Risky Business: Interview with Marc Andreessen (2018)

I also have a routine search that I do when I look for something built on cryptocurrency or the cryptocurrency ecosystem (e.g. Ethereum "dapps") that I might want to actually use. I always come up empty handed.

Yet there are many smart people that believe in this stuff. Are they in a parallel universe?

Where is it being transformational? All I see is gambling, speculation, scams, solutions in search of a problem, and a ton of vaporware.

Beyond the core use cases of easier international wire transfer and black/grey market commerce, I don't see anything in this space that people actually use (excluding gambling and speculation).

I'm puzzled when I hear them compare it to the Internet. The Internet had immediate real world use cases everywhere. I saw people all around me start to get online and actually use the Internet for a huge variety of things. I don't see any of that with cryptocurrency. Nobody is using this stuff for anything. It's got that classic worst-case solution in search of a problem vibe: you can't give it to people.

I get why bag holders and speculators sound bullish on cryptocurrency. They're hoping more will buy in so they can dump at a higher price. I am genuinely and deeply puzzled when I hear bright people who aren't in those groups who are still believers. What do they see that I don't?

Re: Risky Business: Interview with Marc Andreessen (2018)

#5

Post by corporateslave5 » Tue, Mar 17, 2020, 3:50 PM UTC

api wrote: post #4

Whenever I hear someone like Andreessen who is still a cryptocurrency believer, I go and really look for what he's talking about. I find nothing. I also have a routine search that I do when I look for something built on cryptocurrency or the cryptocurrency ecosystem (e.g. Ethereum "dapps") that I might want to actually use. I always come up empty handed. Yet there are many smart people that believe in this stuff. Are…

The real issue with blockchain is it doesn’t work yet. It doesn’t scale, and complex trustless scalable guarantees aren’t possible yet. The technology is also really new. Bitcoin coin is only ten years old.

Re: Risky Business: Interview with Marc Andreessen (2018)

#6

Post by aguyfromnb » Tue, Mar 17, 2020, 3:52 PM UTC

api wrote: post #4

Whenever I hear someone like Andreessen who is still a cryptocurrency believer, I go and really look for what he's talking about. I find nothing. I also have a routine search that I do when I look for something built on cryptocurrency or the cryptocurrency ecosystem (e.g. Ethereum "dapps") that I might want to actually use. I always come up empty handed. Yet there are many smart people that believe in this stuff. Are…

>They're hoping more will buy in so they can dump at a higher price.

We're seeing, right in this moment, why the ability to increase the supply of currency is a necessity for a functioning economy, especially in times of crisis.

Somehow the hodlers take the exact opposite lesson from what's happening.

Re: Risky Business: Interview with Marc Andreessen (2018)

#7

Post by api » Tue, Mar 17, 2020, 3:59 PM UTC

aguyfromnb wrote: post #6

api wrote: post #4

Whenever I hear someone like Andreessen who is still a cryptocurrency believer, I go and really look for what he's talking about. I find nothing. I also have a routine search that I do when I look for something built on cryptocurrency or the cryptocurrency ecosystem (e.g. Ethereum "dapps") that I might want to actually use. I always come up empty handed. Yet there are many smart people that believe in this stuff. Are…

> They're hoping more will buy in so they can dump at a higher price. We're seeing, right in this moment, why the ability to increase the supply of currency is a necessity for a functioning economy, especially in times of crisis. Somehow the hodlers take the exact opposite lesson from what's happening.

You're referring to what I call "pop Austrianism," and that's definitely an adjacent issue.

Austrianism is a rationalistic theory of economics. By rationalistic in this context I mean it's not empirical. It's the sort of thing you get when smart people sit around and reason through something and come to a conclusion based on that alone without bothering to observe, experiment, or evaluate their ideas in practice.

A wonderful classical example of this kind of rationalism is Aristotle reasoning that heavier objects fall faster than lighter objects. Of course they do! Heavier objects are subject to more force, therefore they fall faster. It's perfectly rational.

BTW I'm not saying that other economic schools of thought have it all correct either. They clearly continue to make incorrect predictions all the time. I really don't think anyone understands economics very well. It's a subset of complex auto-adaptive systems, but with an added layer of adversarial behavior. In economics when a major economist, government, central bank, or business makes a prediction, the market acts so as to attempt to invalidate that prediction. Economic systems actively attempt to invalidate theories about them.

Re: Risky Business: Interview with Marc Andreessen (2018)

#8

Post by api » Tue, Mar 17, 2020, 4:02 PM UTC

corporateslave5 wrote: post #5

api wrote: post #4

Whenever I hear someone like Andreessen who is still a cryptocurrency believer, I go and really look for what he's talking about. I find nothing. I also have a routine search that I do when I look for something built on cryptocurrency or the cryptocurrency ecosystem (e.g. Ethereum "dapps") that I might want to actually use. I always come up empty handed. Yet there are many smart people that believe in this stuff. Are…

The real issue with blockchain is it doesn’t work yet. It doesn’t scale, and complex trustless scalable guarantees aren’t possible yet. The technology is also really new. Bitcoin coin is only ten years old.

I think there's some validity to that view. The Internet was actually 30 years old when it went public.

I find it hard to believe though that VCs are playing that long a game. That's way too long a time horizon for any conventional VC investment.

Re: Risky Business: Interview with Marc Andreessen (2018)

#9

Post by thisisbrians » Tue, Mar 17, 2020, 4:11 PM UTC

api wrote: post #4

Whenever I hear someone like Andreessen who is still a cryptocurrency believer, I go and really look for what he's talking about. I find nothing. I also have a routine search that I do when I look for something built on cryptocurrency or the cryptocurrency ecosystem (e.g. Ethereum "dapps") that I might want to actually use. I always come up empty handed. Yet there are many smart people that believe in this stuff. Are…

I am totally in your camp on this...I'm very interested in crypto from a technology standpoint, but I don't see any viable applications (other than those you mention) on the horizon.

Also, I don't really believe "trustless" is possible, as close as blockchain may get. I'm not an expert here, but don't you still have to trust DNS, certificate issuers, code maintainers, etc.? Can't any of these be compromised with a big enough profit motive?

Re: Risky Business: Interview with Marc Andreessen (2018)

#10

Post by thisisbrians » Tue, Mar 17, 2020, 4:15 PM UTC

A huge issue here is that venture capital's classic business model isn't compatible with SpaceX-scale ventures because they take way too long to return value to investors. SpaceX took 6 years just to complete a demonstration flight to LEO, for instance, whereas a VC is looking for a liquidation event in the ~7 year timeframe.