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Official Response to “Bancor Is Flawed”

blog.bancor.network

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Re: Official Response to “Bancor Is Flawed”

#61

Post by davidgerard »

thisisit wrote: post #39

If there was a bad response to a critic, this will be it. While Sirer's post was a bit terse, this response doesn't earn brownie points by going the same route. First, they start off as many "responses" in crypto currency seem to start that is - saying this is all FUD and the critic should stop spreading FUD. They also take the Trump route, not a great choice of words - "fake news". Where I lost them was when they eq…

> Where I lost them was when they equated themselves as being so important to crypto currency space that critiquing them can be used to tag the whole space as being a giant ponzi scheme.

To be fair, the whole ICO scene of the past few months largely is a bubble phenomenon: an incoherent idea, incompetent code, and really obviously just creators who see easy money selling to buyers who see easy money. The critique is widely applicable. There are non-bogus ICOs, but mostly it's complete air.

Re: Official Response to “Bancor Is Flawed”

#62

Post by simonebrunozzi »

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've read that book - I highly recommend it.

Re: Official Response to “Bancor Is Flawed”

#63

Post by saltcured »

opportune wrote: post #46
richmarr wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

In that case, could one not also argue that the pope shitting in the woods is simply the pope repaying the food debt he took on by nature? Not everything is debt. I mean, debt may be the cornerstone of our current financial system, but that doesn't mean it always was so. This just seems like grasping at straws to fit the argument.

Lots of social animals demonstrate some form of credit/debt accounting in their relationships. I think this is an almost inseparable part of our mind-body systems (a sort of limbic balance sheet) and does not depend on abstract concepts nor symbolic tools like money to still apply an economy to social groups.

Re: Official Response to “Bancor Is Flawed”

#64

Post by DonbunEf7 »

davidgerard wrote: post #7
johnnydoebk wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Ethereum was created because it isn't possible to do Ethereum with BTC. I don't think that is true. You can absolutely reuse BTC for your so called "smart contracts".

In theory, but in practice almost nobody did. I've been looking into this question. Szabo first proposed "smart contracts" in 1994, but Ethereum is basically the first practical smart contracts platform ever - the first one that people actually use a whole lot. (You can squint at things and say "well that's a bit like a smart contract", but that's retrospectively applying a label - like calling Git a "blockchain". I'…

Too bad it's not the first secure smart-contract platform; that honor probably goes to the folks who developed Joule, E, etc. in the mid-90s. Szabo and his contemporaries were steeped in capability theory, but Ethereum glossed over all of that in favor of hype and cash.

Re: Official Response to “Bancor Is Flawed”

#66

Post by thisisit »

davidgerard wrote: post #61
thisisit wrote: post #39

If there was a bad response to a critic, this will be it. While Sirer's post was a bit terse, this response doesn't earn brownie points by going the same route. First, they start off as many "responses" in crypto currency seem to start that is - saying this is all FUD and the critic should stop spreading FUD. They also take the Trump route, not a great choice of words - "fake news". Where I lost them was when they eq…

> Where I lost them was when they equated themselves as being so important to crypto currency space that critiquing them can be used to tag the whole space as being a giant ponzi scheme. To be fair, the whole ICO scene of the past few months largely is a bubble phenomenon: an incoherent idea, incompetent code, and really obviously just creators who see easy money selling to buyers who see easy money. The critique is…

Agreed but the same could be said about VC money and unicorns like Uber, Snap Inc. etc. It will be laughable if say Uber's CEO equates bashing of Uber's tech or business model as a threat to all unicorns.

One of the bigger problems I see with these ICOs is they that they don't offer much in terms of business viability other than maybe "cool" tech. I have been thinking of a purely profit focused contract(coin) on top of ethereum network. Something which provides value to people and the investors as well. Unfortunately not a programmer so it has to remain a plan forever.

Re: Official Response to “Bancor Is Flawed”

#67

Post by BaronSamedi »

richardknop wrote: post #28
rhart92 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 hu…

I agree with you. I wonder if the best use case for ethereum scripts is actually with private block chains. For private chains the trust problem with external input to the scripts (which is needed for any serious dapp) would be minimized.

I've seen so many technologies hyped, fail to live up to expectations, and then disappear. Etheruem has some interesting ideas, I'm worried that they have grossly over-stated its potential and it will soon fall off the hype cliff.

Re: Official Response to “Bancor Is Flawed”

#68

Post by xorcist »

davidgerard wrote: post #61
thisisit wrote: post #39

If there was a bad response to a critic, this will be it. While Sirer's post was a bit terse, this response doesn't earn brownie points by going the same route. First, they start off as many "responses" in crypto currency seem to start that is - saying this is all FUD and the critic should stop spreading FUD. They also take the Trump route, not a great choice of words - "fake news". Where I lost them was when they eq…

> Where I lost them was when they equated themselves as being so important to crypto currency space that critiquing them can be used to tag the whole space as being a giant ponzi scheme. To be fair, the whole ICO scene of the past few months largely is a bubble phenomenon: an incoherent idea, incompetent code, and really obviously just creators who see easy money selling to buyers who see easy money. The critique is…

> There are non-bogus ICOs

Where?

Re: Official Response to “Bancor Is Flawed”

#69

Post by root_axis »

thisisit wrote: post #66
davidgerard wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Where I lost them was when they equated themselves as being so important to crypto currency space that critiquing them can be used to tag the whole space as being a giant ponzi scheme. To be fair, the whole ICO scene of the past few months largely is a bubble phenomenon: an incoherent idea, incompetent code, and really obviously just creators who see easy money selling to buyers who see easy money. The critique is…

Agreed but the same could be said about VC money and unicorns like Uber, Snap Inc. etc. It will be laughable if say Uber's CEO equates bashing of Uber's tech or business model as a threat to all unicorns. One of the bigger problems I see with these ICOs is they that they don't offer much in terms of business viability other than maybe "cool" tech. I have been thinking of a purely profit focused contract(coin) on top…

> but the same could be said about VC money and unicorns like Uber, Snap

The same cannot be said about VC money going to unicorns. Those companies provide in-demand services that people use and enjoy, even if the business model is tenuous, there is clear value created by the services. Not true of ICOs which create no value.

Re: Official Response to “Bancor Is Flawed”

#70

Post by cynicalkane »

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…

The "barter myth" isn't really considered valid economic history anymore--and I'm not sure to what extent it ever was--but it's useful to explain the purpose of money in a society that cannot reasonably keep track of informal debt. When modern people in modern economies no longer have access to money (from economic collapse, or being imprisoned, among other things) they often resort to barter. So the barter myth may not explain the economic behavior of primitive tribes, but it might explain us.

As for Graeber's book, I'll excerpt from a comment I made a while ago: he is frequently wrong about easily verifiable facts in such a way that it supports his world view. There's no reason to trust a liar when he tries to tell you something you don't know about. One particularly remarkable Graeberism is where he describes the founding of Apple:

> Apple Computers is a famous example: it was founded by (mostly Republican) computer engineers who broke from IBM in Silicon Valley in the 1980s, forming little democratic circles of twenty to forty people with their laptops in each other's garages

but there are plenty others, an exhaustive list of which would be too long for this comment. He's also a somewhat unhinged and deeply horrible person. All this is discussed here by leftist economist Brad DeLong: http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2013/04/david-graeber-april-fo....

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