Ethereum Isn't Fun Anymore • Hacker News Board

Re: Ethereum Isn't Fun Anymore

#401

Post by albntomat0 » Mon, Feb 22, 2021, 5:13 PM UTC

lazzlazzlazz wrote: post #375

The Hacker News community has long been anti-crypto, and as someone deeply involved in the space, these long threads of complaints and diatribes are difficult to handle. Everyone is missing so much context. Ethereum gas prices are astronomical because there's unprecedented demand to use the network: NFT art and collectibles are exploding (NBA TopShot, Foundation, SuperRare, Rarible, OpenSea, etc.) at the same time De…

As an outsider missing context, what are the answers to the following? They are all valid questions that come up every time, and aren't well answered, given my research into them.

- Is the long term alternatives to PoW actually viable, given the huge power consumption of cryptocurrency currently?

- Are the valid use cases (other than drugs, ransomware and speculation) worth the valuation?

- If Tether collapses, due to the reports of its sketchiness, what will the shock to cryptocurrency, broadly speaking, be?

Re: Ethereum Isn't Fun Anymore

#402

Post by rawtxapp » Mon, Feb 22, 2021, 5:15 PM UTC

karpierz wrote: post #396

rawtxapp wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the stability fee you pay is 4.50%. You're still holding on to your assets appreciation, so if Bitcoin continues to appreciate at 300% per year, the 4.50% is a drop in the bucket and you didn't have to pay a capital gains tax. Eventually, some companies are working on tokenizing homes, so once that happens, you could potentially deposit that as collateral just as easily, but that's still far out.

Do you not pay the loan back in Bitcoin? How would you exercise the 300% gain while also paying the loan back?

So if Bitcoin grows 300%, that means your collateral is now worth 300% more.

You can either withdraw a portion of it back to your normal wallet or you can just borrow more against the same collateral. So it's like a credit line that's always appreciating in value.

If one day, you need the whole collateral for whatever reason, then you'd pay the loan to unlock it fully and withdraw it.

Re: Ethereum Isn't Fun Anymore

#403

Post by humaniania » Mon, Feb 22, 2021, 5:16 PM UTC

rawtxapp wrote: post #395

cbdumas wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you see as the killer use case for crypto currency/blockchain/smart contracts, etc.? I mined a few Eth in the very early days, and hung onto it until selling recently. I sold because I couldn't convince myself they had any value not based on the "greater fool theory". Was I wrong?

Borrowing, lending, decentralized exchanges, innovations like flash loans that are just not possible in current financial system. The sky is the limit in terms of innovations possible, it's literally some code running on the global computer that is Ethereum.

Not only are all those things possible (other than decentralized, because that has a high cost and no tangible benefit) in the normal banking system but there's apps for them already. And they are from regulated companies and you have legal protections.

Re: Ethereum Isn't Fun Anymore

#404

Post by chaostheory » Mon, Feb 22, 2021, 5:16 PM UTC

lazzlazzlazz wrote: post #375

The Hacker News community has long been anti-crypto, and as someone deeply involved in the space, these long threads of complaints and diatribes are difficult to handle. Everyone is missing so much context. Ethereum gas prices are astronomical because there's unprecedented demand to use the network: NFT art and collectibles are exploding (NBA TopShot, Foundation, SuperRare, Rarible, OpenSea, etc.) at the same time De…

I'm going to agree

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=599852

The only surprise is that HN is still a terrible place to discuss crypto. Not many posters or commenters seem to have much knowledge, which is strange for HN

Re: Ethereum Isn't Fun Anymore

#405

Post by skybrian » Mon, Feb 22, 2021, 5:16 PM UTC

rawtxapp wrote: post #395

cbdumas wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you see as the killer use case for crypto currency/blockchain/smart contracts, etc.? I mined a few Eth in the very early days, and hung onto it until selling recently. I sold because I couldn't convince myself they had any value not based on the "greater fool theory". Was I wrong?

Borrowing, lending, decentralized exchanges, innovations like flash loans that are just not possible in current financial system. The sky is the limit in terms of innovations possible, it's literally some code running on the global computer that is Ethereum.

How does borrowing work in an automated, trustless environment? Doesn’t someone have to decide whether you’re likely to pay back the loan with money you haven’t earned yet?

Re: Ethereum Isn't Fun Anymore

#406

Post by toss1 » Mon, Feb 22, 2021, 5:16 PM UTC

loceng wrote: post #267

koonsolo wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the decentralized web pieces are starting to fall in place: decentralized file storage, decentralized domain names, decentralized communities and streaming, decentralized payments, etc. I wouldn't declare it "failed technology" just yet.

Did Filecoin actually gain any traction?

Seems they recently launched late last year [0], some of the miners went on strike seeing the actual mining deal worse than they expected in several ways [1], and current price is going up a bit in the last few days, but consistently down vs BTC [2].

They may be having some success on their original purpose, having just passed 2.5 billion GB on the network, i.e., 2.5 exabytes, and 1300 miners, 200+ projects and 5900+ GitHub contributors [3].

[0] https://www.coindesk.com/filecoin-mainnet-now-live [1] https://news.bitcoin.com/filecoin-miners-start-a-strike-fil-... [2] https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/filecoin/ [3] https://siliconangle.com/2021/02/16/filecoins-decentralized-...

Re: Ethereum Isn't Fun Anymore

#407

Post by keithtom » Mon, Feb 22, 2021, 5:16 PM UTC

Retric wrote: post #384

lazzlazzlazz wrote: post #375

The Hacker News community has long been anti-crypto, and as someone deeply involved in the space, these long threads of complaints and diatribes are difficult to handle. Everyone is missing so much context. Ethereum gas prices are astronomical because there's unprecedented demand to use the network: NFT art and collectibles are exploding (NBA TopShot, Foundation, SuperRare, Rarible, OpenSea, etc.) at the same time De…

HN seems wildly pro crypto compared to most places. It’s like Tesla which isn’t universally supported, but still gets a lot more coverage than Ford. People do bring up quite reasonable objections like environmental costs, but it stories get a lot of upvotes and suggesting many people are strong supporters.

Re environmental costs, I have yet to hear anyone make an analysis of the environmental cost of the banking system or an equivalent; that is, how much to warm all the offices, the computers and servers, the transportation costs of cars & planes for all the employees.

Also, proof of stake will reduce 99% of the environmental cost.

Re: Ethereum Isn't Fun Anymore

#408

Post by pjfin123 » Mon, Feb 22, 2021, 5:17 PM UTC

There's Cheap Eth which is an Ethereum fork with cheaper prices: https://cheapeth.org/ .

Re: Ethereum Isn't Fun Anymore

#409

Post by samvher » Mon, Feb 22, 2021, 5:18 PM UTC

lazzlazzlazz wrote: post #375

The Hacker News community has long been anti-crypto, and as someone deeply involved in the space, these long threads of complaints and diatribes are difficult to handle. Everyone is missing so much context. Ethereum gas prices are astronomical because there's unprecedented demand to use the network: NFT art and collectibles are exploding (NBA TopShot, Foundation, SuperRare, Rarible, OpenSea, etc.) at the same time De…

I feel like the general tendency on HN (and my personal feeling about the subject) is one of interest in the tech and applications, but a feeling that the hype is bigger than the truth.

The ideas that Ethereum is innovative, that there are lots of possibilities in cryptocurrencies/blockchain, that at the moment the scene has major environmental issues, and that the current high valuations are unjustified, to my mind can all be true at the same time.

Re: Ethereum Isn't Fun Anymore

#410

Post by rawtxapp » Mon, Feb 22, 2021, 5:18 PM UTC

skybrian wrote: post #405

rawtxapp wrote: post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Borrowing, lending, decentralized exchanges, innovations like flash loans that are just not possible in current financial system. The sky is the limit in terms of innovations possible, it's literally some code running on the global computer that is Ethereum.

How does borrowing work in an automated, trustless environment? Doesn’t someone have to decide whether you’re likely to pay back the loan with money you haven’t earned yet?

It's over-collaterized, so you put more crypto than the loan value.

You might say "why the hell would I do that?", in order of importance: 1) you hold on to your asset's appreciation, 2) access the liquidity, 3) avoid capital gains tax.