Ethereum: A Store of Value with Cash Flow [pdf] • Hacker News Board

Re: Ethereum: A Store of Value with Cash Flow [pdf]

#231

Post by cryptica » Wed, Apr 21, 2021, 4:56 PM UTC

inter_netuser wrote: post #120

cryptica wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no doubt that it's a pyramid scheme. Everything is a pyramid scheme these days including the entire stock market (especially big tech). But the modern monetary system is designed to sustain such pyramid schemes. It can keep them going forever. No matter how much net value they destroy; it will offload the costs to fiat salary earners who accept fiat currencies. TBH I'm confused how the world economy is able…

Sooner or later it will have to end. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minsky_moment

I don't think so because the entire stock market would collapse if the reserve banks stopped printing money.

Smart people look at Bitcoin and Ethereum and think "wow that's inefficient, if the banks raise interest rates, they're going to get wiped out" but they don't realize that most corporations are just as capital inefficient and are in the same position. They are both unprofitable, therefore both worthless... Does it matter that one may be slightly less worthless than the other? The intrinsic market cap (if we had a free market) would be less than 0 in both cases.

Re: Ethereum: A Store of Value with Cash Flow [pdf]

#232

Post by MrMan » Wed, Apr 21, 2021, 4:59 PM UTC

dmihal wrote: post #208

dash2 wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Earning 10% "riskfree" isn't speculation, it's a Ponzi. What serious borrower needs to pay 10% to access credit? So then, who are the borrowers who are paying this interest? As they say on Reddit: !remindme 1 year.

> What serious borrower needs to pay 10% to access credit? People who can make more than 10% trading? Lending protocols aren't doing anything different than what banks do: allocating inactive capital to those who can make use of that capital and are willing to pay for it. Interest rates are high because of A: market volatility, professional traders can easily make more than 10%, and B: information asymmetry, large ca…

It is super anomalous financial behavior to seek out the highest cost funding though.

Re: Ethereum: A Store of Value with Cash Flow [pdf]

#233

Post by tim333 » Wed, Apr 21, 2021, 5:00 PM UTC

mratsim wrote: post #202

tim333 wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well - money laundering, drug dealing, ICO scams... On the positive side I think there's something like creating wealth through the power of imagination. I mean 20 years ago there were no crypto currencies. Now on paper they are worth $2trn ($260 a head for the world's population). And lots of people can feel wealthy because they have $100k in bitcoin of whatever. And it can retain actual value in the sense that you…

> I mean 20 years ago there were no crypto currencies. Actually wrong. - David Chaum, 1982, eCash - Adam Back, 1997, HashCash - Wei Dai, 1998, b-money - Nick Szabo, 1998, BitGold

Ah, yeah. Right you are. I was thinking distirbuted ones.

Re: Ethereum: A Store of Value with Cash Flow [pdf]

#234

Post by ArtTimeInvestor » Wed, Apr 21, 2021, 5:02 PM UTC

lottin wrote: post #187

ArtTimeInvestor wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The government is an investor. If the government buys enough bonds at X% interest rate, that is the market rate.

Sorry, that's not how it works. The governments runs an auction where the bonds are sold to investors. That sets the market rate. The government would not buy its own bonds in the auction (it wouldn't make sense) and cannot force investors to buy the bonds at a particular rate.

In Europe, the government does buy its own bonds. Via the central bank. They print the money. Hold it for a few days. Then buy government bonds with it.

Read what the european central bank (ECB) writes about it:

https://www.ecb.europa.eu/pub/pdf/scpwps/ecbwp1956.en.pdf

https://www.ecb.europa.eu/mopo/implement/pepp/html/index.en....

Search for "government bonds" in these papers.

Re: Ethereum: A Store of Value with Cash Flow [pdf]

#235

Post by lashloch » Wed, Apr 21, 2021, 5:06 PM UTC

rmah wrote: post #229

anonymouse008 wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It's just greed, plain and simple. Seeing someone pay off their student loans or their credit cards on an income similar or lower than yours by “investing” in a ICO at the right time and trying to find the next opportunity is greed to you? I’d say the little guy is desperate to get out underneath whatever has them in dire straights to reasonably think a “gamble” as rational.

Are you asserting that lower income people cannot be as greedy as higher income people?

Greed is the desire to accumulate wealth for its own sake. I don't think it makes sense to characterize a low-income person as greedy for trying to improve their situation somewhat.

Re: Ethereum: A Store of Value with Cash Flow [pdf]

#236

Post by Animats » Wed, Apr 21, 2021, 5:08 PM UTC

Did Etherium actually switch to proof of stake? That's been talked up for years, but has been delayed several times. The original date was January 2020, but as of now, I can't find a firm date. One Etherium page intended to get people to lock up ETH to stake the system says "Withdrawals won't be live right away. You won't be able to withdraw your stake until future upgrades are deployed. Withdrawals should be available once mainnet has docked with the Beacon Chain system."

It's always a bad sign in the cryptocurrency world when withdrawals are delayed.

The paper is written as if the change to proof of stake has happened.

Re: Ethereum: A Store of Value with Cash Flow [pdf]

#237

Post by chillacy » Wed, Apr 21, 2021, 5:13 PM UTC

Animats wrote: post #236

Did Etherium actually switch to proof of stake? That's been talked up for years, but has been delayed several times. The original date was January 2020, but as of now, I can't find a firm date. One Etherium page intended to get people to lock up ETH to stake the system says "Withdrawals won't be live right away. You won't be able to withdraw your stake until future upgrades are deployed. Withdrawals should be availab…

I was looking this up recently. There's a 3 phase plan to switch to proof of stake, the first phase of launching a new chain is complete, but it could take years to complete this migration.

Re: Ethereum: A Store of Value with Cash Flow [pdf]

#238

Post by CryptoPunk » Wed, Apr 21, 2021, 5:14 PM UTC

Animats wrote: post #236

Did Etherium actually switch to proof of stake? That's been talked up for years, but has been delayed several times. The original date was January 2020, but as of now, I can't find a firm date. One Etherium page intended to get people to lock up ETH to stake the system says "Withdrawals won't be live right away. You won't be able to withdraw your stake until future upgrades are deployed. Withdrawals should be availab…

Calling it 'Etherium' to provoke Ethereum advocates is completely inappropriate as per HN rules.

Re: Ethereum: A Store of Value with Cash Flow [pdf]

#239

Post by sickygnar » Wed, Apr 21, 2021, 5:22 PM UTC

dmihal wrote: post #140

dash2 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A question I've asked before: are there any applications which don't involve speculation?

Do you consider earning interest to be speculation? I can put stablecoins (crypto dollars) in a lending protocol like Aave and earn ~10% APY. Compare that to my savings account, which pays out 0.25% APY. Or how about the stablecoins themselves? MakerDAO creates the Dai stablecoin, backed by crypto-native assets like ETH & BTC. I have a number of friends in Argentina who are surviving hyper-inflation by keeping their…

That 10% isn't remotely risk-free. All the combined lending/defi/erc20 smart contracts are held together by paper clips and rubber bands. The popular ones have been stable so far but there is a proven history of hacks and exploits in crypto in general.

Re: Ethereum: A Store of Value with Cash Flow [pdf]

#240

Post by cwkoss » Wed, Apr 21, 2021, 5:26 PM UTC

ur-whale wrote: post #171

meowkit wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remember when we called laundering money that because laundromats were used? Just tumble your coins! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptocurrency_tumbler

> Just tumble your coins! Much easier said than done: - it costs money - most tumblers aren't safe at all (who's to say they aren't operated by the govt or that they don't keep logs) - in some cases, you might not get your coins back at all Coinjoin for BTC is a better approach, but it's also far from easy to use (need a special wallet) and is basically useless until it sees mass adoption.

Tumbling crypto never made sense to me: "I don't want the government to know that I made this $50 selling weed, so I'll trade it for $49 dollars from another weed dealer to make it look 'clean'!"

Shouldn't you expect that most people paying to use tumblers have a reason to do so, and thus the vast majority of coins from tumblers are tainted as well?