Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Do Cryptocurrencies Provide ANY() Real-Economic Value at All?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 111 posts

Re: Do Cryptocurrencies Provide ANY() Real-Economic Value at All?

#11

Post by acdha »

jonathan_oberg wrote: post #4

Consider an NFT with smart contract which apportions a percent of each future purchase to the original seller. Now consider a stock issued by a company as the NFT. With traditional stocks, the issuing company only obtains funds one time. All future value gains are captured by traders. Finally, consider issuing stock that as NFT with the contract above. In this model, as a stock rises in value, both the company and tr…

Is anyone doing this for real? It doesn’t seem like it adds any value over a real contract since it’s still relying on the courts for enforcement, and it seems unproven that there’s much demand.

Adding a blockchain also adds a number of complexities which would lower the value: you need to hedge against bugs in the smart contract (the Ethereum folks probably won’t rewrite history again for you), there’s a complex and expensive tech stack you need to support instead of a sheet of paper, and you have limited your potential buyers to those comfortable with that and on your particular system rather than another one.

Re: Do Cryptocurrencies Provide ANY() Real-Economic Value at All?

#12

Post by rhn_mk1 »

Q1: The benefit is that as long as you are connected to the internet, you can make the transfer. It doesn't matter if your bank or your police wants to stop you, you can do it.

Q2: Because when central banks become unreliable, or hyperinflation kicks in (Venezuela, Greece), trade using the central bank currency may become hard. You wouldn't transfer USD→COIN→EUR, but USD→COIN, and then use the coin directly.

Q3: Laws are not computer programs. They are ambiguous and execute in the brains of a few humans. Smart contracts are precise, and they require the entire population of coin users to disagree with the computed outcome.

Your conclusion does not take into account the case of not trusting government institutions.

Re: Do Cryptocurrencies Provide ANY() Real-Economic Value at All?

#13

Post by quantum_mcts »

All your arguments has this implicit assumption of a central authority that you trust to do its job:

  - "SEPA is pan-European credit transfers". Emphasis in  "European". Good luck _reliably_ sending money to China or across Atlantic _in_several_days_. Reliable 10s is a dream there.
 
 - "Every country already has its native currency." Emphasis on "country". With a central bank that manages the supply. 

 - "All (democratic) countries have courts in place." Again, emphasis on "countries" and "democratic" (which you obviously felt the need to put in).
The fundamental technical innovation of cryptocurrencies is permissionless decentralized consensus - you don't need a trusted central authority to execute transfers and contracts. That is (in my opinion) where the fundamental "usefulness" of crypto stems from.

Re: Do Cryptocurrencies Provide ANY() Real-Economic Value at All?

#14

Post by realce »

While it's understandable that some could write this off as trite, it's the best way to obtain high-quality illicit substances and to sell them through the internet.

This is very important to some people and the current economic systems don't allow that to occur. It's "real" economic value even if you don't think it's right.

Re: Do Cryptocurrencies Provide ANY() Real-Economic Value at All?

#15

Post by FloresHernandez »

Yes, it shields you against your own government by giving an alternative they can't stop or ban.

In some parts of the world, government is hostile towards their own population, either by incompetence or malice. Debasement of the national fiat currency is theft perpetrated by the government and crypto provides an alternative for that.

Can you just use US Dollars? Sure you can. But your government can search you for the bills. Or they can block the specific website you're using or the US banks can be hostile towards citizens of your country (Neteller, skrill and several others outright banned Venezuelan citizens, and some US banks are making difficult the process to open bank accounts)

But how about volatility? Sure is a problem. But with fiat you know is only going down, at least with crypto it can go up.

Is always interesting seeing the threads on HN on crypto and how it never considers an actual hostile government.

Re: Do Cryptocurrencies Provide ANY() Real-Economic Value at All?

#16

Post by temp8964 »

Did PayPal provide any real economic value at all? Shouldn't credit cards already provided everything already?

If you agree PayPal did provide real economic value, you admit the system before it was imperfect.

So PayPal fixed the last hole in the system?

Re: Do Cryptocurrencies Provide ANY() Real-Economic Value at All?

#17

Post by Indomit »

I think there are a very few projects out there with actual working products that provide real economic value.

VeChain [0] for example, has been quietly establishing itself as a viable solution for supply chain transparency [1]. Walmart uses VeChain through its Food Traceability Platform [2].

[0] - https://www.vechain.org/

[1] - https://seekingalpha.com/article/4415383-vechain-is-blockcha...

[2] - https://traceability.walmartmobile.cn/walmart/p/100074210400...

Re: Do Cryptocurrencies Provide ANY() Real-Economic Value at All?

#18

Post by lottin »

breck wrote: post #6

Time is more valuable than gold. Crypto saves time. Some experiments to test for yourself and measure the time elapsed: pay someone in a foreign country. Do it again except at 2am on a Sunday. Wire someone some money. Now do the same outside bankings hours. Now do the same but try and do a test transaction first. Try setting up a new company. Add a vesting clause. Now handle actual distribution of dividends. Measure…

So have you measured the time that you save in any of these situations by using a cryptocurrency? It seems that you make a series of questionable claims and we just have to believe that what you say is true.

Re: Do Cryptocurrencies Provide ANY() Real-Economic Value at All?

#19

Post by pinkybanana »

I got rich with Bitcoin, the value in my life has been quite tangible. I live in big house, drive a nice car, I don't have to work unless I want to. This is how I would pretty much define value.

Q1. by accepting and preferring BTC as a payment for my services, I was able to retain better value/purchasing power from my labour long-term. By changing my fiat currency to BTC I was able to also increase my purchasing power. Clear value to me. I don't know if this has some externalities and don't care really. My transactions are legal and counterparties have been as happy as people in typical business transactions are.

Q2. It doesn't have to exist, it happens to exist and you can choose not to use it.

Q3. "Smart contract" is a marketing term and "smart contracts" are not replacing traditional courts in any sensible way. The whole claim is just nonsense (there is much bullshit in crypto).

Re: Do Cryptocurrencies Provide ANY() Real-Economic Value at All?

#20

Post by anonymoushn »

Q1. I don't live in Europe. Wire transfers from my US bank can only be sent domestically, cost me $20, and require me to fill out a form and then stay up until 2AM so that a person can call me on the phone during business hours in the US and I can confirm that I did in fact fill out that form. Wire transfers from my Japanese bank are more reasonable but cost 10000x as much money to send and (under ideal conditions - during business hours long before closing on a weekday) take longer to settle than modern cryptocurrencies.

Q2. Why should Apple stock exist when we already have dollars? Why should Brazilian Real exist when we already have dollars? I wouldn't trade USD for BTC for EUR. I would probably trade USD for EUR directly. As a consumer, the best place I can do this is FTX, a cryptocurrency derivatives exchange, because they provide end-users with the extremely competitive forex rates of a Hong Kong bank's OTC desk. The second-best place is probably IBKR which provides extremely competitive rates because it's literally a forex broker but takes days to wire money in and out. The third-best place is probably Shinsei Bank, which is one of the two most popular banks for foreigners in Japan and provides suspiciously good forex rates compared to all other consumer banks in the world.

Q3. "Smart contracts" are not really a replacement for the legal system. They are, at least for now, mostly a way to build non-custodial versions of traditional financial products. Again, this is sort of like saying "Why do we have oil futures and SPY puts when you can just buy oil or sell SPY?"

Re: Conclusions: Ok, but did you try to use the internet to let your US customers pay you dollars which you would then give to your US creators who create pornography for your customers? How many providers accepted this proposal? What fees do they charge?

Post reply on HN