Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Half of ICOs Die Within Four Months After Token Sales Finalized

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

321–330 of 433 posts

Re: Half of ICOs Die Within Four Months After Token Sales Finalized

#321

Post by tfha »

hannasanarion wrote: post #288
tfha wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would definitely argue that blockchain is closer to the arpanet days than it is to the world wide web days. This stuff is so early. A lot of the really enabling infrastructure doesn't exist, and won't exist for years. Most builders have no idea what the true strengths and limitations are. It'll get there, but it's not a 2020 type of get there. Maybe 2025.

What? That makes no sense. What infrastructure? What strengths? All you're doing is solving hash puzzles because some people arbitrarily decided that solved hash puzzles have value.

You can tell the ordering of transactions in the absence of a trusted third party. There's an entire body of research dedicated to ordering transactions called Byzantine fault tolerance, but all of them require trusted parties to maintain consensus.

Cryptocurrency is the first time we could really escape that.

As for infrastructure, things like the lightning network will provide scalability, things like starks and bulletproofs can help both privacy and scalability, decentralized exchanges help accessibility.

Re: Half of ICOs Die Within Four Months After Token Sales Finalized

#322

Post by aclsid »

opencl wrote: post #230
arisAlexis wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

they cannot send or receive usd from abroad. they can do it with bitcoin. you get now the value proposition of a global currency that is not government controlled?

People in Venezuela certainly do send and receive USD from abroad, it is obviously the only way it gets into the country. You can go to a grocery store and buy food with USD. This is what people are actually doing . I suppose you can try to convince the people at your local grocery store to accept cryptocurrencies but good luck with that. And good luck using cryptocurrencies in a country that suffers from frequent bl…

I'm sorry but I currently live in Venezuela and what you are saying is wrong. Very few places in Caracas or hotels will actually take USD for payment since it is considered illegal unless you go through the regular channels with the idiotic govt exchange rate.

Bitcoin not only thrives here and allows you to bypass the whole craziness with the economy by using exchanges like localbitcoins.com where somebody would deposit the amount of bitcoin you sold to your local bank account. This way you just keep your money in bitcoins if you want. This is specially true with miners.

Re: Half of ICOs Die Within Four Months After Token Sales Finalized

#323

Post by aclsid »

confiscate wrote: post #252
arisAlexis wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

they cannot send or receive usd from abroad. they can do it with bitcoin. you get now the value proposition of a global currency that is not government controlled?

If crypto, being "not controlled by a central authority", solves inflation, surely it would already have replaced the default currency in Venezuela by now? "Authorities have .. permitted trading of bitcoin in Venezuela, though they have heavily fined and detained people who use computers to earn bitcoins by auditing online cryptocurrency transactions. Such “mining” operations use immense amounts of electricity, which…

They have a national registry that you need to subscribe to if you are a miner. That and you also need to keep in handy your customs paperwork to prove that you paid entry duties for the equipment. Otherwise you open yourself to police extortion.

Re: Half of ICOs Die Within Four Months After Token Sales Finalized

#324

Post by aclsid »

chrisco255 wrote: post #295
dragonwriter wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> aris is technically correct. No,“can” and “are legally allowed to” don't, technically, mean the same thing.

For most Venezuelans, getting access to cash is not a practical reality, even if it's a theoretical one. I went to Venezuela in 2011 and you couldn't even bring $1K USD worth of goods into the country without being taxed to death on it (or paying off some government official). How about cash? Also, I'd rather carry a USB stick with a private key on it than a wad of cash in one of the world's most violent countries (i…

Well the thing is that cash is nowhere to be found so you just go around with your debit card and you are fine.

The other part is that we Venezuelans never walk anywhere. Going somewhere without a car feels dangerous. Oh and in big cities, if the car is armored the better. Plenty of shops now to convert your SUVs.

Re: Half of ICOs Die Within Four Months After Token Sales Finalized

#325

Post by aclsid »

briandear wrote: post #253
darawk wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Soooo, buying drugs and illegal gambling? Sure, I'll give you that one. Yes, although also remittance payments, and some usage in places with unstable currencies like Venezuela. Hard to gauge how much, though. > My argument rephrased: "Because cryptocurrency investors have repeatedly made claims that don't pan out, we can be reasonably skeptical and concerned about their energy consumption until they actually fix i…

Let’s say I am in Venenzuela and I have some bitcoin. Now what do I do with it? Can I pay my rent with it? Buy food? Of course not. It isn’t solving any problem a USD account isn’t solving. Converting Bitcoin into anything actually usable is the problem.

You can use localbitcoins.com or localethereum.com and somebody will buy your cripto and give you bolivares in your local bank account. That way you save a trip to the US to open an account, which most people can't afford anyway

Re: Half of ICOs Die Within Four Months After Token Sales Finalized

#326

Post by aclsid »

sadturnip wrote: post #265
lurker456 wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would you send fiat to a family member stuck in Venezuela ? I agree that the value of cryptocurrency is hugely inflated, but it's not zero either. It's a good fit in some scenarios.

How would said family member actually convert the crypto into something that can be spent in their day to day lives?

With an exchange that transfers money to your local bank account? I know at least two that do that for Venezuela.

Re: Half of ICOs Die Within Four Months After Token Sales Finalized

#327

Post by dang »

profalseidol wrote: post #298
hudon wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People use cryptocurrency too. For value transfer, and to a more limited extent, for dapps like Augur. Soooo, buying drugs and illegal gambling? Sure, I'll give you that one. My argument rephrased: "Because cryptocurrency investors have repeatedly made claims that don't pan out, we can be reasonably skeptical and concerned about their energy consumption until they actually fix it or at the very least provide peer-r…

> or at the very least provide peer-reviewed scientific analysis on how it will be fixed https://eips.ethereum.org/EIPS/eip-1011 There you go. Read it then make your arguments against it. If not, then shut-up.

Being rude like that will get you banned on HN, so please don't do that again, regardless of how right you are or wrong someone else may be.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Half of ICOs Die Within Four Months After Token Sales Finalized

#328

Post by aclsid »

bduerst wrote: post #199
eximius wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that the EVM hasn't found its great use yet. But Cryptocurrencies in general are being used widely for international currency movements and as currency in distressed countries like Venezuela where the 'black market' is just the regular market due to government instability.

The Venezuelan bolívar is not a good example of prime markets for cryptocurrencies. The forced exchange rates, runaway inflation, and general mismanagement has created a black market in which literally any other currency is better.

I think it is a good example because cryptocurrencies solve the confidence issue people have in the local currency and takes away control of a single government to impose controls and depreciate the currency. You also get to bypass the notoriously bad banking system and since bank transfers cannot be reversed here, it's actually safer to trade bitcoins to bolivares than it is to trade bitcoin to USD using Zelle or PayPal.

Re: Half of ICOs Die Within Four Months After Token Sales Finalized

#329

Post by wand3r »

anyfoo wrote: post #181
darawk wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What if we put "beginning" as in "before it was even called the Internet"? Indeed, ARPANET, which came online in 1969, saw fast growth in the United States in the 70s. Nodes came online to use it, not to make a quick buck. People use cryptocurrency too. For value transfer, and to a more limited extent, for dapps like Augur. You seem to be criticizing the delta between the lofty hopes for it and it's actual usage. T…

> The early internet did not have such lofty hopes, so its growth was more organic. People forget that in the early days of the Internet and its predecessors, most computers were still bigger than a washing machine, mostly available only to universities and big or specialized corporations, and data lines were limited to bandwidths many orders of magnitudes narrower than today. The Internet had an inherent hard limit…

> The Internet had an inherent hard limit on scale and availability simply by the technology that was available at the time.

All technology is limited by what is available at the time. I am nowhere near as bullish as I used to be on “blockchain” but I still think it can have a huge impact. If the internet democratized informatiom the blockchain has the potential to democratize finance and some types of information. The internet had all kinds of crazy scammers during the dotcom era. I think there is still potential here and while the shape isn’t super obvious I think it’s not worth betting against. Im no koolaide drinking crypro cargo cultist but I am optimistic it will solve some problems and be a net positive.

Re: Half of ICOs Die Within Four Months After Token Sales Finalized

#330

Post by putlake »

The headline is misleading. It says ICOs "die". The actual article says that after 3-6 months, returns from a cryptocurrency are no better than the overall crypto market.

This is like saying after 6 months of an IPO, the stock does not outperform the S&P 500. It doesn't mean the IPO is dead, or the stock is dead.

Post reply on HN