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Official Response to “Bancor Is Flawed”

blog.bancor.network

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Re: Official Response to “Bancor Is Flawed”

#21

Post by arethuza »

hedonistbot wrote: post #19
atmosx wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Me too. I got to know the Bancor via proxy (Varoufakis). Te idea is more than intriguing, what I would like to know is if JMK expected the US to go with it or knew it was a dead-end but had to pursue it anyway. I believe that it was one of the most obscure and important mewtings of post WWII.

If you are referring to Bretton-Woods Conference, it is not obscure at all. It is probably the most important monetary event in modern history and probably everyone with economics background knows about it. Also it was during WWII. But you are right that parts of it (like the international clearing union and its implications) are just mentioned in passing in economic courses and rarely acknowledged nowadays.

Do economists look at things like Bretton-Woods from a purely "theoretical" perspective (for lack of a better term) or do they also take into account the political and global power level tensions driving that kind of decision making?

Re: Official Response to “Bancor Is Flawed”

#23

Post by bloaf »

rockmeamedee wrote: post #14

> Our thinking here is that people invented money to solve the [Double coincidence of Wants] problem in barter, making trade asynchronous, more efficient and predictable. Fun fact, that's not true! It's called "the barter myth", and was put forward by Adam Smith in The Wealth of Nations. But anthropologists everywhere have looked for 'pre-money' societies in their field research and haven't really found any. Barterin…

Wasn't the whole Incan Empire money-free?

Re: Official Response to “Bancor Is Flawed”

#24

Post by spangry »

hedonistbot wrote: post #19
atmosx wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Me too. I got to know the Bancor via proxy (Varoufakis). Te idea is more than intriguing, what I would like to know is if JMK expected the US to go with it or knew it was a dead-end but had to pursue it anyway. I believe that it was one of the most obscure and important mewtings of post WWII.

If you are referring to Bretton-Woods Conference, it is not obscure at all. It is probably the most important monetary event in modern history and probably everyone with economics background knows about it. Also it was during WWII. But you are right that parts of it (like the international clearing union and its implications) are just mentioned in passing in economic courses and rarely acknowledged nowadays.

It's only my faint impression, but I think there's some renewed interest in some sort of international financial / monetary framework similar to Bretton-Woods.

The governor of the Chinese central bank publicly expressed interest (and explicitly invoked Bretton-Woods) a few months ago. And other 'mainstream' central banking authorities seem to be acknowledging that there are big deficiencies with the current model (e.g http://www.bis.org/speeches/sp160210_slides.pdf)

I think the problem is that it's such a huge issue. It makes sense the original agreement was hammered out towards the end of WWII: people were 'thinking big' at the time. I worry that we are only capable of making such big and forward-thinking moves in the wake of some catastrophe or war...

EDIT: The 'renewed interest' is actually mentioned in the Wikipedia article on Keynes' Bancor proposal, and it looks like the governor of the Chinese central bank has been talking about this for some time now: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bancor#Proposed_revival

Re: Official Response to “Bancor Is Flawed”

#25

Post by rhart92 »

BaronSamedi wrote: post #20
rhart92 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not entirely true. Bitcoin's scripting language is not Turing complete, among other limitations that Ethereum addresses. https://github.com/ethereum/wiki/wiki/White-Paper#scripting

It is true that Ethereum has a more powerful scripting language. The real question, however, is if that feature has practical value. I think the jury is still out on that question but I personally lean towards no. If and when there are profitable applications of this technology, ones that wouldn't have been possible without ethereum scripts then I will be glad to change my mind.

I agree that it is still an open question whether the EVM will have profitable applications. I lean towards yes.

It is (in my opinion) no question that the feature has theoretical value. I think the only question is whether that feature's value will outweigh the considerable costs of using a blockchain.

I think there are definitely cases where it will be profitable, but think blockchain tech in general is probably overhyped right now.

Re: Official Response to “Bancor Is Flawed”

#26

Post by richmarr »

bloaf wrote: post #23
rockmeamedee wrote: post #14

> Our thinking here is that people invented money to solve the [Double coincidence of Wants] problem in barter, making trade asynchronous, more efficient and predictable. Fun fact, that's not true! It's called "the barter myth", and was put forward by Adam Smith in The Wealth of Nations. But anthropologists everywhere have looked for 'pre-money' societies in their field research and haven't really found any. Barterin…

Wasn't the whole Incan Empire money-free?

Yep. I think the point that Graeber made in his "Debt" book was that non-monetary debt came first, before money or even barter.

The Inca system of communal labour could be seen as being based on a debt of work owed to the community.

Re: Official Response to “Bancor Is Flawed”

#27

Post by lmm »

rockmeamedee wrote: post #14

> Our thinking here is that people invented money to solve the [Double coincidence of Wants] problem in barter, making trade asynchronous, more efficient and predictable. Fun fact, that's not true! It's called "the barter myth", and was put forward by Adam Smith in The Wealth of Nations. But anthropologists everywhere have looked for 'pre-money' societies in their field research and haven't really found any. Barterin…

I wouldn't entirely trust that book - I've heard that Graeber plays fast and loose with the facts.

(I have no expertise on the economics side of things, but I did notice that his quotation of Tyndale's translation of the lord's prayer does not match what I've seen elsewhere)

Re: Official Response to “Bancor Is Flawed”

#28

Post by richardknop »

rhart92 wrote: post #25
BaronSamedi wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is true that Ethereum has a more powerful scripting language. The real question, however, is if that feature has practical value. I think the jury is still out on that question but I personally lean towards no. If and when there are profitable applications of this technology, ones that wouldn't have been possible without ethereum scripts then I will be glad to change my mind.

I agree that it is still an open question whether the EVM will have profitable applications. I lean towards yes. It is (in my opinion) no question that the feature has theoretical value. I think the only question is whether that feature's value will outweigh the considerable costs of using a blockchain. I think there are definitely cases where it will be profitable, but think blockchain tech in general is probably ov…

I would lean towards no but perhaps I will be surprised.

We have had about a year of dapp development gone by so far and there isn't a single dapp with any meaningful userbase.

I think if another year goes by and we are 2 years in the dapp development cycle and there is no successful dapp that will probably mean it's not a successful model.

I am also concerned about these dapps having insane valuations and raising huge sums of money just by releasing a vague whitepaper, without having a working product with users.

Normal startups would usually start with a seed round of hundreds of thousands USD but raising 50 millions or more is just obscene, that's a series B or C round for a fast growing startup with tens of millions real users and hundreds of employees usually.

I am interested how this whole situation plays out but remain skeptical for now.

Re: Official Response to “Bancor Is Flawed”

#29

Post by 0xcde4c3db »

Disclaimer: I'm not well-versed in these things. Maybe I'm totally misreading the situation.

Their response to the "BNT is pointless" thing seems to say that BNT has a point because... they made the service require it. I still don't understand why, apart from the founders wanting something to sell to investors.

My understanding is that the main things one looks for in a reserve currency are liquidity in the international market and (relative) stability of value, hence the popularity of the US Dollar and Euro as reserve currencies as opposed to, say, the Zimbabwe Dollar. If that's true, it seems deeply counterintuitive to create a new currency to use as a reserve currency. This sparks a suspicion that the point is not for BNT to add value to Bancor, but rather the reverse.

Am I just misunderstanding something here?

Re: Official Response to “Bancor Is Flawed”

#30

Post by notahacker »

arethuza wrote: post #21
hedonistbot wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are referring to Bretton-Woods Conference, it is not obscure at all. It is probably the most important monetary event in modern history and probably everyone with economics background knows about it. Also it was during WWII. But you are right that parts of it (like the international clearing union and its implications) are just mentioned in passing in economic courses and rarely acknowledged nowadays.

Do economists look at things like Bretton-Woods from a purely "theoretical" perspective (for lack of a better term) or do they also take into account the political and global power level tensions driving that kind of decision making?

As a general rule, economists tend to look at theoretical models of how systems are supposed to work and whether those assumptions fit the data and economic historians tend to look at why policies were introduced or recommended and what their proponents and detractors thought about then. They do tend to share departments, students and reading lists though.
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