[smoldesu]

Vitalik has been selling the same dream for a decade now, and even though crypto is booming it still feels like we're no closer to realizing the goals of Ethereum or the virtues of a digital currency. Having listened to this guy rant about the Next Big Thing since high school, I'm pretty jaded by his opinion.

[EGreg]

I have to be honest

I have met so many great people in the space of what I work on (crypto, social networks, open source, sociopolitical and economic applications). Everyone from Andrew Yang to Noam Chomsky and Leslie Lamport.

You have never heard of me and that’s fine, I like that. What I can tell you is, the people who collaborate and appear and are willing to work together in the space, they will get things done and there are a ton of great projects coming out. Like Dyne with their Relay group signing and zeneoom that I spoke with last week.

I don’t need Vitalik. And yes, Ethereum is very limited. It’s just frustrating to hear the guy for years call for the things that we are building to be actually built — while he has a billion dollars in ETH and the ideas but doesn’t fund it himself. Same as EOS that raised 4 bil. We have funded all the stuff for half a mil that we raised — some of the commenters on this thread are surprised we are able to do all that. Yes we are. The code is there and free to use.

ReadyPlayerMe, Dyne, Hypercore and others were funded by governments and foundations and did a tremendous job. We have been also. The code is released and people are building on it. We are about to release some major things this summer. I somewhat enjoy collecting the knee-jerk downvotes from HN people who barely look at it. Because it won’t age well, in a few years, and it’s a bit entertaining to be underestimated.

I admit that my desire to speak to Vitalik is just out of a desire to network to smart people who have arrived at similar conclusions and share ideas. Honestly, I don’t need it at all. We can execute without it. It’s just about indulging myself.

[jq-r]

Tbh, cryptocurrencies are anything but booming.

[yieldcrv]

The primary market, amongst crypto and other markets, are actually doing pretty well.

Newly launched cryptos, newly launched NFTs*, teams that merely plan to do those things are getting funded, even bonds in the sovereign and corporate markets are being issued okay and bought up completely.

Its just secondary market that's puking and plastered all over the charts everywhere. Doesn't tell you as much you think it does.

[EGreg]

Secondary markets are where the rubber meets the road. That $3M NFT selling for $10 is reality telling you that maybe you needed more utility and serve people rather than shuffle tokens around in zero-sum speculative trading echo chambers.

[smoldesu]

Primary markets will eat pig slop if you feed it to them, Y Combinator is living proof of that. If the demand for your product tanks in the secondary market, there's a very good chance that the product you're selling isn't very attractive to the layman.

When I say crypto is doing "well", I mean so relatively. The markets are in agony right now, and many of the people who I know who have their life savings in crypto are getting wiped out. The primary market says nothing about how successful cryptocurrency is, just how lucrative it is. Getting someone to buy a worthless thing has a 100% markup, so it's unsurprising the market is still luring investors in with the promise of Yet Another Useless Token.

My larger point is that cryptocurrency had it's chance, and people like Vitalik are the coffin bearers. This brand of economic accelerationism consistently ends in disaster, and crypto is just the same story told through a different lens. It's the Juicero of the 2020s, a concept so useless that it can only move units by fooling customers with insane marketing. Look around at NFT and cryptocurrency ads, you'll get the picture.

[yieldcrv]

> The primary market says nothing about how successful cryptocurrency is, just how lucrative it is.

So, booming one might say? Like in a boom town? Where nobody actually cares what product is being exported just that they can get paid a lot for it?

[yellowapple]

> It's the Juicero of the 2020s

Ethereum alone (let alone cryptocurrency in general) predates and postdates Juicero's existence by a wide margin.

[smoldesu]

The concept of juicers isn't new either, but applying stupidity to them was the novel concept.

[gafferongames]

> My larger point is that cryptocurrency had it's chance, and people like Vitalik are the coffin bearers. This brand of economic accelerationism consistently ends in disaster, and crypto is just the same story told through a different lens. It's the Juicero of the 2020s, a concept so useless that it can only move units by fooling customers with insane marketing. Look around at NFT and cryptocurrency ads, you'll get the picture.

100% this. They've had their time to produce something useful. It's time to pack it in and admit that the emperor has no clothes.