[HN Gopher] Solana Labs completes a $314M private token sale led...
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Solana Labs completes a $314M private token sale led by Andreessen
Horowitz
Author : nikita
Score : 33 points
Date : 2021-06-13 21:39 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (solana.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (solana.com)
| mgh2 wrote:
| Previous related discussion:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27492616
| kgraves wrote:
| This is how the scam begins, the downfall of Solana. It is yet
| another pump and dump just like all of these coins.
|
| Cryptocurrencies must be stopped, there is absolutely NO benefit
| to having them.
|
| We seen them all before, ransomware becoming rampant, massive
| waste of electricity and resources and now the pandora's box
| can't be closed quicker enough.
| strangescript wrote:
| People have been saying this about crypto for 10 years and
| bitcoin 30x'ed despite all the negativity, with tons of big
| institutions loading up on it behind the scenes. It's here to
| stay.
|
| When you buy something at the store, the cashier doesn't
| question you how you got the money. They don't care. All they
| know is the currency is the proof that you did something, or
| sold something that other people valued.
|
| Valuing a unique crypto hash is no more ridiculous than someone
| valuing a painting, old baseball cards, ancient pottery and all
| the other random stuff people collect and trade that are
| nothing more than a decoration.
|
| Well, except crypto completely mobile, easy to exchange and
| can't be taken from you like all other the assets we have been
| exchanging since the beginning of time.
| prox wrote:
| Can't agree more. The tech is interesting, but it is the same
| greed behind it which is old as mankind. It solves absolutely
| nothing, does nothing of value and adds none. Crypto is quickly
| becoming a failure of immense proportions.
|
| The externalities of cryptocurrencies include:
|
| Massive carbon emissions. Funding "rogue states" such as North
| Korea and Iran. Tax evasion. Laundering the proceeds of crime,
| including the drug trade, theft and fraud, and armed robbery.
| An epidemic of ransomware. A wave of securities fraud targeting
| the greedy and vulnerable. Shortages of products including
| graphics cards, hard disks, and chips in general as limited fab
| capacity is diverted to mining ASICS. Abuse of free tiers of
| Web services. Noise pollution.
| baby wrote:
| Obviously many people disagree.
|
| Just to pick on one issue, carbon emission is negligible
| (unless you talk about bitcoin).
|
| Many people also rely on transfers of cryptocurrency. Just
| not you or your entourage.
| nikanj wrote:
| Obviously people who have money to launder don't like the
| idea of stopping money laundering. The same for people
| doing drug trade, avoiding international sanctions, tax
| evasion, etc.
| [deleted]
| mjfern wrote:
| Yes, the people who disagree are those pumping and dumping
| and the bag holders.
|
| And cryptocurrency mining consumes as much electricity
| annually as the country of Argentina. Country scale
| emissions is not at all negligible, particularly in light
| of catastrophic global warming.
| baby wrote:
| That's your opinion. And I guess that's all you have when
| you can't talk about the tech.
| anonporridge wrote:
| Notice what you did here is the same subtle
| disinformation tactic that every major news story about
| crypto mining employs.
|
| 1. Compare crypto energy usage to something huge (small
| country, big tech companies, etc).
|
| 2. Don't put that into context of whole of human
| civilization. It's <1% of global electricity consumption.
|
| 3. Don't clarify that this is comparing to _electricity_
| consumption, excluding other major energy uses like
| transportation, heating, and shipping which are generally
| non electric and necessarily carbon emitting.
|
| 4. Imply that cryptocurrency electricity usage is
| creating tons of carbon emissions, even though it
| consumes electricity and only seeks the cheapest source.
|
| When it comes to carbon emissions and the resulting
| climate catastrophe, we could shut down every
| cryptocurrency tomorrow and we'd still be fucked.
|
| Attacking cryptocurrency for it's energy use is a
| horrible waste of political and social capital that could
| be put toward actually solving the problem rather than
| engaging in moral masturbation.
| xvector wrote:
| I guarantee you that you engage in activities that
| provide far less benefit to humanity but use far more
| energy than cryptocurrency.
| miohtama wrote:
| Please read the article and study the underlying technology.
| Most of your statement is incorrect and lacks insight and
| facts.
|
| Solana uses proof of stake and does not have the energy
| consumption issue, or does not use graphics card. It is cost
| and energy efficient alternative for Bitcoin and other proof
| of work public blockchains.
|
| More about the history of proof of stake here:
|
| https://capitalgram.com/posts/history-of-cryptocurrencies/
| dvt wrote:
| > Most of your statement is incorrect and lacks insight and
| facts.
|
| You expertly avoid all arguments except that Solana uses
| proof of stake. Who cares. Prox's point still stands: folks
| will continue to use blockchain-powered "pseudo-currencies"
| for illegal drugs, murder-for-hire, money laundering,
| ransomware, and speculation. No one's buying groceries with
| BTC.
| haswell wrote:
| Replace 'blockchain-powered "pseudo-currencies"' with
| "cash", and the same is true. Better outlaw cash.
|
| This thread is not about BTC...
| kgraves wrote:
| We have Paypal / Bank Transfers to send money quickly,
| BTC is a slower way of sending money.
|
| What is your point?
| haswell wrote:
| Again, this thread is not about BTC...
| api wrote:
| My favorite Bitcoin joke: "so it's full of fraud, scams,
| Ponzi schemes, money laundering, and is heavily used to
| buy drugs and contraband... so this means it's a real
| currency now?"
| crummy wrote:
| Isn't that why we don't have $10,000 notes? Or even $500?
| To make illegal activity more difficult?
| dvt wrote:
| > Replace 'blockchain-powered "pseudo-currencies"' with
| "cash", and the same is true. Better outlaw cash.
|
| You can't be serious. Ad hoc cash transfers are regulated
| (can't bring more than $10k across borders without
| declaring, for example), supply is limited, and bills
| have literal _serial numbers_ on them.
| haswell wrote:
| Crypto is a relatively new technology. Illegal money is
| as old as civilization.
|
| Yes, there are regulations to make it harder to carry out
| elicit business, but that doesn't change history, nor
| does it invalidate the point I was trying to make.
| xvector wrote:
| And yet a ton of illegal activity is performed with cash.
|
| On one hand, some cryptos (not Solana) are useful for
| illegal activities. On another, they're also useful for
| privacy, censorship resistance, and financial freedom.
|
| It's no different than the argument against E2EE, but I'd
| rather live in a society with E2EE than without.
| GoodJokes wrote:
| Folks will also continue government issued currency for
| illegal activities too. In fact, if we look at capitalism
| at large, most currency use is unethical.
| miohtama wrote:
| > avoid
|
| Because I am typing on a mobile.
|
| Happy to answer later if you are genuinely curious and
| not just ranting.
| baby wrote:
| Like real money, it can be used for fraud and for
| legitimate usecases. Your generalization made up from
| thin air brings nothing to the conversation.
| raziel2701 wrote:
| So then what's the point of this thing then? All these
| crypto things reek of ponzi schemes and I have yet to see
| an application of it that makes me think the technology
| is good/needed. So far, crypto is a solution looking for
| a problem.
| kgraves wrote:
| How can you create a coin, get investors into a private
| token sale (or even allocating pre-mined coins), hype the
| trojan horse onto the public to get them involved, then
| getting the coin on main exchanges and then investors
| dumping the coin causing it to be worthless. All this
| being unregulated by the way.
|
| This happens all the time with these projects most
| recently ICP (Internet Computer) and just one of the
| reasons why this is all a complete scam.
|
| There is a name for this type of rinse and repeated
| scheme.
|
| There is no reason why this can also happen to Solana,
| rendering cryptocurrencies even more worthless than real
| money.
| haswell wrote:
| The problem with this comment is that it ignores advances in
| crypto meant to address the primary downsides.
|
| I'm 100% in agreement that some aspects of some crypto
| currencies are extremely problematic and should/must be
| stopped.
|
| But generalizing all crypto the way this comment does is not
| helpful or constructive. Recognize the nuance, and be specific
| about the issues.
| [deleted]
| atlgator wrote:
| Not surprised Mark Andreesen and Ben Horowitz are at the center
| of it. They were on Clubhouse shilling NFTs all pandemic.
| coolestguy wrote:
| Spoken like someone talking about immigration who knows only
| what they've seen on Fox News.
|
| You're so unbelievably short sighted about a tech innovation.
| There's more to crypto than bitcoin & greed is an unsolvable
| issue in humanity, not a crypto bug,
| baby wrote:
| I agree with this comment. The FUD on HN about crypto and
| fraud is disappointing to say the least. Impossible to have a
| good technical discussion around cryptocurrencies because of
| that. I'm going to start flagging these.
| rantwasp wrote:
| it's not impossible. just harder. also, remember that hn
| has a bit of an echo chamber effect. I've been downvoted
| over time for expressing unpopular opinions that turn out
| to be mostly true. i don't care. i'm here with an open
| minded and will listen to the other side arguments.
|
| X is dangerous and must be stopped is not an argument. You
| need to articulate why it's dangerous and exactly what you
| mean when you say that and when you say it must be stopped.
|
| also, crypto is not going anywhere. If you cannot see that
| maybe you should start looking into it a bit deeper
| dang wrote:
| Ok, but this response has such a reflexive, repetitive,
| generic-indignant response to every remotely related topic that
| it is now 100% predictable, and that makes it off-topic for HN.
| We only want intellectually curious conversation here, and
| curiosity and predictability are antithetical.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
|
| I absolutely don't mean to pick on you personally--it's a
| systemic problem. Also, threads are a co-creation of comments
| and upvotes, and reflexive upvotes are by far the bigger
| problem.
|
| If you or anyone wants further explanation about what we
| are/aren't hoping for in HN threads, the following principles
| and the associated links should help:
|
| _Curiosity withers under repetition_ :
| https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...
|
| _Generic discussion is not interesting, at least not on
| internet forums_ :
| https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...
|
| _We want reflective rather than reflexive conversation_ :
| https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...
|
| _Diffs are what make an HN conversation interesting_ :
| https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...
| mssundaram wrote:
| > Cryptocurrencies must be stopped, there is absolutely NO
| benefit to having them.
|
| I don't think that they're perfect, or that they're good for
| any and everything, but your statement is hyperbolic.
| rowaweigh wrote:
| Can someone explain what is proof of history? I tried to read the
| white paper but don't understand what PoH is supposed to achieve
| or how it interacts with proof of stake.
| SheinhardtWigCo wrote:
| I tried to read the whitepaper too. Either I'm really dumb or
| it's total nonsense.
|
| "Proof of History" appears to mean that trusted verifiers
| maintain the network.
| ubavic wrote:
| I don't even know what this article is about, but I noticed
| digits of the p.
| darkotic wrote:
| they got the whole pi
| [deleted]
| bobthepanda wrote:
| What's the practical difference between this and issuing shares?
| Like, can you just issue coins at a 1:1 ratio to shares to skirt
| securities regulations? It smells fishy.
| _rpd wrote:
| > The token sale, which was completed earlier this year, was
| only made available to off-shore investors
|
| There does seem to be some regulatory testing going on here.
| miohtama wrote:
| Shares have dividend, control (voting), information and
| litigation rights in a company.
|
| Tokens often have dividend (through staking and different risk
| taking model than shares) and voting rights. You have way less
| legal protection.
|
| Because the system, e.g. Solana, is decentralised and all
| information is public (in the optimal case), there is less need
| for information and litigation rights. All market participants
| can have, more of less, the same information.
| dan-robertson wrote:
| Plenty of coins (particularly those that go through an ICO)
| _may_ be considered to be securities by the SEC.
| dQw4w9WgXcQ wrote:
| Interesting. This seems to complement the recent $100M Arrington
| XRP investment into Algorand
|
| https://www.algorand.com/resources/news/arrington-algo-growt...
|
| You know the game's getting serious when the sharky VC's smell
| their new blood money in the water and start tossing around 9
| figure stacks.
| narag wrote:
| This is confusing. The news seem to be twofold: the company got
| funded using the very same platform they build.
|
| It's both about crypto and a bit cryptic.
| Aeolun wrote:
| This sounds _exactly_ like Ethereum. What makes this so unique.
|
| Also:
|
| > biggest crypto hackathon
|
| 100, instead of 50 participants I'm sure.
| lopatin wrote:
| Being able to do 50,000 tx per second with fees at fractions of
| a penny is what differentiates this from Ethereum. This makes
| things such as truly real time, decentralized exchanges
| feasible.
| baby wrote:
| Congrats to Solana. Does someone understand how their consensus
| protocol works? I heard it's quite efficient.
| mattdesl wrote:
| It's good to see more research and development funds being
| invested in alternative consensus mechanisms beyond PoW/PoS.
|
| Solana looks interesting given it's high transaction throughput
| and novel PoH consensus mechanism - assuming it can scale in a
| decentralized way beyond the support of its foundation.
|
| Though, unfortunately it still seems quite challenging to run a
| Solana validator (which ultimately defines the health &
| decentralization of the chain). The current specs and docs are
| pretty daunting last I checked; hopefully that can be improved in
| time.
| ralph84 wrote:
| > select individual investors like Boys Noize
|
| If this isn't a sign of a bubble I don't know what is.
| arcticbull wrote:
| It's worth pointing out that Alyssa Milano and MC Hammer were
| early investors in Square haha. But then again, I mean, it's a
| crypto business now so.
| furyofantares wrote:
| I wonder if they negotiated up from some _boring_ number of
| hundreds of millions of dollars to arrive at pi-hundred-million,
| or did they negotiate down to it? And was anyone advocating for
| 420M?
| dang wrote:
| All: please don't post shallow, reflexive reactions to a story
| like this, even if you're sure you're right. Such reactions are
| 100% predictable (e.g. see
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27497174), and
| predictability hurts more than rightness helps [0]. Predictable
| discussions are tedious and invariably lead to worse--for
| example, tedious discussions turn nasty because that's the only
| thing the mind has left to amuse itself [1].
|
| What we want: reflective [2], specific, _difference_ -based [3]
| responses, coming from slower cognitive processes like absorbing
| new information and thinking about it. That's what produces a
| discussion which hasn't been had before, and those are the
| curious discussions. They may be less _exciting_ in the
| sensational-indignant way, but that sort of excitement is not the
| curiosity which HN exists for [4], and I think we all know it
| gets boring after a while. Scorched earth is not interesting [5].
|
| p.s. I know nothing and have no opinion about the topic of the
| story; I just know HN threads and can spot a brewing disaster
| when I see one. The last 700 (let's say) cryptocurrency-related
| threads have all been the same flamewar. That's enough of those;
| we're ready to move to the next exercise now.
|
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(page generated 2021-06-13 23:00 UTC)