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Ethereum Isn't Fun Anymore

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Re: Ethereum Isn't Fun Anymore

#521

Post by derivagral »

JamesSwift wrote: post #348
imtringued wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In practice you are waiting for technologically illiterate people to lose their Bitcoin or old people to pass away without revealing their wallet to anyone. That's a pretty weird form of "investment".

Thats actually pretty similar to people that invest in collectible cards (e.g. sports or trading card games like Magic). One part of the value increasing is due to supply attrition. Existing cards get either damaged or lost.

This is itself a (funny?) form of a Tontine!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tontine

Re: Ethereum Isn't Fun Anymore

#523

Post by Retric »

Karunamon wrote: post #513
Retric wrote: post #495

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue isn’t the useful product of light or a functional crypto system, the issue is the amount of waste heat produced by the light bulb or data center. This should be obvious when you consider proof of work systems that generate less waste heat by using a memory bound rather than a computationally bound algorithm. They both operate on the principle of wealth destruction as all proof of work algorithms do, but you…

the issue is the amount of waste heat produced by the light bulb or data center. ..which in the case of the average crypto, is overshadowed many times over. One block mined equates to $333K worth BTC generated alone, and that's not counting the value of every transaction included in that block. A block happens every 10 minutes give or take, so in an hour, that's about 2 million worth of coin generated and 13K transac…

Coal power plants generate more value in the from of electricity than they lose value as waste heat. Otherwise they wouldn’t operate. But, clearly the creation of value is independent of something being wasted as you can have more or less efficient power plants that generate the same value using more or less fuel and thus more or less waste heat.

Similarly, as I just pointed out different algorithms would use more or less energy and therefore be more or less efficient. Thus the heat produced is a waste byproduct mining, and electricity is the fuel. A more efficient process simply uses less fuel though it may have higher capital costs.

The same is true of say cars, you’re burning gas because driving is useful. But, increasing efficiency means less fuel while creating identical value etc etc.

Re: Ethereum Isn't Fun Anymore

#524

Post by freeplay »

If you share sentiments in this article, checkout cheapETH (cheapeth.org). It's created as a utility token to solve the extremely high gas price problem on the ETH network.

All the fun of the ETH network with none of the crazy fees and high barrier of entry.

Not trying to shill anything. I missed the boat on early Ethereum and never got a chance to really experiment with the network. I've been doing that with cheapETH and its been a great learning experience.

Re: Ethereum Isn't Fun Anymore

#525

Post by dorkwood »

nostrademons wrote: post #483
dorkwood wrote: post #474

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The naysayers who think this is all for a quick buck are missing the pattern and listening too much to the (admittedly, insanely loud and annoying) shills. I'm part of a community that's currently being overtaken by the crypto art craze, and I'm still convinced it's "all for a quick buck". The crypto art economy seems to be driven by "collectors" who will drop thousands of dollars on anyone who can get them more ex…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veblen_good A lot of people buy art not because they like looking at it, but because they want everyone to know that they have lots of money to drop on worthless art purchases. This motivation is reinforced if a.) everybody knows how much money they're dropping on art purchases and b.) the price keeps going up, yet they still win the bid. They want the price to go up, since a higher pric…

If that's the case, why hide behind a pseudonym that seems like it was created purely for buying crypto art? I'm looking at one right now -- their Twitter says they're a "rare digital art collector", and links to their pages on SuperRare and MakersPlace, but doesn't have any tweets, and there's otherwise no identifiable information.

They've succeeded in demonstrating their wealth, but no one has any idea who they are, which seems to poke a hole in that theory.

Re: Ethereum Isn't Fun Anymore

#526

Post by rawtxapp »

skybrian wrote: post #511
rawtxapp wrote: post #463

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They might borrow to hold on to their asset's appreciation.

You could lock in the gain by selling at the current price, so that still sounds like tax avoidance. Or possibly leverage, if you think the price will go up more?

Yes, you could leverage, you could hedge yourself by buying stocks. Or you could just spend the money on whatever else you want.

Re: Ethereum Isn't Fun Anymore

#527

Post by lynx234 »

gamblor956 wrote: post #512
ike77 wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think law would prevent a fully collateralized loan on the basis of borrower/lender risks. AML seems a non issue too, as the loan only moves the question. KYC remains one big problem but there are many startups providing those services and they are slowly gaining acceptance in courts. Don't be impressed if a few years (and maybe even months) from now you start to see classical banks trading mortgages onchain.

I don't think law would prevent a fully collateralized loan on the basis of borrower/lender risks. It doesn't. AML seems a non issue too, as the loan only moves the question. No, anti-money-laundering laws are at the heart of why the financial system can't do this. KYC laws apply at the customer level, so you only need to handle KYC once per customer. AML laws apply at the transaction level, so you need to apply them…

> Cryptocurrency solves absolutely none of the existing legal reasons that banks can't issue large loans in minutes or seconds to existing (or new, well collateralized) clients.

Yes, this is definitely correct in that crypto does nothing to solve the legal requirements of the banks and does not help the banks.

But it's worth mentioning that this sort of fully collateralized and anonymous borrowing does not (and would not) happen through banks, but through platforms like AAVE and Compound. It's a financial tool separate from banks. And these tools cannot be shutdown, as long as ethereum exists, these tools exist.

Re: Ethereum Isn't Fun Anymore

#528

Post by UncleMeat »

gh55 wrote: post #419
UncleMeat wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the comparison to airbnb is revealing. Airbnb allowed individuals to rent their home to other individuals. But this is done through a centralized service. Scams and abuse exist, but the centralized service offers some nice benefits like reviews and bans for abusive participants. The innovative part was the new model of what you could rent, not the how of how you rent it. In comparison, the defi loan innovatio…

I suppose, with software eating the world, I want to believe we will collectively own and operate that software, rather than a particular company, that it will be open source, and if those who own it charge too much someone will fork it and outcompete them.

That might be nice, but it isn't a feature. Vanishingly few people consider "the product is collectively owned and open source" to be a feature that they are willing to prioritize over other things. As such, it is hard to support any very large endeavor just off this thing. There is a reason why Blender shows up over and over and over and over again on "lists of awesome FLOSS apps" and that is because it has damn good features. Decentralization is not itself a business strategy outside of niche cases.

Re: Ethereum Isn't Fun Anymore

#529

Post by UncleMeat »

gh55 wrote: post #423
UncleMeat wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the comparison to airbnb is revealing. Airbnb allowed individuals to rent their home to other individuals. But this is done through a centralized service. Scams and abuse exist, but the centralized service offers some nice benefits like reviews and bans for abusive participants. The innovative part was the new model of what you could rent, not the how of how you rent it. In comparison, the defi loan innovatio…

At the moment DeFi loans are fully collateralized, with the loan to value ratio affecting the interest rate you pay. If your collateral drops in value you have to recollateralize the loan, or are liquidated.

I don't understand. Why would I need a loan for $X if I already have $X to put up as collateral?

Re: Ethereum Isn't Fun Anymore

#530

Post by ativzzz »

bmh wrote: post #105
hutzlibu wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you explain in simple words, how they achieve this?

Every account in the network is a chain of blocks, with each block signed by the private key of that account. So only the owner of the account can add a block to their chain. To send money from A to B, A will add a 'spend' block to her chain, and B will add a 'receive' block to his chain. If B is offline, he can claim that receive later. The speed comes from the fact that spends from A to B can be processed independe…

So it only works as long as people are willing to volunteer nodes right? For a stable business model, I assume some party will start hosting nodes and charging people to use it?
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