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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?

#101

Post by keymone »

pgesmm wrote: post #88
keymone wrote: post #36

Yes. Everything you described relies on central authority. For those who would like to not rely on central authority - cryptocurrencies provide real economic value. It’s trivial to the point where it’s impossible to distinguish you from a troll.

Why a troll? I asked a question and provided reasonable arguments for my belief. - "Not wanting to rely on a central authority" is a political theme. - In my opinion saying "I use crypto because I do not agree with my governing central authority" is not really a good application (as I asked for in my question). You don't even have to commit illicit activities in a universal/ethically right way. It suffices to do "ill…

> I use crypto as an expression of protest

that is your opinion. for me it's real value. you do realize that all value is subjective?

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

#102

Post by Irongirl1 »

Can a non-techie and member of a hunted class share a scenario?

What if a Foundation formed in, Belgium, let's say because of their emphasis on human rights, hands out "charge coins" to those who might be subject to pulling over for, oh, I don't know....air fresheners. Normally, such a person would have no bail money and would lose their jobs, housing and potentially their children to a asylum filled with people who prey specifically on us.

But this Foundation pays the bail, in any currency the court system prefers, and additionally...this "charge coin" gives the bearer access to lawyers. Lawyers from countries were the possibility of innocence is actually investigated, where they actually give a damn about preserving life. A country where 10K citizens dead in ridiculous crimes that even a blind man could tell were genocide were hired and paid to take an interest... no more kids in a "system" to be corrupted and used, no more nurses losing jobs because they spent days in jail because they couldn't afford bail, no more lost housing because Section 8 recipients are targeted to get them kicked out so that others could take their places.

I think the real issue for all you who spend your days poking holes in new ways of doing things that don't directly benefit you...is that you've had money, privilege and access for so damn long you can't see the forest for the trees. You've been in charge and in power forever...and you have literally no idea what Mr. Nakimoto or whomever he is has really done. The genie isn't going back into the bottle. The ability for under-represented groups to set their course free of your suppression and interference is here. NOW.

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

#103

Post by breck »

lottin wrote: post #18
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.

Reading "Some experiments to test for yourself" as "we just have to believe that what you say is true" is an interesting interpretation.

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

#104

Post by jonhendry18 »

mindcandy wrote: post #74
smt88 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This smart contract has no way of knowing if/what the damages are, whether the rent was paid in cash, or whether a million other legal issues are happening. For example, in most places, tenants may stop paying rent if their heat breaks in the winter and the landlord won't fix it promptly. The central authority will always be human courts. Smart contracts can't observe or record anything except crypto, which makes the…

Smart contracts are not going to instantly replace government with a techno-libertarian utopia. They are going to make government, lawyer and bank services a lot less necessary. And, they are going to provide a lot of alternative services to people without access to effective government/financial services. Smart contracts can’t observe anything but time, crypto and signaling from users/automated services. For dispute…

"They are going to make government, lawyer and bank services a lot less necessary."

Except when a third party finds bugs in the smart contract code and diverts the rent payments to themselves.

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

#105

Post by jonhendry18 »

mindcandy wrote: post #76
robjan wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most countries include some kind of arbitration when something is disputed e.g was the damage caused by negligence or wear and tear? The smart contract can't settle disputes like this without a trusted party.

Yes. But, as elaborated elsewhere in this thread, the reputable dispute arbitrator does not have to be a government agent. In countries where government agents are installed through corruption and paid in bribes, handing the 3rd vote on who gets the Bitcoin to someone based on reputation rather than appointment is a great boon.

" In countries where government agents are installed through corruption and paid in bribes"

And somehow this won't also end up artificially boosting the "reputation" of potential arbitrators?

(Or perhaps the government will make it clear that anyone who acts as an arbitrator without government authorization will spend a long time in a small cell.)

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

#106

Post by jonhendry18 »

WnZ39p0Dgydaz1 wrote: post #69
lottin wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is that such a contract requires a central authority that must be capable of evicting the tenant. A "smart contract" which is just some code running on a computer certainly can't do that.

Why do you require a central authority? What you require is this: 1. An incentive to evict someone. Money. Someone needs to get paid to actually do the eviction because they are taking on some risk - physical in this case. It doesn't matter how they get paid. A smart contract can do that. 2. "Social/Legal consensus" that performing the physical eviction is the right thing to do. The person performing the eviction sho…

What if the tenant offers the enforcer ownership of the landlord's home if the enforcer evicts the landlord instead?

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

#107

Post by jonhendry18 »

anonymoushn wrote: post #20

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 -…

Why not get an account at a US bank with a presence in Japan?

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

#108

Post by jonhendry18 »

rhn_mk1 wrote: post #12

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…

"Smart contracts are precise, and they require the entire population of coin users to disagree with the computed outcome."

Lol every month or so some smart contract bug gets exploited and coins get stolen.

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

#109

Post by jonhendry18 »

anonymoushn wrote: post #51
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…

People really are writing tokens with custom transfer functions that do this sort of thing. The main use case seems to be allowing artists to collect fees on non-first sales of an NFT. This whole genre of program is a bit suspect to me though, because if you had a trusted counterparty or an escrow you could just sell them the private key for the account containing the NFT, and they could conduct a "sale" for $1 to th…

There will never be a real secondary market for NFTs.

How are people going to re-sell an NFT when its metadata points to a file that 404s.

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

#110

Post by anonymoushn »

jonhendry18 wrote: post #109
anonymoushn wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People really are writing tokens with custom transfer functions that do this sort of thing. The main use case seems to be allowing artists to collect fees on non-first sales of an NFT. This whole genre of program is a bit suspect to me though, because if you had a trusted counterparty or an escrow you could just sell them the private key for the account containing the NFT, and they could conduct a "sale" for $1 to th…

There will never be a real secondary market for NFTs. How are people going to re-sell an NFT when its metadata points to a file that 404s.

NFTs that point to particular IPFS proxies or that point to IPFS files that nobody pins are not a great start. There are technical solutions to this problem, like using Arweave instead.

Overall I don't really like or care about NFTs.

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