from Hacker News

Are cryptocurrencies about to go mainstream?

by MurdocTannen on 7/3/17, 1:28 PM with 79 comments

by CM30 on 7/3/17, 2:16 PM
Not until they can really explain to the average Joe why cryptocurrencies are such a good thing.
Because at the end of the day, privacy is nowhere near as important to many people are it arguably should be, and trying to market cryptocurrencies as 'independent from government control' is likely a losing proposition.
Same with most of the reasons involved I've seen invoked for why to use Bitcoin or the likes online. They're logical, but they're also likely to fly straight over the heads of most of the population.
Add the deliberate way that governments and the media try and portray cryptocurrencies as being used for 'criminal' purposes (which has given these currencies a bit of an image problem), and you've got something that seems very unlikely to ever truly go mainstream.
by twothamendment on 7/3/17, 1:58 PM
Yes, and 2017 is the year of the Linux Desktop. We can barely get stores to use EMV/chip card readers, so I'd have to say no.
by hackermailman on 7/3/17, 2:09 PM
This article can be summed up by the bottom page quote “Prices right now aren’t being driven by network usage, they’re being driven by speculation that tokens are going to appreciate. It’s a gold-rush mentality.”
Also everytime I see yet another Ethereum story I think of http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html
by shp0ngle on 7/3/17, 2:51 PM
The bitcoin community is now arguing to the point of death threats whether it's better to scale by adding data outside of the blocks and then making slightly larger blocks, or by adding data outside of the blocks and then adding more data outside of the blocks.
And both sides are accusing the other side of being authoritarian, for centralization, and basically being even a worst enemy than The State, which is like the worst thing ever. In the meantime, no scaling solution is being implemented, because they are too busy blocking the other side from implementing their solutions.
by andy_ppp on 7/3/17, 2:33 PM
This is the exact article that starts appearing about 6 to 12 months before a huge bust within a particular market. I’d be hugely surprised if there isn’t a huge rise over the next 4 months followed by a collapse. You should be looking for where you think the bottom of the market is because it’s too useful not to go up again (it’ll be around $800, I’m a time traveller). The top could be as high at $6000 though before everyone realises how absurd and manipulative this all is...
by jondubois on 7/3/17, 2:29 PM
I was very sceptical when I first heard about Bitcoin but now I do believe that cryptocurrencies have some intrinsic value as a payment system.
The Bitcoin brand itself has intrinsic value which is related to its popularity. Consumers have always been willing to pay a premium to deal with specific brands which they know and trust.
When people buy Coca-Cola, they're not paying for brown sugar-water.
I do think that a lot of Bitcoin's current value is driven by the black market for money laundering but its distributed nature puts the government in a difficult position when it comes to regulation.
If the government tried to delegitimize Bitcoin and shut down all big miners and exchanges, it would just fragment the Bitcoin network further and shift its control into the hands of smaller, shadier players who would be much harder to regulate.
There has always been a market for virtual currencies but because they used to be centralized, the government was always able to step in and shut them down (e.g. Flooz, e-gold...) Cryptocurrencies might actually solve that problem.
by RayVR on 7/3/17, 3:30 PM
The extremely simple answer is: No.
Cryptocurrencies require significantly more power to verify a single transaction[1]. The ability to scale to a meaningful size does not exist now. They need to improve efficiency by 3-4 orders of magnitude to be competitive.
[1] http://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption
by thehardsphere on 7/3/17, 1:54 PM
If a headline is a question, the answer is always no. Otherwise, the headline would not be stated as a question, but as an assertion of fact.
by michalu on 7/3/17, 2:32 PM
We will see some major drama in this space.
Take EOS for example... it's a company that's basically a Bitshares fork and it's raising possibly a half to one billion dollars on the promise to deliver something different in one year.
Their purchase agreement promises nothing and is highly concerning: https://eos.io/purchaseagreement/EOS%20Token%20Purchase%20Ag...
What investor would give a startup half billion dollars in seed money without even an MVP?
In the end it all comes down to: will the team deliver or not? The startups fail at 95% + money corrupt teams.
If the team members done 0% work so far and are rich already, what's their motivation like? Why push through the hard times and drama that will inevitably happen if you can just bail out right now and take the money
by tuxidomasx on 7/3/17, 3:22 PM
No. My dad still calls them "bitcorns." He heard about them on NPR.
It's anecdotal, but cryptocurrencies practically don't exist in my non tech-related social circles.
by atemerev on 7/3/17, 1:57 PM
If The Guardian is writing about it — no. The hype is over.
by swsieber on 7/3/17, 3:26 PM
Yes - just like California gold mining went mainstream. I overheard one of my non-tech friends recommended investing in Etherium to another non-tech friend - it made me worry.
At least the recommender actually called it a crypto currency and the other, the recommendee, asked what made it useful.
by Taylor_OD on 7/3/17, 2:26 PM
If it was easier to buy and sell them they might. I know people who are interested but due to the difficulty and complexity of buying/storing/selling they havnt yet.
by krrrh on 7/3/17, 3:24 PM
Is 2017 the year of widespread PGP adoption?
by bitxbitxbitcoin on 7/3/17, 3:44 PM
I'd say that cryptocurrencies are going mainstream... Bit by bit. /s
by Eerie on 7/3/17, 2:45 PM
Call me back when Bitcoin can process as many transactions per second as Visa. Or, heck, even 10% as many transactions.