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Introducing A16Z Crypto

a16zcrypto.com

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Re: Introducing A16Z Crypto

#301

Post by sacado2 »

dsco wrote: post #110
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 think you're doing blockchain and human ingenuity a disservice by framing the question that way. Many corporations haven't revolved around "solving a problem", but instead making existing solutions more efficient. There were people letting out apartments before AirBnb, and there were taxi cars before Uber - yet we feel that these companies are making our lives easier. Also your question is very much centered around…

Genuine question: how is bitcoin a better inflation hedge than gold, especially in (somewhat) poor countries where making online transactions (and mining bitcoin) is not as easy/affordable as in the most developed countries?

Re: Introducing A16Z Crypto

#302

Post by douglaswlance »

alehul wrote: post #102
douglaswlance wrote: post #75

Would it be possible to build a consensus algorithm for factual information? Sort of a decentralized fact-checker system

That seems like it would be very trivial to game, and additionally while facts are hard to confirm, a consensus of users who are biased and relatively uneducated on the topic would do a particularly bad job anyway. The best similar use case I can imagine is building a system is to evaluate how much of the media is in agreement on a given topic, and use that to combat fake news. If a similar headline isn't found elsew…

So we'd need a debate forum that is deeply integrated into the system that has a forcing function for truth.

Re: Introducing A16Z Crypto

#303

Post by douglaswlance »

alehul wrote: post #102
douglaswlance wrote: post #75

Would it be possible to build a consensus algorithm for factual information? Sort of a decentralized fact-checker system

That seems like it would be very trivial to game, and additionally while facts are hard to confirm, a consensus of users who are biased and relatively uneducated on the topic would do a particularly bad job anyway. The best similar use case I can imagine is building a system is to evaluate how much of the media is in agreement on a given topic, and use that to combat fake news. If a similar headline isn't found elsew…

Media is a terrible metric. Their incentive is attention, not truth. The consensus of media is worse than the consensus of the public.

Re: Introducing A16Z Crypto

#304

Post by douglaswlance »

hobofan wrote: post #253
alehul wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems like it would be very trivial to game, and additionally while facts are hard to confirm, a consensus of users who are biased and relatively uneducated on the topic would do a particularly bad job anyway. The best similar use case I can imagine is building a system is to evaluate how much of the media is in agreement on a given topic, and use that to combat fake news. If a similar headline isn't found elsew…

> a consensus of users who are biased and relatively uneducated on the topic would do a particularly bad job anyway That's why you build the system with an incentive scheme with the contributors having something at stake, that over time weeds out the incompetent contributors, similarly to a PoS scheme.

That's what I was thinking too. If you have PoS, then the your stake is basically how trusted you have been throughout the history of your wallet.

Re: Introducing A16Z Crypto

#305

Post by alehul »

douglaswlance wrote: post #303
alehul wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems like it would be very trivial to game, and additionally while facts are hard to confirm, a consensus of users who are biased and relatively uneducated on the topic would do a particularly bad job anyway. The best similar use case I can imagine is building a system is to evaluate how much of the media is in agreement on a given topic, and use that to combat fake news. If a similar headline isn't found elsew…

Media is a terrible metric. Their incentive is attention, not truth. The consensus of media is worse than the consensus of the public.

I agree. This wouldn't expose hyperbole and bias, but merely be able to advocate for whether the event is being widely reported to protect against completely false news (think celebrity death as an example)

Re: Introducing A16Z Crypto

#306

Post by xmly »

awad wrote: post #262
xmly wrote: post #260

Blockchain technology itself is not that novel. All the technologies it used have already been there for a while, even the PoW. But after reading all the arguments and discussions, my opinion is that blockchain simply reflects the human's desire for a more transparent, secure and fair IT systems. Current IT systems work, just it is not transparent, so people do not know whether it is doing as it claims. Since there a…

In real world terms...I am currently in the process of closing on a property transaction. And, while it does take some time, I haven't seen anything during the process that was immediately made better by what 'blockchain' proponents purport to be better alternatives. To be clear, there are certainly inefficiencies I have witnessed. I am just not clear as to how a blockchain solution, however you define it, helps.

It is transparent. If you make a transaction using paypal, you were told the money is transferred. But how do you know it is true? You have no way to verify it. Similar problem, facebook and google claim that they are only using the customers data for certain actions, but how do we verify?

Blockchain only gives the possibility that the IT system could be transparent and verified by external parties. But Bitcoin blockchain is not the final solution.

That is it.

Re: Introducing A16Z Crypto

#307

Post by _7fvc »

I'm a bitcoin skeptic turning to bitcoin owner. For me, it's worth to look at bitcoin from gold perspective. You can pose similar questions to gold and try to answer them.

Can I transact with bitcoin/gold?

Is bitcoin/gold a good value storage?

What problem does bitcoin/gold solve?

Is bitcoin/gold solving trust problem?

Any answer for gold can be interpreted for bitcoin. Bitcoin is better than gold in many ways.

Bitcoin, like gold, is real. Crypto technology is real and works. Bitcoin is limited. There's a computer network running to support it. Bitcoin is not tulip.

Gold is still around. I don't think we'd ever ditch it. Why do we value bitcoin? I don't really know for sure. But I feel certain that bitcoin is real. And we need to do more work to understand it.

Re: Introducing A16Z Crypto

#308

Post by speedplane »

clu3 wrote: post #293
speedplane wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have to trust someone, at some point. HTTPS/SSL relies on a distributed trust system. Even with crypto, you have to trust the developers that created the protocol and the consortium of groups that operate it.

At least these things are opensourced

Actually, no. Plenty of SSL/HTTPS servers run non-open sourced software. Plenty of open source foundations have closed decision making processes. Being open source is neither necessary nor sufficient to being trustworthy.

Re: Introducing A16Z Crypto

#309

Post by [deleted] »

wpietri wrote: post #219
sjeohp wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I would like to pay/donate to an organization even though no major credit card will let me."

Thanks. That's a plausible hypothetical. Could you name an organization like that? One that you are eager to donate to? How many people would like to donate to it? What's the total payment volume per year? The only organization I can think of that might be in that category is Wikileaks. But they take both credit cards and Paypal, so they don't qualify. Maybe Hamas or Al Qaeda? Except that those are illegal to donate…

[deleted]

Re: Introducing A16Z Crypto

#310

Post by wpietri »

dmix wrote: post #298
Jommi wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which service do you use? What are the fees? Between what countries?

It doesn't exist apparently. No reply to 3 people. He probably Venmo'd $5 to someone and thought it was a solved problem. Not a real solution to real significant cross-border money transfers.

There are a bunch of options out there:

https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/banking/best-ways-to-wire-mo...

And more all the time; it's a hot area for startups: https://www.wsj.com/articles/fintech-startups-seek-to-shake-...

So it's entirely plausible there's a solution that works well for him already.

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