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A faster, more efficient cryptocurrency

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Re: A faster, more efficient cryptocurrency

#161

Post by sowbug »

semi-extrinsic wrote: post #147
sowbug wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[Using U.S. law as a convenient set of terms of art, not to be geocentric.] The internet is a technical embodiment of the First Amendment (freedom of speech, freedom of press, freedom of religion, right of peaceable assembly, right to complain about the government). Bitcoin is a technical embodiment of some of the Fifth Amendment (due process -- protection against deprivation of property, and even life/liberty if you…

> Bitcoin is a technical embodiment of some of the Fifth Amendment (due process -- protection against deprivation of property, ...) How is it in any way different than having money in your bank account? If the government wants to, they can decide to take all your money from all your account, but they can also decide to throw you in jail until you hand over the keys to your Bitcoins. In the end there is no difference.

In the second case, the money didn't move, and the government didn't get it.

Meanwhile, the Technological Singularity people are working on the other half of the problem you describe.

Re: A faster, more efficient cryptocurrency

#162

Post by jayd16 »

Semaphor wrote: post #146
School-Cotton wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cryptocurrencies are not a replacement for banks; they are a replacement for gold. If cryptocurrencies ever become mainstream, banking services will be built on top of them, just as they were originally built on top of gold. The only thing I can think of that cryptos let you do cheaper than banks is rapid, relatively frictionless funds transfer, so I’ll admit their utility there. But other than that, what banking ser…

Loans, money transfer, storing your money are all things that can be replaced. Seems like a decent chunk.

Loans no, not at all. Money transfer for coin is extremely inefficient. Volatility makes crypto a terrible place to keep money.

Besides, you're paying for the legal and institutional protection anyway. If crypto made money transfer more efficient, they'd use it and still have the value add of a large institution backing transactions.

Re: A faster, more efficient cryptocurrency

#163

Post by sanbor »

ckastner wrote: post #55
malloreon wrote: post #16

I have long wondered how cryptocurrency fans would answer the question: ‘Would you be happy if the crypto-utopia you bring up happens in the next 10 years, and all value is stored/transacted through a cryptocurrency, but it was a coin that you do not possess now, nor could you transfer any of you current currencies into it?’ Say tomorrow someone releases the one true coin, but no one notices. All other cryptocurrenci…

> This is a long way of asking: do you want cryptocurrency to succeed if you knew that you could not profit from it doing so? That is a brilliant question! Instead of all the endless bickering between crypto-fans and -haters reaching from technology to fiscal policy to society, it reduces the conflict to one simple test, as a sort of precondition. Anecdata, but just going through my set of acquaintances, personal pro…

I always have been excited about Bitcoin because allows me as a developer to do things with money in the internet. I could create a service like PayPal without the need of having deals with hundreds of banks all over the world. A homeless can have a btc wallet but probably not a bank account. I could automate transfers and payments. In countries like Argentina there are a few banks and they're really bad quality, both in terms of services and tech, so there are not things like stripe, etc.

I'm talking just about the positive potential of Bitcoin as a technology. There are many downsides and the current landscape of cryptocurrencies is not so great.

My vision is that crypto is going to be used like credit/debit cards, as a way to use money digitally, but it will backed against fiat.

Re: A faster, more efficient cryptocurrency

#164

Post by DenisM »

smokeyj wrote: post #100
DenisM wrote: post #87

This gets asked often, but in case something changed recently - what are the use cases of cryptocurrencies that are not: - Attempts to side-step the law (however misguided the law is) - Trivial to do using a typical centralized database (e.g. Federal Reserver or VISA) - Tantamount to waiting for a greater fool to buy out the current players I am not looking for answers of the form "well whenever you want to avoid a t…

I don't know if you've realized this, but HN is religiously against crypto and anything that rhymes with it. Like, irrationally mad. If you want to explore the utility of crypto go check out different online communities that focus on that, some decent ones on reddit. The level of discussion on HN is usually "crypto baaad, centralized goood". As an economist I'm sure you expect more. Unless you want those ideas reinfo…

You have a valid point, but I just don't have the strength in me to do the original research.

I rather like the level of discourse on HN in general - it's not unusual to find someone providing a high-level though-out response on various subjects. Asking the right question is also hard, but not as hard.

Re: A faster, more efficient cryptocurrency

#165

Post by packet_nerd »

malloreon wrote: post #16

I have long wondered how cryptocurrency fans would answer the question: ‘Would you be happy if the crypto-utopia you bring up happens in the next 10 years, and all value is stored/transacted through a cryptocurrency, but it was a coin that you do not possess now, nor could you transfer any of you current currencies into it?’ Say tomorrow someone releases the one true coin, but no one notices. All other cryptocurrenci…

You can call me a fan, I at least think they are cool and clever, and I like the idea. If a magic coin comes along and is the one true coin that elegantly solves all current problems, I'd think that was great. I don't currently hold any amount of crypto with any hope of getting rich off it.. so it wouldn't really matter to me.

Re: A faster, more efficient cryptocurrency

#166

Post by seth__ »

gregknicholson wrote: post #137
hippich wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Outside of what others replied to you with, there is another aspect I find about it, that truly resonates and excites me, despite not being a holder. To me, Bitcoin is also a large experiment where laws and rules are written as open source code, which any1 code fork and run their own version of it, or any1 can submit a proposal for. This is what traditionally legal system with the power of violence used to deal with…

I don't accept this assessment of how Bitcoin's consensus fundamentally works. Yes, anyone can fork the code, but consensus comes only when the miners choose a fork. As far as I can see, there's no significant incentive to mine other than money, so miners want money, so you can persuade them with money. The "consensus" is fundamentally an auction.

Unless people really use bitcoin to pay for stuff. Then, whatever token can be exchanged for something of value is the one everyone wants, doesn't matter if the miners fork

Re: A faster, more efficient cryptocurrency

#167

Post by DenisM »

neokantian wrote: post #159
pjc50 wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does the shipper care that you've paid a third party?

Escrow situations work like that. You cannot use a bank in an escrow situation, because they are not capable of providing digital proof of payment. Whenever you need to digitally prove payment to a third party, you need to use a payment method that can provide such proof.

How did we manage to ship anything so far? In practice that hasn't been a problem. Or has it?

Re: A faster, more efficient cryptocurrency

#168

Post by Ar-Curunir »

naveedi wrote: post #38

Full disclosure: I work on the cryptocurrency in this article, Algorand. There are a lot of questions and speculation here about this paper and Algorand. I would be happy to try an answer them to your satisfaction. Some context may be helpful first, though. This paper is an innovation about one aspect of our technology. Algorand has a very fast consensus mechanism and can add blocks as quickly as the network can deli…

What do you think of the lack of privacy of algorand, compared to something like Zcash or Monero?

Re: A faster, more efficient cryptocurrency

#169

Post by mandeepj »

paulgb wrote: post #160
SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My family and friends said i was stupid, utopist, being conned, wasting my time, and so lany things. ... All great things start like that. "But the fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright Brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown." -- Carl Sagan https://www.brainyquote.com/qu…

“First they think you're crazy, then they fight you, then you change the world.” - Elizabeth Holmes

I don't think she is the original author of this quote.

Going to share another quote, which I think is relative here -

“Those who are crazy enough to think they can change the world usually do.” - Steve Jobs

Re: A faster, more efficient cryptocurrency

#170

Post by 0xdxdt »

DenisM wrote: post #87

This gets asked often, but in case something changed recently - what are the use cases of cryptocurrencies that are not: - Attempts to side-step the law (however misguided the law is) - Trivial to do using a typical centralized database (e.g. Federal Reserver or VISA) - Tantamount to waiting for a greater fool to buy out the current players I am not looking for answers of the form "well whenever you want to avoid a t…

(Edited) Let me ask you why do you use cash? For anything? Is it for?:

- Attempts to side-step the law (however misguided the law is)

- Trivial to do using a typical centralized database (e.g. Federal Reserver or VISA) - Tantamount to waiting for a greater fool to buy out the current players

The 3rd point is the same for any fiat currency on forex and many governments are the same as the ICO shills.

I'm not justifying them just stating that in many cases the gamble on currency is the same.

You did present a nice Strawman but I'll bite. Ok. I get asked about cryptos quite often also. So if not a digital currency like BTC then what?

Why use cash? Only criminals use cash! Really! If LE should catch you having more than x,xxx.00 in cash they should arrest you? Why? Because obviously you are trying to do something illegal. (civil forfeiture)

Trivial to do tx with 3rd parties???? What with what? PayPal? There have been no alternatives, or equivalent to cash in the electronic age to date. Including BTC. Although BTC is an attempt to provide similar means as cash (fiat) in a global digital sense.

Then again there is this which is perfectly good: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contaminated_currency

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