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Introducing A16Z Crypto

a16zcrypto.com

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Re: Introducing A16Z Crypto

#271

Post by vntok »

endlessvoid94 wrote: post #174
mhluongo wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anything involving a clearing house.

Such as?

I gave you a few specific examples earlier in the thread:

- Art transactions: registry of origin and property transfers for any object (with authenticated certificate), currently done by lawyers & auction houses (costly, inefficient, painful, near-impossible in some cases involving war/expropriation because records were destroyed at some point)

- International shipping: INCOTERMS, currently handled through various specialized intermediaries (costly, inefficient, painful)

- Registry of operations over the life of a company (creation/address change/acquisitions/foreclosure), currently done by national commerce courts & accredited local newspapers (costly, inefficient, painful)

- Wills: self-authentication of one's will preventing repudiation attempts by third parties, currently done by lawyers and witnesses (costly, inefficient, painful)

- Escrow accounts for service providers (ex freelancers) through multisig wallets, currently done by intermediary platforms (costly, inefficient)

Re: Introducing A16Z Crypto

#272

Post by B1FF_PSUVM »

spunker540 wrote: post #204
wpietri wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, those aren't real problems either. Problems are experienced by humans. Humans willing to pay money for solutions. Actual problems are things like "I want to buy this candy bar," or "I want to fly to New York in August and I need to pay for the ticket." Those are problems Bitcoin, as "a purely peer-to-peer version of electronic cash" [1], was intended to solve. It didn't. As far as I can tell, the main problems bl…

How about “I want to buy a house without needing a bank as the middle man” or “I want to transact online without needing a credit card company intermediary taking fees” or “I want to cheaply send money to my family across the globe” or “I want to diversify with an asset that is truly global and not easily printable by some central government” or “my country’s currency is inflating like crazy and there arent enough us…

> “I want to buy a house without needing a bank as the middle man”

That's illegal in some places - transactions above a certain value must be done by bank transfer, not cash or whatever.

The number of places with those laws is probably not going down.

Re: Introducing A16Z Crypto

#273

Post by B1FF_PSUVM »

nostrademons wrote: post #265
wpietri wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, those aren't real problems either. Problems are experienced by humans. Humans willing to pay money for solutions. Actual problems are things like "I want to buy this candy bar," or "I want to fly to New York in August and I need to pay for the ticket." Those are problems Bitcoin, as "a purely peer-to-peer version of electronic cash" [1], was intended to solve. It didn't. As far as I can tell, the main problems bl…

"Other people have money and I don't, so I'm going to redefine money as that which I have, and then I will have money and other people won't." I thought it was ridiculous too when I first heard about it, and then I realized that "other people have money and I don't" is perhaps the strongest motivation in history. The American, French, Russian, and Chinese revolutions all stemmed from that, as did WW2 and the Holocaus…

That's mostly wrong, if you take another look at it.

The American revolution was rich aristocrats shaking off the power that the British ones had over them.

The Russian revolution (October 1917) was a military coup that the Bolsheviks pulled off by subverting enough of an army tired of war - the democratic February revolution hadn't taken Russia out of WWI.

The French revolution was a religious one - the encyclopedists had found a revelation, and by gosh they were going to islam the rest of the world with it.

Etc.

Re: Introducing A16Z Crypto

#274

Post by wernsey »

vntok wrote: post #187
endlessvoid94 wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure. Bitcoin in Venezuela is solving the problem of their existing currency imploding. Anything that performs a function inefficiently can be a problem waiting to be solved. What I’m asking for is a concrete example of a societal problem (something inefficient, costly, painful, or impossible) that blockchain addresses.

Any industry or operations where intermediaries are needed becauses of a lack of trust between first parties can be desintermediated by a distributed trust network: - Art transactions: registry of origin and property transfers for any object (with authenticated certificate), currently done by lawyers & auction houses (costly, inefficient, painful, near-impossible in some cases) - International shipping: INCOTERMS, cu…

Art transactions: Just the other day there was a long discussion on here about a guy who managed to convince a blockchain that he owned the Mona Lisa.

Re: Introducing A16Z Crypto

#275

Post by kingofhdds »

wpietri wrote: post #224
spunker540 wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about “I want to buy a house without needing a bank as the middle man” or “I want to transact online without needing a credit card company intermediary taking fees” or “I want to cheaply send money to my family across the globe” or “I want to diversify with an asset that is truly global and not easily printable by some central government” or “my country’s currency is inflating like crazy and there arent enough us…

So all of these are basically Bitcoin. Bitcoin's been going for a decade with minimal use for any of those things. That suggests none of them are significant user needs for most people. (Or, at least, Bitcoin is a terrible match for any need that does exist.) Some of those aren't real needs. E.g., "without needing a bank" is not a real problem. The "diversify with an asset that is truly global" is similarly an ideolo…

You are making sweeping statements like "most people", or "not real" as if those are some sorts of axioms. To me it seems obvious you never really had to send money to let's call it a less-internationally-respected country. The country could be embargoed, or simply 'suspicious', and local regime probably takes exorbitant taxes from foreign remittances, and it's just a beginning of a long list of possible troubles. So, yes, lots of people world-wide, in spite of not being libertarians, or anarchists, or cocaine sellers, or a tech enthusiasts do have a lot of interest in cryptocurrencies. Though, few people really care if it's blockchain, or green cheese, of course.

Also, you seem to believe that high inflation somehow destroys internet access, and everything around it. I suppose it's something from Hollywood movies, sorry. Even in Somalia (which is typically a first example of failed state) internet is a working thing.

Re: Introducing A16Z Crypto

#277

Post by raverbashing »

kirillseva wrote: post #186
raverbashing wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's distributed trust. That's the problem it solves. As someone else has pointed out, trust is still not distributed. You still have to trust whoever created the rules and wrote the code (from maliciousness and errors). Especially when that distributed trust is paid/earned with CPU cycles. The incentive is not clear besides periodic speculatory bursts.

> You still have to trust whoever created the rules and wrote the code (from maliciousness and errors). 100% agree with you. Seems like a bunch of people are neglecting this factor or misunderstanding what they are buying into. Blockchain is not 'distributed trust'. In practice, blockchain centralizes trust. You trust your bitcoin wallet to correctly send money to the addresses that you supply, and correctly generate…

You still have to trust who's getting money into and out of the system. And they're usually related to banks and legal systems.

Most fraud doesn't happen "behind the counter of the bank", but before the money gets there.

Re: Introducing A16Z Crypto

#278

Post by vntok »

wernsey wrote: post #274
vntok wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any industry or operations where intermediaries are needed becauses of a lack of trust between first parties can be desintermediated by a distributed trust network: - Art transactions: registry of origin and property transfers for any object (with authenticated certificate), currently done by lawyers & auction houses (costly, inefficient, painful, near-impossible in some cases) - International shipping: INCOTERMS, cu…

Art transactions: Just the other day there was a long discussion on here about a guy who managed to convince a blockchain that he owned the Mona Lisa.

Interesting, do you have a link?

To me blockchain in Art is less useful as a way to prove some ex-nihilo ownership than as an unalterable chain of ownership transfers. Of course that works as long as noone gets their hands on Musée du Louvre's private keys.

Re: Introducing A16Z Crypto

#279

Post by piootr »

The real value of Bitcoin and crypto currency technology (summarizing video clip): http://bitcoinproperly.org/

Bitcoin blockchain secured by mining power with current annually energy consumption similar to country like Czech Republic or Chile (will be going down following halving of miners rewards in future).

Re: Introducing A16Z Crypto

#280

Post by samat »

marklgr wrote: post #246
koonsolo wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What problem did email solve? 1. I can send a letter to anyone, because anyone has an address. Not everyone has an email address. Plus I can add small physical things, and it's more personal with handwriting and a little perfume ;). 2. If I need quick communication, I just call them. A lot of arguments that are anti-blockchain and anti-cryptocurrency (based on other tech besides blockchain) can be used in the same wa…

Emails are cheap, quick and asynchronous (contrary to phone), there's a log of the conversation which can be forwarded if need be, and you can attach data to it (document, video etc.). You can sort your mailbox according to your needs, which gains time and save space compared to, say, hanging folders.

Should note that email got all that nice features long after it was invented.
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