Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

A16Z is re-registering as a financial advisor, renouncing its status as a VC

forbes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 360 posts

Re: A16Z is re-registering as a financial advisor, renouncing its status as a VC

#11

Post by troquerre »

googlemike wrote: post #4
seibelj wrote: post #2

A16Z’s unapologetic bet on cryptocurrency and blockchain companies is big for the industry. As crypto heats up again and blockchain 3.0 projects emerge (Cosmos, Polkadot, Ethereum Proof of Stake) VC will help legitimize the industry.

Can you provide a single problem where the right solution space is blockchain? Ive thought about this a good amount, and cannot come up with a single use case where current established centralized technology is not a better solution.

Handshake.org decentralizes the root zone and obsoletes certificate authorities. Basically, it lets you register new TLDs that are censorship-resistant, seizure-resistant, and tamper-proof.

Re: A16Z is re-registering as a financial advisor, renouncing its status as a VC

#12

Post by Waterluvian »

seibelj wrote: post #2

A16Z’s unapologetic bet on cryptocurrency and blockchain companies is big for the industry. As crypto heats up again and blockchain 3.0 projects emerge (Cosmos, Polkadot, Ethereum Proof of Stake) VC will help legitimize the industry.

Actual real, obvious, explainable, practical applications of crypto and blockchain will help legitimize the industry.

Something seems so so wrong with the notion that, "aww shucks, we just need more VC attention! And then we'll become a real boy!"

Re: A16Z is re-registering as a financial advisor, renouncing its status as a VC

#13

Post by 3mtj20 »

googlemike wrote: post #4
seibelj wrote: post #2

A16Z’s unapologetic bet on cryptocurrency and blockchain companies is big for the industry. As crypto heats up again and blockchain 3.0 projects emerge (Cosmos, Polkadot, Ethereum Proof of Stake) VC will help legitimize the industry.

Can you provide a single problem where the right solution space is blockchain? Ive thought about this a good amount, and cannot come up with a single use case where current established centralized technology is not a better solution.

why not payments...which is what bitcoin was founded to do (though perhaps has moved too much into store of value territory)

Re: A16Z is re-registering as a financial advisor, renouncing its status as a VC

#14

Post by googlemike »

seibelj wrote: post #10
googlemike wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you provide a single problem where the right solution space is blockchain? Ive thought about this a good amount, and cannot come up with a single use case where current established centralized technology is not a better solution.

I have also thought about this a good amount, and the answer is any place you want a market. Markets are a very interesting thing, and when they exist all sorts of things happen, but especially real time price discovery. What digital assets enable are markets around digital goods. Software can be funded and operated using new tokens specifically for that project. I believe it can be one solution for financing and cre…

Agreed that markets are very interesting, and agreed that real time price discovery is a thing that happens in markets...

But I still fail to see how blockchain is relevant here? A centralized system for managing supply and demand equilibrium through dynamic price changes seems like the best system here.

I do not feel as though have answered my question - would you mind expanding on your answer?

Re: A16Z is re-registering as a financial advisor, renouncing its status as a VC

#15

Post by garmaine »

googlemike wrote: post #4
seibelj wrote: post #2

A16Z’s unapologetic bet on cryptocurrency and blockchain companies is big for the industry. As crypto heats up again and blockchain 3.0 projects emerge (Cosmos, Polkadot, Ethereum Proof of Stake) VC will help legitimize the industry.

Can you provide a single problem where the right solution space is blockchain? Ive thought about this a good amount, and cannot come up with a single use case where current established centralized technology is not a better solution.

Anywhere where there is no trusted intermediary, or their fees are too expensive.

(And yes that’s a much smaller space than the block chain hype machine makes it out to be, but it is something tangible.)

Re: A16Z is re-registering as a financial advisor, renouncing its status as a VC

#16

Post by [deleted] »

3mtj20 wrote: post #13
googlemike wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you provide a single problem where the right solution space is blockchain? Ive thought about this a good amount, and cannot come up with a single use case where current established centralized technology is not a better solution.

why not payments...which is what bitcoin was founded to do (though perhaps has moved too much into store of value territory)

[deleted]

Re: A16Z is re-registering as a financial advisor, renouncing its status as a VC

#17

Post by QuackingJimbo »

garmaine wrote: post #15
googlemike wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you provide a single problem where the right solution space is blockchain? Ive thought about this a good amount, and cannot come up with a single use case where current established centralized technology is not a better solution.

Anywhere where there is no trusted intermediary, or their fees are too expensive. (And yes that’s a much smaller space than the block chain hype machine makes it out to be, but it is something tangible.)

> Anywhere where there is no trusted intermediary, or their fees are too expensive

Such as......?

Re: A16Z is re-registering as a financial advisor, renouncing its status as a VC

#18

Post by RhodesianHunter »

3mtj20 wrote: post #13
googlemike wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you provide a single problem where the right solution space is blockchain? Ive thought about this a good amount, and cannot come up with a single use case where current established centralized technology is not a better solution.

why not payments...which is what bitcoin was founded to do (though perhaps has moved too much into store of value territory)

AFAICT none of the blockchain tech has the ability to scale to the volume of something like Visa due to it's decentralized nature.

Re: A16Z is re-registering as a financial advisor, renouncing its status as a VC

#19

Post by seibelj »

googlemike wrote: post #14
seibelj wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have also thought about this a good amount, and the answer is any place you want a market. Markets are a very interesting thing, and when they exist all sorts of things happen, but especially real time price discovery. What digital assets enable are markets around digital goods. Software can be funded and operated using new tokens specifically for that project. I believe it can be one solution for financing and cre…

Agreed that markets are very interesting, and agreed that real time price discovery is a thing that happens in markets... But I still fail to see how blockchain is relevant here? A centralized system for managing supply and demand equilibrium through dynamic price changes seems like the best system here. I do not feel as though have answered my question - would you mind expanding on your answer?

Blockchain allows you to run certain types of programs in a purely decentralized manner. You can create a smart contract and allow anyone to use it, and pay for its operation, forever into the future without maintaining any infrastructure. The user pays.

The use cases are novel and not necessarily directly applicable to current problems, just as the Internet was novel and required entrepreneurs to invent new business models.

But let’s imagine you created a new protocol for email. You decide that all emails in the new protocol require the use of a token. You are now incentivizing early users to bootstrap, improve, develop, and promote the protocol. What was previously unfundable is now profitable.

I’m only scratching the surface, but with some imagination you can see how “not crazy” this is.

Re: A16Z is re-registering as a financial advisor, renouncing its status as a VC

#20

Post by Waterluvian »

zhoujianfu wrote: post #9
QuackingJimbo wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seconding this request. Whenever I ask a crypto bull this question directly they just call me an idiot without providing any actual examples.

Illegal stuff?

This is where I've landed too.

1. Making money by trading fun bucks.

2. Anything where you need a currency but all the way better options aren't viable (crime).

Post reply on HN