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Introducing A16Z Crypto

a16zcrypto.com

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Re: Introducing A16Z Crypto

#141

Post by root_axis »

tomerv wrote: post #122
root_axis wrote: post #48

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)…

Is there any logic whatsoever in talking about the intersection of AI and crypto (or AI and blockchain)? It seems to me that this intersection is very close to the empty set.

I agree. It is my personal opinion that all three terms are so vague that an intersection among them doesn't really mean anything.

Re: Introducing A16Z Crypto

#142

Post by s73v3r_ »

Jonovono wrote: post #90
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 don't think it's too hard to find potential problems it can solve, but it's not necessarily needed to solve it. 1. Imagine you use FB. Instead of FB having all of your data, it's stored on the blockchain (encrypted). The problem we have now is if a new social network comes along if you create an account you lose all of your previous data (which may or may not be what you want). This would let you easily bring in an…

"3. Right now most payment processors do not work with adult industries and the ones that do charge exorbitant fees. Blockchain can bring those fees down a lot and let performers keep a lot more of their money."

There is literally nothing about blockchain that would inherently do this. that is entirely on the payment processor.

"That was solved by banks and cash, but blockchain can be another solution that doesn't require an insane amount of infrastructure, employees, call centers, etc to run."

This is quite false; bitcoin requires a very large infrastructure with incredible energy costs to run.

"6. I think voting is something that could happen on the blockchain. Boom, now anyone can verify the results of the election. People can't as easily scream election fraud."

But now my boss can verify who I voted for. So can the mafia.

Re: Introducing A16Z Crypto

#143

Post by leppr »

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…

Actually, "Distributed trust", if the distribution is wide enough, enables "Trustless transfer of value and information". For me that's a clearer way to think about its potential.

Number one problem it solves is obviously money. With an algorithmic stabilization mechanism, you can now have a fair and unmanipulated currency. (Basecoin, MakerDAO, Havven, ...)

From there, you can have programmatic incentivization. This allows you to solve a huge variety of problems that the internet only began to solve.

For instance : You can now scale privacy networks like Tor that, in its current state, requires benevolent node operators (of which there are too few), and thus take private communications to the mainstream. (Orchid, Mainframe, ...)

In a similar vein, you can make mesh networks like Firebase actually global by incentivizing the node operators. Bye bye ISP monopolies. (Open garden, Rightmesh, ...)

If you add an identity system (say your government supplies its citizens with a blockchain ID), technologies such as zero-knowledge proofs could allow you to vote on various issues from your home, anonymously and un-censorably. Hello Democracy. (Sovrin, ...)

And if you really want to make your imagination run wild, checkout projects like nCent or Fetch.ai, which propose visions that totally redefine how society, as a network of humans, could function.

Re: Introducing A16Z Crypto

#144

Post by rlucas »

TimTheTinker wrote: post #118
rlucas wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not strictly true that endpoints and the locus of trust always have humans in the loop. (Where they do, of course, I agree that blockchain has much more limited "fit" as a solution.) However, in what I call "network-native resource transactions," namely, where the provision of the thing of value is computational and can be verified on the network (think: storage, compute, bandwidth, namespace resources like DNS…

When would this be any more useful than having a credit card on file with whoever is providing the resource? ...or am I completely misunderstanding what you mean by “payment/settlement”?

I think "payment/settlement" here is clear, but not the link to network-native resources.

Let's imagine you have an auto-scaling application. You hit a big spike (like several orders of magnitude) and have the (cryptocurrency) resources to keep it running.

Traditional vendors on invoice (or on credit card) would likely be loathe to just approve your monthly spend going from $500 to $500,000. You'd probably hit an interruption in service as the vendors protect themselves and underwrite to a higher credit limit.

Having non-repudiable smart contracts that get the vendors paid automatically once the resources are verifiably transacted would eliminate that friction.

(Plus, chargebacks, interchange, etc.)

On the extreme other end of the scale, if your resource transactions were small and highly distributed, it would get very cumbersome and costly to verify and pay $500,000 in $1 increments. (Plus chargebacks, etc.)

My point here is not the traditional one about credit card fees and frictions, though. It's specifically about the locus of trust.

If you sell me an electric guitar on eBay, there are two big trust gaps: one is about me actually getting the guitar as described, and the other is you getting the money. The fact that the "money" happens to be transacted as bitcoin or whatever doesn't change the need for trust at the ends of the physical transaction.

But if you are transacting network-native resources, smart contracts let you connect the payment settlement to the resource itself. Factor the primes out of this number and you get BTC 1.00. Transit these packets and you get so many ETH. It's because the resources exist on the same network in approximately real-time with the payment ledger that they can be verified automatically.

Doesn't work for most kinds of commerce where verifying that the transaction is settled is a non-computational operation. (Are the goods arrived, merchantable and fit, as described, etc. etc. -- always you will need to be putting your locus of trust out in the physical world with reputational ties, personal trust, escrow agents, brokers / dealers, etc.)

Re: Introducing A16Z Crypto

#146

Post by s73v3r_ »

bredren wrote: post #116
root_axis wrote: post #48

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)…

>The potential uses 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. Bitcoin has unquestionably provided folks looking to work outside traditional financial systems (and governance) value. You can see it in the black market use and its use in ransoming everythin…

"Bitcoin has unquestionably provided folks looking to work outside traditional financial systems (and governance) value."

It's also provided a modern day example of why many of those regulations exist.

Re: Introducing A16Z Crypto

#148

Post by CPLX »

madeofpalk wrote: post #138
narrator wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The best thing I've seen blockchains used for, besides currency, is as an integration platform for a non-centralized supply chain. There's really no money in it, since there aren't any gatekeepers, but that's sort of the point. The idea is that the farmer picks his carrots, puts them in a box and sends them off to the carrot juice guy. When he does this he puts a upc code on the side of the carrot box and then puts t…

This is solvable without blockchain though. Supply chain tracking already happens at the moment without Blockchain.

Indeed. And more to the point blockchain doesn't do a damm thing to improve trust. If someone in step three tosses the carrots out the window and uses a different batch the blockchain isn't going to get that information.

The blockchain in this example doesn't add or reduce trust at all it's just a time stamped database of stuff people said. We have those already.

Re: Introducing A16Z Crypto

#149

Post by slg »

workinthehead wrote: post #136
slg wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The existence of a positive net result is not sufficient justification for a poor, inefficient, or wasteful process that led to that result.

It is if you're a utilitarian.

I am not a philosophy student, but I think you have that backwards. My last comment was fundamentally a utilitarian one as it is about maximizing efficiency and minimizing waste. You don't see utilitarians walking around talking about "a sufficient level of good for a sufficiently large group of people".

Re: Introducing A16Z Crypto

#150

Post by maxerickson »

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…

The whole reason Bitcoin uses a hilarious amount of energy is that it barely uses trust (you have to trust the core maintainers and big miners not to screw themselves...).

Distributed trust is the little cash box by a vegetable stand on the side of the road.

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