281–290 of 340 posts
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How is BTC any better than USD or EUR for laundering money?
Density. A single 128GB microSD card can hold a lot of bitcoin in the space that could not fit even one $100 bill. No enormous briefcase and predetermined set of answers for law enforcement.
Good news: your centralized pie where you’ve put in tons of time, and built up a huge amount of credibility is safe!
Cryptocurrencies/blockchain shouldn’t, and likely can’t, “disrupt” most of those industries. A glance through some of the industry reports in the comments shows an immense amount of work done in these respective industries. The value is in the edges.
The important thing to think through, critically, is how we’ve organized ourselves as a species, and how that orientation has changed over time. Do cryptocurrencies / blockchain offer a superior way for individuals to organize themselves around a specific network? There are some interesting questions there, and I think if we can answer those questions, the interesting applications will emerge. Right now we’re thinking of how to slap Web 2.0 onto blockchains, which, though interesting, isn’t going to bode well for anyone. Because the status-quo is superior (from performance and pricing perspective), and works well for most.
Store of Value, currencies, and financial instruments are appealing; those are applications in which humans have to orient themselves around a centralized power structure and believe. Switching the focal point of trust from a large institution (or government) to a decentralized network is an interesting thought exercise. Also think DRM.
Folks are comparing things to the 90s, but that’s a tired dog. You’ve really gotta look before that. We’re still in the installation phase, and I don’t think we’ve quite gotten to the dot com phase of this journey. That level of frenzy is yet to come.
Here's the big reason I've gotten skeptical about blockchain: it seems like very few people are excited about actually using it. Almost everyone talking about it is excited about getting rich from trading currencies or starting a blockchain-based company. And plenty of people are excited about a grand vision for how it might transform society one day, or how it might solve problems they think other people might have.…
One of the most intriguing projects involving blockchain I’ve noticed is e-Estonia which I would file under useful, however it may not qualify as solely a blockchain-based product. Here the reasoning for incorporating the (KSI) blockchain is to prevent tampering. Citizens have access to a number of digital services that includes but aren’t limited to voting, banking, and healthcare. They've reported; “Since 2014, mor…
I don’t buy the hype of the blockchain as much as the average hacker news user, but this article lacks anything but anecdotal data. A bubble needs two things: 1. Misallocated hype 2. Real money As far as I can tell no one has done much digging on how much money blockchain ventures represent in terms of real world investment dollars. Can you call something a bubble if there isn’t much “real” money in it? If all the bl…
I mean, it's a billion-dollar industry, by any estimates I've seen at least. I don't know about you but I would classify that as "a lot" of money. this estimate for example says $1.3B was invested in 2018 alone! https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/20/with-at-least-1-3-billion-... this one is on a similar track: https://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS43526618 plenty of cash to be lost!
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One of the most intriguing projects involving blockchain I’ve noticed is e-Estonia which I would file under useful, however it may not qualify as solely a blockchain-based product. Here the reasoning for incorporating the (KSI) blockchain is to prevent tampering. Citizens have access to a number of digital services that includes but aren’t limited to voting, banking, and healthcare. They've reported; “Since 2014, mor…
I keep hearing about this e-residency, but what can you actually do with it? What is it useful for?
Depends on how high the corporate taxes are in your country. If it's worth it, the big advantage is that everything can be done online.
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Density. A single 128GB microSD card can hold a lot of bitcoin in the space that could not fit even one $100 bill. No enormous briefcase and predetermined set of answers for law enforcement.
wow, you dont know how bitcoin works because that analogy is really stupid. nobody holds bitcoin, they hold private keys that connect to a bitcoin wallet address.
Sure, there will be a lot of space left, but what he said is technically correct :D
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Your comment is exactly why I believe many blockchain (and even cryptocurrency) technologies are useless. There seems to be this underlying pull for many crypto/blockchain enthusiasts that this technology frees us from the constraints of governments and society. "The truth is in the blockchain" and "There is no government in charge" are common refrains. The thing is, unless you want to be a true hermit, you can't esc…
I don't wish for myself or others to escape the bounds of society and government (ok, maybe some of the bounds but that's another talk). Indeed my premise is that individuals, society and government must all be bound to each other in order to have a desirable society, and the sin qua non of this is respect for the truth. As for government, I happen to prefer democracies, and they are especially beholden to truth. Whe…
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Can you expand on this a little more? Why does the financial sector want settlements to take longer?
Risk aversion (against fraud, criminal activities, etc.) and also because a bank earns money as long as it can hold that money, every day that money is accruing interests so if you can hold on that money for longer it makes you more money without any downsides.