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Dogecoin's inventor looks to the past for insight into the future

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Re: Dogecoin's inventor looks to the past for insight into the future

#151
post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I was talking to my financial advisor the other day and he said pretty much 100% of people now are asking him about crypto and are considering putting money in. 100% of those are not interested in cryptocurrency at all, they are interested in anything that goes from bottom left to top right if charted against their local denomination. They don't want crypto, they want fiat and see crypto merely as a possible means…

Honestly though, doesn't this also apply to a lot of people's choice of stocks?

Absolutely - many of which can be, and often are, overvalued.

Re: Dogecoin's inventor looks to the past for insight into the future

#152
post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I was talking to my financial advisor the other day and he said pretty much 100% of people now are asking him about crypto and are considering putting money in. 100% of those are not interested in cryptocurrency at all, they are interested in anything that goes from bottom left to top right if charted against their local denomination. They don't want crypto, they want fiat and see crypto merely as a possible means…

Honestly though, doesn't this also apply to a lot of people's choice of stocks?

Sure, except Bitcoin wasn't created to be a stock. That's the point here. It's basically just imaginary stock in an imaginary company now.

Re: Dogecoin's inventor looks to the past for insight into the future

#153

Dogecoin is kinda like a control/placebo for real cryptocoins. And the fact that it exploded without providing real distinct utility apart from existing coins is an indication that something is indeed wrong.

Originally it was pretty much just a fork of Litecoin, but since then Dogecoin has considered the economic viability of it as a real currency. It's one of the few inflationary cryptocurrencies, it has a block every minute which is good for confirmation times, the transaction fees are very low, AuxPoW has given it a huge network of miners keeping the network alive, and the core devs have kept the stability of the network above all else which includes not adding every new feature that all the other altcoins love.

Re: Dogecoin's inventor looks to the past for insight into the future

#154
post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If someone literally steals your BTC, you have the same recourse as if someone stole your golf clubs. The mechanism of law enforcement and the justice system will try to get your BTC or golf clubs back, and this has happened numerous times already. If they take my golf clubs or BTC or USD through fraud then the rules are slightly different, but all of them will be treated the same way by the justice system. Now it is…

> All of this is just the justice system, though. Only if you're in the USA. USD is subject to the US legal system regardless of where the transaction takes place.

If someone steals my wallet and the USD inside in Germany, the FBI isn't going to be knocking on anyone's door. I'm not sure what your point is here.

Re: Dogecoin's inventor looks to the past for insight into the future

#156
post #78
post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that's your definition, I could say that my Bitcoin is backed by mathematics and proof of work because "violating" the rules (by taking my coins without my consent) requires either guessing my secret key or mounting a 51% attack on the whole network

Don't be silly. We've already seen multiple examples of stolen coins with no recourse -- exchanges taking the money and going bankrupt, people issuing new coins and then just taking the money, etc. And I don't have to guess your secret key -- I just have to steal your computer. Even if I get caught stealing your computer and have to give it back, if I've already compromised your wallet and moved the coins, there is n…

I'm not saying such "extra-protocol" theft of coins is unlikely. I'm saying that it is possible to prevent them (eg I run the key generation algorithm in my head, memorize the secret key, then accept some coins at the public key). I don't place them in an exchange. The only way to get it is to kidnap and torture me, and the US police will try to prevent that from happening, and I can sue you for assaulting me.

The point is not that doing something like this is practical for anyone, it's that in that case, my coins seem to be backed by math and PoW (and the infrastructure that prevents people from getting kidnapped). Basically, it seems weird to argue that the USD is "backed by courts" by your definition because suing someone to get your USD back is only necessary because it's possible to steal USD from someone in ways it's not always possible to steal cryptocurrency from someone.

Also, by your argument, the USD is not fully backed by the courts either; I can steal your wallet, take your USD, sell them for gold, and then abscond to North Korea. Then there is nothing you can do to get them back.

Also I don't completely appreciate the name-calling - I find both cryptocurrencies and "traditional" currencies (monetary policy, how it's linked to state power, metallism vs chartalism, the historical gold standard) fascinating - and I expect we can have an interesting conversation about the latter (specifically, trying to rigorously understand how the USD gets its value) in good faith

Re: Dogecoin's inventor looks to the past for insight into the future

#157

Crypto allows people to do 2 very important and useful things: 1) Move money around government currency controls (for a small fee) 2) Invest and speculate on potentially valuable assets. Sure you can't live in, eat, or drive a Bitcoin, but finance/trading is all about creating and betting on abstractions, and virtual currencies are the ultimate abstraction. Crypto is especially attractive given the current easy money…

wonder where we are in the hype cycle: https://www.gartner.com/technology/research/methodologies/hy...

I think we're on the 5th or 6th one with two more to go in the next ten to twenty years as crypto chews through networks of people at different distances from expertise in bitcoin.

Also follow along with the classic stock bubble: https://blogs-images.forbes.com/jessecolombo/files/2014/02/s...

These curves remind me of the dopamine response curve to tasks like in a rat running a maze:

https://neurofantastic.com/brain/2017/1/12/dopamine-crescend...

But maybe that's pareidolia.

Re: Dogecoin's inventor looks to the past for insight into the future

#158
post #89
post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that's your definition, I could say that my Bitcoin is backed by mathematics and proof of work because "violating" the rules (by taking my coins without my consent) requires either guessing my secret key or mounting a 51% attack on the whole network

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mt._Gox#Bankruptcy;_stolen_bit...

Thanks - see my reply at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16135718

Re: Dogecoin's inventor looks to the past for insight into the future

#159
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To take the biggest example, AIG's owners did bear the consequences. Their equity was wiped out in the bailout. Do you believe individuals who did business with AIG are the ones who should have born the consequences for bad decisions made by the owners of AIG?

Well, first of all, yes, 100% certainly -- if you try to buy insurance for uninsurable things, then you are taking a risk, and risks can have downsides. And as for bearing the consequences, we simply do not have the capacity within the rule of law to make them bear the consequences. The people who made the decisions were extremely well compensated even outside of equity up until the moment when the house of cards cam…

The vast majority of people who did business with AIG had nothing to do with subprime. Your whole answer seems to assume that the consequences of AIG going bankrupt could have been neatly contained the subset of their business that caused the problem.

Re: Dogecoin's inventor looks to the past for insight into the future

#160

Crypto allows people to do 2 very important and useful things: 1) Move money around government currency controls (for a small fee) 2) Invest and speculate on potentially valuable assets. Sure you can't live in, eat, or drive a Bitcoin, but finance/trading is all about creating and betting on abstractions, and virtual currencies are the ultimate abstraction. Crypto is especially attractive given the current easy money…

wonder where we are in the hype cycle: https://www.gartner.com/technology/research/methodologies/hy...

I think we're at the peak of inflated expectations.
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