Ask HN: Was Hacker News ever pro-Bitcoin?
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Having participated in many comment threads about crypto / Bitcoin, HN seems to understand the technology.
What HN doesn't really care about is economics, history of money, monetary policy, pros/cons of central banking, etc.
They get hung up on transaction inefficiency, as the distributed network performs subpar to centralized systems.
What HN doesn't really care about is economics, history of money, monetary policy, pros/cons of central banking, etc.
They get hung up on transaction inefficiency, as the distributed network performs subpar to centralized systems.
why are we treating HN like a monolith?
No, it basically never was to my knowledge.
I think too many people got burned in Q4 2017 and then swore it off. Prior to that, even going back to 2010, it was viewed as a quirky little project and not taken seriously. Also, there are many discussions on the wastefulness of PoW (I find these arguments less than compelling, as a disclaimer).
Overall, I think humanity is still figuring out "money stuff" so it should be taken a little more seriously. It's a huge industry and is absorbing a tremendous amount of real money investment capital.
I think too many people got burned in Q4 2017 and then swore it off. Prior to that, even going back to 2010, it was viewed as a quirky little project and not taken seriously. Also, there are many discussions on the wastefulness of PoW (I find these arguments less than compelling, as a disclaimer).
Overall, I think humanity is still figuring out "money stuff" so it should be taken a little more seriously. It's a huge industry and is absorbing a tremendous amount of real money investment capital.
Thanks for the reply! I totally agree that we should take his quite seriously.
You will not find many places that are pro Bitcoin (wsb has fully banned discussion of it). Regardless, there is still a nihilistic cohort that pay attention to it in most places. All confirmation bias is in the Bitcoin focused subreddits if you seek that.
WSB banned the discussion years ago because WSBs isn't a subreddit for crypto trading, but stock market trading. Another problem with crypto discussion on Reddit (at least historically) is that a lot of it has just been people trying to pump the price of some alt-coin and for this reason you'll find discussion about penny stocks also banned on a lot of investing / stock market subreddits too.
I'm sure they would allow posts about Riot Blockchain or MicroStrategy stock, but buying bitcoin on leverage isn't really a "Wall Street" bet.
I'm sure they would allow posts about Riot Blockchain or MicroStrategy stock, but buying bitcoin on leverage isn't really a "Wall Street" bet.
2009: "Well this is an exceptionally cute idea, but there is absolutely no way that anyone is going to have any faith in this currency." <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=599852>
2010: "if this is a serious virtual currency implementation by people who understand the security implications of such, I'm unable to find strong evidence of that fact. And, so, I worry about dealing with it." <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1998144>
2010: "at the current exchange rate they'll be worth about $12.50 USD. That's very little value for a year's worth of computation, and they're still quite rare. As more are created the exchange rate is going to drop unless they become very widely accepted, but there probably won't be enough of them to support a large economy." <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1998144>
2010: "if this is a serious virtual currency implementation by people who understand the security implications of such, I'm unable to find strong evidence of that fact. And, so, I worry about dealing with it." <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1998144>
2010: "at the current exchange rate they'll be worth about $12.50 USD. That's very little value for a year's worth of computation, and they're still quite rare. As more are created the exchange rate is going to drop unless they become very widely accepted, but there probably won't be enough of them to support a large economy." <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1998144>
I am pro bitcoin and I have complained about HN being anti-HN but I suppose it is good that I have a place that offers a different view. Twitter and Reddit are full of pro-crypto people, shills, bots and optimistic ignorance.
HN is more about tech than what any given financial instrument is doing over some period of time.
I think there is a wall of acceptance too tall for crypto to become accepted by "normal" people (aka non-technical and non-finance people). There are still people using checkbooks as their main source of paying for things. Another huge barrier is the volatility.
Maybe discussions about the tech - which fundamentally hasn't changed in a decade right? Or the societal impacts/challenges is more worthwhile than "hey do you like $crypto_flavor?"
Once mining was out of my personal reach, I have pretty much not paid any attention to it. So I'm neither pro nor con, and I bet there are a ton of people also in that same middle area.
I think there is a wall of acceptance too tall for crypto to become accepted by "normal" people (aka non-technical and non-finance people). There are still people using checkbooks as their main source of paying for things. Another huge barrier is the volatility.
Maybe discussions about the tech - which fundamentally hasn't changed in a decade right? Or the societal impacts/challenges is more worthwhile than "hey do you like $crypto_flavor?"
Once mining was out of my personal reach, I have pretty much not paid any attention to it. So I'm neither pro nor con, and I bet there are a ton of people also in that same middle area.
The rule is that anything HN is against, will become massively successful.
But being a new user, it makes me wonder if there was ever a time (maybe 2011?) when HN was excited about it?