Why is there a negative sentiment towards crypto?

Question

It seems to me like there&rsquo;s an overall negative sentiment towards crypto here on HN. Why is this the case?I get there&rsquo;s a lot of false hype around various projects and the space has scams but looking beyond that, is it not a system that can disrupt existing financial system? Im taking about things like decentralised exchanges, RWAs, stablecoins, appear to be converging on allowing more people to participate in the financial markets without needing to go thru lengthy onboarding processes or engaging with brokers. The programmable factor also allows for there to be a platform for new ways of auntonomous transacting.Do people tend to disagree with this vision or if not, why then would people here on HN have a negative view on crypto?

prakashdep · Accepted Answer

HN values things you can build with and ship. The negative sentiment isn't really about the underlying tech, it's about the ratio of speculation to actual utility.
Most crypto conversations still center around price, tokens, and "number go up." That doesn't land with a crowd that cares about solving real problems with software.
The tech underneath is interesting, though. ZKPs for privacy, programmable settlement, onchain identity. But those conversations get drowned out by the noise of yet another token launch or influencer pump.
The sentiment would shift if more projects shipped useful products first and tokenized later (or never). The crypto projects HN does respect (Signal adding MobileCoin, the ZKP work Google is doing) lead with the problem they solve, not the financial instrument they created.

maxerickson · Answer

Things like trust and exposure to the legal system are actually good.

yawpitch · Answer

When the thought leaders on your subject include both the Trumpogarchy and Logan Paul, your subject tends to draw negative sentiment.

verdverm · Answer

It's the ecosystem domination by crypto bros, they ruined it for everyone.
A lot of hammer looking for nails and the micro-financialization of everything. "Crypto" has been captured by Wallstreet and the oligarchs, Trump is using it for corruption. How much money did they print while crowing about what you find in the Bitcoin genesis block?
"allowing more people to participate in the financial markets" (*hit like this is a lie, it's really about being able to middleman and take a cut of every transaction, or leave them as the bag holders)
HN will find interest in various blockchain technologies extracted from the crypto. Things like using ZKP to have online safety while preserving privacy, that is an interesting intersection of HN fav topics.
Case in point, I find that Google is pushing on ZKP interesting and exciting: https://blog.google/innovation-and-ai/technology/safety-secu...
We're talking about similar in ATProto ecosystem

bfbcu763 · Answer

Because most people dont know any history of Finance. We already tried this once upon a time. In fact its a natural evoltiinary stage before central banks emerge. Ask your favoriye GPT why they emerged or the sequence of failures that led to their emergence. It was called the Free Banking system back then. And it failed because distributed systems are not magic just because the skill to build then exists.

ksaj · Answer

I just read earlier today that Justin Bieber's $1.3 million dollar Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT is now worth $12,000. Pretty much what everyone was saying would happen at the time.Constant false hype, followed by huge financial loss, is what keeps me away from it all.