[josh2600]

This is the thing I don't get about HN.

Crypto is one of the primary grounds for hacking right now. Not just hacking in the sense of writing code, but hacking in the sense of defining a system from scratch.

Cryptocurrency is so quintessentially hacker that hackers have a "no true scotsman!" moment about its ascent.

Similar feelings abounded with this thing called the Internet if you look in the archives.

Edit: Yes, it's raw. Yes, it's messy. The beginning of every new era of protocols is always like this. Look in the history of computer science and tell me that the Internet's origin was materially more orderly than the chaos that is web3. It's always a mess until it becomes boring, and then we do the dance again.

[threeseed]

> The beginning of every new era of protocols is always like this.

No it's not.

Web2 exploded largely because of XMLHTTPRequest which from the second it was released was simple to understand, simple to use and solved an immediate problem.

To this day I'm still yet to find a problem that Web3 solves uniqely well other than money laundering, sanctions evasion etc.

[mratsim]

> To this day I'm still yet to find a problem that Web3 solves uniqely well other than money laundering, sanctions evasion etc.

Many of cryptographical constructs of the past 4 years were and are spearheaded by blockchains, in particular fast signature aggregation, threshold signatures protocols and zero knowledge proofs. This translates to protocols for:

- voting.

- splitting a critical company secret between say the CEO, COO, CFO, Head of HR, Compliance, Legal and requiring 4 out of 6 to sign off critical actions, without ever revealing that secret.

- proving that you did or you own something without revealing what. Which could be quite interesting for law enforcement for example.

[omginternets]

Most people here aren’t hackers; they’re corporate employees. And you’re right. It shows.

[desindol]

It's a decade josh and it's still unusable for 80% of people on this planet. I was as excited as everyone was in 2012 but that plateu is just going on and on.

[birracerveza]

Since 2012 the situation has changed quite a bit. Adoption has increased massively. It's just doing it so slowly you aren't noticing it's happening.

Not to mention the adoption possibly going on behind the scenes.

[croak3r]

Seems to me like adoption has gone backwards in some regards. Look at companies like Steam which at one point were accepting bitcoin but then pulled the plug on it. I also don't know anyone that owns crypto for any reason other than as an investment.

[badpun]

> Adoption has increased massively.

Adoption? More like, speculation. I still don't know anyone who's doing any real world transactions with crypto, but I know people who hold it for speculation purposes.

[itsoktocry]

>Adoption has increased massively.

Adoption has mostly increased thanks to centralization, via exchanges, which seems antithetical to Bitcoin's foundation. What's the number one use case? Speculation and scams.

I'm not sure it's going in the right direction.

[redditor98654]

I have a question to people who were around and have a memory of the times because I don’t as I was not born yet. But does the crypto thing feel similar to how the internet started in the late 80’s and early 90’s before finally taking off?

I recall some videos/articles dissing internet as a passing fad at that time - does anyone who remember what it was like then think the crypto industry going through something similar?

[Nursie]

God no.

The utility of systems like email was very quickly apparent, and while the 90s web was much more about publishing structured information than any sort of interaction, again it was pretty immediately recognised as a powerful, useful thing.

I don’t recall any negativity to “the internet”, but a lot for the dot com hype cycle, which is what I think cryptocurrency most closely resembles, but it has dragged on for years

[mratsim]

- https://www.newstatesman.com/science-tech/2016/08/25-years-h...

"The Internet, bah. Hype alert"

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlJku_CSyNg

"What is the Internet, Anyway?"

[Steve0]

Feels like arpanet atm, so give it some time. https://online.jefferson.edu/business/internet-history-timel...

[sam_goody]

> It's a decade josh and it's still unusable for 80% of people on this planet.

To be fair, so is Linux.

[Fiahil]

HN is -in essence- a collection of vocal minorities. Post something on Kubernetes, and you'll get every Linux Sysadmin complaining about how it was better before the age of containers and we didn't invent anything new. Post something on cloud infrastructure management, and you'll get people somewhat angry about its cost. Post something on Electron apps, and you'll get everyone to talk about how C++ and QT apps outshine them in 2022. Post something on crypto, and, you know, it's going to be about how it's not used, too complex, or too energy inefficient.

Good news is, those topics change and become more accepted after some time. It's an endless cycle of Bash-and-Move-on. If something is "too popular", then it's obviously the worse technology ever, according to HN.

[threeseed]

Kubernetes solves a widespread problem. Cloud solves a widespread problem.

What is the widespread problem crypto is solving ?

[0xrips]

sending money to family in countries with harsher financial systems, being able to donate to causes you support without it being traceable to you (through tornado cash and zcash/monero), being able to move large amounts of money instantly with minimal fees and no intervention, etc.

[bluecalm]

Yeah, the one and only crypto use case: go around financial regulations.

[oblio]

Ever wonder why we want to trace transactions? KYC, AML, all that jazz?

Hint: darkness and obscurity most of the time don't hide shy virtuous people.

[swalsh]

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