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Ethereum Isn't Fun Anymore

timdaub.github.io

251–260 of 650 posts

Re: Ethereum Isn't Fun Anymore

#251
post #64

I really, really don't understand where cryptocurrencies are going. Billions have been poured in this technology for almost no actual return technologically wise. And I understand, because interest are not aligned. It really seems like nobody actually care about advancing the state of art, except actual researcher who work in universities and not in crypto startups... Cryptocurrencies had a goal and a usefulness when…

> Polkadot and Kusama I don't think you're actually expecting an answer, but the main difference is that Kusama is a "canary chain" with faster iteration speed (governance votes last 7 days instead of 28 days for Polkadot). https://wiki.polkadot.network/docs/en/learn-kusama-vs-polkad... You can see it as a long-living testnet.

Actually it was nice to have an answer :) . So at least this one make sense.

Re: Ethereum Isn't Fun Anymore

#252

Building something useful on something that is primarily used as highly volatile financial speculation instrument always rubbed me the wrong way. The whole crypto scene is just about making quick dough with a technology, that for some reason remains hyped through and wrapped in mysticism. Face it, there is no sexy killer app for the masses. Wait. There is one: Crypto trading to... make quick dough. And the cryptonerd…

> "that is primarily used as highly volatile financial speculation instrument " How is that different from any other asset; stocks, land, property. It's all speculation nowadays. From what I've read there are pretty much three use cases: 1. store of value akin to gold (bitcoin) 2. decentralised privacy money (monero etc, to avoid taxes?) 3. a platform on which to build decentralised technologies (ethereum, ada, thorc…

>How is that different from any other asset; stocks, land, property. It's all speculation nowadays. How is that different from any other asset; stocks, land, property. It's all speculation nowadays.

Just because other people are insane doesn't mean you should be insane too.

You can sanely invest into stocks, land and property. You can never sanely invest into cryptocurrencies, the same way nobody invests into dollars. No, buying dollars when your national currency is hyperinflating is not an investment since you merely expect your purchasing power to stay the same.

Re: Ethereum Isn't Fun Anymore

#253
post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> At the end of the day, crypto is mountain you can't ignore anymore Is it really? Is there anyone that can say that a company has suffered because it didn't adopt crypto? It seems like it's perfectly safe to ignore crypto completely. You could gain a bit of advantage. You can use it as a marketing tool, or to attract certain kinds of investors, by cashing in on the blockchain hype. But I haven't seen that there's an…

>A store of value should have some reserves behind them or some physical asset Nope. This is old people thinking. Young people are used to digital items being worth money. People spend real money on cosmetics in video games despite there being nothing physical about them. These "imaginary" things spawned into existence can have value.

Have you considered that your use of the term "real money" undermines your position a bit?

People spend money on things with little tangible value all the time. The benchmark, IMHO, is whether others accept these things as payment. It's generally pretty hard to pay your utility bill with Farmville coins, or buy groceries with Angry Birds Mighty Eagles.

Re: Ethereum Isn't Fun Anymore

#254

>They announced the "Monero Enterprise Alliance." An inside joke, supposed to piss off other projects that had started to take themselves too seriously. Being slightly confused that day myself, I now can't recall if the effort had ever been successful. But in any case, I can't recommend buying Monero. It's useless. Why is Monero useless? Is because of transaction fee too high?

It's a meme in the monero community. "Don't buy monero". Monero fees are actually really low. On average 0.021 cents right now.

Re: Ethereum Isn't Fun Anymore

#255
post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In practical terms the main value of cripto is to people that are legally forbidden to access these kind of services. Even if the Nigerian prince was a scan there are many countries where limited access to financial services is unescapable; it is to them that crypto has the greatest value proposition (whether it will be good or bad in reality I have no idea)

That’d be true if the BCH people won, but btc as a mechanism to evade oppressive governments doesn’t work for the masses when transaction costs are so high.

Yes, nowadays Bitcoin is just a shell of its former self. It simply is not practical for anything other than Tulip manias. That's incredibly sad. Practical usage of Bitcoin doesn't even compete with the speculation beyond transaction capacity. If anything speculators would prefer an economy built on Bitcoin that actually guarantees that it's more than just an instrument for speculation.

Re: Ethereum Isn't Fun Anymore

#256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right after the Tether/Bitcoin bubble pops.

Tether bubble? As in crashing from $1.002 to $1? USDT can always just be cashed out for regular money.

For values of "always" that depend on whether Tether actually has $34B in reserves to back the 34B USDT currently in circulation.

Call me crazy, but I'd bet on the "under" here.

Re: Ethereum Isn't Fun Anymore

#257

| "What's Ethereum's killer app?" we asked ourselves not long ago. Now we know. It's the world's best publicly-accessible settlement platform for financial transactions. I don't see any evidence of this being true.

I'm not a huge fan of lawyers and bankers, but I'd take my chances with them any day over this kind of platform: https://medium.com/@danrobinson/ethereum-is-a-dark-forest-ec...

Re: Ethereum Isn't Fun Anymore

#258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about government spending? All the way from taking taxes to paying vendors. Including the spending of all politicians. (Minus a reasonable “dark fund” for military and whatnot simply because it can be important to hide your cards from other countries) If citizens can see exactly where their dollars go it could make corruption very difficult and lead citizens to be far more engaged in their democracies.

The difficulty with that is getting trusted information published, not storing it in a secured manner.

If citizens paid in COUNTRYCOIN (publicly-visible blockchain-based currency), all spending was done in COUNTRYCOIN, and all government loans (in or out) were in COUNTRYCOIN, then trusted information would be integral to the whole system.

Yes a contractor could still charge $10k for a hammer, but citizens would uncover that almost immediately.

Re: Ethereum Isn't Fun Anymore

#259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you misinterpret my statement. Just as you have just a finite set of notes on a piano, you can create infinite music. And even if IT has a finite set of regular tools like SQL databases, programming languages and protocols, it's the thing you create with that, what counts. Blockchain is a tool that does nothing better than existing tools. Blockchain is a solution to a problem nobody has.

I don't know if you'd count it as a blockchain solution but I constantly use crypto to send money to my family and it's the best solution that I've found. And yes, I now about transferwise, paypal, swift, etc. And using crypto is faster and cheaper.

What are the tax implications for the receiving side?

Re: Ethereum Isn't Fun Anymore

#260
post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'll be back. The fundamentals are strong and the technology is genuinely interesting, and real world use cases like Sia's Skynet are starting to finally hit stride. The get rich quick crowd overwhelmed everything else but didn't suffocate it, just merely put it way in the background.

The people who got the initial bitcoin and held onto it still have the majority of it. I don't see that changing. It's not healthy for the monetary system having most people try to just get rich by holding onto the currency.

I'm not disagreeing with you, but this isn't the first time. The people who made the first money held onto that, and then used it to control their environment and make more money. When the British queen invested in that first wooden ship to bring back riches, she made a ton of money. Then she started the East India Company. I don't see those first BTC holders as worse?
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