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Coinbase from YC to DPO

blog.ycombinator.com

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Re: Coinbase from YC to DPO

#281

Post by Paradigma11 »

jude- wrote: post #166
jtsiskin wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the uninformed, what mathematical guarantees does POW have that POS doesn’t?

PoW is open-membership, because the means of coin production are not tied to owning coins already. All you need to contribute is computing power, and you can start earning coins at a profit. PoS is closed-membership with a veneer of open-membership, because the means of coin production are tied to owning a coin already. What this means in practice is that no rational coin-owner is going to sell you coins at a fast en…

Staking rewards for new block generation is inflationary, so you are just not losing value by staking. Additional value is generated by fees and store of value.

With PoW coin you are constantly devaluing your share of the blockchain by paying some third parties operating giant gpu farms and hydroelectric dams.

Re: Coinbase from YC to DPO

#282

Post by regimeld »

Fede_V wrote: post #35

I'm horrendously worried about crypto gaining more marketshare as long as proof of work crypto remains mainstream. It has significantly worse externalities than just about any company I can think of (including defense contractors/vaping companies), and, if it grows larger before we have clean energy, then we virtually guarantee we won't be able to tackle global warming. We are going to bestow a world that will be sig…

It's a false equivalence (energy consumption, therefore bad). What if Bitcoin is solving a true market need (that is, preserving wealth in a truly decentralized way)? Would that make it worth the energy consumption?

You only need to look at what the current monetary system is based on -- the petro-dollar. Backed by the might of the US military, consuming crazy amounts of energy. What if Bitcoin eliminates the need for this?

Re: Coinbase from YC to DPO

#283

Post by thamer »

gdubs wrote: post #218
Fede_V wrote: post #35

I'm horrendously worried about crypto gaining more marketshare as long as proof of work crypto remains mainstream. It has significantly worse externalities than just about any company I can think of (including defense contractors/vaping companies), and, if it grows larger before we have clean energy, then we virtually guarantee we won't be able to tackle global warming. We are going to bestow a world that will be sig…

There’s an article in the NYTimes today on the environmental impact of NFTs and I personally find the whole thing deeply upsetting. I care a lot about the climate. It’s maybe my number one concern long-term, especially as my kids are concerned. I saw the buzz around NFTs, and thought - “hey, cool! A new way for artists to make some money directly from their fans.” Sounds great. Minted a few NFTs to learn how it all w…

The article: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/13/climate/nft-climate-chang...

Re: Coinbase from YC to DPO

#284

Post by [deleted] »

unreal37 wrote: post #38
Fede_V wrote: post #35

I'm horrendously worried about crypto gaining more marketshare as long as proof of work crypto remains mainstream. It has significantly worse externalities than just about any company I can think of (including defense contractors/vaping companies), and, if it grows larger before we have clean energy, then we virtually guarantee we won't be able to tackle global warming. We are going to bestow a world that will be sig…

What do you think about computers that are always on 24/7? Or TVs that never turn off (even if the screen is off)? (ETA: 23% of household energy use is by always-on devices. The scale of this waste is MASSIVE.) Devices in our life consume energy 24/7 when we're not even using them or needing them to be on. Energy conservation has a LONG way to go. In fact, one could argue that the current stock market system is a hug…

[deleted]

Re: Coinbase from YC to DPO

#286

Post by kruxigt »

sireat wrote: post #234
gonehome wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm skeptical of proof-of-stake, proof-of-work seems like the main innovation of cryptocurrencies that differentiates them from the standard financial industry? If you swap out POW for POS (or worse clearing house type trust orgs like Stellar) then aren't you just putting trust into some incentive based system no different than existing financial systems? Just instead a government you're trusting some other entity. Y…

I am surprised a workable IPv4 based POS coin has not been produced. The consensus protocols are already using IPv4 That is one IPv4 address -> one unit of vote Difficulty adjusts based on how many IPv4 addresses participate Sure, it gives advantage to Apple, MIT or anyone with /8 block and disadvantages citizens from some countries with very small allocations but otherwise it could be scaled to whole world while sta…

I guess one problem is that everyone has an IP, while only ones that really care puts in proof of work.

Re: Coinbase from YC to DPO

#287

Post by rodiger »

svachalek wrote: post #134
dehrmann wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the supposed point of crypto is to reducing the reliance on, and grifting from, companies like Coinbase That was the pitch of crypto. In practice, people are buying it as a bet that it will go up. I suspect most people are only buying it because the value is going up. If bitcoin actually worked like a currency and traded between $8k and $12 for the past 5 years, no one would care.

Sadly this is true other than "no one would care". Many would care, just mostly not in countries with stable fiat. But the success of BNB which is basically just a corporate database on a blockchain shows there is a big part of the community that doesn't care about decentralization at all.

Yeah I believe you mean BSC

Re: Coinbase from YC to DPO

#288

Post by base698 »

dehrmann wrote: post #75
JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Proof of stake is here in Ethereum 2.0 and it works great. Invest in that because this is the last hurrah for Bitcoin. The next cycle will be the “Ethereum is the new better Bitcoin” cycle. I say that as someone with almost all my net worth in Bitcoin but it has miserable transaction speed and energy usage. History has shown us that not innovating has never worked out for any company I can think of.

If all you care about is energy usage and transaction speed, the traditional finance system still wins. Unless people are actively trading bitcoin enough where the transaction cost because an issue, there's little reason to trade in their tulip bulbs for iris bulbs. A bet on a cryptocurrency is a bet that people will think it's worth more money, not an investment in the underlying technology.

Any idea where I can keep my money and generate 10 - 20% passive income like you can with DeFi in the traditional system? Most savings account have negative interest rates currently.

Re: Coinbase from YC to DPO

#289

Post by cwkoss »

danimal88 wrote: post #240
cwkoss wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dollar hegemony has many horrendous externalities as well.

While that -might- be true, the question is whether the dollar, the RMB, the CAD, and every other currency have anything like the -direct- pollution cost of bitcoin, which my understanding is that they do not

I think the dollar undoubtedly has several orders of magnitude lower direct pollution costs, but also have several orders of magnitude higher indirect costs.

It's a pretty tangly web, so hard to know what to lump in as a comparison but in the superlative case consider: the federal reserve, many bank/FI departments tasked with securing and transferring money safely, auditing (public ledger has many benefits for transparency and reporting), money transfer industry, international relations, lobbyism, US military dominance, etc.

Bitcoin has zero employees, probably only thousands of people working on Bitcoin-interfaced systems. The network uses a large amount of electricity, but that's kind of it - there are few other costs to account for. All of those industries above collectively employ millions of people - should we account for only organizational energy consumption or do we also account for salaries and thus private energy consumption of all of the individuals necessary to support dollar hegemony?

I think it would be really interesting to find a number for "for each dollar in existence, how much is spent per year preserving the dollar's position as the global reserve currency?" How does this number compare to inflation? If it is greater than inflation, does that mean that dollar hegemony is unstable and its fall is inevitable?

Re: Coinbase from YC to DPO

#290

Post by dang »

Hnrobert42 wrote: post #274

“Additionally, it’s worth celebrating that Coinbase was always a good business, i.e. it always made money.” Why is that worth celebrating? A company made money. That is what companies are created to do. I suppose if you invested in Coinbase, you could celebrate it. Otherwise, who cares?

It's a big internet cliché to boo companies that don't (yet) make money. The flip side would be to yay companies that do.

Not that many humans are consistent in that way, but someone out there must be!

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