Earlier quoted context omitted.
> consider there may be many people and use cases that do not work with the centralized solutions The comment you’re replying to is actively soliciting examples of those
Yes, and my point is that being unable to come up with examples based on personal experience is not very convincing evidence that no examples exist.
A16Z is re-registering as a financial advisor, renouncing its status as a VC
341–350 of 360 posts
Re: A16Z is re-registering as a financial advisor, renouncing its status as a VC
#342Honestly, I don't understand the implications this has on their investing activities or the mechanism of this structure. I also don't fully understand the regulations around VC Funds and RIA's in USA (I'm from India).
From what I understand though, a16z is trying to breakaway from investing in the limited scope of securities (e.g. equities) of private companies. They want to offer a suite of wealth management services to their Investors in addition to VC investing.
But then, will the Investors pool capital in the Fund and the Fund be advised by the RIA? Or will the RIA directly advise the Investors? The structure isn't too clear to me. Apologies for the ignorance.
Re: A16Z is re-registering as a financial advisor, renouncing its status as a VC
#343Earlier quoted context omitted.
The fundamental problem is probably with the possibility of fork - if it is decentralized then everyone can fork it if he disagrees with the way it works. But maybe there are some good in-between solutions, less dogmatic, more pragmatic.
Forking is not a problem. It's users voting with their feet. The possibility of forking is a necessary deterrent in cryptonetwork governance. If the maintainers of a network become compromised or get coopted by special interests, the collective owners of the network(the holders of the cryptocurrency) have the right to exit. The right to exit is a necessary part of governance.
You cannot have an binding agreement between everybody if anybody can get out at any time. My thesis is that managing money supply requires such an agreement. Of course you can have unmanaged money - historically we always had that - with gold standard and shells. But it is probably less efficient - because it means you cannot adjust money supply to the state of economy.
Re: A16Z is re-registering as a financial advisor, renouncing its status as a VC
#344Earlier quoted context omitted.
Fees are $1.26 right now, domestic ACHs are largely free. What was your FOREX risk? Did you figure in that you now have to report your transaction on Form 8949, can no longer use TurboTax and will have to spend hours figuring out your reporting obligations or paying an accountant? If you're just going to break the law the rest of the calculus probably doesn't matter as much.
As of 2019, you can definitely use TurboTax to report Bitcoin transactions. And if you use Coinbase, there's deeper integration there, as well.
TurboTax Deluxe I assume? The up-sell cost does still have to be factored in, though it's good to know, thanks!
Re: A16Z is re-registering as a financial advisor, renouncing its status as a VC
#345Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not sure what you mean by it not working. I haven't tried but they're a regulated system, are you sure it's not on your end? Have you been reporting your capital gains and losses over the course of the transaction on both sides? If not the tax authority may have some serious questions for you. And why wouldn't I make negative assumptions of crypto [1], [2], [3], [4]. There's a scammer at every single level and be…
> I'm not sure what you mean by it not working. I haven't tried but they're a regulated system, are you sure it's not on your end? Have you been reporting your capital gains and losses over the course of the transaction on both sides? If not the tax authority may have some serious questions for you. It is actually very simple: A lot of these services do not provide services in Mexico. Really, the passive aggressive c…
Sorry, it wasn't intended to be passive-aggressive, I was curious what the issue was, since by reading their documentation it should work. The tax question was a separate issue with using crypto, not an implication it was related. You didn't really address any of my criticisms however including the pending shutdown of crypto exchanges in Mexico or how reporting requirements factor into your cost calculations.
Either way, another legitimate option for you to consider is an Interactive Brokers account which has great forex options (interbank rates) and Mexico is a supported country. They charge a commission of 0.2 basis points (0.2/100 of a percent) with a minimum of $2USD per order. There really are a lot of legitimate options that don't require cryptocurrency. People have been trading currencies for hundreds of years.
There's a great writeup on the way you can do it here: https://gfmasset.com/2018/09/better-than-transferwise-saving...
For interest you can even do USD-CAD exchanges with zero spread via Norbert's Gambit (https://medium.com/young-wild-and-cheap/the-norberts-gambit-...)
Re: A16Z is re-registering as a financial advisor, renouncing its status as a VC
#346Earlier quoted context omitted.
Interactive Brokers easily beats Transferwise
IB is a stock and similar trading platform and not a transfer company. What am I missing?
You can do forex at interbank rates. Major gotcha is to have bank accounts in both countries with your name. Just fund your acc from one country, do forex, withdraw in another.
https://gfmasset.com/2018/09/better-than-transferwise-saving...
Re: A16Z is re-registering as a financial advisor, renouncing its status as a VC
#347Earlier quoted context omitted.
How does a distributed public ledger help with it?
It provides more protection against deletion. But also note that my comment was explicitly not limited to distributed public ledgers.
The only difference between a block chain and the database is that block chain is public so a rando can validate that nothing has been deleted.
Re: A16Z is re-registering as a financial advisor, renouncing its status as a VC
#348Earlier quoted context omitted.
care to share your list? because everyone I follow (jack, woz, YC, winkl bros, naval, draper VC,sergey and others) are pretty much allin block/coins
Quite hard to do. Just followed pg, some other vc's and then Twitter started suggesting others (Tech VC's, Stock traders) in mobile explore tab.
btw pg is not against crypto. he is neutral/positive imo
Re: A16Z is re-registering as a financial advisor, renouncing its status as a VC
#349Earlier quoted context omitted.
Western democracies with hate speech laws are less democratic because the range of legally permissible opinions is smaller. If mere functioning is your goal for the country, then certainly countries without strong free speech protections can function. They can even function without democracy at all. But most people want more for their country. Western democracies with weaker free speech protections do function, but t…
Cross reference this list[1] with this one[2]. I just don't see any evidence for a claims like "Western democracies with hate speech laws are less democratic". [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index [2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_speech
The only thing the democracy index gets right are the broad strokes. But then again, so could a high schooler with wikipedia and a free afternoon.
It's not implemented well enough to detect the fine differences between western countries.
Hate speech laws reduce the range of discourse. They suppress dissent. That's inherently undemocratic.
Re: A16Z is re-registering as a financial advisor, renouncing its status as a VC
#350Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Nobody takes BTC in exchange for goods and services, absolutely nobody. I was simply trying to show that your original statement was hyperbole, as there are clearly notable retailers that do. Also as a consumer, I don't see why your point about intermediaries is relevant (barring the marginal price difference between them). If you are planning on purchasing something from a business you don't really care if they ar…
My point about intermediaries is that you are paying more to use Bitcoin than I am to use my credit card, and getting a lot less for it. COGS: $10.00, retail after CC markup: $10.30. I get a 2% rebate, so I paid $10.09, and for that $0.09 I get a one-month interest free loan, chargeback abilities and numerous warranties. COGS: $10.00, retail after CC markup: $10.30. You have to buy the $10.30 from an exchange for $10…
Eh, if you really want to take cherry pick examples, let's take the lower 0,4% fee I pay to buy BTC. I get 0% cashback for my credit card (cashback is an exception in Germany, not the rule), and Coin Tracking Unlimited for one year is 0.037BTC (~$180.6525) instead of $185 paying with USD. And suddenly the point is 100% reversed and BTC is the clear winner and obviously far superior to Creditcards -.-