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Is Filecoin a $257 million Ponzi scheme? [pdf]

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Re: Is Filecoin a $257 million Ponzi scheme? [pdf]

#131

Post by crankylinuxuser »

lgierth wrote: post #95
crankylinuxuser wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, yeah. They saw dollar signs and got bit by the ICO bug. Truth be told, I still like the idea of Filecoin as a method to get around the problem of Tragedy of the Commons. But overvalued and overhyped indeed.

There's only so many different ways of funding open source software development, and we selected one that wouldn't have us struggle for grants or VC money every other year. The funding of open source infrastructure is a huge problem. @jbenet did a great in-depth podcast with YC: https://blog.ycombinator.com/ipfs-coinlist-and-the-filecoin-... (transcript included)

But you can't help if others put a high value on it. It's kind of the definition of the market that others put a value on it.

If anything, you did the ICO the "right" way, even if I didn't like the fact that you excluded it to official investors. But that's an issue with the SEC laws as the way they're written - not you or jbenet.

My biggest hope is that you all continue working on both, IPFS core, and Filecoin. And secondarily, reduce memory footprint with IPFS itself. It's still gobbley - cause I'd like to be able to get a /bt/mac/ node available for serving locally via BTLE.

Re: Is Filecoin a $257 million Ponzi scheme? [pdf]

#132

Post by XR0CSWV3h3kZWg »

It's pretty frustrating to see something that has an easily accessible value (M MBs stored for N seconds consuming X bandwidth) is denominated in the same way that all the other cryptocurrencies are denominated in, as a deflationary good that encourages speculation. If you want to create some token that scale with the value of the system, that's fine, but don't force your users to price their contacts in something that is untethered from the thing they are trying to buy.

What I'd do instead is allow people to store random data to mint new MBseconds at a fractional rate and then the cost of a new contract is trivial. If you want someone to store 1GB for a day the cost of that is well known. The price of storage constantly drops, but the price of a deflationary good that is actually desired will continue to rise. This encurages contact churn.

If you want to have a token that scales with the value of the network/product then just create tokens that generate MBseconds proportional to the fees paid.

Re: Is Filecoin a $257 million Ponzi scheme? [pdf]

#133

Post by rklaehn »

jstanley wrote: post #2

Filecoin is a huge disappointment to me. IPFS is fantastic technology, but the main developers getting sidetracked with yet another scammy ICO is the last thing we need.

I am using ipfs at work for something unrelated to filecoin. From our experience in the last months, the speed of ipfs development and the responsiveness of the developers has picked up markedly since the filecoin ICO.

Since filecoin is going to be built on top of ipfs, there is a pretty big incentive to make it solid.

Re: Is Filecoin a $257 million Ponzi scheme? [pdf]

#134

Post by XR0CSWV3h3kZWg »

hobofan wrote: post #111
rightos wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's interesting to see many of Filecoins promises realized already in alternatives like Sia or Storj, but Filecoin still takes the hype, despite not having anything released, let alone anything superior... I guess because it's by the IPFS developers and had a big flashy ICO?

> I guess because it's by the IPFS developers And is intended to run on an IPFS network. After reading the replies to this comment, I started looking into Sia, and wanted to try it out, but it seems that I first have to buy some Sia before even being able to become a host (!), which is an instant turnoff. At the same time, I am already able to try out IPFS and have been able to develop apps using it for quite some ti…

If you just want enough siacoin to become a host I can probably send some over. I already have some and haven't gotten around to hosting yet.

Re: Is Filecoin a $257 million Ponzi scheme? [pdf]

#135

Post by XR0CSWV3h3kZWg »

ajross wrote: post #78

All XXXcoin currencies are Ponzi schemes, in effect. Their "growth" is fueled almost entirely by new investors dumping cash into the system from which no one takes (can take[1]) anything out. That's a pyramid. Eventually when the investment money runs out[2], the support will fall over. The only distinction between this and a Ponzi scheme is that there are (probably) no single fraudsters at the top ready to run off w…

24h volume of bitcoin was 9.8B. Just how big of a holding are you talking about?

Re: Is Filecoin a $257 million Ponzi scheme? [pdf]

#136

Post by rightos »

hobofan wrote: post #111
rightos wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's interesting to see many of Filecoins promises realized already in alternatives like Sia or Storj, but Filecoin still takes the hype, despite not having anything released, let alone anything superior... I guess because it's by the IPFS developers and had a big flashy ICO?

> I guess because it's by the IPFS developers And is intended to run on an IPFS network. After reading the replies to this comment, I started looking into Sia, and wanted to try it out, but it seems that I first have to buy some Sia before even being able to become a host (!), which is an instant turnoff. At the same time, I am already able to try out IPFS and have been able to develop apps using it for quite some ti…

The reason you need to buy some Siacoin in order to become a host is simple - you need collateral in case you fail to fulfill your hosting contracts - collateral of more than the value of those hosting contacts themselves. Turn off or not, that seems to be the only reasonable way to achieve private hosting contracts to me

Re: Is Filecoin a $257 million Ponzi scheme? [pdf]

#137

Post by tlrobinson »

realPubkey wrote: post #28
pavlov wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The bad news is that Diamond was able to correlate to status, a strong (if subjective) value that is part of humanity since always. BTC only appeal is its value as money ... Startup idea: Bitcoin wedding rings. A beautiful gold ring with a private key engraved on the inside. Give your loved one the gift of BTC! Your commitment to each other, eternalized on the global blockchain. Gentlemen may prefer blondes, but the…

Where I come from your nickname would soon be "4-fingers"

Shrem wears a ring engraved with the code that gives him access to the Bitcoin "wallet" on his computer.

"They started calling me four-finger Charlie“

http://www.businessinsider.com/charlie-shrem-arrested-bitcoi...

Re: Is Filecoin a $257 million Ponzi scheme? [pdf]

#138

Post by usrusr »

jjoonathan wrote: post #71
chockZ wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't a diamond ring lose value once it is sold, though, in terms of re-sell value? A ring worth one bitcoin is not going to lose value once it is sold (aside from market volatility).

Yeah, but it's business as usual for petty thieves to cause 10x (or 100x, or 1000x) damage for a 1x payoff.

1000× times the diminutive likelihood that this nicely immutable paper wallet hasn't already been spent.

(A paper wallet is a paper wallet even if it is written on gold in tengwar runes that only appear when subjected to fire)

Re: Is Filecoin a $257 million Ponzi scheme? [pdf]

#139

Post by cocktailpeanuts »

azna wrote: post #128
rklaehn wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your app is hosted on github, it is not really distributed. And Ethereum is extremely limited as a database.

Exactly, IPFS allows data storage and retrieval for Dapps to also be done through a decentralized network. That's the whole point of a D-app, not falling back on someone's central servers. The performance and scalability limitations of Ethereum make it virtually unusable as a database, application data definitely needs to be taken off-chain. Also, the IPFS system contains IPNS, which allows users to host mutable cont…

Just to be clear, this is exactly what I thought when I first started working on DApps. But the more I get into it the more I realize there's a blurry line in there a lot of people don't even think about.

I know it's cool to build completely decentralized apps, but let's ask WHY you're trying to build a completely decentralized app.

Chances are you're trying to make sure that what users do on the app is never censorable.

If you're trying to build a decentralized app where EVEYRY asset must be unstoppable, then you need IPFS. For example million dollar homepage kind of app.

But I think those are niche cases and for most decentralized apps, the more important part is the actual transaction ledger. I don't really care if my profile image next to my transaction history stays on IPFS forever, in fact I don't want it to be permanent. I would rather have it be deletable if I wanted to. All I care about is that I own certain asset or have control over certain actions through my private key.

I think a lot of DApp developers are missing the point in this regard, trying so hard to make everything "100% decentralized" for the sake of being decentralized, while sacrificing user experience, not to mention the fact that users may actually NOT want their assets to be permanent (they only care about transaction being permanent).

Yes I know what IPNS is, but I think by now you get my point. It's not about being able to have an address to refer to multiple versions, but the question about "do users want immutability for that?"

Re: Is Filecoin a $257 million Ponzi scheme? [pdf]

#140

Post by saas_co_de »

whyrusleeping wrote: post #104
saas_co_de wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see two drawbacks to the technology: 1) data storage with trusted centrally controlled infrastructure will always be cheaper (probably much cheaper) because you need far more redundancy in an untrusted network and the centralized infrastructure has superior economies of scale. 2) Your (encrypted) data is public so you are relying on the platform having zero exploitable bugs ever, which is just not a smart assumptio…

Hey, ipfs dev here. In filecoin (as in sia, and most other decentralized storage networks) the client who is storing data has control over who stores their data. It's a market. So for example, if a well known company decides to offer storage through filecoin, they can publicly attest to their miner IDs, and you can choose to make deals with them for data storage (even at a slightly higher price if they want to charge…

But if the user is only going to use trusted counter-parties to store their data then why use the distributed protocol at all? What additional functionality does it add besides just picking a provider like AWS or GCE and putting your data there directly?
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