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Ask HN: Why crypto is rising so fast when its not creating value?

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Re: Ask HN: Why crypto is rising so fast when its not creating value?

#111

Post by mohanmcgeek »

DennisP wrote: post #109
JohnFen wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When has there been a government that doesn't tax?

My claim is that currencies don't depend on taxation in that currency. Many areas today have local currencies, which are not accepted by any government for taxes. Prisoners use things like cigarettes as currency. On the island of Yap they used giant stones, which nobody attempted to tax. According to David Graeber, money actually arose as an abstraction of debts. You can have debts between people without having taxes…

> Prisoners use things like cigarettes as currency

This didn't happen in a society that didn't have money. Prisoners have an approximate idea of how much a cigarate is worth in dollar terms and how much they're willing to pay for..a phone call (?)

> David Graeber, money actually arose as an abstraction of debts

Yes. I think you're drawing the wrong conclusions from that chapter of the book. The money that we have today is an IOU from the reserve bank which is backed by an iou by the government. And since taxes are essentially a form of debt on the citizen's part, you pay taxes and all this should cancel out.

Needless to say, none of these ponzi coins are of this design

Re: Ask HN: Why crypto is rising so fast when its not creating value?

#112

Post by mohanmcgeek »

tata71 wrote: post #93
mohanmcgeek wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if we assume cryptocurrencies have some role to play in the future dWeb, wouldn't that be the new currencies created by those dWeb services and not these ones being hyped right now?

Statistically all of new tokens are Ethereum tokens. Could just buy & ride ETH to the end.

How does this work?

You mean to say dweb creators more often than not _choose_ to use eth instead of their own tokens?

Re: Ask HN: Why crypto is rising so fast when its not creating value?

#113

Post by landemva »

JohnFen wrote: post #101
lifekaizen wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm on the pro-crypto side, but the US dollar has more than consumer confidence, it has the largest armed forces the world has ever seen. So a better comparison is something like gold, I think, that has value because we say it has value (it's shiny! and rare...)... which is fine, just different.

I'm not "anti-crypto", but reason that I won't touch it is that it's not stable. With dollars, I know that the money will have a roughly constant value across time. Cryptocurrencies do the opposite of that. By the measure of stability, gold is also preferable to crytocurrency. If I were a speculator, that instability would be attractive. But I'm not.

Then you also avoid the equities markets and you stick to bonds denominated in your home currency. T-bills are useful for some people.

Re: Ask HN: Why crypto is rising so fast when its not creating value?

#114

Post by mohanmcgeek »

DennisP wrote: post #86
mohanmcgeek wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if we assume cryptocurrencies have some role to play in the future dWeb, wouldn't that be the new currencies created by those dWeb services and not these ones being hyped right now?

Ethereum's ENS works pretty well as a dWeb name service.

This sounds like inventing a problem for a solution you already have.

IPFS content addressing, .onion sites all work without any need for cryptocurrencies.

Re: Ask HN: Why crypto is rising so fast when its not creating value?

#115

Post by ac29 »

supermatt wrote: post #107
thoughtstheseus wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stocks represent the present value of future claims on consumption.

Nope. Stock represents the fractional ownership of a company, and its price represents the perceived value thereof. By all means use it as whatever indicator you like, but lets stick to the facts.

I think they are referring to the "net present value of future cash flows" model for valuing stocks. Its one model that can be used to help determine the value of a company - the idea being that you aren't necessarily buying a company's stock for its earnings today, you are buying it for what it will earn over the time period you intend to hold it.

Of course, that's not the only thing that determines stock price.

Re: Ask HN: Why crypto is rising so fast when its not creating value?

#116

Post by thoughtstheseus »

supermatt wrote: post #107
thoughtstheseus wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stocks represent the present value of future claims on consumption.

Nope. Stock represents the fractional ownership of a company, and its price represents the perceived value thereof. By all means use it as whatever indicator you like, but lets stick to the facts.

Cool, tell that to Alan Greenspan. I wonder where that perceived value comes from?

Re: Ask HN: Why crypto is rising so fast when its not creating value?

#117

Post by [deleted] »

mohanmcgeek wrote: post #114
DennisP wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ethereum's ENS works pretty well as a dWeb name service.

This sounds like inventing a problem for a solution you already have. IPFS content addressing, .onion sites all work without any need for cryptocurrencies.

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Why crypto is rising so fast when its not creating value?

#118

Post by DennisP »

mohanmcgeek wrote: post #114
DennisP wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ethereum's ENS works pretty well as a dWeb name service.

This sounds like inventing a problem for a solution you already have. IPFS content addressing, .onion sites all work without any need for cryptocurrencies.

The point of ENS is to map human-readable names to the addresses. It's a solution to Zooko's Triangle[1], and while it's not the only solution, the others use similar technology.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zooko%27s_triangle

Re: Ask HN: Why crypto is rising so fast when its not creating value?

#119

Post by DennisP »

mohanmcgeek wrote: post #111
DennisP wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My claim is that currencies don't depend on taxation in that currency. Many areas today have local currencies, which are not accepted by any government for taxes. Prisoners use things like cigarettes as currency. On the island of Yap they used giant stones, which nobody attempted to tax. According to David Graeber, money actually arose as an abstraction of debts. You can have debts between people without having taxes…

> Prisoners use things like cigarettes as currency This didn't happen in a society that didn't have money. Prisoners have an approximate idea of how much a cigarate is worth in dollar terms and how much they're willing to pay for..a phone call (?) > David Graeber, money actually arose as an abstraction of debts Yes. I think you're drawing the wrong conclusions from that chapter of the book. The money that we have tod…

> This didn't happen in a society that didn't have money.

That seems like a tautology.

> The money that we have today

Well yes, I didn't claim cryptocurrency works like the money we have today.

Re: Ask HN: Why crypto is rising so fast when its not creating value?

#120

Post by aliswe »

rhizome wrote: post #30

Because it's a pyramid scheme that is powered by hype. It just so happens that the exponential requirements for the number of participants has grown to the point where you'll start to see ppl talking about it more and more and in everyday conversations.

are you sure the word pyramid scheme is actually accurate?
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