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Ethereum Isn't Fun Anymore

timdaub.github.io

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Re: Ethereum Isn't Fun Anymore

#581
post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-bhp-ironore-blockchain-id...

> to digitise a sector that still uses millions of paper documents So, they now use blockchain where sending documents as a PDF would have been sufficient... I'm so proud! edit: Read the article! That's truely their main selling point. Formerly it was done on/with paper, now it's "on the blockchain". This is another great example why we don't need blockchain.

What’s the point of a PDF when a fax would be sufficient?

Re: Ethereum Isn't Fun Anymore

#582

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I have been trying to understand this too. Best I can figure, it's basically a short sell on USD. The key element is that the loan is not denominated in BTC, but a stablecoin pegged to fiat. DAI is one of these pegged 1:1 to USD. Say you are holding Bitcoin and think it's going to the moon. You tie up your Bitcoin as collateral and take out a loan of roughly 75% of its value, in DAI. Then you spend that DAI to buy mo…

If what you are saying is true then this is literally the housing crisis with variable rate loans and a collapsing market putting everybody underwater. If the value of the item used as collateral sinks then you go from fine to broke in an instant.

Re: Ethereum Isn't Fun Anymore

#583

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Technology doesn't imply a good civil society (where you can, on average, trust people. Aka "social capital"). But does technology imply social capital? I don't think so. So if you set up the dichotomy, and had to choose, I'd choose "social capital" every time. I know, you didn't use this phrasing. But when I read "allegiance to your tribe", what does that even mean? If you're American and you support your troops, is…

Technology removes the need for middlemen, and hence any trust needed for the middlemen. Allegiance to the tribe means following the customs/social ordering/rules of the tribe. For example, how well would a gay/non religious/etc person fare in tribes that don't believe in civil liberties?

Technology is itself a middleman in most cases. You still have to trust the technology itself and the person/persons who created it.

Re: Ethereum Isn't Fun Anymore

#584

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is really short sighted thinking. The web had no "killer app" in the first 10+ years. It was obscure technology with thousands of naysayers laughing at us "web nerds" because we thought it would change everything. Cryptocurrency is very young. While its hard to say if BTC or ETH or something yet to be invented will be part of the digital money future, it is absolutely reasonable to expect this technology will ha…

Bloomberg and Wired went online 4 years after the invention of the World Wide Web. In the first ten years, Amazon, eBay, Google, and PayPal were all founded. Technology adoption curves have only gotten steeper since then (e.g. iPhone/Android was basically the dominant consumer computing platform 10 years after its introduction).

You are comparing touchscreen mobile phones with a technology delving into what both gold / hard value stores AND cash do for society. That is not a typical technology adoption cycle. I’m not an extremist to say Bitcoin will eat the world or even replace any existing system entirely, but I still disagree with those that say it has no utility beyond get rich quick scheme.

Referencing Wired as the killer app of the early Internet is good comedy. Bloomberg terminals were already connected, just not by this new tech.

Re: Ethereum Isn't Fun Anymore

#586

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An ACH transfer through my bank takes multiple days. I've only made a few transactions on crypto, but confirmation was more like seconds to minutes.

I was imagining paying subway for my lunch using money.

Most people use debit/credit cards which batch process in the evening and the store doesn't get the funds until some time after that. And the fees to merchants on those cards are in the range of 2%.

Re: Ethereum Isn't Fun Anymore

#587

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have been trying to understand this too. Best I can figure, it's basically a short sell on USD. The key element is that the loan is not denominated in BTC, but a stablecoin pegged to fiat. DAI is one of these pegged 1:1 to USD. Say you are holding Bitcoin and think it's going to the moon. You tie up your Bitcoin as collateral and take out a loan of roughly 75% of its value, in DAI. Then you spend that DAI to buy mo…

If what you are saying is true then this is literally the housing crisis with variable rate loans and a collapsing market putting everybody underwater. If the value of the item used as collateral sinks then you go from fine to broke in an instant.

The total being used as collateral can be seen here https://defipulse.com/defi-lending, and https://nexostatistics.com/loans/. A small proportion of market cap, and these loans have low loan to value ratios - typically 20%; no-one wants to risk liquidation.

Re: Ethereum Isn't Fun Anymore

#588

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I have been trying to understand this too. Best I can figure, it's basically a short sell on USD. The key element is that the loan is not denominated in BTC, but a stablecoin pegged to fiat. DAI is one of these pegged 1:1 to USD. Say you are holding Bitcoin and think it's going to the moon. You tie up your Bitcoin as collateral and take out a loan of roughly 75% of its value, in DAI. Then you spend that DAI to buy mo…

DAI is mostly minted from ETH, at a rate of $150 collateral to $100 DAI. https://daistats.com/#/. The $200m DAI minted from WBTC represents 0.02% of Bitcoin's market cap.

Re: Ethereum Isn't Fun Anymore

#589

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same here, it took me a while to understand why anyone would get an over-collaterized loan until it just clicked, then I was like this is the future, it doesn't make any sense to sell the most valuable and appreciating asset ever, but you can still use the money from it.

> sell the most valuable and appreciating asset ever What happens when it stops appreciating? Or is the premise that bitcoin will alway outpace interest rates?

Margin call.

Re: Ethereum Isn't Fun Anymore

#590

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…

Decentralisation is itself the killer app. If you live in the developed world all your life you’ll have a skewed view of this and not understand the true benefit here. As trust decays in the 1st world I sincerely hope you are open minded enough to change your opinion.

Some more killer apps; - RENVM decentralized darkpools - Chainlink decentralized oracles - Deco by chainlink labs decentralized private information sharing - NFTs and NFT marketplaces. This one is going to be huge. - The entire defi space is pretty remarkable from Dexes to Bancor and Yearn to keeperdao

Respectfully comments like yours and others in this thread seem like people saying the internet wouldn’t take off in the 80s/90s. I don’t know how a technical audience like the one here doesn’t get it.

Sure there’s greed but that’s a feature of humans not crypto. We are most definitely in a bubble but the dot com bubble bore seeds which grew into trees that were mighty.

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