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by luka-birsa 1659 days ago
Oh come on, we're on HN.

This is the most anti-cryptocurrency tech page that I can think of, with daily negative sentiment articles popping up. It's either bitcoin will destroy the world, ether is a giant cesspool that can be implemented with a database or the favourite Tether is a huge scam and will destroy the world. Let's not forget the NFT's are full-on money laundering scheme and LOL why would you buy JPGs if you can right click and save.

Trust me, people (as in cryptocurrency realists) tried explaining in the comments, but the sentiment is too strong. Due to the meteoric rise in value and the fact that a lot of HN somehow ended sitting on the sidelines, people can't stop foretelling the impending doom and gloom while being oblivious to the underlying tenet that all of this crypto technology brings.

I fully agree with you that articles like this turn into vacuous slinging match between camps. It's not tho because there are no concrete answers from the crypto side, it's simply due to the population on HN - it's impossible to have a constructive discussion if the sentiment is so negative. So yes, I also flag such content, because these discussions represent catnip for me and provide zero value.

1 comments

I think the issue is more nuanced. Many of the arguments against cryptocurrencies (or blockchain technologies) do have merit in my view (e.g. Theter being a scam, economic concerns such as deflation or the problematic envrionmental impact of PoW) but that does not mean that the entire space and any further innovation in it should be dismissed outright. However, I agree with you that this is the prevailing sentiment on HN. I find this quite sad because substantiated discussions on reddit about cryptocurrencies gets drowned out by all the shilling that is going on.
I'd really like to discuss arguments against blockchain as I view some very valid (especially long-term deflation concerns) others not so much (Tether, PoW), but sadly not here (or reddit for that matter). I wonder if just stating my views around Tether (eg. not a problem, not relevant, not really a scam) will be enough to trigger knee-jerk reaction.

Sad that it has to be like that, I view HN as the #1 place where engineers, technologists, geeks and nerds meet. Looks like they all enjoy some blockchain bashing.

Could you maybe expand a bit on why you think Tether is not much of a problem or link me to a ressource making that case?