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

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

defector.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

361–370 of 411 posts

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

#361

Post by UncleMeat »

cryptica wrote: post #355
UncleMeat wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People who signed up early to the right blockchains will have priority access to certain software ecosystems and exclusive services which are only accessible to the richest among them (for example). I cannot possibly imagine a world where services will choose to only permit authentication via some expensive blockchain such that they deny themselves access to markets outside of the global rich. And telling my grandm…

The benefit is that many third-party services and many users don't want to have to trust a centralized auth provider. The blockchain provides redundancy and security guarantees which don't require trusting company employees. Not to mention the financial incentives which are associated with being an early adopter of a blockchain project and the network effects which come from that. I'm convinced that decentralized com…

OK let’s try again. What precisely is the difference between signature based auth that uses a key pair associated with a wallet and a key pair that the user submits the public key for when they sign up? Why would the latter be vulnerable to additional insider threats?

“Services will make more money because blockchains are trendy” isn’t a meaningful difference.

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

#362

Post by UncleMeat »

k__ wrote: post #161
TomGullen wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Permission to an API service maybe, the rest of the examples create more problems than they solve.

How come? Just think about all cases of fake liceses? This could be verified rather easily with an NFT while faking it would be quite hard.

Why would a state issuing licenses want to use a distributed system to issue licenses? Licenses aren’t tradable so the defi attributes of nfts aren’t useful here.

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

#363

Post by UncleMeat »

yellowapple wrote: post #354
dkersten wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How? Maybe I'm misunderstanding what you're saying. Since drivers licenses are linked to individuals, and cannot be traded, the traffic cop that's checking your license will need to compare it to your government issued ID. Then they look it up to see that its valid and linked to you as a person. How is doing this as an NFT (or other blockchain thing) any better than having a government database they look up? This is…

> How is doing this as an NFT (or other blockchain thing) any better than having a government database they look up? If it's an out-of-state (or worse: international) ID, then the traffic cop (or, speaking from experience, some clerical worker back at the station) would need to deal with some bespoke interface for some external government database - and thus be at the mercy of that external agency. Such interfaces do…

You think that a cop is going to download some custom app (that somebody would build… for some reason) so they can have a preferred interface for their id lookup and police departments are going to approve of this and state governments are going to prefer this so much that they’d choose to implement licensing records using a more complex system that they have less control over?

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

#364

Post by roenxi »

boh wrote: post #265
jcbrand wrote: post #190

This article conflates NFTs with cryptocurrency, in a way that looks to me to be intentional in order to bolster his argument that crypto is for rich people to conspicuously consume and to pump and dump on the plebs. NFTs aren't money, or currency and just because they can be created on some blockchains doesn't make them so. I also don't see a genuine effort from the author to really understand why proponents think t…

Not really a revolution when most people just trade it (mostly via fiat money). The original idea was for Bitcoin to be a currency, unfortunately the "hodlers" won, now its only reason to exist is to be more expensive. Boosters are still milking the original premise as some revolution they're supporting, when of course, if you ask how much of their crypto assets they've actually used/spent, the typical answer is 0%.…

I can use Bitcoin to safely, reliably and conveniently send money to people/organisations the US government doesn't like - eg, Wikileaks.

It is hard to understate how radical that is. Such an act of quiet resistance against the powers that be was somewhere between extremely difficult and impossible in 2005.

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

#365

Post by dkersten »

yellowapple wrote: post #353
andechs wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When a central authority is in charge of adding transactions to the blockchain, ie: DMV issuing licences, what's the advantage of blockchain over a standard database?

As long as it's done on a public blockchain, validation becomes possible without needing to contact the DMV itself to provide that validation. For example, if you have a California driver's license and I (as a Nevadan) want to verify its validity (say, because I'm running a bar and you don't look 21+), I could check whatever public blockchain to which California posts its ID NFTs, compare that to some reference on th…

> some out-of-band method

> some external certification process

Or just skip the extra complexity and have it all handled by a central authority?

Yes, you can use a blockchain to implement it how you describe, but I still don't buy that it has any real advantages. Also, who would run the blockchain?

> a whole bunch of DMVs could very well post to the same blockchain and only trust the validity of ID tokens issued by one another

> with independent issuing authorities trusting one another

If they are the only ones who can issue tokens and they have to trust each other anyway, why does it need to be a blockchain anyway instead of some shared database? Or if you want to keep it distributed, a peer-to-peer distributed hash table or other peer-to-peer database of ID tokens that only the DMV's have write access to. No need for a blockchain.

> if you have a California driver's license and I (as a Nevadan) want to verify its validity

If all the states share a blockchain, then they could just as easily share a database and web interface that you can look up. If they don't share a blockchain, then I don't see how its any different from each having their own system. I mean, even if its a blockchain, how well it works is then up to each state and if there's a centrally mandated blockchain they should be using, then there could also be a centrally mandated database they could be using. It just moves the goal posts around, it doen't in itself solve it. The person checking (bar staff in your example) still need a website or app that they can input the data to derive the hash (as not to leak personal data) and check the hash against the blockchain, this could just as easily work against a central or state database and how well it works, in either case, is still very much dependent on each state.

It seems overly complicated to build this on or as a blockchain.

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

#367

Post by maxerickson »

fallingknife_ wrote: post #366

This is as boring and ignorant an article as I've seen in 10 years of participating in blockchain. Please, if you're going to hate on bitcoin, try to bring something new or interesting to the convo.

The good criticisms of blockchain are old and boring. It's slow, it uses a lot of energy, not being regulated is bad actually, reversible transactions are good, etc.

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

#368

Post by leppr »

arisAlexis wrote: post #359
leppr wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

L2s and decentralized stablecoins keep the dream of a free decentralized economy alive. It's a smaller community for sure (as most pretend enthusiasts aren't actually interested when there's no Ponzi in it for them, and most detractors would rather focus on easier strawmen), but it exists and it's thriving.

Stable coins do not solve the money printing problem at all. Their existence is mostly for avoiding tax events when speculators sell tops and buy dips. Also they are as centralized as it gets.

The term "decentralized stablecoins" itself precludes the USD-pegged voucher tokens you're referring to.

I'm talking about things like Reflexer's RAI[1], which is designed to have stable value independently of any singular currency, and whose most centralized component is price oracles (so not very centralized).

[1]: https://reflexer.finance/

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

#369

Post by maxerickson »

EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK wrote: post #358
KorematsuFredt wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

May be I am too old but completely fail to see any value in the notion of NFT. I do see value in Bitcoin. Bitcoin has basically thrown a wrench into all government controls on cross border payments. I don't know if Bitcoins will be very successful or not, but I am pretty sure the concept will last very very long. NFTs on other hand appears to be equivalent of selling Golden gate bridge to tourists.

Do you see value in rare baseball cards selling for millions of dollars? That's the same, but the card's authenticity can be verified cryptographically rather than through complex means like radionuclide analysis and such.

Physical goods would still need the same authentication if they were tied to an NFT, and may be rare as a consequence of their nature.

What's the value of pretending an easily duplicated digital thing is rare?

I realize that an NFT minted on a given chain is unique, but so what, that doesn't make it unique and interesting they way a baseball card might be.

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

#370

Post by WinstonSmith84 »

imtringued wrote: post #286
WinstonSmith84 wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

oh come on. - defi? - Twitter introducing tips in crypto? .. personally speaking I'm paying every day with a crypto card (which gives me a few % cashback ..). But that's ok, you seem to purposefully want to miss the train, can't help people against themselves I guess :shrug:

You do know you're missing the train by spending your crypto?

who says I'm spending my crypto? I'm spending my Euros moved over to my Crypto account...
Post reply on HN