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As Bitcoin Sinks, Industry Startups Are Forced to Cut Back

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Re: As Bitcoin Sinks, Industry Startups Are Forced to Cut Back

#281

Post by ramontayag »

hannasanarion wrote: post #263
ramontayag wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's actually useful in places that don't have great financial access. I'm guessing your estimate of "very few people" is from a place that has good access?

That makes absolutely no sense. If you have limited or intermittent internet access, why the hell would you put your money on the internet? Any outage will bankrupt you.

To hold, yes you're right. I suspect you're thinking of the storage of value use-case?

It is a way to transfer value. I'm from the Philippines and I'm seeing increasing usage in remittance or getting paid salaries from abroad.

I also get a better feel for what else bitcoin is doing with this podcast episode "Alex Gladstein on Why Bitcoin Matters for Freedom" https://pca.st/aQy0

Re: As Bitcoin Sinks, Industry Startups Are Forced to Cut Back

#282

Post by untangle »

plantain wrote: post #106
jklepatch wrote: post #96

What puzzled me is how comes blockchain startups did not sell their crypto for fiat just after their ICOs. I recommended this to several of my blockchain customers but none of them listened. I dont know if that was motivated by greed or something else. According to Game theory there is no benefit in not selling the crypto for fiat: if you raise lets say 10million during an ico (typical amount raised 6m ago), there is…

It took me a long time to realise, but these people really do believe in bitcoin/blockchains.

> It took me a long time to realise, but these people really do believe in bitcoin/blockchains.

Best. Comment. Of. 2018.

Especially since "these people" include some ostensibly smart cookies.

I conjecture that these people were/are trying to elevate BC to the level of adtech (Google).

Perhaps we have averted another black hole for the greatest minds of a generation.

Re: As Bitcoin Sinks, Industry Startups Are Forced to Cut Back

#283

Post by mdpopescu »

AlexCoventry wrote: post #185
mdpopescu wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's fascinating how strongly we believe that now == how things should be. Humans have been using gold as a currency for thousands of years, and yet nowadays everyone seems to believe that nothing but state-backed paper can work as such - and anyone who wants (as you said) an apolitical currency is just weird.

To me the key question is whether competitive organizations can form around incentive structures based on a decentralized currency. I think doubts and debate on that question are still reasonable.

That is indeed a great question. In general, I have found out that people are extremely inventive when there are profits to be made.

Re: As Bitcoin Sinks, Industry Startups Are Forced to Cut Back

#284

Post by dang »

hndamien wrote: post #243
hndamien wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It certainly does seem to be a "scheme" but I wonder how it compares to other fiat or gold currency when looked at through a "scheme" lens.

Down votes, no comment. Par for the course here.

Please don't break the site guidelines.

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

Re: As Bitcoin Sinks, Industry Startups Are Forced to Cut Back

#285

Post by askmike »

dustingetz wrote: post #233
askmike wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are very wrong, OTC markets are very liquid right now. Also $10 million in BTC isn't very much, you can trade this on the public markets without slipping very much if you really want to.

yes of course they are liquid now , and of course you can trade it in crypto-crypto markets, the question is if you can trade it for USD cash money in a real bank account, eight months ago

Very much so, I'm not sure why you think you couldn't. 10 million really isn't that much.

Re: As Bitcoin Sinks, Industry Startups Are Forced to Cut Back

#286

Post by askmike »

dustingetz wrote: post #262
leppr wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There may have been more slippage than your startup was comfortable with, but the OTC market has always been liquid enough for startups to liquidate ETH/BTC from ICOs, even in the middle of the bear market.

show us some evidence!

That's not how OTC markets work.

Have you tried to buy or sell a big amount and did you not get a price you were looking for? Or have you ever read anyone that had this problem? I don't know anyone that has ever complained about this..

Re: As Bitcoin Sinks, Industry Startups Are Forced to Cut Back

#287

Post by twblalock »

illumin8 wrote: post #202
twblalock wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How have those so-called breakthroughs had an effect on the world outside the cryptocurrency bubble? Who has used them in industry?

This comment is similar to looking at the Netscape browser in 1994 and asking who has successfully used a browser in industry. Or, like insisting in 2001-2002 that all dot-coms were like WebVan or pets.com and the Internet was just a fad and didn't provide any real value. If you have any understanding of the way technology is developed and becomes commercialized (hint: google "gartner hype cycle") you'll probably rea…

The Netscape browser, and the concept of the internet in normal peoples' homes, and the concept of e-commerce all proved themselves in less time than blockchain tech has now had to prove itself. Maybe that's because blockchain tech will never succeed.

I don't appreciate your condescension, for example:

> If you have any understanding of the way technology is developed and becomes commercialized (hint: google "gartner hype cycle")

I understand these things just fine, thank you very much, and I'm asking you for a explanation why blockchain tech is going to succeed despite its having failed for far more years than comparable technologies have failed in the past. It's been a decade. Where's the beef?

Re: As Bitcoin Sinks, Industry Startups Are Forced to Cut Back

#288

Post by Joe-Z »

madeofpalk wrote: post #230
Joe-Z wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. I found GP's comment quite insightful until it suddenly called for regulation on the internet. Why would that change anything when we just established that not the technology but learned behaviours are the problem? Maybe 2018 was the year that showed us that we finally need to come to terms with the fact that - yes - there are enough resources for everybody and the people who control the bulk of them still wa…

> but learned behaviours are the problem? Regulation can codify those bad 'learned behaviours' into illegal practices, no?

Good point. But the problem with regulation, especially in as of yet poorly understood domains, is it's hard to craft laws that target the behaviours you want to have punished without inflicting too much collateral damage on behaviours you still want to enable. And of course the ones best able to defend themselves against these regulations are the companies who can afford armies of lawyers and loophole-seekers.

My suggestion is: Punish bad behaviours by social exclusion.

So, next time one of you runs across Mark Zuckerberg at a coffee shop don't greet him, give him the stink-eye, throw a muffin at him or something :D

Re: As Bitcoin Sinks, Industry Startups Are Forced to Cut Back

#289

Post by raverbashing »

cageface wrote: post #228
Joe-Z wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. I found GP's comment quite insightful until it suddenly called for regulation on the internet. Why would that change anything when we just established that not the technology but learned behaviours are the problem? Maybe 2018 was the year that showed us that we finally need to come to terms with the fact that - yes - there are enough resources for everybody and the people who control the bulk of them still wa…

To be clear - I'd prefer not to see a new wave of regulation online. I'd much rather see the tech industry clean up its own house and fix its own problems. But since the big companies still seem to be dragging their feet on this after all that's happened I'm pretty sure we're about to get dragged kicking and screaming into the sausage factory that is government regulation.

The market hates regulation but will happily sell you HIV infected blood, then, when they get regulated they cry bloody murder.

And of course regulatory capture is an issue as well.

It is a hard problem because we're dealing with psychopaths.

Re: As Bitcoin Sinks, Industry Startups Are Forced to Cut Back

#290

Post by tim333 »

ac29 wrote: post #177
tim333 wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The BTC/USD market on Kraken is pretty liquid. I think trading $10m wouldn't have been a problem if you spread it over a few days. They are trading $34m/day now and it would have been far more 6 months ago. Not sure what paperwork you need - as long as you could document the source was legit it would probably be ok. Also changing BTC/USDT would at least protected against the decline in value.

> as long as you could document the source was legit it would probably be ok. But how many of these ICO's actually did proper KYC/AML stuff? My guess is very, very few, making getting fiat money into a legitimate bank much more difficult.

Yeah not sure about that. I went for a few ICOs. The western ones all had quite a lot of KYC stuff. A Chinese one had nothing but I presume there are some banking arrangements in China that turn a blind eye. The whole China scene seemed pretty unregulated. If you wanted to launder it would probably have been the place though they seem to have cracked down now.
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