This breaks several of the site guidelines: obviously the ones about remaining civil, but also this: "Eschew flamebait. Don't introduce flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents."
Please read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and take the spirit of this site to heart. It should work like this: if you have a substantive point to make, make it thoughtfully; if you don't, please don't comment until you do.
This is a shockingly dismissive comment for the space.
I understand that cryptocurrencies are a divisive topic, particularly on HN. Dismissing the hard work of a startup showing off what i believe to be a well-executed marketing page and tool is not only shortsighted, but goes against the very philosophies of Hacker News in general.
I hope no one is investing all of their savings in any one type of asset, let alone cryptocurrency. Generally people diversify their investments according to their risk-tolerance. I am fairly young and not that risk-averse but still only have a tiny fraction of my investment portfolio in cryptocurrency.
You may be right — the difference between investing and speculation is a fine line and buying and trading cryptocurrency is definitely risky business. We certainly don't deny that.
Some pretty interesting industries have gotten bootstrapped with speculation though, and we are hopeful that more practical applications will develop in the future.
Trains got bootstrapped with speculation... but they were clearly useful before the speculation.
Same for the Internet.
As you admit yourself, cryptocurrencies are a solution looking for a problem. They do nothing, they provide nothing, they're just—"valuable". It's a scam, thousands of people will lose money, and you will have done your part to help those people lose money.
Now you're breaking another of the site guidelines too: "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize."
Could you please stop now? You're a fine HN commenter otherwise. It's fine to be skeptical about cryptocurrencies, as many HN users are—but it's not fine to do flamewars or break the site rules.
Solutions looking for a problem are OK and are a healthy part of the economy.
In countries that have problems with their fiat currency, non government controlled currencies are quite useful. Especially as crypto cannot be confiscated.
Or, if you're a complete and utter pessimist: When there are too many solutions looking for a problem, it could also mean that there is too much money in the wrong hands.
You have started a company to help people lose money.
In the future, kindly use your enthusiasm and skills for something more useful.