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259 points greyface- | 7 comments | | HN request time: 0.68s | source | bottom
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A_Duck ◴[] No.44004852[source]
Why must crypto infect everything good?

Is the incentive even necessary? It would be worth testing if there are enough scientists who are keen to promote information sharing in their field without some minimal reward

I also wonder if this will make the penalties for uploaders more severe since it becomes a commercial act

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setgree ◴[] No.44005278[source]
If there was every a ready-made use case for crypto, it's this. Alexandra Elbakyan is both a criminal in most places and a hero to many [0]. I want her to keep doing what she's doing, and that means someone probably has to pay her to do it. The whole point of Bitcoin is to make money permisionless, i.e. the right tool for this particular job.

[0] https://www.science.org/content/article/frustrated-science-s...

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1. jsheard ◴[] No.44005315[source]
Even if crypto is the only viable way to do this, doing it with their own memecoin instead of something that's already well established is a massive red flag. That means they can easily pre-mine vast amounts of their token for effectively nothing and then cash out by selling them all at once when the price peaks. Textbook shitcoin rug-pull.
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2. freeone3000 ◴[] No.44005502[source]
Isn’t that… also good? If you want to fund the project, isn’t that a very good way to send someone(the organizers of the shitcoin) money in an efficient and untracable way? The indirect market forces avoid the downfalls of Monero (not accepted) and direct BTC transmissions (traceable), and since it’s a pre-mine, it avoids the “splash damage” of a more common commodity. Doing a sci-hub pump-and-dump is almost ideal as a fundraising vehicle for sci-hub.
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3. troyvit ◴[] No.44005884[source]
I hear what you're saying, but as a guy who knows this much |-----| about crypto, I would be worried about the same thing using anybody else's coin. Sci-net having full control over the value of the coin means they don't have to worry as much about uncontrollable fluctuations in coin price going with an established coin, especially now that governments are getting in on the action.[1]

The whole basis of this scheme comes down to trust on so many levels. Like:

> When creating a request, you can specify the amount of tokens uploader will receive for sharing the paper. However, the tokens will not be transferred after uploading the PDF right away, but only after you check the solution and click the 'Accept' button. The tokens subtracted from your account will be added to the uploader.

So a jerk can request a paper, receive the paper, then never pay for the paper if they feel like it.

I think this is just how the community is run.

[1] I guess people could still make a run on sci-hub coins outside of this market, but I bet the scale of the coin will never reach a level that makes that tempting.

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4. cokeandpepsi ◴[] No.44005990[source]
> uncontrollable fluctuations in coin price going with an established coin

How? even the site mentions "The more people use Sci-Hub token, the more valuable it becomes" the entire point is to make the coin price go up

5. aleph_minus_one ◴[] No.44006201[source]
> If you want to fund the project, isn’t that a very good way to send someone(the organizers of the shitcoin) money in an efficient and untracable way?

The Sci-Hub meme coin does not take privacy and untraceability very seriously, thus potentially putting lots of its user in danger. :-(

6. stavros ◴[] No.44007134[source]
Yeah but it's kind of like if I'm buying a Sci-Hub gift card, or loading my Sci-Hub wallet with some balance. If you want anonymity, use Monero, it would have solved all the issues here. Sci-hub could even take a cut, which personally I'd have no objections to.
7. Funes- ◴[] No.44008670[source]
>doing it with their own memecoin instead of something that's already well established is a massive red flag.

It is. You want to reward people for their work in a private and reliable way? Monero's right there.