[logicalmonster]

> This is stating the obvious, the HN community generally leans against blockchain.

I wouldn't describe it as a lean against crypto: the unfortunate thing is that some people have a viewpoint about crypto more akin to a fiery hate. There's an intensity to this emotion for some reason. I'm not sure if it's resentment by some for missing an opportunity to make money, but some people here can't talk objectively about crypto for some reason.

For what its worth, I think it's just fine to like or dislike crypto and weigh its merits reasonably, but there's too much emotion here to have good conversations about the possibilities.

[hnthrow1010]

>but some people here can't talk objectively about crypto for some reason.

To the contrary: It's the crypto people who can't talk objectively about blockchains, because every single "invention" they come up with has some kind of money-making scheme attached to it. There's very little talk of blockchains without the crypto tokens attached, because a blockchain without that is just an ordinary boring old distributed database, and that isn't fun to them. Every time I try to talk about that among a group of crypto enthusiasts, I either get ignored or the conversation fizzles. Even you're doing the thing where you assume that someone must not want to talk about it because they missed out on the opportunity to make money. That whole mentality is toxic and illustrates the ponzi-like nature of the scheme; those who got in first can make a lot of money from cashing out early, everyone else will get stuck holding the bag.

[logicalmonster]

> There's very little talk of blockchains without the crypto tokens attached, because a blockchain without that is just an ordinary boring old distributed database, and that isn't fun to them.

I'm not sure how it's possible to talk about the benefits of a blockchain without talking about the tokens in some way. Incentives matter when it comes to real-world policy and human behavior. You might be asking for something impossible to create a situation where you feel that you always win the argument.

When it comes to the benefits of the tokens, I'm not referring to mere price speculation among the 101,001 random Internet coins and tokens, which I can understand being jaded by, but about how utility tokens can provide something very valuable in the process.

To give one example: in the case of Oracles and specifically Chainlink (ticker: LINK), the tokens not only power the network, but can provide a concept called crypto-economic security. This means that the cost of compromising the network should exceed the potential value gained from doing so. This whole concept is remarkably fascinating from a Computer Science/Security/Philosophy/Economics perspective and should be a game-changer when it comes to getting any kind of distributed application accurate input. There's a bunch of very interesting problems like this all throughout the crypto landscape.

I understand that it feels like price speculation drowns out much of the discussion, but if you're not finding interesting computer science problems and solutions within crypto, you might not be looking hard enough or thinking hard enough about where the world is heading.

[aaaaaaaaata]

> There's very little talk of blockchains without the crypto tokens attached

There's very little talk of financial systems without the dollars attached.

Parties needs incentive to keep operating the chains. These vary. Many are financial.