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

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

#41

Post by lottin »

quantum_mcts wrote: post #13

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)…

How would a smart contract work in the case of, say, a residential tenancy agreement? How does the smart contract know if the terms of the agreement have been met or not? And how would the contract be enforced, for instance, if the tenant fails to pay rent?

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

#42

Post by dmitriid »

moksly wrote: post #5

I don’t think blockchain has much real world value in a legal sense. We’ve been running various pocs on it, with major and minor suppliers, crypto-people? (not sure what to call those techie/artist/idealists or what they call themselves) and the universities for the better part of two decades now in the European public sector. We’ve never been capable of finding a reason to use it. I do get the argument about stuff l…

> I think Maersk and it’s containershipping business, and it’s blockchain based proof of container authenticity

Literally nothing in that project requires blockchain.

And nothing that a blockchain has proves anything about a container's authenticity: it's a slow, inefficient database of the same data that has to be manually entered by multiple people in multiple places.

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

#43

Post by comodore_ »

> "Smart contracts". All (democratic) countries have courts in place to settle legistlative disputes between two parties.

The case for smart contracts is, you can't have disputes. No need for attorneys, that will bleed you dry. It does not add an additional layer, instead it removes them all and becomes the sole layer.

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

#44

Post by FloresHernandez »

acdha wrote: post #30
FloresHernandez wrote: post #15

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 th…

> Yes, it shields you against your own government by giving an alternative they can't stop or ban. How? If your government decides to take your stuff, they’re not going to say “some nerds in another country said no, guess we have to let them keep it” - they’re just going to fine, jail, or abuse you until you turn over the keys (better hope you can convince them you didn’t have anything more which you aren’t still con…

Yes, of course. The problem here is the repressive government. But as everything, they have tools. Crypto takes one of the tools for them (Debasing the currency and strict control over local banks). Any tool we can take from them is good.

Even a not-really-hostile-goverment-but-more-like-incompetent can do a lot of damage by debasing the currency. Now the citizens have tools to fight their incompetence.

If only for this reason, is better to have crypto than not have it. I can came up for a lot of reasons why I think Tik-Tok is useless, but is useful for a lot of people, so no reason for me to to bash it.

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

#45

Post by WnZ39p0Dgydaz1 »

realce wrote: post #39
quantum_mcts wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Where in this article does it describe how I get tenants out of my rental when they don't pay into the smart contract? That's what enforcement is, not just some rules in a spreadsheet.

Actually, it's some rules in a spreadsheet. You get tenants out of your rental because someone is getting paid to do it - their salary is in some spreadsheet - and then their work is verified by someone else who is also getting paid to do that. These complex systems of incentives are currently managed by humans.

You could setup a similar incentive system as smart contracts. If your tenant does not pay, you could get him evicted much fatser and automatically, because another smart contract can pay the enforcer. And the overall fees are subsidized and tradeable.

Of course we're far away from doing that and both approaches have pros and cons, but it's arguable that the "human-managed" approach is clearly superior.

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

#46

Post by StuntPope »

hooande wrote: post #31
FloresHernandez wrote: post #15

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 th…

Until people can buy food and essentials with crypto, it has little value on its own. The US government can ban any bank or credit processor from exchanging crypto with any individual right now. The coins aren't any good unless you can spend them. And for the foreseeable future, governments have complete control over that

> And for the foreseeable future, governments have complete control over that

Actually.... governments are demonstrably losing control over that.

Governments worldwide are in process of destroying their currencies.

CBDBs will be social credit mechanisms of control.

Cryptos protect you from government. This year's run is because institutions are figuring out that bonds are dead and fiats are headed for hyperinflation, and CBDBs will be constructed in a way to preclude savings and capital formation.

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

#47

Post by Maken »

wheresmycraisin wrote: post #2

In controversial-but-legal industries (think adult entertainment, gambling, cannabis), it can be difficult to get traditional banking and payment processing services that are taken for granted by more normal businesses. I've seen crypto used in this context for B2B transactions (paying for IT services). Also, it's a decent option for international transfers. International wires are more expensive (even when compared…

SEPA is a vommon framework for payments inside the EU (and associates) that means instant payments, retrievals and transfers in Euros. And yes, you need a bank account in one of the member countries, but by same logic you need a wallet to receive btc.

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

#48

Post by maxerickson »

WnZ39p0Dgydaz1 wrote: post #45
realce wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where in this article does it describe how I get tenants out of my rental when they don't pay into the smart contract? That's what enforcement is, not just some rules in a spreadsheet.

Actually, it's some rules in a spreadsheet. You get tenants out of your rental because someone is getting paid to do it - their salary is in some spreadsheet - and then their work is verified by someone else who is also getting paid to do that. These complex systems of incentives are currently managed by humans. You could setup a similar incentive system as smart contracts. If your tenant does not pay, you could get…

In your description, you used the word 'enforcer' for the entity that does the important bit. That entity isn't the contract.

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

#49

Post by acdha »

notwedtm wrote: post #25
acdha wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It doesn't rely on the courts for enforcement, it relies on the underlying crypto-network. The contract is built in to the original sale.

Think about this beyond the sales pitch: I accept your offer, taking a lower price because you double pinkie swear that you’ll share part of any future sales of an object, profits from a company, etc.

At every point, you (the person who controls the thing with actual value) can choose to simply ignore the blockchain in many ways: not sharing profits with shareholders, selling a real-world object outside of the same blockchain, making copies of a digital object or listing the same thing on many NFTs, using a smart contract with a bug or unreliable oracle which you can exploit, etc. My recourse is my ability to sue you for breach of contract.

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

#50

Post by anonymoushn »

Maken wrote: post #47
wheresmycraisin wrote: post #2

In controversial-but-legal industries (think adult entertainment, gambling, cannabis), it can be difficult to get traditional banking and payment processing services that are taken for granted by more normal businesses. I've seen crypto used in this context for B2B transactions (paying for IT services). Also, it's a decent option for international transfers. International wires are more expensive (even when compared…

SEPA is a vommon framework for payments inside the EU (and associates) that means instant payments, retrievals and transfers in Euros. And yes, you need a bank account in one of the member countries, but by same logic you need a wallet to receive btc.

The requirements for setting up a bitcoin wallet are met by a lot more people than the requirements for setting up an EU bank account.
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