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Why I’m so “against” Ethereum

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Re: Why I’m so “against” Ethereum

#61

Post by hackernudes »

stillbourne wrote: post #44
hackernudes wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "valuable" matches would have to do something statistically rare, like make a pattern of Jesus's face or something. And somehow be resistant to counterfeit matches. Then your analogy almost makes sense.

Do crypto coins make patterns of Jesus's face? Man there is something I would never have guessed. Also is counterfeit money really that big of a problem that its debasing the value of the dollar enough that we have to abandon all notions of fiat currency and replace it with an entropic commodity that burns energy to no other end? I mean I get, that the "valuable matches" are the ones that "make a coin" of whatever th…

What you have to show at the end of the day is a digital currency that has no central authority and yet still prevents double spending.

The cycles are not wasted - they secure a digital currency.

Banks and governments use immense resources to secure fiat currency.

Re: Why I’m so “against” Ethereum

#62

Post by stillbourne »

sparkie wrote: post #57
stillbourne wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Labor is the principal value of a currency. I'm guessing you are a libertarian. Maybe you should learn about how commerce, financial instruments, and debt work before saying money has no intrinsic value. Otherwise, if money has no intrinsic value then why work for it? Maybe we should go be communists. As Labor is the principal value of currency, so is debt the obligations of its members. When you get a loan you are n…

Labor is a sacrifice of ones time, and one expects to receive compensation for that sacrifice. The medium of compensation could be anything, and is certainly not limited to regional monopoly currencies. The key distinction between the currency and Bitcoin is the government's use of force to mandate that people accept the currency as a unit of payment for services (and use it to pay taxes). There is no intrinsic value…

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Re: Why I’m so “against” Ethereum

#63

Post by sparkie »

stillbourne wrote: post #55
wallacoloo wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a creative metaphor, but like most metaphors, not all of the novel properties of the original system were preserved in the metaphor. If you want to improve the metaphor find a way to make it so that as a holder of matches I can have very high confidence that there is an upper limit of N matches that can exist at any given time extending far into the future. Also add some way for me to transfer my matches to a…

Yes, lets create a scarcity of all of our burned matches! If my calculations are correct, at 21m bitcoin would be the equivalent of 15,405,810,000,000 used matches. That's a great idea. Sadly, you'll just have to wait 24h for my antique wire transfer.

The key distinction between a burned match and a some bitcoin is that you can't forge the latter. Anyone can forge a match, and it would be extremely difficult to create an "authentic" match, which the receiver of in a transaction could verify to be such.

Anything could technically be used as currency. Historically people have always used something that is difficult to forge, because forgery results in inflation, meaning the currency which they hold loses its purchasing power over short times. It ends up not worth the labor they put in to earn it. If that were known at the time they done the labor, they would've asked for payment in something else.

Bitcoin is the best currency that has existed, because it is the first which is absolutely infeasible to forge, and it is simultaneously easy to verify its authenticity.

Re: Why I’m so “against” Ethereum

#64

Post by stillbourne »

hackernudes wrote: post #61
stillbourne wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do crypto coins make patterns of Jesus's face? Man there is something I would never have guessed. Also is counterfeit money really that big of a problem that its debasing the value of the dollar enough that we have to abandon all notions of fiat currency and replace it with an entropic commodity that burns energy to no other end? I mean I get, that the "valuable matches" are the ones that "make a coin" of whatever th…

What you have to show at the end of the day is a digital currency that has no central authority and yet still prevents double spending. The cycles are not wasted - they secure a digital currency. Banks and governments use immense resources to secure fiat currency.

>The cycles are not wasted - they secure a digital currency.

But why though? Is the USD that insecure? Is fraud so prevalent that its debasing the value of currency? Do we literally need to spend 70TWh per year, and that's just in its current state as a semi novelty currency/commodity, to secure the concept of money? Can you imagine how much it would cost to run bitcoin if it was the primary reserve currency of the world?

Re: Why I’m so “against” Ethereum

#65

Post by thiagotomei »

nonbel wrote: post #48
toufiqbarhamov wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the price of Good N is Value of N+x where x is a markup to cover the costs you’re talking about, that cost is passed on to people who pay with any means. If I buy a TV with cash, or credit card, it costs the same. Except of course that I can get cash back on my card, but not with cash (or bitcoin). So, credit card or not, the cost is there, even if I pay with bitcoin or ether. Except of course for the benefits of…

>" that cost is passed on to people who pay with any means. If I buy a TV with cash, or credit card, it costs the same." If people start charging less when paid via methods that have less chargeback risk will you reassess?

As a matter of fact, this (merchants giving a discount for cash transactions) used to be illegal in Brazil. It recently became legal, but I haven't seen much evidence of changes.

Re: Why I’m so “against” Ethereum

#66

Post by jarfil »

berberous wrote: post #26
gumby wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're agreeing with him. He's responding to people saying "hey, why are you criticising ETH, don't you like this stuff?" And he's saying that even the "blue chip" cryptocurrency projects are still very experimental phases and he takes them seriously enough to criticize them.

Except he seems to give BTC a pass. I'm not familiar with this guy and just skimmed his tweetstorm, but he seems to be part of a group that thinks BTC >>>> ETH.

ETH is theoretically better than BTC, while BTC is practically better than ETH.

Depending on whether you want something cool to experiment with, or something to actually use, one is far better than the other.

Re: Why I’m so “against” Ethereum

#67

Post by seibelj »

stillbourne wrote: post #47
erulabs wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing in the _world_ has intrinsic value. Obviously, this an opinion, but I do believe it has strong epistemological backing. An easy overview of the opinion by wired: https://www.wired.com/story/bitcoin-has-no-intrinsic-value-n... , a 1970s era discussion by a historian economist: https://fee.org/articles/the-fallacy-of-intrinsic-value/ , and a deep dive the theory itself: https://mises.org/library/introduction-va…

Labor is the principal value of a currency. I'm guessing you are a libertarian. Maybe you should learn about how commerce, financial instruments, and debt work before saying money has no intrinsic value. Otherwise, if money has no intrinsic value then why work for it? Maybe we should go be communists. As Labor is the principal value of currency, so is debt the obligations of its members. When you get a loan you are n…

You are speaking as if your philosophical viewpoints are settled facts. Your opinions on the nature of money are not facts and cannot be proven. We can propose theories about why something has value, such as a currency, but ultimately it comes down to philosophy when you are trying to understand why dollars / gold / bitcoin is worth something.

At the end of the day, something has value because two people agree it does. One painting is worth $100million and another $100 because two people agree that’s what it’s worth. Why two people agree something has value is the matter of endless debate. But I assure everyone reading that the commenter I am responding to is not certain to the answer, and actually no one really knows. This is philosophy, we can all have opinions.

Re: Why I’m so “against” Ethereum

#68

Post by erulabs »

stillbourne wrote: post #47
erulabs wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing in the _world_ has intrinsic value. Obviously, this an opinion, but I do believe it has strong epistemological backing. An easy overview of the opinion by wired: https://www.wired.com/story/bitcoin-has-no-intrinsic-value-n... , a 1970s era discussion by a historian economist: https://fee.org/articles/the-fallacy-of-intrinsic-value/ , and a deep dive the theory itself: https://mises.org/library/introduction-va…

Labor is the principal value of a currency. I'm guessing you are a libertarian. Maybe you should learn about how commerce, financial instruments, and debt work before saying money has no intrinsic value. Otherwise, if money has no intrinsic value then why work for it? Maybe we should go be communists. As Labor is the principal value of currency, so is debt the obligations of its members. When you get a loan you are n…

> Otherwise, if money has no intrinsic value then why work for it?

Because it has value to me, and to many other humans who I know and trust, which gives it _extrinsic_ or subjective value. To be snarky: Maybe you should learn to think through others ideas, or read their suggested reading, before accusing them of ignorance.

Re: Why I’m so “against” Ethereum

#69

Post by nonbel »

thiagotomei wrote: post #65
nonbel wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>" that cost is passed on to people who pay with any means. If I buy a TV with cash, or credit card, it costs the same." If people start charging less when paid via methods that have less chargeback risk will you reassess?

As a matter of fact, this (merchants giving a discount for cash transactions) used to be illegal in Brazil. It recently became legal, but I haven't seen much evidence of changes.

Cash is also more easily counterfeited than card transactions. I'm not sure how the risk of a fraudulent transaction works out in the end.

Re: Why I’m so “against” Ethereum

#70

Post by vitaliksghost »

stillbourne wrote: post #62
sparkie wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Labor is a sacrifice of ones time, and one expects to receive compensation for that sacrifice. The medium of compensation could be anything, and is certainly not limited to regional monopoly currencies. The key distinction between the currency and Bitcoin is the government's use of force to mandate that people accept the currency as a unit of payment for services (and use it to pay taxes). There is no intrinsic value…

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You have zero clues and speak for others. Go away.
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