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Cryptocurrency is something people tell lies about in hopes of getting richer

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Re: Cryptocurrency is something people tell lies about in hopes of getting richer

#291

Post by skinnyasianboi »

kristjansson wrote: post #263
skinnyasianboi wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine an indie game developer creating an open-world game where you can use your Sims furniture, Warcraft sword, Stardew Valley animals and so on. I don't quite understand your first point. Edit: the NFT is verifiable in your wallet and comes from a verified source

Doesn't your indie developer still have to acquire both licenses and assets for all those items, since NFTs (a) don't actually convey a recognizable legal ownership or right of any kind and (b) impose costs proportional to size in bytes, and so can't effectively store the actual data over which they claim ownership?

Good points. (b) The actual data (jpeg, mp4, 3d mobdel, etc) is usually stored on a system like https://ipfs.io and not on the NFT chain itself. (a) I think the optimal solution would be that it is in the interest of publishers to have their assets used in other projects. This would give them more value, and the NFT creator usually charges a transaction fee on their assets (every time something is sold on the secondary market, a percentage goes to the creator). Another option would be for the indie developer to assign these items to their own items. For example, AAA studio sword xy is assigned to indie game sword xy. Of course you can't manually assign zillions of NFTs, you would probably do this in tiers and I would imagine there would be services built around that. This would eliminate the IP problem as far as I know, and would just mean that owning NFT xy unlocks a feature/element in the game. This would of course be interesting for official collaborations between publishers.

Re: Cryptocurrency is something people tell lies about in hopes of getting richer

#292

Post by mywittyname »

wpietri wrote: post #256
mywittyname wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No clue. I just know people who do it.

Got it. I mean, I know people who ride unicycles. But for this I'm not interesting so much in "is it possible" as "is it effective and widely adopted".

Agree, anecdotes aren't data. But seeing non-tech-savvy people doing it definitely makes me think it's somewhat common. I posted half with the expectation that someone would chime in with some personal experience on the topic; HN has a pretty diverse group here.

I found a number of guides on the pros and cons of various international money transfers options, and BTC is often included as an option. I also found some recent (and old!) articles about its use as a remittance system in poorer areas of the world[1].

> Other emerging market central banks in Latin America, India, and Southeast Asia, where remittances make up a significant share of the economy, are in a similar bind. Bitcoin transfers surged in emerging markets last year, as the pandemic accelerated the rise of cheaper, more efficient digital remittance services.

[1]https://qz.com/africa/1983610/bitcoin-draws-millions-of-work...

Re: Cryptocurrency is something people tell lies about in hopes of getting richer

#293

Post by space_rock »

overlaid wrote: post #123
space_rock wrote: post #31

The rebranding of MySQL as blockchain was a brilliant move for sales. Bit torrent is decentralized and it doesn't use "blockchain". "Blockchain" only works for money and nothing else

> The rebranding of MySQL as blockchain Sadly this really is the most nuanced definition of "blockchain" that many people can understand

It is the only definition of blockchain that matches it's use. Where they copied the word from, the bitcoin datastructure, is unrelated

Re: Cryptocurrency is something people tell lies about in hopes of getting richer

#294

Post by gota »

snarf21 wrote: post #15
karpierz wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does Bitcoin have a clear advantage in solving double spend over a centralized solution?

Because the trust is distributed. One single person can't cause the entire system to break down or steal all them money. With blockchain coins, the incentives are aligned. The weird thing that happened with BTC that I don't think Satoshi could forsee is that the more valuable it got, the less usable it got. This is one of the unsolved issues: how to create decentralized consensus very very quickly that can't also be…

> One single person can't cause the entire system to break down or steal all them money.

Funny - I have never seen someone in the traditional financing system do that and not get caught. Closest things were ponzi schemes like Madoff (and he did get caught)

I have, however, heard of dozens of exactly this incident happening with cryptocoin exchanges (wallets, services, the most general term for all combined slipped my mind)

Re: Cryptocurrency is something people tell lies about in hopes of getting richer

#295

Post by imtringued »

roenxi wrote: post #10

Someone sees cryptocurrency as exactly what it is, and at some point in the future we will know who. But in the interim, lets not compare crypto to some utopian world that doesn't actually exist. In the current world which we inhabit, the many major currencies are either controlled or heavily influenced by people who: 1) Believe prices constantly rising is good for poor people. 2) Advocate that governments can spend…

>1) Believe prices constantly rising is good for poor people.

Inflation isn't meant to cause rising prices. It's a shitty approximation for negative interest rates. What inflation is doing is letting money rust so that it is flexible enough to represent the real world. Logically speaking income earned in 2010 should be losing value because of the opportunity cost of not employing people. Imagine an economy with two people and you decide to spend your money ten years later. The other party has to spend 10 years unemployed. Even though you lost 10 years of potential employment you still insist that your money from 10 years ago is still worth the same amount. Inflation adds enough flexibility to represent this loss and makes the holder of money realize the loss in the real economy, which encourages him to minimize the loss in the real world. With deflation you deny its existence by making the money system rigid and incapable of representing this potential state of the economy.

Say's law postulates that aggregate demand and supply are always in balance in a barter economy. Money as an intermediary allows short term mismatch between the two and deflation allows an almost permanent mismatch. Since inflation erodes past income any surplus is eroded which encourages people to utilize their surplus and let aggregate supply and demand match again.

>2) Advocate that governments can spend potentially an infinite amount without consequences because they control a printing press. And looking at the actions of, e.g. the US government, it is easy to suspect that the people who understand the nuance there aren't the ones in control of the money supply.

Maybe you like to think that other people think like that but reality is quite boring. What people have recognized is that the real world matters, not the financial world. If you see an unemployed person you can hire that person and at the end of the day customers are happy because that person provided goods and services and the worker is happy because he got paid. If granting credit and promising debt lets that person work, then it's better than trusting on some financial bean counter that tells you that employing people and providing goods and services is bad for the economy.

Re: Cryptocurrency is something people tell lies about in hopes of getting richer

#296

Post by mdoms »

toomim wrote: post #241
dpedu wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Bitcoin is open source, the original founder is nowhere to be found, there were no VCs involved in its creation or in the distribution of the coins and the entire network is run out in the open. The Bitcoin network is a commons. Hmmm. You've conveniently danced around any suggestion or mention of the fact that the "creator" of bitcoin mined 1.1 million - 1/20th of all bitcoins that will ever exist(!) - coins in pri…

And he never spent them. It's the most selfless act I've witnessed in my life.

Because he's dead.

Re: Cryptocurrency is something people tell lies about in hopes of getting richer

#297

Post by mdoms »

mcherm wrote: post #12
karpierz wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does Bitcoin have a clear advantage in solving double spend over a centralized solution?

It does not. Bitcoin (and it's successors) are a decentralized solution to the double spend problem. If "decentralized" is a requirement, then a cryptocurrency can be an excellent solution. Other known solutions (like "just trust everyone") don't scale well (an understatement!). If "decentralized" is not a requirement then there are other solutions to the double-spend problem.

So it's your contention that the current traditional financial system "don't scale well (an understatement!)"?

Re: Cryptocurrency is something people tell lies about in hopes of getting richer

#298

Post by imtringued »

rfd4sgmk8u wrote: post #284
SwimSwimHungry wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who cares what Satoshi said back then. What Bitcoin has become now is a complete sham with early adopters stoking the flames of FOMO to get rich quick at the expense of everyone else. I wish cryptocurrency fans would stop smelling their own farts for once and realize they aren't the absolute geniuses in finance that they claim to be. It's arrogant.

And I wish cryptocurrency detractors would stop lick state boot, calling for bans and throwing out stupid arguments like energy usage. While many in the coin space are arrogant from ignorance, I would argue that the detractors are universally arrogant with their ignorance. Bitcoin people are trying to decentralize the world. Make the powerful less powerful. Free humanity from debt economies, inflation, weak fiscal po…

>Bitcoin people are trying to decentralize the world. Make the powerful less powerful. Free humanity from debt economies, inflation, weak fiscal policy and the slow theft of fruits of your labor.

I have looked at lots of potential money systems and I'd say most cryptocurrencies fall into the usual deflation speculation death that lots of government currencies (especially during the gold standard) have fallen victim to.

In fact, most currencies are heading down that route. The euro and yen are prime examples. It's kind of funny how people shout about inflation the most when it's been super low for a long time. They complain about inflation when their real problem is that they have no bargaining power because inflation target policies are also supposed to inflate wages. Bitcoin also doesn't solve the rentier problem with land. If your purchasing power magically increases with Bitcoin then the land owner just gets more of your money.

I am really tired of the anti debt crap. The only reason people would be against debt is that there are crazy people who are out of touch with reality who insist on permanent positive interest rates. Just think about the absurdity of hating debt when interest rates are negative. It's simply illogical.

>AntiBitcoin people are trying to centralize the world. Empower the already powerful.

Deflation is empowering the rich. That's what positive real interest rates do. If you have a lot of Bitcoin and Bitcoin goes up in value then you get more gains than a poor person with very few Bitcoin. Inflation and negative interest rates hurt those who are rich the most and hurt those who have very little the least.

>Stamp that boot onto the face of humanity forever.

Is this supposed to be some kind of joke?

>Ensure that the state can always rob its people of their savings and lifes work, and force compliance with weak fiscal policy, negative interest rates.

Savings are literally just a reduction in demand for labor. Reducing your demand for labor doesn't make anyone wealthier by itself. It's only because there are other people who want that labor that saving even earns a return. You are basically paid to reduce your demand so that other, more productive people get to have the scarce labor. If you reduce your demand for labor and nobody ends up demanding the freed up labor then you basically worked for nothing. The entire point of inflation and negative interest rates are to get this fact into your damn head. You are piling up a bunch of potatoes that spoil before you eat them. Stop that.

Re: Cryptocurrency is something people tell lies about in hopes of getting richer

#299

Post by rfd4sgmk8u »

imtringued wrote: post #298
rfd4sgmk8u wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And I wish cryptocurrency detractors would stop lick state boot, calling for bans and throwing out stupid arguments like energy usage. While many in the coin space are arrogant from ignorance, I would argue that the detractors are universally arrogant with their ignorance. Bitcoin people are trying to decentralize the world. Make the powerful less powerful. Free humanity from debt economies, inflation, weak fiscal po…

>Bitcoin people are trying to decentralize the world. Make the powerful less powerful. Free humanity from debt economies, inflation, weak fiscal policy and the slow theft of fruits of your labor. I have looked at lots of potential money systems and I'd say most cryptocurrencies fall into the usual deflation speculation death that lots of government currencies (especially during the gold standard) have fallen victim t…

I fundamentally disagree with everything you have written, from definitions, to target of harms, to outcomes. I think your philosophy is dangerous and harmful.

So, No, I will not stop that. Thank Satoshi that I don't need to.

I choose to opt of your authoritarian and paternalistic philosophies. I will always convert fruits of my labor into hard money, where you cannot hurt me.

You can't stop us (all).

Re: Cryptocurrency is something people tell lies about in hopes of getting richer

#300

Post by dorgo »

Justsignedup wrote: post #209

The fomo is real tho. Everyone imagines "just imagine if I invested when BTC was And with everyone from celebrities to investors constantly promoting it, it is hard not to jump on the craze. All "doom and gloom" has bounced off the market. I am still expecting a massive crash, but to be honest, if I invested a few years ago I would be sitting at 3-20x my investment. It is insanely profitable. Thats the fun part of al…

>I am still expecting a massive crash

I wonder what you would consider a massive crash in crypto. Because -90% in two or three months is nothing special, just day-to-day business. I would start to worry if it drops below 0.1% though.

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