[mandmandam]

> at some point the claims will be found out and the funding will dry up.

Someone hasn't been watching the cryptocurrency markets.

That's partly tongue in cheek. But there are countless examples of the market remaining irrational longer than one can stay solvent.

Witness the continued success of BTC and Ether, amid newer options that outperform them on every tech-related metric, often by many orders of magnitude. I conclude that marketing hype and the first mover advantage form the vast bulk of valuation in a novel tech that people don't understand.

This is not to take away from the author's point at all - I would hope that anyone who invests in quantum computing reads the criticism from an insider who can actually read the papers.

However, as irrational and harmful as it is, I don't expect BTC to drop to zero before the day quantum computing actually does follow through. Rationality really isn't our thing.

[jongjong]

>> I conclude that marketing hype and the first mover advantage form the vast bulk of valuation in a novel tech that people don't understand.

Well said. Having worked in the blockchain space as a developer and founder since 2017, I've also come to the same conclusion. The formula for success is hype + first mover advantage - Aside from that; it's all about social climbing and politics around those projects.

It's surprising how long the first-mover advantage advantage lasts and it's weird to see that even developers who should know better are getting pulled into learning poorly designed (or outdated) technologies. They're conflating the financial achievements of projects with their technological achievements.

I guess that's what happens when big investors are laser-focused on making as much money as possible instead of also trying to drive innovation forward.

IMO, the inability to separate the two is a major reason why we have such significant financial bubbles in the tech sector.

[bluecalm]

Crypto is a bad example because it's pretty pointless in general. You can have better, faster, more efficient, safer, easier to use tech but at the end of day you're only achieving the same thing: skipping over regulations that apply to traditional currencies but somehow don't to crypto. That's assuming good will as one can argue that creating a distributed Ponzi scheme is another goal. It turns out that to achieve those you can get away with a simple idea and implementation like BTC.

It's really not a surprise it's not about tech when the goals and challenges were never technical.

On the other hand in areas where it is about tech we see superior one winning over established players all the time. Google, WhatsApp, AMD just to name three out of many examples in various times of this millennium.

[mandmandam]

> it's pretty pointless in general

Tell that to Wikileaks; after Mastercard and VISA stopped letting people donate due to political pressure.

Tell that to people charged double digit percentages just for the privilege of spending hours transferring money across borders.

What about the Canadians freezing hundreds of accounts "linked" to civil protests (however much one may disagree with their cause).

People complain that micro-transactions aren't cost effective; but there are, right now, secure and decentralized, fee-less crypto techs; even quantum resistant ones, that allow for the transfer of millionths of a cent.

With no disrespect, I feel that people who say crypto has no use-case are being let down by their imagination and research skills.

> skipping over regulations that apply to traditional currencies

There is actually at least one cryptocurrency working on becoming recognized as a legitimate currency; Nano.

> in areas where it is about tech we see superior one winning over established players all the time.

People could immediately see that Google gave better search results; that WhatsApp was instant and free; and I don't think AMD is as clearcut an example as you state.

Notice that in my comment I stated the condition that people can't understand the tech by themselves - such is the case with crypto. People can't understand the proofs; the difference between POW, POS, and Block Lattice; whether a coin is decentralized or not, etc, just by using it.

Arguing against myself a bit, I did think people would notice how slow and expensive their BTC transactions were; or how awkward setting an account up is, or how often claimed roadmap milestones were put back - but they haven't. I don't think I accounted for the sheer volume and reach of bag holders and maxis.

BTC uses the same amount of power as Argentina - it's perverse. The people claiming it's better in any way, on any metric outside adoption are just wrong. The fact that BTC holders and miners can claim otherwise, and people apparently believe them, is kinda my whole point.

It feels like there's a strong parallel with QC, or nuclear energy, or even cannabis. People get deluded by hype from vested interests if they have no way to accurately judge for themselves.

[Capira]

> "amid newer options that outperform them on every tech-related metric"

What outperforms Bitcoin in terms of decentralization, scalability, and resilience?

[rvz]

The Mina Blockchain [0]

[0] https://docs.minaprotocol.com/static/pdf/technicalWhitepaper...