from Hacker News

Show HN: Crypto Table – A Periodic Table of Cryptocurrencies

by jesalg on 8/22/18, 8:43 PM with 14 comments

  • by acjohnson55 on 8/23/18, 3:43 AM

    Kinda cute, but that's a giiiiant stretch of metaphor to enforce the exact shape of the periodic table on a domain whose first principles have little similarity to the principles that drive the patterns of behavior in the elements.

  • by chrisco255 on 8/22/18, 11:43 PM

    Very cool, a lot of people don't understand that most of the top cryptocurrencies are not merely Bitcoin clones. This chart underscores that point and distinguishes the differences between them. I would expect the number of categories and the difficulty in creating classifications to increase over time, however, so I'm not sure how well these boxes will hold up in the long run.

  • by encyclopedia on 8/23/18, 1:54 AM

  • by steve_taylor on 8/22/18, 11:29 PM

    Namecoin (NMC) is missing.

  • by badatshipping on 8/23/18, 3:49 AM

    Augur is fintech. If it takes off, Wall Street is really going to care.

  • by hanniabu on 8/25/18, 1:12 PM

    Blocknet is the first, and still leading, interoperability protocol yet it is not listed. Little disappointing to say the least.

  • by mmanfrin on 8/23/18, 1:04 AM

    Tezos feels a little more worthy to be on here than many listed.

  • by dagenix on 8/23/18, 4:45 AM

    So, I click on a random square to find out some more information: POLY.

    That takes me here: https://www.cryptocompare.com/coins/poly/overview. On this page, its listed as "PolyBit".

    The description on that page: "Polybit is a proof of work scrypt based alternative crypto currency with a 10% premine and a block time target of 3 minutes, a hard cap of 150 million units and a difficulty retargetting every 24 hours. The website URL is inactive at the time of writing."

    Inactive website, that seems concerning.

    So, I click around there and find the Twitter account (https://twitter.com/polybitco) that appears to be associated with that page. It was last active in June of 2015. It describes itself thusly: "Polybit is a next generation crypto currency that changes the game for digital currencies and the relationship between businesses and users forever" - bold.

    There is a link to a website there: http://www.polybit.co/ - but, oh dear, that website now belongs to some company selling sealants.

    Undeterred, I head to Google. Searching for "Polybit" brings up this result: http://polybit.com/ - which seems unrelated - its some sort of backend API product.

    So, I try the name listed on the Periodic Table - I search for "Polymath". That brings me here: https://polymath.network/ which appears also to be unrelated - its a website for some crypto platform that lists one of its benefits as: "Access to 2 Billion Unbanked - There is a trove of wealth that is untouched by Wall Street that can now be accessed through Polymath.". Maybe I'm a bit cynical, but I don't see how someone who can't get a bank account is likely to have the resources necessary to make good decisions regarding securities trading.

    Going back to cryptocompare.com - the trading volume for the last 24h is allegedly 12.77 bitcoin - roughly $82,000. In the grand scheme of the entire investment world, $82k is nothing. But, this is $82k in trading volume on a coin that is either dead, or maybe its now a sealant company, or, maybe its a backend API, or, maybe its some company that seems to be designed to try to separate the already disadvantaged from whatever money they may have.

    This is just an anecdote, but, it really does not help convince me that the vast majority of cryptocurrencies are anything but a fancy way to take your money, put it in a pile, and burn it. (Or, maybe useful if you are trying to launder it)

    (All that being said, a pretty fun website concept and great execution!)

  • by Suriak on 8/23/18, 3:05 AM

    The periodic table of pseudo investment vehicles that will lose your money.

  • by titto on 8/26/18, 3:52 PM

    Another way to show https://dailycoinprice.com/