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Decentralized Woo Hoo

stephendiehl.com

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Re: Decentralized Woo Hoo

#241

Post by didericis »

lottin wrote: post #189
didericis wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are huge regulatory and societal roadblocks for crypto to be used as envisioned not as present during those other cases of wide technological adoption. For crypto to be valuable, merchants need to use it. Transactions need to be cheaper. A stable decentralized financial system needs to emerge. The use case is a world without central banks and central currency manipulation. People who don’t see the use case don’…

I think the major roadblock is the fact that bitcoin was conceived as anarcho-capitalist money, and for it to succeed anarcho-capitalism would have to succeed. And that's not going to happen, because anarcho-capitalism is not viable way of organising a society. It should be obvious to anyone who has delved into the literature.

Gold was the world reserve currency for millennia and acted similarly to bitcoin and other crypto currencies. You can still have emergent government structures many of the bitcoin people would hate on top of a base store of value which is not centrally produced by governments.

Re: Decentralized Woo Hoo

#242

Post by jollybean »

throwawaygh wrote: post #216
jollybean wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'The way it works today' is a bit cludgy and there's actually no reason you couldn't have the reimbursement instantly. The 'non tech' reason would be related to internal approvals, but with the right tech, it would be streamlined. It's also possible that the government could get some of their taxes right away. Obviously not in call cases due to varying accounting issues, but it could work. FYI there's no reason for '…

> actually no reason you couldn't have the reimbursement instantly Out in the Real Economy there's a thing called cash flow. You can't pay your employees before your customers pay you. > FYI there's no reason for 'all your transactions to be on the blockchain' - that's just the way it works today but that can change. You're right. There's no reason.

Regular expenses are generally not burdened by cash flow. You get your regular expenses at the 'end of the month' as a matter of process, not because the company is waiting for customers to pay for stuff, so they can pay you.

As an employee, you're not there to provide working capital for your company, so if you're buying something really that the company should be paying for, they should be able to pay for it immediately.

Re: Decentralized Woo Hoo

#243

Post by cableshaft »

zkldi wrote: post #219
serverholic wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ethereum is moving to a new algorithm that will reduce energy consumption by 99.95%. This is happening in a matter of months. Asking about use-cases for crypto is like asking for use-cases for the internet in the 90s. It's so general purpose that there isn't a specific use-case to sell you on but instead a set of smaller use-cases that add up to a large use-case. For example, I would love for charities to be built on…

Ethereum has been moving to proof of stake for the past 4 years. Everytime these threads come up people bring up that ETH is *just about* to move to PoS, but it never happens.

You're presumably in software, you should know major software upgrades take years and always longer than expected. Doubly so when it's already being used for millions of transactions daily. Triply so when you're altering the fundamental nature of the underlying protocol.

They have already released the first of three phases. It's live now. I currently have some ETH on the new Proof of Stake chain. Second phase (where they merge it with the rest of the network) got pushed back a few months recently, but it's still expected Q1/Q2 2022[1].

I see and expect this argument from people who aren't in software, who expect everything to happen perfectly and instantly. But you should have been involved in enough projects to know you can't just Thanos snap a major software upgrade into existence.

https://ethereum.org/en/eth2/merge/

Re: Decentralized Woo Hoo

#244

Post by lottin »

mardifoufs wrote: post #237
lottin wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you sure? What did they try to stop it that didn't work?

What could the central bank of zimbabwe have done to stop inflation? I agree that central banks can almost always stop inflation...as long as they are controlling a reserve currency that actually has international value. Otherwise there is actually very little a central bank can do when your currency isn't used for imports, exports, international trade etc and foreign dollars/euros/RNB are needed to do almost any eco…

They could have stopped flooding the country with Zimbabwean dollars and hyperinflation would have stopped immediately. Of course, the central bank of Zimbabwe was never independent from the government, but that doesn't change the fact that whoever was in charge of the monetary policy could have stopped hyperinflation at any time, had they wanted to.

Re: Decentralized Woo Hoo

#245

Post by ilaksh »

DonHopkins wrote: post #138
ilaksh wrote: post #65

Critically fails to distinguish between decentralization technologies (a wider category) and cryptocurrency. Does not understand the term he is criticizing. There is another deeper primary failure here shared by much of the HN community. That is the inability, despite so much evidence, to comprehend that technology IS an ally to society. In fact, it has always been a core part of progress in human society. But the ab…

Most of HN is aware and mature enough to comprehend that Ayn Rand is NOT an ally of society.

Do you have a browser extension that replaces the word "technology" with "Ayn Rand"? Have no idea what you are talking about.

I was a fan of Ayn Rand when I read her as a kid. At this point I am close to the opposite of an Ayn Rand fan. Again, don't see how you possibly brought Ayn Rand into my comment.

Re: Decentralized Woo Hoo

#246

Post by serverholic »

brabel wrote: post #234
serverholic wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow this is exactly the example I use. Explaining crypto use-cases is like explaining the use-cases for the internet in the 90s. "But I can just write a check or hand someone cash, why would I need to send money over the internet?" "Amazon? But I can go buy what I need down the street. Seems like a lot of work just to save a few minutes."

> "But I can just write a check or hand someone cash, why would I need to send money over the internet?" But today, I can just use my credit card to pay for anything instantly, anywhere in the world... who the fuck still uses checks?? Why would I want to use crypto and lose all the protections I have from my card company, while having to wait minutes for transactions to be confirmed instead of milli-seconds?? And wit…

That quote was from the perspective of someone learning about the internet in the 90s. My point is it's hard for people to imagine the implications of a technology.

> Why would I want to use crypto and lose all the protections I have from my card company

The current system is kinda crazy if you think about it. We give out our credit card numbers all the time and don't think twice about it. These protections you speak of are mostly a bandaid on a flawed system.

Additionally, we give all the power to a central authority which is ok until it isn't. My buddy does freelance work and has gotten screwed because these "protections" were used by shitty clients to get their money back after he handed over the project.

Finally, crypto has other protections like smart wallets that implement a sort of password recovery feature. The difference is you have control over how you want to use it.

> while having to wait minutes for transactions to be confirmed instead of milli-seconds

Crypto transactions appear almost instantly. Do you really need to wait minutes to fully confirm a taco bell transaction? Besides, Ethereum Layer 2 will help out with this quite a bit by boosting performance. Blockchain scaling is still in its infancy.

> And with the risk of my "wallet" being hacked in an instant and losing everything

Then use a savings wallet and a checking wallet. Or have 100 wallets. It's up to you how you want to structure it. Also people get hacked all the time due to poor passwords. How is this any different than, say, someone finding your bank account password? Or a phishing email?

I imagine over time services will crop up from trusted providers that will smooth over the UX here. For example, walking you through setting up your wallet.

Also smart wallets like I mentioned above.

> without a chance for appealing to anyone for the funds to be returned

If that really worries you then there will be centralized services for you to use with systems in place to prevent this. Wallets are just a lego brick that you can use to build many different kinds of services and systems.

> Do you seriously consider that an attractive option to anyone, in the way that the Internet or Amazon

Yes. We are just starting to see the implications of the technology and it's inspiring IMO.

Re: Decentralized Woo Hoo

#247

Post by serverholic »

addcninblue wrote: post #163
jw1224 wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fiat currency, in essence, is equally valueless. It only has inherent value because enough people agree that it does. Bitcoin is no different (and in fact has several advantages over fiat, giving it further value).

Well, not quite. It has inherent value since fiat is guaranteed to be backed by the full faith and credit of the backing nation. That is, by holding fiat, you trust that the country issuing that fiat doesn't default (and will hence guarantee that value). I don't see a similar parallel with crypto, though I'd love to be corrected.

Crypto is backed by the strength of the network and the algorithms that run the network.

As far as real-world value, all that's needed is for the value to be "bootstrapped" if you will. When ethereum was first released all it took was for someone to say "I'll buy your 1 Eth for X dollars" and boom the value of Eth is bootstrapped because we can attach the value of an Eth coin to a real world item.

After that bootstrapping, the value of today's Eth is governed by supply/demand and the value it had yesterday.

Re: Decentralized Woo Hoo

#248

Post by koonsolo »

labster wrote: post #210
jstanley wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you trust that the country issuing that fiat doesn't default Doesn't default on what ? A dollar isn't a claim on a percentage of the productive output of the USA, it's just a dollar. If dollars aren't worth anything, it's not worth anything.

Dollars do have inherent value, because I need them to keep the government from throwing me in prison for tax evasion. That is a very useful property.

This is such a stupid argument that keeps being repeated on HN.

People are not obliged to be paid in dollars. This means people could decide to be paid exclusively in some cryptocurrency.

So government collects taxes in dollars... what are they going to buy with that?

Re: Decentralized Woo Hoo

#249

Post by allturtles »

serverholic wrote: post #246
brabel wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "But I can just write a check or hand someone cash, why would I need to send money over the internet?" But today, I can just use my credit card to pay for anything instantly, anywhere in the world... who the fuck still uses checks?? Why would I want to use crypto and lose all the protections I have from my card company, while having to wait minutes for transactions to be confirmed instead of milli-seconds?? And wit…

That quote was from the perspective of someone learning about the internet in the 90s. My point is it's hard for people to imagine the implications of a technology. > Why would I want to use crypto and lose all the protections I have from my card company The current system is kinda crazy if you think about it. We give out our credit card numbers all the time and don't think twice about it. These protections you speak…

> How is this any different than, say, someone finding your bank account password? Or a phishing email?

It's different because you have recourse to your bank when someone steals your credit card/bank account info (credit card and ACH transactions can be reversed), and because banks have processes in place to protect their clients (locking accounts, additional scrutiny on large transactions, etc.)

> If that really worries you then there will be centralized services for you to use with systems in place to prevent this.

Those services are called banks, and they already exist for regular money. So why do I need or want crypto again?

Re: Decentralized Woo Hoo

#250

Post by 0xcde4c3db »

shoto_io wrote: post #118
cslarson wrote: post #103

> Yet if we value these assets in terms of traditional valuation models we find they should be worth absolutely nothing. This is the core tenet that these skeptics get lost with - the premise that there is no real central value to blockchain technology. It is a lost and shallow view made by people who have chosen not to engage or understand what they espouse on. Maybe this person just has too much to lose from change…

I've been a huge skeptic myself until a friend almost forced me into going down the rabbit hole. I have since been wondering why we tech people are so unbelievably critical. "There is no use-case." and "It's a technology looking for a problem" are common phrases. I have no answer. Just a thought: for someone living in the 90s, wouldn't something like Facebook have been also very difficult to conceive? "What's the val…

> Just a thought: for someone living in the 90s, wouldn't something like Facebook have been also very difficult to conceive? "What's the value of having friends I see daily online?".

It's probably easy to say with hindsight, but I honestly don't think so. The stereotype of teenagers (especially girls) spending too much time on the phone is older than personal computers, let alone Facebook. AIM and ICQ were quite successful in the 90s, and LiveJournal launched in 1999.

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