Hacker News: scyclow

New comment by scyclow in "DeepSeek v4"

scyclow — Fri, 24 Apr 2026 16:31:10 +0000

I don't know what American LLMs you're using. Just asked Claude, which gives nuanced answers on both, but amounts to "It's contested, but numerous authoritative bodies say yes" and "it depends on your definition of gender".

New comment by scyclow in "DeepSeek v4"

scyclow — Fri, 24 Apr 2026 15:06:57 +0000

As an American, I can conclusively say that we absolutely have no moral high ground whatsoever. But bringing the topic back to LLMs, I don't feel great about using an LLM that has a panic attack any time I ask about Tiananmen Square or Taiwanese sovereignty.

New comment by scyclow in "Vibe Coding is an E-Bike for the Mind"

scyclow — Wed, 28 Jan 2026 19:30:42 +0000

Really? Blocked how?

Vibe Coding is an E-Bike for the Mind

scyclow — Wed, 28 Jan 2026 16:41:54 +0000

Article URL: https://steviep.xyz/txt/vibe-coding

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46797754

Points: 7

# Comments: 4

New comment by scyclow in "Ask HN: Share your personal website"

scyclow — Wed, 14 Jan 2026 18:54:42 +0000

https://steviep.xyz

New comment by scyclow in "Let a thousand societies bloom"

scyclow — Thu, 18 Dec 2025 20:26:15 +0000

I agree as it relates to bitcoin: It's positioning itself as a store of value... and it kind of works as long as the collective delusion that it _is_ a store of value holds up. But that sort of self-fulfilling prophecy is kind of flimsy. Governments get to decide what money is based on charging taxes and demand how it gets paid.

Legal contracts are similar. They 100% are reliant on social and institutional forces for enforcement and meaning. But I think smart contracts are different because they are self-enforcing. It would be very difficult to use a smart contracts as a replacement for legal contracts in most circumstances. But when the contract relates to state and digital assets on the network then it's a great tool. And if you end up with a network that hosts a lot of these important contracts, then the native crypto asset (which is used as gas to power said contracts) has value as a commodity. And if that commodity also shares all the properties of good money (fungibility, durability, portability, etc.) then all of a sudden you have money.

New comment by scyclow in "How to Set $2,455 on Fire"

scyclow — Sun, 28 Sep 2025 12:06:36 +0000

Author here. Gas costs have actually come down a lot over the past few years. It only costs me a few dollars to run the transaction. It's more that scheduling, setting up, conducting, and tearing down each burn session is a huge pain in the ass. So if I can burn 10 bills an hour, then I'd clear maybe $450 an hour after gas, which doesn't feel crazy for providing boutique financial services.

How To Set $2,455 on Fire

scyclow — Sat, 27 Sep 2025 15:31:00 +0000

Article URL: https://busd.steviep.xyz/howto

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45396590

Points: 3

# Comments: 0

New comment by scyclow in "x402 — An open protocol for internet-native payments"

scyclow — Wed, 24 Sep 2025 20:27:52 +0000

That's not really a valid criticism. You can say that same thing about any protocol. Who's to say that the majority of btc hashing power isn't single force or conspiring group?

New comment by scyclow in "x402 — An open protocol for internet-native payments"

scyclow — Tue, 23 Sep 2025 17:15:36 +0000

Being able to handle Bitcoin transactions is fine, but it's disingenuous to act like it's the only way to be truly decentralized.

New comment by scyclow in "Show HN: Burnt US Dollars"

scyclow — Fri, 19 Sep 2025 13:34:16 +0000

Frankly, this is better than a stablecoin since the value is locked on the blockchain forever no matter what.

New comment by scyclow in "Show HN: Burnt US Dollars"

scyclow — Thu, 18 Sep 2025 15:57:12 +0000

It's a federal crime a federal crime pursuant to United States Code Title 18 (CRIMES AND CRIMINAL PROCEDURE), Part I (CRIMES), Chapter 17 (COINS AND CURRENCY), Sec. 333 (Mutilation of national bank obligations):

Whoever mutilates, cuts, defaces, disfigures, or perforates, or unites or cements together, or does any other thing to any bank bill, draft, note, or other evidence of debt issued by any national banking association, or Federal Reserve bank, or the Federal Reserve System, with intent to render such bank bill, draft, note, or other evidence of debt unfit to be reissued, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than six months, or both.

Show HN: Burnt US Dollars

scyclow — Thu, 18 Sep 2025 15:49:47 +0000

I made an art project about stablecoins. Enjoy!

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45291160

Points: 9

# Comments: 6

New comment by scyclow in "Stock buybacks are stock swindles"

scyclow — Sat, 06 Sep 2025 17:04:32 +0000

The math here doesn't really work out for a couple reasons.

First... sure, if you spend $500,000 on buybacks instead of paying dividends, then large shareholders might make trillions of dollars. But individual investors make money also. In fact, every shareholder will make money in proportion to how much stock they own! The little guy isn't really getting screwed here.

Second, the stock price is determined by supply and demand. Stock buybacks increase the price by reducing supply. But, if we take the example mentioned where the company blows its entire bank account on stock buybacks (thus, harming the actual business)... the stock becomes less valuable, demand goes, and the price goes down.

Stock buybacks are functionally the same as if the company pays a dividend, and then every shareholder decides to reinvest. Except doing it as a buyback is (I believe) more tax efficient since the investor doesn't get hit with income tax before the reinvestment.

New comment by scyclow in "Making Your Own Merchant Service Provider"

scyclow — Sat, 16 Aug 2025 16:38:10 +0000

> POW is necessary to keep the network secure

It's certainly a way to keep the network secure. At best it's marginally better than POS. At worst, it's a ticking time bomb security budget cliff.

New comment by scyclow in "Monero appears to be in the midst of a successful 51% attack"

scyclow — Tue, 12 Aug 2025 14:32:30 +0000

Pretty much everything other than bitcoin, monero, and dogecoin are running proof of stake these days anyhow, so it kind of doesn't matter.

New comment by scyclow in "Fintech dystopia"

scyclow — Tue, 29 Jul 2025 14:36:17 +0000

There are different flavors of stablecoins though. There's the ponzi scheme flavor that is propped up based on hand waving alchemy, and there's the boring (and now regulated) flavor that's actually backed by real money.

New comment by scyclow in "Steam, Itch.io are pulling ‘porn’ games. Critics say it's a slippery slope"

scyclow — Fri, 25 Jul 2025 22:10:17 +0000

Yeah, but so can PayPal and Visa and Mastercard. The issue here is that payments is essentially a duopoly. Itch doesn't have any alternatives because they're locked into traditional payment rails. Stablecoins at least let someone else decide "Hey, you know what, I'm going to create a coin that can be used as payment for porn games." And executing on that is fairly straightforward.

New comment by scyclow in "Steam, Itch.io are pulling ‘porn’ games. Critics say it's a slippery slope"

scyclow — Fri, 25 Jul 2025 20:00:15 +0000

There are a lot of people mentioning crypto as a possible solution to this, and a lot of people responding that crypto is a ponzi scheme, and they're not interested. But congress recently passed stablecoin legislation that could possibly fix this problem. Recipients would have a straightforward way of receiving money, and they wouldn't need to gamble on the price of bitcoin. Most people would probably still use a third part payment processor to handle the rough edges of managing money on the blockchain. But if any of them try to pull something like this it would be incredibly easy spin up a new processor and migrate accounts.

New comment by scyclow in "Visa and Mastercard: The global payment duopoly (2024)"

scyclow — Fri, 25 Jul 2025 02:43:39 +0000

Look at the GENIUS Act https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/senate-bill/394...