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The Handwavy Technobabble Nothingburger of Crypto

stephendiehl.com

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Re: The Handwavy Technobabble Nothingburger of Crypto

#271

Post by user-the-name »

JuliusBranson wrote: post #162
andrewla wrote: post #103

If anything, I think stablecoins are way more dangerous than the author indicates. People talk about things like Bitcoin as a threat to sovereign currencies, and they are, as competitors, of sorts. But stablecoins are another matter entirely. One huge aspect of the value of sovereign currencies is that they are instruments of law -- courts will settle in them as a lowest common denominator, and it is safe to use them…

Stablecoins are dangerous because they have the potential to change the current selection effects on the elite. For one thing, stablecoins subvert the ability of the Federal Reserve to print money and give it to their friends at Goldman Sachs et al --- normally this is supposed to result in their friends have a larger fraction of money than they previously had. You start with 1 dollar, David at Goldman Sachs starts w…

> When there's stablecoin, you just put your dollar in stablecoin before they print the money, the dollar inflates, stablecoin goes up proportionately, you spend the stablecoin and things remain fair.

This makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.

Re: The Handwavy Technobabble Nothingburger of Crypto

#272

Post by moolcool »

rtb wrote: post #261
moolcool wrote: post #236

What about gaming? A huge problem in gaming now is that once games are no longer profitable, the servers go offline and they become unplayable. In-game assets simply disappear, and DRM servers go offline on the whim of the publisher. With the right architecture, crypto could solve both of these problems. Disclaimer: I don't like DRM or microtransactions, I think both of them make the gaming experience in 2021 pretty…

How would crypto force gaming companies to keep servers for old games online?

Instead of hitting the publisher's endpoints, they'd hit a web3 endpoint to get the list of digital assets owned by the player

Re: The Handwavy Technobabble Nothingburger of Crypto

#273

Post by [deleted] »

Accujack wrote: post #249
anonymoushn wrote: post #11

This particular source is extremely low quality and is motivated by the author's undisclosed competing product. I would like to see higher quality sources on the front page of hacker news one day.

I agree. Just the fact that he lumps Doge and Bitcoin together into "meme coins" tells me he has no idea what he's talking about or that he has an ulterior motive. Whatever you think about those two coins, they are not really similar, especially given that some nations have made Bitcoin legal tender at this point.

[deleted]

Re: The Handwavy Technobabble Nothingburger of Crypto

#274

Post by user-the-name »

tigereyeTO wrote: post #260

The author of this article makes specious claims that can each be refuted. >Any application that could be done on a blockchain could be better done on a centralized database. Except crime. That's simply not true. First he doesn't define "better" which is incredibly important when making such a claim. I would agree that centralized databases can do things "more quickly" and "with less overhead" but you'd lose the most…

> There are 3 functions of money: store of value, unit of account, and medium of exchange. Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin fulfill all 3.

Bitcoin fails miserably at all three. Come on. Bitcoin can do a measly three transactions per second for exorbitant fees, it is massively unstable and unsuitable as a store of value.

Re: The Handwavy Technobabble Nothingburger of Crypto

#275

Post by rawtxapp »

NoGravitas wrote: post #263
rawtxapp wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You fail to see people who lost trust in their governments and organizations? You don't see how people are unhappy with getting their savings diluted by unlimited money printing?

Up to a point, more money printing is good for me: dollars become devalued, my employer has to pay me more of them to keep up with the cost of living, but my mortgage is still valued in 2009 dollars. I can pay it off faster, or just have more purchasing power left over every month after paying it on schedule.

If you have assets and debt (and a job that will actually pay well, keep up with inflation), money printing is awesome for you!

If you're in the majority of people who don't have those things, life just gets harder and wealth gap keeps getting larger and larger.

Re: The Handwavy Technobabble Nothingburger of Crypto

#276

Post by ethbr0 »

bmcahren wrote: post #197
ethbr0 wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems like there's another side to this story you're not mentioning... I think I read about it in history of the 19th and 20th centuries?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_Reserve_Act#:~:text=A%20y... .

1837 - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panic_of_1837

1873 - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Depression

1910 - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panic_of_1910%E2%80%931911

1929 - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Depression

Monetary consistency sounds good, until it doesn't.

Re: The Handwavy Technobabble Nothingburger of Crypto

#277

Post by sweetbitter »

floatboth wrote: post #241
c7DJTLrn wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Check out Monero. Untraceable, decentralised transactions have no use case?

Sure would be great for, uh, paying ransoms I guess.

I'm sure you have nothing to hide, and so nothing to fear, hmm? If the world is to move towards digital currencies one way or another, we might as well protect our human rights.

Have you ever used an anonymizing network for your Internet activities? Some of us have to use them for most of our activities, and while you might deem us criminals for that, privacy tech is used for legal activity the vast majority of the time. There are countless people who are currently alive only because of encryption and various privacy technologies, yet your only response is "some criminals could abuse it though"? Is not the most widespread crime in our world the violation of privacy by governments/corporations?

Re: The Handwavy Technobabble Nothingburger of Crypto

#278

Post by sharemywin »

sharemywin wrote: post #254

So, let's all use facebook ... no that wouldn't work they sell off our data...google...apple...the government(bailouts anyone)... as hard as I try I can't seem time find a central authority that's earn my trust.. do I use them now sure. and if all I need it is for a couple of crypto coins to hold value long enough to buy crap until my next pay check then I could see it being stable enough for that. file coin seems li…

and as for NFT. I imagine watermarking will be added and apple made billions selling music for 99cents when pirating was at an all time high.

Most people want to see creators create and get paid.

In the long run its going to be about network transaction fees going to near 0.

so as long as distributed means fair competition baked into the networks, crypto will thrive maybe not as an investment but as a way to handle micro payments and funding creators

Re: The Handwavy Technobabble Nothingburger of Crypto

#279

Post by jcbrand »

chias wrote: post #18

I think the thing that bothers me most about using "crypto" to mean "cryptocurrency" is when people write articles deriding the "nothingburger of crypto", I feel conflicted. Part of me wonders how many non-tech people we're conditioning to assume cryptography is worthless in 2021.

I'd say about zero.
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