Introducing A16Z Crypto • Hacker News Board

Re: Introducing A16Z Crypto

#281

Post by wernsey » Tue, Jun 26, 2018, 10:53 AM UTC

vntok wrote: post #278

wernsey wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Here's the HN thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17292476

Re: Introducing A16Z Crypto

#282

Post by wernsey » Tue, Jun 26, 2018, 10:57 AM UTC

samat wrote: post #280

marklgr wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Well, email was immediately useful, being like normal mail, only better.

Re: Introducing A16Z Crypto

#283

Post by 0x006A » Tue, Jun 26, 2018, 11:37 AM UTC

vntok wrote: post #271

endlessvoid94 wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 sp…

how would any of those problems be solved with a blockchain? you are taking about real world things and actors that need to be matched to something on a blockchain. don't see how you get around that part and that is the costly, inefficient and painful one. not the ledger.

Re: Introducing A16Z Crypto

#284

Post by wpietri » Tue, Jun 26, 2018, 1:03 PM UTC

kingofhdds wrote: post #275

wpietri wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I've lived on four continents, so I'm at least hazily familiar with the problem. I agree money transfer could be better. But there's zero reason to think blockchains are a particularly good solution to that except in the narrow case of making transfers that are illegal on one end or the other. That's just not a big market, and it's self-limiting. Significant success will provoke regulatory response. We already see how much Bitcoin-related efforts are having to conform to AML and KYC laws.

I don't think high inflation on its own destroys access. I think a failing economic system definitely harms it, just as it harms every other business activity. Last I heard, if you were going to run your own Bitcoin node, you needed reliable connectivity and power. Try doing that in Venezuela right now, where people are barely getting food, and where the government has cracked down on people getting around its financial controls. (Somalia's a bad example; inflation there is reasonably stable now.)

And if you're not going to run your own Bitcoin node, but instead are using a service, then there's really no point to having a blockchain. At that point, you are just using a bank with a highly volatile currency and an overcomplicated transaction database. You'd be better off using a regular online bank and some stable currency.

Re: Introducing A16Z Crypto

#285

Post by wpietri » Tue, Jun 26, 2018, 1:20 PM UTC

spunker540 wrote: post #232

wpietri wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Just how in the 90s there was a lot of things that people could do on the internet but didn’t due to the immaturity of the ecosystem so it is with bitcoin today. Back in 1995 you could order most things online but it wasn’t easy or convenient or trustworthy and most people didnt do it despite the availability. The lightning network is just getting started which (once mainstream) is going to dramatically lower fees an…

Yes, this has been the song of the Bitcoin fan for a half-dozen years at least. It doesn't work yet, but in the future it will be amazing. "Jam yesterday and jam tomorrow, but never jam today."

In 1995, the Internet was a vast improvement for things like email and file transfer and online forums and some games. It delivered actual value for 30 million people. Yes, there was more that it could do. But it delivered value on a daily basis for a lot of people. (And that was also true in 1985, albeit for something like 30,000 people.)

Bitcoin will never offer lower fees and greater convenience than existing payment networks. If it actually becomes a threat, those existing payment networks will get their shit together. And they can be far better than blockchain-based alternatives, because blockchains impose unnecessary technical limitations.

Look, for example, at M-Pesa. It's an electronic currency that leapfrogged existing payment systems. It started about the same time as Bitcoin. Except that it's actually useful for normal transactions and has real usage. In 2016, it was averaging 190 transactions per second, about 100x what Bitcoin is doing. Transactions are instant, and its fees are already lower than credit cards.

We could have that today in Western countries, but we don't because incumbents don't want to change and we're mostly fine with that. But if incumbents come under threat, they can do at least that well, and probably better given their much larger tech and research budgets.

Re: Introducing A16Z Crypto

#286

Post by kingofhdds » Tue, Jun 26, 2018, 2:09 PM UTC

wpietri wrote: post #284

kingofhdds wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I've lived on four continents, so I'm at least hazily familiar with the problem. I agree money transfer could be better. But there's zero reason to think blockchains are a particularly good solution to that except in the narrow case of making transfers that are illegal on one end or the other. That's just not a big market, and it's self-limiting. Significant success will provoke regulatory response. We already see ho…

>narrow case of making >transfers that are illegal

Exactly, except I don't see why do you think it's a narrow case? Legal ways are burdensome, expensive for those who can live a week for $10, and sometimes don't work altogether because of political reasons which are unlikely to disappear soon (I don't even sure they have to disappear at all). And economic migration is huge, so it's safe guess to say that number of people who need to send money back to home country is very significant. And now it's already being done via gray, and illegal schemes, in fact. (Please note: "illegal" is used as morally neutral term here because laws could be wrong, or simply inefficient.) In many places around the world you can find a sort of alternative banking in a medieval fashion - as a trusted network of individuals, and families. One may expect regular online bank should beat this system, but it just doesn't happen, because of reasons I mentioned.

Somalia remains politically disintegrated by warring factions which I think is a bigger factor then currency rates and still there's internet, that's what I'm saying. Also, myself lived in a country where price of local currency could substantially change during a day, and it wasn't the end of the world. In those times much fewer people used internet, but it was there, electricity was there, no zombies walking in streets, shops worked, and rule of law (even if bad law, and bad rule) remained in reasonable amount. People just started to ignore that part which prohibits use of foreign currencies. Payments were often technically illegal - you see the pattern. Would I use bitcoin then if internet were as available as it is now? I can't say for sure, but maybe. Depends on circumstances like taxes, enforcement of currency controls, availability of US$ cash, need to make cross-border transfers.

Don't know a lot about Venezuela's current condition, but if electricity has become luxury already, an intermediary can solve this trouble, it could still be more efficient than moving cash in bags.

Re: Introducing A16Z Crypto

#287

Post by blotter_paper » Tue, Jun 26, 2018, 3:38 PM UTC

meh2frdf wrote: post #263

blotter_paper wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> I would love to know which societal problems can be reduced to a distributed trust problem. That would convince me that I'm wrong about blockchain technology. I feel like Namecoin, the first Bitcoin fork, is ready to replace our current DNS system. The transaction fee for registering domains is comparable to current prices, and it gets us out of this horrible situation where we trust companies and governments not…

So what would that transition look like, how would you phase the roll out? Practically how would this work and would the result be worth the effort to each individual involved or would it be a utopian ideal for ‘the greater good’?

Firefox and Chrome extensions that resolve .bit domains already exist, the relevant companies just need to audit them or write their own solutions and then bake them into their browsers. Nowadays, most users don't even know when their browser updates. Once every major browser resolves .bit addresses, the battle over secure DNS will be practically won. Hold-outs are okay, I feel no need to force people to use more secure systems.

The result would allow us to avoid situations arising from incompetent or malicious signing authorities, like DigiCert Sdn Bhd or Diginator. The problems addressed are not delusional dystopian fantasies, but rather the security of the internet. Malicious signing happens, just read the news. All non-malicious entities using https should be overjoyed by the availability of a more secure system. The only problem I see for adoption is network effects.

Re: Introducing A16Z Crypto

#288

Post by mgummelt » Tue, Jun 26, 2018, 4:06 PM UTC

pdpi wrote: post #257

mgummelt wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are you saying the mistake is?

The “unique capability” of nakamoto consensus is the exact opposite of trust between parties — it’s that it operates without trust.

It doesn't operate without trust. It just makes it so you no longer have to trust banks. But you still have to trust the network.

Re: Introducing A16Z Crypto

#289

Post by wpietri » Tue, Jun 26, 2018, 4:17 PM UTC

kingofhdds wrote: post #286

wpietri wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've lived on four continents, so I'm at least hazily familiar with the problem. I agree money transfer could be better. But there's zero reason to think blockchains are a particularly good solution to that except in the narrow case of making transfers that are illegal on one end or the other. That's just not a big market, and it's self-limiting. Significant success will provoke regulatory response. We already see ho…

>narrow case of making >transfers that are illegal Exactly, except I don't see why do you think it's a narrow case? Legal ways are burdensome, expensive for those who can live a week for $10, and sometimes don't work altogether because of political reasons which are unlikely to disappear soon (I don't even sure they have to disappear at all). And economic migration is huge, so it's safe guess to say that number of pe…

I'm saying it's a narrow case because most people doing international transfers are not interested in getting on the wrong side of the law. If you have data otherwise, let's see it.

Yes, the international transfer system isn't great. But that doesn't mean that blockchains are the best solution. Or a solution at all.

Is Somalia undergoing economic breakdown? I didn't find much evidence for that, and war doesn't mean that it is. And if it isn't, then it's not the kind of economic-collapse case that is typically used to justify Bitcoin.

If you're using an intermediary, then there's no real point to a blockchain solution. Blockchains create a trustless context. If I'm willing to trust an intermediary, then a blockchain doesn't add value.

Re: Introducing A16Z Crypto

#290

Post by pdpi » Tue, Jun 26, 2018, 4:29 PM UTC

mgummelt wrote: post #288

pdpi wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The “unique capability” of nakamoto consensus is the exact opposite of trust between parties — it’s that it operates without trust.

It doesn't operate without trust. It just makes it so you no longer have to trust banks. But you still have to trust the network.

Sort of — the trust in the network is reduced to:

    1. I trust nobody has >50% of the hashing power.
    2. I trust network participants to be economically rational actors

This is both a much smaller, and much more explicit, set of things you need to trust than regular banking.

At any rate, the bigger point is that the a16z post describes trust as a positive, whereas the correct attitude is to treat trust as a negative quality of a system. Cryptocurrencies are not designed to engender trust, they're designed to avoid it wherever possible.