The Handwavy Technobabble Nothingburger of Crypto • Hacker News Board

Re: The Handwavy Technobabble Nothingburger of Crypto

#141

Post by mechanical_bear » Wed, Nov 24, 2021, 4:43 PM UTC

the_gastropod wrote: post #75

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…

Stephen has a competing product, and a hidden financial motive for slagging cryptocurrency.

Re: The Handwavy Technobabble Nothingburger of Crypto

#142

Post by bildung » Wed, Nov 24, 2021, 4:44 PM UTC

mandmandam wrote: post #37

rvz wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Another rant about crypto which ignores Nano, which has been around for 6 years now. And also something like Stellar or Hedera which isn't mineable at all and are used for CBDCs.

Or Algorand, etc. I get that this is all 'new' and confusing, but the know-it-all condescension really rubs me the wrong way - do they clone these people or what? Where do they all come from?

All of Stellar, Hedera and Algorand have a big centralization problem, they have solved nothing. Stellar and Ripple aren't even proper cryptocurrencies unless you allow for a very lenient definition.

> the know-it-all condescension really rubs me the wrong way - do they clone these people or what? Where do they all come from?

In my experience the people being very optimistic about crypto real world use cases usually have their first exposure with economic theory from within the crypto sphere and lack the real world experience to know some actual pain points of the current economic system. For example the oracle problem is severly glossed over by smart contract approaches, which mostly try to solve trust issues that are essentially solved issues in the real world.

Re: The Handwavy Technobabble Nothingburger of Crypto

#143

Post by the_optimist » Wed, Nov 24, 2021, 4:44 PM UTC

kinnth wrote: post #124

Decentralisation offers the following value over centralisation: * Control by a majority, not a minority. (democratic) * Open ecosystem that visible and able to be analysed by anyone (transparent) * Immutable (no one makes up assets without everyone knowing about it) * Fair. Same price for everyone at all times, no chance of a monopoly. Those don't exist in central systems and so the price you must pay for that is sp…

Can you describe your anticipated role of decentralization under China or US regulation? Do you simply expect and plan a parallel black market?

Re: The Handwavy Technobabble Nothingburger of Crypto

#144

Post by throwaway21332 » Wed, Nov 24, 2021, 4:45 PM UTC

horsawlarway wrote: post #59

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…

But that ledger isn't accurate. It's just distributed and difficult to change. I technically am the owner of (quite a few) bitcoin that were being processed by MtGox when they imploded. The wallet they were in at the time was emptied and no longer exists. I still receive the relevant court documents as the case continues still. As far as the ledger is concerned - they are no longer mine. --- So question to you: How d…

You know, there is a reason why crypto people chant "Not your keys, not your coins".

Re: The Handwavy Technobabble Nothingburger of Crypto

#145

Post by mitchdoogle » Wed, Nov 24, 2021, 4:45 PM UTC

freewilly1040 wrote: post #70

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?

I’m unsure what you mean by “no chargebacks” - chargebacks are provide the consumer recourse in the event of a dispute.

It's beneficial for consumers because businesses can charge less for their products since they're don't have to account for as much shrinkage. I know at least one business that charges substantially less for crypto transactions because of this.

Re: The Handwavy Technobabble Nothingburger of Crypto

#146

Post by meheleventyone » Wed, Nov 24, 2021, 4:45 PM UTC

realce wrote: post #33

yannoninator wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting! What advantage does Adjoint have over all the cryptocurrencies in existence can it handle payments without your bank declining your payment or chargebacks?

I think the main advantage is that it's owned by this one guy.

There seems to be three guys (at least) and it doesn't look like it competes with crypto as much as it is a product for financial firms.

Re: The Handwavy Technobabble Nothingburger of Crypto

#147

Post by gfodor » Wed, Nov 24, 2021, 4:45 PM UTC

For a crypto-skeptic, this is actually a stunning admission:

"Any application that could be done on a blockchain could be better done on a centralized database. Except crime."

If you acknowledge this, then you acknowledge that crypto has a unique value proposition of being able to shield ones financial transactions. From there, you have to pull in a lot of assumptions that the only time this will be valuable is crime, not to mention what seems to be an assumption that all crime is morally determined to be crime.

Re: The Handwavy Technobabble Nothingburger of Crypto

#148

Post by CTDOCodebases » Wed, Nov 24, 2021, 4:46 PM UTC

horsawlarway wrote: post #59

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…

But that ledger isn't accurate. It's just distributed and difficult to change. I technically am the owner of (quite a few) bitcoin that were being processed by MtGox when they imploded. The wallet they were in at the time was emptied and no longer exists. I still receive the relevant court documents as the case continues still. As far as the ledger is concerned - they are no longer mine. --- So question to you: How d…

“I don't trust the ledger to accurately reflect ownership (it can only represent possession, not true ownership).”

Possession is ownership on the Bitcoin network. Not ownership in the sense of it is written down in some legal document somewhere but ownership in the sense that you have the power to perform a transaction with what you say you own.

You were trusting a central party all along. If you didn’t you wouldn’t be in the position you are in.

Re: The Handwavy Technobabble Nothingburger of Crypto

#149

Post by yashg » Wed, Nov 24, 2021, 4:46 PM UTC

When I understood the blockchain and proof of work, my first reaction was - this is nuts. It's a waste of computing power and electricity all for removing a trust provider. And immediately the next realisation was that making a blockchain private and removing proof of work made it pointless.

Blockchain is a solution for nothing.

Re: The Handwavy Technobabble Nothingburger of Crypto

#150

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet » Wed, Nov 24, 2021, 4:46 PM UTC

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…

Bittorrent and Napster took advantage of post-scarcity space created by the information age and made distribution of non-scarce resources easier. NFTs, at best, do the opposite by intentionally trying to force scarcity back into a post-scarcity system. For this reason, I do not believe they have value or much of a future.