central banks just create money at will. Combining all this with my economics background, it makes sense that Bitcoin could replace gold and have a real function in the world.

Most people on HN understand the technology, but they don't understand money. Gold is a $12tr market. The US bond market is ~$46tr. Capital needs a way to preserve its own value, but the dynamics of money creation throw that into whack over time.

[emurillo510]

What changed my mind was that bitcoin is truly decentralized. There is no known founder, it has free market incentives. Technologically, it is some what exciting. But what makes it great is the macro economic side of things. Proof of work, encouraging renewable energy(people on grid don't make money). It encourages people to save due to monetary policy and has made me a conscious consumer.

[swman]

I think it’s cool but I’d rather have functioning governments and less people who want society to collapse.

I know it must suck if you’re not in a developed western country (coming from a 3rd world I know) but now that I’m in America it’s almost like people want the financial systems to completely collapse.

I want to see practical daily life applications that many people will immediately benefit from. I feel like the power players have already been forming and if I’m honest I think some of the crypto rich folks are 10x worse morally and ethically compared to anyone else I’ve met before. Very few have genuine interest in furthering the concept of decentralization. Most just seem to want to get rich by converting to USD ASAP and buying properties or something else.

I could be totally wrong and possibly just getting the wrong message about people in the crypto world. Just my observation though.

[foofoo4u]

The ubiquity of social media has made me more reserved with the embrace of new technologies. The promise of social media was that by having everyone in the world connected, it would develop increased understanding, compassion, and empathy for each other. It seems the very opposite is happening. It seems to amplify anger and hatred. It is driving polarization. After observing this hard-learned lesson, one of which we are still in the midsts of resolving, I now have a different attitude when a new technology is proposed to transform society. We nerds/geeks love technology. We are excited about the potentials for improvement they can bring to our society. But we are often overly optimistic. We neglect all the ways in which things can also go wrong. Instead, we should have a nuanced discussion about the pros and cons of a potential technology before we adopt it. We should decide if the benefits outweigh the potential risks. Bitcoin and cryptocurrency in general promises the benefits of decentralization: privacy, anonymity, access to the global economy, immune to seizure, transparency, etc. But there are also potential pitfalls that can be catastrophic to society if they were to occur. I am not a bitcoin/crypto expert. But we have plenty of smart people here that are. My question to you is, of all the things that can go wrong with the adoption of crypto, where it to happen at a national or global scale, would it be worth it compared to the existing model? And are you certain that you have thought of all possible things that can go wrong? We likely don’t know what we don’t know until we adopt it. Our existing model of handling money has had its ups and downs through the course of the past several hundred years, but at least it is a system that we know works and has brought about great prosperity to the world. We’ve implemented safeguards (laws, regulations, policy) along the way as we come to discover pitfalls with the model, slowly improving it with time. Are we certain that our existing model is so poor as to justify an adoption of a radically new system?

[Shared404]

I went from pro to neutral-leaning-against as I learned about the environmental effects of blockchain, to further against as I saw it impact the supply chain for parts, to entirely against as I saw free CI services have to shutter because they were being abused to mine.

[eaenki]

Never really changed my idea. When it was the only thing around I hyped it to my friends tho. I think it’s a clever solution to freely transact illegal goods - any scarce resource that people want it’s good against inflation or gov’s mishaps. Obviously wood or lithium is not as easily stored or sold as bitcoin, but at least you know the price won’t plummet in 12months.

As for speculation I came to think that if you wanna buy crypto, you might as well buy exchange tokens since they have Some intrinsic value and are still somewhat correlated to bitcoin’s ups and downs.

Obviously if you’re looking to x100 just buy Small projects that might become very well regarded within the community

[knorker]

This thread is what, 90% "no, I have not", which doesn't answer the question at all.

So to chip in on that: I changed my mind from "this is stupid" to "this is stupid and evil".

Reason: Energy consumption, plus the greed.

Christopher Hitchens said that religion is the only way that a good person can do absolutely heinous evil acts. But he was wrong. Greed can, too.

The number of bodies otherwise good people have crawled over in the name of bitcoin greed, while yelling "IT'LL BE A UTOPIA IN THE END (and by the way in the meantime I'm getting rich yo, but that's a coincidence)!" is sickening.

[stimpson_j_cat]

Huge amounts of institutional investment, and disproportionate control by the very wealthy makes BTC markets unattractive as they start to resemble the traditional markets BTC was supposed to free us from.

[mikewarot]

I thought Bitcoin was interesting, and was sad because the bitcoin fountain had been drained before I got there, so I didn't get 5 bitcoin to play with. 8(

I spent money, got a video card, did some mining, and lost it all in MtGox. 8(

I'm now of the opinion that it's a speculative investment, subject, subject to the whims of governments who might have large pools of bitcoins in dark wallets.

The current boom in value is highly dependent on Tether, there's likely to be a 90% correction when that implodes.

Once that happens, far less electricity will be wasted on it.

[bluepoint]

It is useful transferring money around while bypassing restrictive laws or taxes. You can use your money without ever being tracked. For example in Argentina it is used to mostly for that, I am sure in other countries as well. So it will stay around I suppose.

[Rd6n6]

It can be tracked. It’s a permanent distributed record of all transactions

[charwalker]

It's still has underwritten assets or value as a currency given it's rising price vs USD. It'll need to stabilize and maybe even see inflation like USD before used as a currency.

[karmakaze]

I was hopeful that the tx rate would have improved significantly by now. Now I treat it as what it is now (without expectations of better)--of use to few and a waste to many.

[JauntTrooper]

My opinion has changed somewhat in recent years. I was a cryptocurrency skeptic, and I still am, but perhaps less so.

Bitcoin always seemed like a solution in search of a problem. The supposed need to replace fiat currencies never resonated with me, and the demand to get around government currency controls seemed real but overblown. I disliked the pump-and-dump rhetoric and the breathless hype from its early adopters that reminded me of the real estate and tech bubbles. As for the energy consumption, it's an unforgivable flaw.

I've also always deeply mistrusted the markets. Not just because of the scammers and theft, but because bitcoin trading platforms lacked the protections against wash sales that arise if you're not actively monitoring against it. What assurances did we have that most of the trading volume wasn't actually being done by a few key players/miners trading between their own accounts to make it look like there was actual volume, occasionally skimming off of unsuspecting people who were drawn by the price increases they manufactured?

I think we're past the point that bitcoin is merely a pump-and-dump scheme though. It is already a historic economic phenomenon. It's been over 4 years since bitcoin passed the $1,000 threshold. It's become a brand and a cultural idea, and due to its strictly limited inelastic supply, small increases in demand have resulted in large and sustained price increases. If I had to bet whether bitcoin will be higher or lower than it is now in ten years I still think it'll be substantially lower, but I am less certain now.

Another thing that's changed for me is that I think there really is a potential market for the creation and frictionless transfer of unique digital goods. The NFT market is even more scammy and absurd than cryptocurrencies, but there seems to be a kernel of truly useful innovation in the ethereum and cardano networks. I could see a world where I connect a metamask wallet to an online game, trade an item I make in it for digital currency that can be used to pay for a subscription or donate to a content creator, all from my browser. Or perhaps I can rent my processing power. I don't think bitcoin will be the platform for this, but it's helped drive demand and resources to it.

Bitcoin has other consequences that will resonate. It's made a lot of people wealthy, and it's a special, unusual group of people -- , irrational risk-takers, young, tech-adjacent, global and often from low-income countries, and often disillusioned with the traditional paths to wealth and power in our capitalist system. Their spending and investment of their newfound wealth will be impactful over the next few years. Much of it will be misspent I am sure, and we'll end up overfunding ethical AI non-profits and building ghost cities in Central America, but our boom-and-bust system misallocates capital all the time too. It's kind of like a global R&D account for wild ideas.

[atemerev]

I was always pro-crypto, but Bitcoin is a first generation cryptocurrency. It is still a work of a genius, but it is a first generation cryptocurrency developed 12 years ago. The world has moved on to more efficient and exciting things, like Solana, or Polkadot, or other 3G projects. And what gets me even more excited, this is just the beginning, we have barely scratched the surface of what’s possible to do with smart blockchains.

[rfd4sgmk8u]

Have they tho?

I think Smart Contract Platforms (SCP) are interesting, but they are primarily for trading shittokens and fraud. The only real use for DeFi I can see is stablecoin market making. But now we are playing with fiat again, are we not? I thought we wanted to get away from these shenanigans.

Bitcoin has not been superseded. It may not be possible to superseded it because of its cryptoeconomic model. Every other SCP printed all the coins on day one, sold to insiders, sometimes mostly insiders. Proof Of Stake is bad for decentralization and censorship resistance. It also misses the point about externally verifiable consensus. I don't trust people, I trust math.

This is vastly vastly different than BTC mining, which was generated through vast energy consumption. It can never be replicated.

[thebean11]

Ethereum still has more developers working on it, and is moving more money around than the projects you listed doesn't it?

[shrimp_emoji]

*for certain values of "the world"