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The Handwavy Technobabble Nothingburger of Crypto

stephendiehl.com

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Re: The Handwavy Technobabble Nothingburger of Crypto

#71

Post by bhouston »

Stephen is mostly likely right that the decentralized nature of Crypto is not really a benefit. That said digital cash and tokens and NFTs do have value and I expect them to get even more popular.

I am reminded of the P2P/decentralized nature of Napster and how it was going to be a revolution.

Napter's P2P infrastructure (and later Gnutelle and Bittorrent) allowed it to operate in a legal gray zone or at least have deniability. But Napster's lasting innovation wasn't P2P, it was showing how popular digital music was when it was being fought by the powers that be (and Bittorrent showed how popular digital films would be.)

BitTorrent is still around, primarily for pirating content. It is no where near as popular as the legal means of accessing and distributing digital music and video though -- Netflix, Apple Music, Spotify, Disney+ have grabbed the main innovation and separated it from the decentralized P2P infrastructure that first enabled it.

I think crypto is likely going in that direction. People want digital cash. People want NFTs. But they do not need this wasteful decentralized infrastructure and the complete anonymity that it is designed around.

That said, I think the criminal needs will keep decentralized crypto around forever, even after it is likely banned in most places, just like BitTorrent continues today.

Crypto servers a great purpose just like Napster/Gnutella and Bitorrent did -- it is forcing us to modernize our traditional banking infrastructure to compete with these wildcat currencies.

Digital cash versions of each major currency will exist, be formally blessed by the powers that be, they will probably have at least semi-centralized infrastructure, KYC and rollback capabilities and near 0 gas fees. KYC and rollback capabilities are key for reducing crime.

Re: The Handwavy Technobabble Nothingburger of Crypto

#72

Post by creeble »

andrewla wrote: post #45
maneesh wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why I always have thought that election voting would be a perfect use case for a blockchain. Imagine a way that you could look up the blockchain with your key (SSN?) that is somehow one-way-hashed to show you the result of your vote. The value param would be plain-text. Someone else wouldn't be able to see your vote without your key, but you could confirm yours was recorded properly. Anyone could tally the va…

First of all, what you're talking about more resembles a Merkle Tree rather than a blockchain, because the "chaining" property is really useless in this scenario. Each election can publish the Merkle Tree of its results and you can be sure that your vote was properly registered. Or frankly, just publish the list of one-way hashes and their vote, and you can dispense with all the Merkle-ing. But what about a Sybil att…

A Sybil attack in this case is just a reveal (once again) of the oracle problem - a blockchain doesn’t provide proof that you are you. Therefore, it cannot provide proof that you cast only one (or no) vote.

Verifying your identity is outside the blockchain. Thus it can provide no value for voting.

Re: The Handwavy Technobabble Nothingburger of Crypto

#73

Post by bobmichael »

keyanp wrote: post #62
padobson wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, this is what I don't understand from the naysayers. Anyone who says blockchain-driven assets don't have intrinsic value seems to ignore the value of trust - the ability to trust that the ledger is accurate seems extremely valuable. The author of the article skips over the question entirely, maybe he's addressed it elsewhere, but if the crypto skeptics continue to ignore one of its primary value propositions, I…

> the ability to trust that the ledger is accurate seems extremely valuable Maybe it "seems" valuable, but why exactly is it valuable? For what use case and which situation (besides crime)? I think the issue is that many don't see value in its "primary value proposition" because the features they want from banks are already there (stability, FDIC insurance). The only thing I personally see missing is no/low-fee insta…

One IMO realistic use-case is providing a wealth preservation mechanism for people living in a country with a corrupt government that's experiencing hyperinflation, for example Lebanon.

Re: The Handwavy Technobabble Nothingburger of Crypto

#74

Post by __alexs »

bhouston wrote: post #71

Stephen is mostly likely right that the decentralized nature of Crypto is not really a benefit. That said digital cash and tokens and NFTs do have value and I expect them to get even more popular. I am reminded of the P2P/decentralized nature of Napster and how it was going to be a revolution. Napter's P2P infrastructure (and later Gnutelle and Bittorrent) allowed it to operate in a legal gray zone or at least have d…

> That said digital cash and tokens and NFTs do have value and I expect them to get even more popular.

Literally all my cash is already digital.

Re: The Handwavy Technobabble Nothingburger of Crypto

#75

Post by the_gastropod »

romille wrote: post #25

This guy has a personal brand by now for putting down crypto. Like stop writing about it if you don’t like it!

Beginning in the 1960s, Clair Cameron Patterson was very vocal against the widespread use of leaded gasolines. He was ignored and mocked for over 20 years, but kept going because he knew it was damaging, and fought to end its use. He didn't just "not like it", he was compelled to improve the world.

Whether you agree with him or not, Stephen believes crypto is damaging to society. As such, he is driven to help root it out.

Re: The Handwavy Technobabble Nothingburger of Crypto

#76

Post by JackFr »

Scarblac wrote: post #38

I wonder how much of the Crypto hype is because the US banking system still lives in the 1980s or thereabouts. If everybody in the US had access to bank accounts with easy electronic transfers within 5 seconds for no charge, no chargebacks and so on, as people are used to in the EU, would people still be excited about Bitcoin?

So the US has an antiquated payments system vis-a-vis Europe, but crypto solves none of those problems. I don't see it. I see FOMO, groupthink and greed.

Re: The Handwavy Technobabble Nothingburger of Crypto

#77

Post by soco »

pron wrote: post #63
IronIvan wrote: post #8

> Any application that could be done on a blockchain could be better done on a centralized database. Except crime. After all as we all know: If you've got nothing to hide, you've got nothing to fear. And look at how inefficient all these permissionless, trustless protocols are! What a waste! Let's just all trust a central authority and think of the savings and the children.

That argument doesn't work with currency, because money requires trust by definition (as opposed to immediate barter), and, as a backup -- enforcement. In the end, it's just a question of whether you trust a centralised authority that's ultimate accountable, however imperfectly, or decentralised authorities that are accountable only to themselves and have no enforcement power. If you give me bitcoin and I don't give…

The same can be said about NFTs: you must verify their authenticity off-chain, you must trust that off-chain authority, or sue people off-chain if they infringe on your off-chain property rights...

Re: The Handwavy Technobabble Nothingburger of Crypto

#78

Post by bhouston »

__alexs wrote: post #74
bhouston wrote: post #71

Stephen is mostly likely right that the decentralized nature of Crypto is not really a benefit. That said digital cash and tokens and NFTs do have value and I expect them to get even more popular. I am reminded of the P2P/decentralized nature of Napster and how it was going to be a revolution. Napter's P2P infrastructure (and later Gnutelle and Bittorrent) allowed it to operate in a legal gray zone or at least have d…

> That said digital cash and tokens and NFTs do have value and I expect them to get even more popular. Literally all my cash is already digital.

You are referring to Google Pay/Apple Pay/VISA. This is correct and it is mostly what people use these days.

But it isn't on a block chain and it isn't extensible. With our current digital cash I can not create NFTs and trade then around. It also doesn't allow for arbitrarily large transfers. It doesn't replace ACH or Interac. There are no public ledgers.

I think that digital cash with the features I described above will come into existence, as parallel structures to the existing ones, but probably will see significantly more adoption.

Right now we are seeing fracturing of the cash system with PayPal, Stripe, Venmo, etc. I think there could easily be a consolidation period around block chain official state currencies at some point.

Re: The Handwavy Technobabble Nothingburger of Crypto

#80

Post by CTDOCodebases »

Funny how he fails to mention that Tether regardless of how dodgy it is provides a lifeline to people in countries undergoing massive inflation like Lebanon.

Legal or not a back up option to a failed currency has real utility. This is why I suspect countries will push ahead with CBDCs and seek to export their use for financial and intelligence reasons.

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