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Introducing A16Z Crypto

a16zcrypto.com

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Re: Introducing A16Z Crypto

#41

Post by chrisco255 »

mayank wrote: post #32
chrisco255 wrote: post #14

I totally agree with A16Z here. Blockchain skepticism is not hard to find on HN and beyond. First, the ecosystem is vast and evolving quickly. If you've "tuned out" by dismissing blockchain, then don't be surprised when your industry gets disrupted in 5-10 years. I think we'll begin to see business logic open-sourced on the blockchain. For example, existing SaaS model incentivizes closed-source, centrally managed rep…

> A CRM built in this way might enable multiple "thin clients" to build and an ecosystem to develop around it. Let's parse this. CRM = customer relationship management, usually in the context of sales. The sales relationship is often hard won and closely guarded, because it makes people money. You're proposing putting information about this relationship on a public blockchain (because a "private blockchain" here is j…

I did not say public. Private blockchains are a thing. And it's not just an internal database. They are forkable and potentially run by the customer themselves or in their own AWS private cloud or wherever. But by following the protocol, they could easily switch providers, or integrate several clients that provide different features around the same data. The customer can truly own their data and the side chain can interact with the main chain where it makes sense.

Lots of technical problems there, that's why I say it's a ways off. But it's all doable.

Re: Introducing A16Z Crypto

#42

Post by baxtr »

endlessvoid94 wrote: post #29

The skepticism of blockchain technology is borne out of a lack of specific problems it solves. Which happens to also be the bedrock of the conventional startup wisdom -- value derived from solving a problem or exploiting an opportunity. So much of the blockchain hype is focused purely on the technology and the valuation of the tokens / coins. Not the problem it solves. It's distributed trust. That's the problem it so…

Great points. I’d love to know what Steve would have done with Blockchain (or when). Well...

Re: Introducing A16Z Crypto

#43

Post by kirbypineapple »

endlessvoid94 wrote: post #29

The skepticism of blockchain technology is borne out of a lack of specific problems it solves. Which happens to also be the bedrock of the conventional startup wisdom -- value derived from solving a problem or exploiting an opportunity. So much of the blockchain hype is focused purely on the technology and the valuation of the tokens / coins. Not the problem it solves. It's distributed trust. That's the problem it so…

I would argue there's value beyond distributed trust: smart contracts (though you could argue that this is merely an application built upon the concept of distributed trust), the tokenization of physical assets (think real estate, oil and gas exploration/drilling/royalties, etc.), and more generally the ability for money to become a "product". These are all domains that blockchain is enabling, though it remains to be seen whether these problems/opportunities are solved via blockchain or not.

Re: Introducing A16Z Crypto

#44

Post by DennisP »

fabian2k wrote: post #27

> This trust emerges from the mathematical and game-theoretic properties of the system, without depending on the trustworthiness of individual network participants. I'm very uncomfortable with the idea of game theory as the base of trust. Mathematics as used in cryptography is a pretty solid base, but game theory feels like something entirely different. How do I know that there isn't a participant in the game that is…

Protocols don't necessary assume that players are profit-seeking. Ethereum's Casper for example allows that players may wish to smash the board; however, it makes attacks very expensive, limits the damage they can do, and makes it easy for the network to recover.

Subtle ways to get extra gains can be a problem; e.g. people didn't figure out selfish mining attacks until Bitcoin was several years old. Cryptoeconomics is a new field, and it advances as people discover attacks and invent solutions to them.

Re: Introducing A16Z Crypto

#45

Post by MBCook »

chrisco255 wrote: post #34
vorpalhex wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a CRM-focused blockchain might place the business logic for managing customer relations and sales on-chain and enable competing clients to build on the protocol Why.. would you need to put those on a blockchain across a bunch of disparate consumers? In theory isn't my business logic fairly, you know, secret sauce? Blockchain is vaguely "A spreadsheet everyone gets a copy of." There are some cases where that can be…

Traditionally, yes. But in the same way that Windows OS logic is Microsoft's secret sauce and yet thriving companies build products and services around Linux...so too will business-logic be open sourced and compete directly with existing SaaS players. Just because you use blockchain to power the engine and business logic of your application, does not mean you also have to use it to store data. Data can be stored anyw…

Microsoft explicitly sells a license to use their ‘secret sauce’. That’s their business.

I’m not licensing the ‘secret sauce’ that runs my business, so I don’t want it exposed in the blockchain by my CRM software.

Why in the world would I want everyone to be able to see who my hot leads are anyway? Wouldn’t that put me at a huge disadvantage?

Re: Introducing A16Z Crypto

#46

Post by nostrademons »

legulere wrote: post #25

Or crypto is just another hype that will burst like the dot com bubble. However, I have to say, compared with the companies of the dot com bubble the blockchain space has very little to offer. The other day I saw an ad for an IoT ML ICO.

While most of the specific companies in the dot-com bubble ended up going bust, the underlying technology was certainly not a bubble - I mean, you're posting this on the Internet, to people all across the globe who you have never met. That was unthinkable 25 years ago. If you invested in Amazon in 1997, or started working at Google in 2000, or even just learned HTML in 1998 and started a niche e-commerce business, you're probably doing pretty well. A lot better than the folks who just dismissed the Internet as a fad, at least.

Re: Introducing A16Z Crypto

#47

Post by TimTheTinker »

> Trust is a new software primitive from which other components can be constructed.

This kind of talk is extremely misleading. At the end of the day, we're still people buying and selling goods and services from other people. The most blockchain can do is remove some types of middle-men (financial or otherwise), but the endpoints will always be human. Trust between humans will always be a requirement to buy and sell goods and services.

Just like chatting with someone over an encrypted channel can't make you trust the person you're chatting with, only the channel itself.

Perhaps blockchain's "killer app" is an automated escrow service. How exciting... :-/

Re: Introducing A16Z Crypto

#48

Post by root_axis »

More breathless fawning rhetoric and nebulous jargon, but I guess the target audience is blockchain enthusiasts so that makes sense. At the end of the day it's their money, so what I do I care?

I find it frustrating when I hear comparisons of the blockchain to internet and cellphone communication platforms. The potential use cases for the internet and cellphones were immediately obvious (instant remote communication) and available on day one, compared with blockchains which has given us bitcoin and nothing else of unique value. I actually think bitcoin is pretty damn cool and a marvel of software engineering, but it's a fact that it's mostly useless for the vast majority of people and certainly not in any way comparable to the impact of cell phones or THE LITERAL INTERNET; the insinuation is absurd and intellectually lazy based on blockchain's track record.

> We believe that just as the last three megatrends -- mobile, social, and cloud -- intersected and reinforced each other, so will the next three megatrends -- next-gen computing devices, AI, and crypto.

This kind of rhetoric inspires derision.

Re: Introducing A16Z Crypto

#49

Post by slg »

endlessvoid94 wrote: post #29

The skepticism of blockchain technology is borne out of a lack of specific problems it solves. Which happens to also be the bedrock of the conventional startup wisdom -- value derived from solving a problem or exploiting an opportunity. So much of the blockchain hype is focused purely on the technology and the valuation of the tokens / coins. Not the problem it solves. It's distributed trust. That's the problem it so…

It is just the next round of the "Uber for X". Little attention is paid specifically to what that technology and business model provide. We end up getting hundreds of startups that use the buzzword to secure funding but quickly flame out when they realize that the advantages don't really matter to their specific market. However that doesn't mean there are not viable "Uber for X" or blockain business ideas out there.

Re: Introducing A16Z Crypto

#50

Post by JumpCrisscross »

kirbypineapple wrote: post #43
endlessvoid94 wrote: post #29

The skepticism of blockchain technology is borne out of a lack of specific problems it solves. Which happens to also be the bedrock of the conventional startup wisdom -- value derived from solving a problem or exploiting an opportunity. So much of the blockchain hype is focused purely on the technology and the valuation of the tokens / coins. Not the problem it solves. It's distributed trust. That's the problem it so…

I would argue there's value beyond distributed trust: smart contracts (though you could argue that this is merely an application built upon the concept of distributed trust), the tokenization of physical assets (think real estate, oil and gas exploration/drilling/royalties, etc.), and more generally the ability for money to become a "product". These are all domains that blockchain is enabling, though it remains to be…

> These are all domains that blockchain is enabling

It is reasonable to be sceptical when someone proposes a new domain that doesn’t solve any problems.

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