[simias]

We've been hearing this tune from cryptoenthusiasts for over a decade now, maybe you should revisit your comments from a few years ago?

If you dig in my own comments on this website you can probably find discussions from 2017 or even earlier where I ask when people think that cryptocurrency tech is going to finally deliver something useful. It's always "one or two years from now". It's always "we're early". Remember ICOs? Remember how it was going to revolutionize IoT? Remember dapps? Remember lightning? It's been around the corner for years now.

Can you think of a single other technical innovation that required so much faith and patience before it delivered? Maybe self-driving cars, but even then I'd argue that it made immense progress compared to blockchain technology.

In the end you can hype it as much as you want, it's still fundamentally just a crappy, slow, extremely inefficient append-only database that's only relevant because it's super good at supporting pyramid schemes.

[58x14]

Really have to challenge this comment.

"We're early" in the internet had the dotcom bubble, the development of mobile 3G infrastructure and devices, the advent of smartphones, the VC-fueled app craze, and then eventually, now. The innovation mostly occurred in certain geographical areas, under the control of a relatively small population, with global impact.

The progression of blockchain technology - and dare I say culture - is speedrunning the history of human communication, including currency. Mainstream attention is high, but not adoption of paramount fundamental tech like ENS for identity and reputation. I'm guessing critical mass sometime in the next 18-36 months.

I also worry you may be subject to observation bias and ensuing feedback loops; if you primarily encounter negative headlines around crypto, it reinforces your opinion. But there are treasure troves of data, assembled by tens of thousands of exceptionally talented engineers, researchers and philosophers, that are also available for your observation. I wonder, if you spent some time there, perhaps your opinions would be more plastic.

[simias]

>I'm guessing critical mass sometime in the next 18-36 months.

And I say in 2025 I'll be having the same discussion I had in 2017 and I'm having right now as somebody will reply to a comment I make on HN telling me that whatever cryptofad of the day is 18-36months away from mainstream adoption.

[exdsq]

Interesting way to describe a computer as a append-only database

[simias]

The blockchain is not a computer. Computers are computers, and since it's trustless every node has to recompute everything.

With enough spin you can make everything sound revolutionary. Smart contracts are effectively like stored procedures, just ridiculously wasteful.

[solean]

"Remember dapps?" There are plenty of useful dapps that exist today.

[zepto]

Such as?

[solean]

An obvious one would be permissionless lending/borrowing (Aave or Compound)

[zepto]

Not obvious as far as I can see. Just moving cryptocurrencies around isn’t necessarily useful.

[swalsh]

When I watched the president of the United States get kicked off every popular social media platform it clicked for me. I never voted for the guy, I never liked the guy. But he was still the president, and it didn't matter. The tech companies demonstrated how much power they truely had. NO ONE should have that much unchecked power.

Before 2020, I was interested in crypto as an academic exercise. In 2021, it became an urgant need. I don't think i'm alone, to me crypto is an exit from the large tech monopolies that dominate our world today.