Skepticism might be warranted, but it should be noted by now that decentralized finance has a place in the present and future of our planet and it's not going away. I strongly encourage technologists to keep an open mind and do in depth research into the space. Yes, 2017 was over-hyped. The tech was not mature then, and while it has matured some since then, there's still quite a ways to go. Bitcoin Lightning network…
Decentralized finance is a myth. Governments only exist because they control the money on behalf of the country. Decentralization of finance would remove that control and hence fundamentally undermine the governments control
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.
One problem that I think blockchains could be well suited for is the storage of police evidence. Not physical evidence of course, but anything that could be turned into data. There was a scene in the show Billions where U.S. prosecutors tampered with evidence in the from of notes taken while interviewing persons of interest. Since blockchains are at their core a tamper-proof append-only data store, if those notes had…
How does a distributed public ledger help with it?
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.
Censorship resistant financial transactions. It is much more difficult to censor crypto payments than it is to censor credit card, paypal, or bank transactions. Crypto payments being censored just isn't something that is happening, even though crypto has been around for 10 years. The evidence proves that it is more difficult to censor.
Only in a separate digital realm that never touches the rest of the world. In the rest of the world there are laws that are enforced by force and no amount of math is going to prevent a SWAT team from dragging a crypto punk into a slammer.
Skepticism might be warranted, but it should be noted by now that decentralized finance has a place in the present and future of our planet and it's not going away. I strongly encourage technologists to keep an open mind and do in depth research into the space. Yes, 2017 was over-hyped. The tech was not mature then, and while it has matured some since then, there's still quite a ways to go. Bitcoin Lightning network…
> You don't have any freedom if you have to beg VISA or PayPal for permission to spend your money. That alone should be enough to justify the existence of block chain technology and we should all be cheering on its eventual success. Where is it you live that Internet service is provided by a free market, that can't be disabled?
I can think of more cases of Visa and PayPal cutting off payments (e.g. to alt-right media organizations, Backpage, gambling) than ISPs. It's of course their right not to process payments for whomever they want, and I personally haven't shed any tears over the organizations I've mentioned, but I do wonder whether it is a good thing that payments are so centralized they effectively become an extragovernmental regulator, especially because their motive is loss prevention and public image rather than public interest.
Some people think this is a problem. Others, a feature. At least now we have the ability to see what happens.
You can have decentralized money without crypto - just use gold parity - but somehow no country uses it now. Maybe they are all corrupt - but maybe it is just not good way to manage the economy.
It's worth noting that because of the power the U.S. has over global finance it's hard for other countries not to follow its lead. So when Nixon went the route he went, the rest of the world was to a large extent forced to follow suit.
tl;dr - A16Z is reclassifying themselves as an "investment advisor", which will allow them to make riskier bets (crypto, real estate, etc). They'll still invest in startups like any other VC firm.
They will or already did?
Cryptocurrency prices jumped 20% because of a well executed 100M order
What is there to believe or not believe in? It is what it is. Bitcoin is a perfectly functional means of financial exchange, and has use cases that beat regular cash, and other use case where it sucks compared to cash.
> and has use cases that beat regular cash, Tell me.
Sometimes it's nicer to send money than it is to authorize someone to take money from an account, especially if you're unsure of the recipient's ability or desire to protect that account information (credit card number, bank account info, etc). For me, Bitcoin has effectively replaced cashier's checks.
tl;dr - A16Z is reclassifying themselves as an "investment advisor", which will allow them to make riskier bets (crypto, real estate, etc). They'll still invest in startups like any other VC firm.
A totally n00b question. Isn't VC the person with the money, so they are more in control. While an "investment advisor" is just advising or suggesting where the money can be put for maximum returns like an investment advisor in banks? So, presumably less in control. I don't understand why a title change was needed. Any technical or legal reasons?
> Isn't VC the person with the money, so they are more in control.
They are the person with other people‘s money.
> While an "investment advisor" is just advising or suggesting where the money can be put for maximum returns like an investment advisor in banks?
That is basically what they are doing. Making dcisions where to invest their client’s money.
Dear Gentlepeople, can I point out the Elephant in the room, or better the one leaving it. The most interesting part (especially for HN) is not where A16Z is going, but what it is leaving behind: VC. Setting aside the shift in social tide for a moment, why does A16Z think there will be no more profit in VC? Any thoughts?