[mozarella]

https://vitalik.eth.limo/general/2024/01/31/end.html#section...

Vitalik touched upon this briefly in an other-wise long and wide-reaching essay. I think its a good treatment of the topic that the author is talking about. He categorizes the ecosystem broadly into 4 cohorts- [token holders] (which includes investors, speculators, etc.), [pragmatic users] (actual end-users who spend crypto to buy stuff), [intellectuals] (who give the vision and ideology), [builders] (of blockchains, apps, etc.) - These 4 groups come together but with different motivations and there is a gap in understanding between them. Indeed, there is even resistance against trying to reach an understanding - one which plays out in the comments section of every crypto-related post on hn. The author of this twitter-post clearly falls under [intellectual, builder] and has been disillusioned by the speculators from [token-holders]. Yet the [token-holders] are a vital component (as are the other groups) as they fund most of the development and adoption. Ultimately these 4 groups have more in common than not. The challenge going forward is to balance the occasionally conflicting needs of all the 4 groups, which includes checking the excesses of each group, while try to achieve a consensus. (Vitalik provides a nice diagram that maps out what that would look like). Crypto is an experiment in economics and economics is a science as well as a social-science. Anyone looking for a good solution must seek to understand and address the psychology of all the actors involved.

[cryptonym]

In a casino you have - The gamblers spending a lot on the casino - The people coming in for the fun and spending little money - The owners/C-levels - The operational team

Someone from the operational team just learned that business relies only on the first group to be successful.

[brohee]

You forgot the money launderers, in both ecosystems. Casinos are the original tumbler.

[brianolson]

I worked in blockchain ("builder") for 5 years. I started 'eh, there are speculators, whatever, I build good tech' but finished 'holy crap speculators completely dominate and distort everything, nobody cares about good tech'

[Aardwolf]

> Someone from the operational team just learned that business relies only on the first group to be successful.

Is there any possibility the presence of the people who are there just for fun still encourages/increases the size of the first group?

[soerxpso]

You also have this quadchotomy in a department store, or in a number of other valuable businesses.

[Traster]

Ah I see, so the [token holder] hires a [builder] to build something, and uses that to then hire [intellectual] to scam the ['pragmatic user']?

To take this a little more seriously, this is computer programming, very famously you don't need massive gobs of VC capital to build something. The only reason for the [builder] needs [token holder] is to hire [intellectual] to scam [user].

Oh and of course, [token holder] [builder] and [intellectual] are the same guy with 3 different anime profile pics.

[expedition32]

The funny thing is that people are betting on a profile with anime pictures against the ECB representing 500 million people.

And yet when they want to actually buy a Lambo they need hard currency...

[TZubiri]

That's a very nice categorization, but it seems orthogonal to the categories of: [scammers and hackers that want an untraceable and unrefundable payment method], [scammers that use cryptos themselves to scam and rugpull], ...

[mozarella]

He was talking about actors who contribute to the system. See my other reply : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46202319

[mbrochh]

Classic Vitalik logic. A giant mountain of word salad and he still somehow magically fails to name the fifth and most important group: Scammers.

[mozarella]

Because he is only talking about categories that can contribute to the system. [Scammers] do not. In so far as the system and the diagram is concerned, [scammers] are to be thwarted and their harmful effects mitigated. A lot of the work done in crypto is security which is entirely about thwarting [scammers]. As an example, The original bitcoin paper on double-spending problem is devoted to securing against a particular type of scam.

Speculators fall in a gray area and need to be dealt with on a case-by-case basis. many of them are straight up scams, Some are legit, and the rest are in between. Stratton Oakmont was a scam. Does that mean your index-fund is also one? Or the stock market and financial system as a whole?

[mrtksn]

Has Vitalik fallen of grace? Some time ago I stopped following the crypto culture and now I keep being shown tweets ridiculing him.

[sunshine-o]

From what I understand the Ethereum Foundation has attracted a lot of criticism. I am not sure how much power and influence he has over it.

One of the sensitive issue is the price of ETH it seems as it didn't perform well over the last 3-4 years. And staking it will only give you about 2.5% today.

So in a sense the Ethereum Foundation is the opposite of the criticism we usually hear about crypto: the "stock" doesn't perform well but real progress have been made with the technology and in the ecosystem.

One thing that is clear is that transactions are cheaper, more reliable and anybody can still participate and build on it.

[xnx]

2 groups: con men and marks.

[hshdhdhj4444]

The only buyers are criminals, sanction evaders, and probably the dumbest people in the world given that the entire crypto ecosystem is focused on one thing and one thing only. Creating the most deflationary monetary system in history.

[zombot]

And also the most unerasable, and hence traceable, system. You can't delete records from a blockchain.

[lxgr]

The entire crypto ecosystem is hardly all about deflation these days. If anything, I'd argue the opposite. Stablecoins, yield, perpetual futures etc. are hardly what Satoshi had in mind.

[orbital-decay]

>criminals, sanction evaders

The definition of both may vary depending on where you are. Being not controlled by governments is the original purpose of cryptocurrencies.

[HighGoldstein]

There are a lot of places in the world where crypto payments are now prevalent, not because users are the "dumbest people in the world" but because they have no better alternative for electronic finance. Either conventional banking is nonexistent/abysmal for this purpose or their national currencies are in such bad condition that it's better for them to hold and use cryptocurrencies.

[SirMaster]

So it was dumb of me to buy my bitcoins back when they were less than $100 a coin just in the slim chance that it completely blew up? I don't see what was dumb about a decision to put less than $1000 into 10 coins just in case. Worked out really well for me in the end and a less than $1000 gamble doesn't seem like that crazy of a gamble, at least to me.