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Decentralized Woo Hoo

stephendiehl.com

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Re: Decentralized Woo Hoo

#251

Post by skulk »

unemphysbro wrote: post #202
shoto_io wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Smart contracts are really really really cool! I was able to write a contract to take out a loan, distribute funds to various pools and pull the funds out. Having that sort of atomic control over financial transactions or data is simply amazing. Anyone with the knowledge can do it. Just understand the vulnerabilities and caveats with the languages/apis that interact with the various blockchains.

After you pass a certain threshold, it makes zero sense to trust your assets to code that _you, personally_ haven't 100% authoritatively verified to be bug-free. Traditional financial institutions don't work like this; if there's an obvious "bug" in bank logic that lets someone take all of your assets, it gets rolled back. Doing away with this protection is fine, but the big bucks will stay away.

Re: Decentralized Woo Hoo

#252

Post by allturtles »

megameter wrote: post #196
shoto_io wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I think the analogy of cryptocurrency's position to the 90's internet is the wrong one to pick, because it describes an environment with some maturity and acceptance in its base technologies, primed for waves of consumer commerce to take hold. The proper example to pick is personal computing circa 1982. When you look at the envisioned uses of personal computing, the advertisements really reach: it helps your child le…

> The proper example to pick is personal computing circa 1982. When you look at the envisioned uses of personal computing, the advertisements really reach: it helps your child learn. You can store recipes on it. Balance your checkbook. Write documents. And (whispers) play games.

Okay so what is the "play games" of crypto today? It seems like the only equivalent is "criminal activity." Unless you count speculation on crypto itself, but that isn't a "use." Computer users in 1982 were not buying IBM PCs, leaving them boxed in their closet, and then re-selling them for 10 or 100x the price in a year or two.

Re: Decentralized Woo Hoo

#253

Post by unemphysbro »

skulk wrote: post #251
unemphysbro wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Smart contracts are really really really cool! I was able to write a contract to take out a loan, distribute funds to various pools and pull the funds out. Having that sort of atomic control over financial transactions or data is simply amazing. Anyone with the knowledge can do it. Just understand the vulnerabilities and caveats with the languages/apis that interact with the various blockchains.

After you pass a certain threshold, it makes zero sense to trust your assets to code that _you, personally_ haven't 100% authoritatively verified to be bug-free. Traditional financial institutions don't work like this; if there's an obvious "bug" in bank logic that lets someone take all of your assets, it gets rolled back. Doing away with this protection is fine, but the big bucks will stay away.

Of course not, the dao hack is a case in point.

I am happy the ecosystem is spurring growth in formal verification.

It's still the wild west and I encourage anyone interested to swing a lasso.

Re: Decentralized Woo Hoo

#254

Post by lottin »

didericis wrote: post #241
lottin wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I agree. But the promises that bitcoin makes can only become reality if anarcho-capitalism itself becomes a reality. Otherwise, if the government continues to tax you, and banks continue to hold fractional reserves, what is the point of using something so anti-economical and impractical as bitcoin, when you can just use a more convenient currency?

Re: Decentralized Woo Hoo

#255

Post by lekevicius »

defgeneric wrote: post #125

Stephen Diehl has been colossally wrong for YEARS on crypto.

If you look at ALL of his articles, they are ALL about one topic only, how crypto is a scam. I'm for one very glad he exists. He'll either end up being able to say "told you!", or, more likely, as a great quote in some article in 2032, when people will write about early response to crypto.

Re: Decentralized Woo Hoo

#256

Post by bluecalm »

dcist wrote: post #233
addcninblue wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Also, you can pay taxes with fiat currency.

Taxes and especially paying loans back starting from banks, businesses to mortgages.

Re: Decentralized Woo Hoo

#257

Post by bluecalm »

jw1224 wrote: post #199
lottin wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Central banks can always stop inflation. How do you suggest they wouldn't be able to stop it?

> Central banks can always stop inflation The central banks of Austria, Bolivia, Brazil, China, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Peru, Poland, Venezuela, and Zimbabwe have all failed to stop hyperinflation.

Hyperinflation is caused by very limited supply. If there is not enough food around people will give everything for it. It doesn't matter what the currency is and how much you print or not.

Re: Decentralized Woo Hoo

#258

Post by shoto_io »

simias wrote: post #126
shoto_io wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>What's the value of having friends I see daily online? None. The value is in having people want to watch ads in order to see what their friends are up to. The only monetization scheme for the blockchain so far seems to build pyramid schemes or making fees from running off-chain, centralized exchanges.

That’s exactly my point. Who would have thought about that?

Re: Decentralized Woo Hoo

#259

Post by [deleted] »

brabel wrote: post #227
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Part of the problem is that much of the cryptocurrency hype, some might even say most, actually is just a bunch of scams and pump and dump nonsense. The people who are in it for a get rich quick scheme are the enemy, and most of the people who expect to get rich quick will end up on the bottom of the pyramid. But that isn't to say that there's nothing there. It's like saying that the internet is worthless and should…

> the internet is worthless and should be destroyed because it has pornography and copyright infringement. Tangential to the topic, but pornography is not a crime like copyright infrigement, or even something intrinsically bad as you seem to imply, for whatever reason! There's a lot of good taste porn out there. It has a high value of entertainment to a lot of people... I would compare it to something like gaming or…

[deleted]

Re: Decentralized Woo Hoo

#260

Post by bluecalm »

cableshaft wrote: post #171
hhmc wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

- funded an Afghan refugee friend in Turkey with ETH. they have no bank account. If they have no bank account, how do they convert ETH into something actually useful to them (presumably Turkish Lira)?

Yeah no, the Turkish Lira is no longer useful. "The Turkish lira hit its weakest ever level against the US dollar on August 7, trading at 7.36 at one point, having lost nearly 20% of its value since the beginning of the year....The lira has been on life support for the past two years and the economy has continually struggled." https://theconversation.com/turkeys-collapsing-lira-governme...

Man, my national currency lost 50% of value vs USD throughout last 12 or so years. It regularly goes up and down 10-25% (it usually takes several months). Life goes on and prices of goods are very stable. It's not much of a problem. It's just a healthy mechanism. I live in Poland, most people aren't aware of PLN/USD fluctuations at all.
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