[hnthrow1010]

Ok, you can think that, but there's still no explanation here as to why they can't do it. You should read some other comments further down in the thread, like this one:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32292222

If the hope is that they just won't shut down the internet, or the government will be too weak to stop it... what's the point of cryptocurrency? You could again just get them to use USD or Euro or something else.

[seibelj]

It’s a bit of a leap to go from “sure we steal your money and everyone is poor” to “hey we are going back 20 years and stopping all communication”. I think it’s a bridge too far outside of North Korea. Even China has a die hard and widespread crypto base despite their “banning” of exchanges and their great firewall. I worked previously on tech to get around it (rapidly cycling domains that are registered often and flip when the neutral list blocks a domain temporarily) and that was so normal people didn’t have to get one of the easy-to-find VPNs.

If crypto skeptics on HN were right then crypto would have died during one of the prior busts like beanie babies did. But it has an ideology underpinning it (Austrian economics and individual freedom) that keeps it growing.

While there are many who get in for a quick flip there is a large, possibly the majority, who see it as a movement rather than a get quick rich scam. This is why it doesn’t die.

[acdha]

It's partially the ideology but also the fact that as a very weak fiat currency everyone who bought in early has no way to cash out unless they can convince other people to buy their tokens instead of something else. All of those VCs, early adopters, etc. have a massive financial incentive both to talk it up constantly and create pump-and-dump schemes around things like NFTs because the alternative is walking away from the money they initially spent. The sums in question will pay for a lot of promotion and human psychology tells us there will be plenty of people hoping they can promote it back up to what they think it's worth based on paper profits they didn't realize in the past. I'd expect even more volatility as the major players quietly cash out.