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

Blockchain, the Solution for Almost Nothing

thecorrespondent.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

271–280 of 296 posts

Re: Blockchain, the Solution for Almost Nothing

#271

Post by nojster »

romanoderoma wrote: post #241
ric2b wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Bitcoins can be stolen by simply hacking (or losing) a device, your money can't, unless it's cash. Hacking/phishing/social engineering into private bank accounts is quite common, probably more than into cryptocurrency wallets. It's easy and highly encouraged by every cryptocurrency wallet to backup your wallet seed, so losing a device is not a problem unless you ignore that advice. > But you usually don't keep all…

> Hacking/phishing/social engineering into private bank accounts is quite common, probably more than into cryptocurrency wallets. They are not common and you don't lose any money, if they are stolen from banks. > It's easy and highly encouraged by every cryptocurrency wallet to backup your wallet seed That's not protection, that's just preparing for the worst, hoping for the best. > I don't, I have them split into mu…

> They are not common and you don't lose any money, if they are stolen from banks. if someone obtains access to your bank account and withdraws your money, then YOU have to prove that it wasn't you.

Also, about how common some scenarios are in the UK: https://www.statista.com/statistics/586715/share-of-cyber-se...

> You are not an average user then

any statistics to back up your claim?

> You debit card cannot easily be used to steal money from you even if someone steals it physically right, because especially since covid-19 you are less and less asked for your PIN when purchasing with debit / credit card

Re: Blockchain, the Solution for Almost Nothing

#272

Post by aww_dang »

gonehome wrote: post #268
BTCOG wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exchanges are not a part of Bitcoin, and should not exist. Not your keys, not your money. KYC is an invention by financial systems that have nothing to do with Bitcoin and it's intended use. Nobody holds custody over Bitcoin but the privatekey owner. KYC/AML are scams. They do not exist within Bitcoin. This is simply speculators adhering to a financial system that does not control them. There is absolutely no need at…

KYC and AML exist for a reason - investigating and stopping massive amounts of financial crime. People want to convert between fiat currency and BTC, that’s why they end up interacting with these regulations. You can’t currently live only using BTC, but even if you could, the public ledger of every transaction would make it pretty easy to figure out your scheme and come after you anyway whenever you tried to convert…

BTC is a poor candidate for day to day transactions. I'm not sure it can ever reach that level of adoption under the current conditions. Lightning network has been a Rube Goldberg machine of complications.

There are other altcoins like NANO which are a better fit for actual transactions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVNyr4Q3jq4

Agree that there's no way to reach a 100% homogeneous cryptocurrency economy and that exchanges are necessary. As an example, taxes are always paid/priced in the state's currency. Even if we could reach that point, I doubt it could be done by an entire economy switching their billing over to BTC overnight. Exchanges facilitate adoption.

Re: Blockchain, the Solution for Almost Nothing

#273

Post by FridgeSeal »

ghostpepper wrote: post #267
xg15 wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Kiwi Farms, Wikileaks, Backpage, 8chan, Bitchute, American Renaissance Kiwi Farms: " Kiwi Farms, formerly known as CWCki Forums, is an American Internet forum dedicated to the discussion of online figures and communities it deems "lolcows". The targets of threads are often subject to doxing and other forms of organized group trolling such as ongoing harassment and stalking, including real-life harassment by users.…

Since when is it illegal to be (let alone accommodate) far-right conspiracy theorists? Even if it was, shouldn't the decision to shut it down come from the courts / police, and not PayPal / VISA?

Is this not literally the “market“ deciding that it doesn’t want to support those businesses? That is, the very thing proponents of free-market capitalism talk about being so great?

Re: Blockchain, the Solution for Almost Nothing

#275

Post by romanoderoma »

nojster wrote: post #271
romanoderoma wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Hacking/phishing/social engineering into private bank accounts is quite common, probably more than into cryptocurrency wallets. They are not common and you don't lose any money, if they are stolen from banks. > It's easy and highly encouraged by every cryptocurrency wallet to backup your wallet seed That's not protection, that's just preparing for the worst, hoping for the best. > I don't, I have them split into mu…

> They are not common and you don't lose any money, if they are stolen from banks. if someone obtains access to your bank account and withdraws your money, then YOU have to prove that it wasn't you. Also, about how common some scenarios are in the UK: https://www.statista.com/statistics/586715/share-of-cyber-se... > You are not an average user then any statistics to back up your claim? > You debit card cannot easily…

> if someone obtains access to your bank account and withdraws your money, then YOU have to prove that it wasn't you.

Yes

And it's quite easy

And that's why it's more secure than any crypto currency out there

> Any statistics to backup your claim?

Crypto currencies are used by a small minority of the population and a small minority of them have gone further than trading them

So if you have some stats to backup your claim that "it's easy to have many wallets and backup your seeds" for the general population, I will gladly look at them

Cards are insured, if someone uses your card and it's not you, you simply call and block the card and the amount is refunded

You have up to 180 days

My bank sends me an SMS everytimey the card is used and they call me everytime I use my card in anomalous ways (for example when I'm away from home, it's a red flag for them and they call to ask if it's me using it in another place, of course they must have some kind of model for that, they don't call when I'm away for work)

Can crypto offer that?

Re: Blockchain, the Solution for Almost Nothing

#276

Post by godelski »

Acrobatic_Road wrote: post #256
godelski wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do you except people to wait for the postal service to deliver an envelope before they receive whatever they've payed for? To be fair, it might be quicker to verify cash payment by mail than a crypto payment.

Definitely false. If you're using bitcoin and want to be uber-safe, then you should wait for six 10-minute confirmations. That's an extreme example though. In practice you can spend right after the first confirmation, which can be seconds to minutes for other cryptocurrencies.

I think you missed the joke about long verification times.

Re: Blockchain, the Solution for Almost Nothing

#277

Post by dk8996 »

mbrodersen wrote: post #197
dk8996 wrote: post #139

I'm really surprised by how uneducated most of HN are about blockchain. This means we're still early. Few big things that are coming out of blockchain; 1) ICO - a way to raise money in a distributed manner outside the traditional financial system (think Banks and VCs). 2) Defi - a way to borrow and lend (and much more) outside the traditional financial system. One example, Banks get as much as 16-20% return on your d…

> I'm really surprised by how uneducated most of HN are about blockchain I'm really surprised by how uneducated you think HN readers are. My BS alarm goes 100% every time I read about how "Blockchain Technology" is going to solve world peace or whatever.

I'm sorry my comment rubbed some people the wrong way but I think you prove my point. Your point of view is total based on a "gut-feeling" and "I have a hunch", your ignoring the facts that are provided to you.

ICO - literally billions of dollars raised by companies each year. All done on the blockchain.

Defi - 6 billion dollars locked in defi (lending and borrowing) - 10x grown in the last 12 months.

Hundreds of paper have been published - advancing cryptology and Comp. Sci.

Re: Blockchain, the Solution for Almost Nothing

#278

Post by dk8996 »

romanoderoma wrote: post #207
dk8996 wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

-Decentralized Identity (see W3C DID) -Votes aren't verifiable by everyone. -Privacy Just to name a few.

I briefly studied voting systems at university and the studies behind them The Duverger's law for example states that there is a strong psychological component, beside the mechanical one If the vote process is effortless the elector is less involved and that's why going to the ballots is still the favourite way to engage voters If a system promise to be unbreakable and solve every voting fraud problem, voters will be…

Governance is really work in progress but I'm happy to see that people are taken this on. Many crypto projects are building in governance into their tokens and networks. I think we will see voting on the blockchain within in the next 5 years -- probably done by smaller countries or municipalities first. We will get more data and information about tech. vs social rite. Moreover, being on the blockchain doesn't mean that people can't exp. the social rite by going to vote.

Re: Blockchain, the Solution for Almost Nothing

#279

Post by sbierwagen »

zelly wrote: post #183
john_moscow wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, sure, buying an extremely volatile asset with ~2x price swing within recent couple of years is much less risky than paying 0.4% per year, while actively moving your assets to a different jurisdiction. And the anonymity is guaranteed by design. You just send your billions through a couple of mixers registered to phony IDs and it they magically get obfuscated because hey, other billionaires do that every day as w…

There's no need for anonymity. I don't understand why that's relevant. > extremely volatile asset with ~2x price swing within recent couple of years Can be hedged with futures. Also S&P 500 had ~1.5x price swings recently and no one cared. The derivatives market has solved the problem of volatility in all markets not just Bitcoin. There are already several billionaires who publicly say they have lots of BTC, prob man…

>There's no need for anonymity. I don't understand why that's relevant.

A US wealth tax would obviously apply to BTC holdings too.

Re: Blockchain, the Solution for Almost Nothing

#280

Post by tim333 »

xtracto wrote: post #261
tim333 wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was invented as a solution to the problem of making bitcoin and was good for that. Then people saw bitcoin made money so thought if you stick blockchain on something else maybe some of the money dust will rub off. Less good.

Historically, bitcoin was inspired by the 2008 crash. Same crash that inspired the 1% matches in the US and other movements over the world. Because of the centralization of wealth and power. Once the next major depression comes in, a form of cryptocurrencies will gain traction again. People are fed up with big banks and centralized power.

I think you may find the inspiration predates 2008 a fair bit. For instance there was the similar bitgold in 1998 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Szabo#Bit_gold
Post reply on HN