What do you think of Bitcoin?

Here's a list:

- Waste of resources. - I don't think it will ever replace fiat when everybody is just HODL'ing. - Like any asset that appreciates massively, I am sour that I didn't buy when it was cheap. - Bitcoin made some people really rich, but wonder if it will leave a lot more people holding the bag when things spiral down. - Corollary to the above, the vast majority of people alive did not get a chance to participate in this by the virtue of tech know-how. It still propagates the rich-poor divide.

I draw some amusement from seeing high net worth individuals treat Keynesianism with such disdain for creating jobs by "digging holes and filling them up again" while they essentially do just that to create assets.

It's also good at making me feel better for not recycling.

I honestly feel kind of sorry for some of the people who have earned orders of magnitude more in their entire life by essentially making one lucky bet than through anything that could be attributed to their own positive qualities.

- It may or may not be a viable instrument for store of value but not sure if it will be a real fiat currency. Bitcoin isn't backed by anything. Of course, crypto aficionados will argue that neither is the USD, but I disagree. The US Petrodollar is backed by a massive overpowered military that will exert pressure on anyone who will try to do otherwise. Plus, the entire world currently has mostly decided that $$ is officially the world's reserve currency. Bitcoin has to be way easier to deal with if it wants to take over the system. Even with the weakening dollar, it's more realistic that a basket currency of Euro/USD/Yuan would take its place rather than Bitcoin.

- The proof of work system is a massive waste of energy.

- What happens when the max number of bitcoins that can be minted is reached? Why would most number of miners even still be on the blockchain if it isn't lucrative enough? One could argue that they could still make money off of transaction fees, but that has to be high enough to break even. That's another issue then -- high transaction fee.

- What about the dormant coins like Satoshi's wallet and all the other people who just lost their keys/wallet. Is that money just dead? What would happen to the value if there is a sudden influx of these coins on the market?

- The BTC numerical isn't human friendly. Most people won't be able to easily wrap around the fact that they have to pay 0.00000000126751 BTC for their pizza. Oh, now calculate tips.

- Almost everyone who holds is 'hodling' hoping for it go up. It's not being used as a currency but as a speculative security, at least for now. This is especially true if you 'hold' bitcoin in platforms like Robinhood, etc. where you don't actually hold your own coins/keys. This has all the hallmark of Greater Fool's theory written all over it.

- I think cryptocurrency in general will be an integral part of the future, just not Bitcoin.

I would love to hear arguments against my view from fellow HN'ers who are pro-BTC.

Ask yourself honestly. Is it really more about decentralization at the moment or speculations to make shit tons of money ? Since it is the latter, I am not interested and I think it became something that it wasn't supposed to at least in theory.

HN hates crypto. As someone who missed out on huge gains by selling too early, I sympathize with the hatred and I believe that is the primary catalyst for it. It can blind you to any positive aspects, simply because you feel slighted by it. The missed opportunity can really burn in your brain. I suspect most people are unable or unwilling to admit this and do all kinds of mental gymnastics to convince themselves it's all about the energy usage or control in China or whatever.

The fact is, crypto has value and also has uses which are growing every day. No one discusses the energy usage of the current financial system and crypto is ramping up to disrupt a huge swath of it. Decentralized finance is going to kill entrenched middle men like escrow and payday loan companies just to name a simple few.

Bitcoin converts computational energy into a digital store of that value which can be transferred anywhere, any time, in any amount, without the need for a trusted third-party, for a miniscule portion of that value. To assert this is a waste or that it doesn't have value is disingenuous. The fact that it is not centrally controlled is a huge game-changer and a paradigm shift. No entity can inflate it to worthlessness. No entity can seize your assets for any reason, including politics. There's no stopping crypto. The cat is out of the bag and the innovation will continue. It's decentralized nature prevents entrenched interests from regulating it out of existence and that is great for everyone.

Some of the selling points are also it's greatest problems...

Be your own bank!

Now you have to deal with all sorts of security issues that you never thought of. One wrong move and you loose your coins.

Decentralized!

You forgot your password or deleted your wallet? Too bad. There is nobody to call, no way to recover it, and it's gone completely. Forever.

Anonymous!

Not really, but you'll never be able to track down that person who cheated you. No court can help you. It's the wild west, and it's your fault you lost your coins.

It's a cool idea!

Everyone in the space is trying to convince you it's the next big thing, but at the end of the day people just want to be able to buy things, and converting to crypto is an extra step in the payment flow for most people, and one that is unnecessary.

Buy the dip! Hold!

It's crowded with institutional investors. Yes you could have gotten rich if you bought a bunch, but you also could have lost your shirt. Bitcoin is the coyote, the only reason it doesn't fall is because it's not looking down.

It could crash to zero and everyone would just say "it was always just a proof of concept" and "You thought it was real? LoL Rekt!"

I'm good without it.

I want to live in a future where we don't have to keep track of who has what because everyone has enough.

I don’t see any use cases for it except tax avoidance or illicit transactions, neither of which I have any need for. Why use it for anything else when I have no way to know that it will be worth anything tomorrow? I realize the same could be said for paper money but I have less confidence in Bitcoin.

I like that it's a hedge against governments printing endless amounts of money that isn't backed by anything. That was why I bought it initially. I like that it's a way to transact value over the internet without a third party like a bank.

And honestly, I like that I got 'in' early (not early enough though!).

I don't like that it's not scalable. Bitcoin SV is seen a scam since it's headed by Craig Wright (who says he is Satoshi) but I like the vision that it has. In short, it wants to be a micro transactions chain. That's another reason I got interested in Bitcoin. I don't like what I have seen of the lightning network so far.

I really don't see the value in it. Electronic payments could be better in some ways but they seem to work fine and using normal ledgers in a db is much more efficient than distributed POW or whatever.

Lack of governmental control seems like a fantasy, so long as you live somewhere with a government they will exert control over money.

Will freely admit that I'm upset I didn't run a computer program 10 years ago a get free money becoming a millionaire for no effort, I have a friend that did just that and just didn't see the value back then just like now so I passed. I really underestimated how far something so irrational could go.

It should have died long time ago. I never bought because I see it too fragile. To be honest, I don't understand its resilience, there's just too many fault points and still none has blown up so far.

The HN hatred of crypto is off the charts. I thought startup developers were open to change and innovation. Not so. And few have actually done any deep research into it.

As a developer working in the Crypto startup space. I see the writing on the wall. This is a once in a lifetime tail-event with massive disruption across industries. Everything changes.

And, I will not post the myriad examples of disruption happening now. Do your own research. Open your mind.

ETH breaks $3000. But NFT prices are crashing. Will some "collectors" get wobbly on the long term value of these assets?

One data point to watch is Christie's live auction of 9 Cryptopunks. Final bid below $9M may look "over" next to a rare Basquiat skull painting shattering records:

https://www.christies.com/lot/lot--6316969/

One phenomenon that looks interesting: Proc Gen gambling systems! Simulacra with more appeal than the actual Kentucky Derby.

Digital Horses Are the Talk of the Crypto World by Taylor Lorenz

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/01/style/zed-run-horse-racin...

https://zed.run/

And just this morning, US Fed's CBDC moves beyond the "hypothetical" into the "experimental" stage (with help from Accenture).

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-cenbanks-digital-usa/digi...

environmental disaster/waste of resources

How's this any different than: hey, I printed my own cool banknotes, and guess what, there's a limited supply? Common, buy some!

P.S. Those who invest in crypto will always find a way to rationalize the fact that it simply has no value. I'm really really curious when this will burst.

The most obvious and resilient scam ever. Makes me doubt how bright the future of humanity is.

It’s interesting p2p got back into popularity. Where most stuff seems to be client-server crud stuff, it was something refreshing. But it’s over a decade old now. While originally intended as digital cash, it seems more like another asset class

No personal use for a digital monetary source.

Do not invest to gamble...

so no holdings or use of BC, and no plans to.

Could change some day if I am forced to (say hacker-news requires a .001 BC payment to use, maybe I will go buy a fraction of a bitcoin or something).

I had some bitcoin and sold it. I found myself constantly checking it's value which distrubed my peace. So I got shot of it and am happier :-)

I think bitcoin is a cool idea, but it results in too much waste that i can't like like it

i think some descendant of cryptocurrency technologies has a good chance of being in use in 100 years, it's very cool stuff. will it be Bitcoin? i don't know, I think it's likely something better will come along but there are counterarguments to that.

there is a loud minority of Bitcoin freaks on social media who are incredibly strange, aggressive, hostile, and irritating. if bitcoin is going to be a major part of the world economy, then these new rich people will have to learn how to behave like decent adults, or normal people won't put up with them.

I'm a huge fan of decentralization. I dislike capitalism. I used to like cryptocurrencies until I realized cryptocurrencies are just capitalism in an extreme form, over the internet, and in blazing speeds. Everything bad with capitalism gets amplified in cryptocurrencies, as it never sleeps. It's all about the money, from the protocols to the organizations that gets build on top.

Contrast that against decentralization efforts like Secure Scuttlebutt (SSB) or Mastodon, where the communication and liberation is the core focus, enabled by protocols that works offline-first (in the case of SSB) and can pass data between any peer.

cool technology

decentralized cult