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A faster, more efficient cryptocurrency

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Re: A faster, more efficient cryptocurrency

#201

Post by kevinmchugh »

sametmax wrote: post #82
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…

How do you think bitcoin started ? You'd had to be crazy to believe in it 9 years ago, and spend time and energy in the community, nlt to lention monney, to foster the project. My family and friends said i was stupid, utopist, being conned, wasting my time, and so lany things. Btc was banana money at first, and only people believing it would be a great thing as a concept made it work. We didn't expect to make banks,…

20 years ago marvel declared bankruptcy because of major missteps following a speculation bubble in the early 90s.

Despite being a dominant force in film, they're selling poorly today.

Re: A faster, more efficient cryptocurrency

#202

Post by intelliderp »

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…

For me it's like asking, would you want Amazon to succeed if you did not profit from it?* Obviously, if I am not personally invested in Amazon, I don't really care that much. But it still could have value for society for other reasons than getting rich off of speculating.

For example: https://www.coindesk.com/crypto-gaza-west-bank-bitcoin-pales...

* To those people who say, "You can't compare crypto to a company because companies pay dividends," that is specifically why I chose Amazon as an example, a stock that does not pay dividends.

Re: A faster, more efficient cryptocurrency

#203

Post by semi-extrinsic »

Sir_Substance wrote: post #143
root_axis wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How?

The simple fact that you ask this question tells me you don't live in india, where a few years ago the government straight up deleted quite a lot of personal wealth by declaring the two largest notes worthless with mere hours of warning: http://time.com/4567605/india-currency-change-queues-delhi/ The original statement was: > I think there's value in reducing the politically privileged's means to dominate their power…

As long as you can't buy food or pay your electricity bill with any cryptocurrency, you haven't achieved any of these things.

So the question becomes, why should the supermarket or the utility company accept crypto payments instead of dollars, when they know the former can lose 20%-99% of its value overnight, while the value of the latter is guaranteed to be kept stable by the government?

Re: A faster, more efficient cryptocurrency

#204

Post by colordrops »

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…

Fast international transfers have been a clear win.

Besides that, just because something is illegal doesn't make it wrong. Many nations restrict transactions that are not reasonable to restrict.

So what's wrong with side-stepping bad laws (but also monopolistic players in the financial space such as PayPal and Western Union)?

Your second bullet point is mutually exclusive with the first.

Re: A faster, more efficient cryptocurrency

#205

Post by PeterisP »

arisAlexis wrote: post #121
brazzy wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also why would I trust them, when there is no need to? Because your alternative is to trust the crypto infrastructure, which is far less trustworthy.

what do you mean by crypto infrastructure? you mean the code or the miners? actually banks have failed in the past, this infrastructure not yet

The infrastructure of both payments for goods and services, and for storing your assets.

As of now, paying for goods and services with cryptocurrencies is relatively risky; it's hard to get recourse if you're scammed; and the standard credit card infrastructure with chargebacks and fraud protection is comparably more trustworthy.

As of now, storing cryptorcurrencies is risky. And I'm not even talking about the shady brokers/exchanges that can steal or lose their customer's money. You can store it yourself as well as you can - but, as it turns out, most people aren't that good at storing it securely, so all kinds of risks and breaches (e.g. hacking your devices to get access to your secrets) are more common than for bank accounts but, also, the consequences are more severe - if your bank account gets drained in an identity theft attack, very often these funds are recovered or compensated, not so with crypto. So again, the existing financial infrastructure with regulation, FDIC or similar insurance in case of fraud or insolvency, mandated consumer protection in case of scammed credentials - it's more trustworthy than the commonly used processes&procedures&infrastructure of crypto storage.

Re: A faster, more efficient cryptocurrency

#206

Post by intrasight »

empath75 wrote: post #188
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…

Without the marginal energy cost of mining blocks from proof of work, what do you think would drive the value of such a currency?

Utility

Re: A faster, more efficient cryptocurrency

#207

Post by enraged_camel »

jcranmer wrote: post #186
paulgb wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Elizabeth Holmes, who is currently on trial for fraud charges for covering up the fact that her magic blood testing machine was too magic to work in the real world.

I think that was the joke (although admittedly sometimes you can’t tell on HN).

Re: A faster, more efficient cryptocurrency

#208

Post by joesimple »

airstrike wrote: post #155
arisAlexis wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what do you mean by crypto infrastructure? you mean the code or the miners? actually banks have failed in the past, this infrastructure not yet

First link on Google for "Bitcoin Hack": https://www.coindesk.com/crypto-exchange-zaif-hacked-in-60-m...

I believe they were talking about the Bitcoin network and protocol, not an exchange that someone built.

Re: A faster, more efficient cryptocurrency

#209

Post by smokeyj »

petertodd wrote: post #156
jcfrei wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One possible use case: A notary for digital goods. Crypto currencies have a built-in incentive mechanism that keeps a ledger running and verifiable. This allows for a decentralized way to verify ownership of digital goods. More concrete, you could verify that you are the owner of a very rare sword you obtained in an online RPG. Even when the company goes out of business or stops the servers you could still prove that…

You don't need a cryptocurrency specifically to do this. Rather you can piggy back on a different consensus system: https://petertodd.org/2017/scalable-single-use-seal-asset-tr... For example, while it'd be a bit of a hack, you could fairly easily re-use even the various Certificate Transparency blockchains to trade stocks. Also, I wouldn't say that the incentive mechanisms keep the ledger running. Rather they keep t…

I've never heard of Proof-of-Publication ledgers. Any resources I should look at?

Re: A faster, more efficient cryptocurrency

#210

Post by paulgb »

enraged_camel wrote: post #207
jcranmer wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Elizabeth Holmes, who is currently on trial for fraud charges for covering up the fact that her magic blood testing machine was too magic to work in the real world.

I think that was the joke (although admittedly sometimes you can’t tell on HN).

I can confirm that that was the joke :)
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