Ask HN: Do you still think public blockchains/stablecoins are useless/a scam?

[spir]

Two and a half years ago I submitted "Warn HN: I've never seen the HN community so delusional about a major tech area" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35172767

Since then, many corporations, governments, Wall St, and central banks have begun adopting public blockchains, especially Ethereum, and stablecoins.

Hacker News has been almost 100% anti-crypto/public blockchains/stablecoins for years.

In light of recent progress, has your view changed?

[gregjor]

> Since then, many corporations, governments, Wall St, and central banks have begun adopting public blockchains, especially Ethereum, and stablecoins.

Do you have actual examples other than companies enabling speculation or worse when they can safely take a cut? PayPal "adopted" crypto (and by extension blockchain) in the sense they will let me buy and sell for a fee. I see that as analogous to a grocery store selling cigarettes -- they haven't "adopted" or endorsed tobacco, they just sell it because they can make money.

[spir]

One example is the potential for tokenization on public blockchains to provide a more globalized, automated, and efficient foundation, with stronger property rights, for global financial asset operations.

https://www.economist.com/by-invitation/2025/12/01/larry-fin...

[JohnFen]

> In light of recent progress, has your view changed?

No, my view hasn't changed. The blockchain is not useless, but as near as I can see, it's usefulness is very limited. The cryptocurrency world seems to have many more scammers in it than in the general population, making that world one that I am better off avoiding.

That corporations and etc. have begun using this technology more doesn't make me feel more positively about cryptocurrency. It makes me feel less positively about those entities that are adopting it.

[emmasuntech]

I don’t think they’re useless, but most of the hype was. Stablecoins clearly solved a real cross-border settlement problem, and some public chains found niche but legitimate use cases. But the majority of crypto projects were still scams or unnecessary. My view is basically: useful at the infrastructure layer, mostly noise at the application layer.

[smt88]

HN has been consistent that their only use-cases are the trading of speculative assets (gambling) and circumvention of law (crime).

Wall St. and the other entities you mentioned engage in one or both of these activities. That doesn't mean we should be cheering them on.

[spir]

What do you think of the growing evidence that blockchain will soon provide much more utility to the world beyond gambling and crime?

https://www.economist.com/by-invitation/2025/12/01/larry-fin...

[adrianwaj]

Well, if there was a way to monetize bot traffic, wouldn't that be useful? And bots may be willing to pay, given they are training on your data. So getting on the receiving end of the trillion dollar paywall... not useless at all.

I think the idea was for stablecoins to be used to sell government bonds and treasuries. Interesting use cases for digital nomads.. assessing possible geographic locations according to the strength of their stablecoins and government integration.

So it's about micropayments and making them viable and useful. That's still the 'cold fusion' of today's internet. I personally think they should be opt-in and scalable to one's generosity/means. If people are willing/able to pay for something, they should.

Blockchain just needs to be implemented better, that's all.

"Ping the AI and then charge it when it comes" is the future, quite possibly.

[spir]

Coincidentally, there is a renaissance in micropayments happening in crypto right now. It is only a few months old and growing fast. It's called x402.

https://www.x402.org/

https://www.x402scan.com/

Related to x402 micropayments is the ERC-8004 standard for AI agent reputation.

https://8004scan.io/

https://eips.ethereum.org/EIPS/eip-8004

[colesantiago]

Yes. It is still a scam.

Just because Wall Street and Silicon Valley are still embracing blockchains, 'stablecoins' and other scammy crypto products, doesn't mean it has any legitimate usecase today or in the future.

Crypto, blockchains, stablecoins and the rest of them still cannot do better that what current system already does and is used primarily for speculative and criminal purposes.

Nothing has changed.

[spir]

We should be increasingly skeptical of the claim that crypto can't do better than the existing system.

I myself use defi all the time. At this moment, I could go borrow money on the blockchain and send it to anybody in the world with 5 minutes of notice. I can also swap dollars into gold or NVDA 24/7/365 with 5 minutes of notice. How can we claim this isn't better than the incumbent traditional finance system?

[red-iron-pine]

> Do you still think public blockchains/stablecoins are useless/a scam?

yes.

when my mom is able to buy a car with BTC then I'll believe it has value.

otherwise it's just another instrument for speculation and carbon creation

[ares623]

IMO blockchains/crypto haven’t become more legitimate, it’s everything else that has lost legitimacy.

[pestatije]

their trading tokens!...nough said