Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Handwavy Technobabble Nothingburger of Crypto

stephendiehl.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

501–510 of 704 posts

Re: The Handwavy Technobabble Nothingburger of Crypto

#501

Post by chuckcode »

vesinisa wrote: post #465
chuckcode wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Author is making an argument against any blockchain or distributed ledger. To quote from article. "Any application that could be done on a blockchain could be better done on a centralized database. Except crime." I'd like to see people look past the noise of cryptocurrencies to see how important digital trust and new applications of cryptography will be as we try to scale the ability of humans to work together effect…

So, can you name one single successful application of blockchain in the real world? Apart from crime. I believe this is exactly the point of the author - there's lots of handwavy bubblebabble about this technology, but we're now well into the second decade of blockchain/distributed ledgers, and yet to see one single non-criminal real world application.

I'd argue that git is a distributed blockchain that has been pretty impactful, it just doesn't use proof of work for validation.

If it needs to be a company Ripple uses blockchain to help companies move currency safely around the globe. (https://ripple.com/)

Re: The Handwavy Technobabble Nothingburger of Crypto

#502

Post by sjtindell »

acjohnson55 wrote: post #474
sjtindell wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HN’s attitude is very surprising to me. I would think that they could get very excited about flash loans, decentralized exchanges (automated market makers), daos, and other concrete innovations coming out of crypto asset projects. I think it’s mostly jealousy and a feeling that they missed the boat, so they want to see it sink. I think that because I’ve had the feeling many times. They may not realize these are early…

While extremely interesting and even innovative, of those innovations are only useful in the hermetic world of their own blockchain, due to the oracle problem. The idea of real-world DeFi is purely hypothetical, at this point.

Yeah to be honest with you, I don’t believe much at all in this talk about “real world” integrations. If you’re interested please check out a couple other comments I made on this thread that touch on that. My opinions are developing as I go.

Re: The Handwavy Technobabble Nothingburger of Crypto

#503

Post by timdaub »

Imnimo wrote: post #477
timdaub wrote: post #457

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like you're being deliberately picky to get your point across that crypto is shit.

Hmm, I don't think I am. I'm just saying that Uniswap for non-crypto assets isn't really a demonstration of how cool crypto is.

Did you check out ENS?

Re: The Handwavy Technobabble Nothingburger of Crypto

#504

Post by ohbleek »

TomSwirly wrote: post #482
vnchr wrote: post #397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s astroturfing on HN, like every other open social media platform. The tilted dissonance around crypto, whether it’s the counterintuitive market behavior or climate change advocacy, is one of lacking curiosity, a hallmark of innovative cultures.

Funny how crypto people thinking insulting everyone else will change our minds! "It has to be your lack of curiosity" (because there's no otherwise explaining your bad judgement).

How exactly is it bad judgement? I’d argue that working at google or investing and making money at google signifies equally bad judgement then, seeing as how it is a company that is eroding freedoms, regularly caught breaking laws, and rife with unethical business practices all in the name of innovation and technology. And yet nobody is decrying the evils of selling their stock in google to make some $.

Re: The Handwavy Technobabble Nothingburger of Crypto

#505

Post by dragonwriter »

JuliusBranson wrote: post #357
dragonwriter wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When there's stablecoin, you just put your dollar in stablecoin before they print the money, the dollar inflates, stablecoin goes up proportionately, Printing fiat makes stablecoins denominated in the currency lose real value, not gain in it. (Stablecoins denominated in a different currency would gain nominal value in the printed currency, the same way direct holdings in the alternative currency would.) So, no, to…

>Printing fiat makes stablecoins denominated in the currency lose real value, not gain in it. What's the case for this statement? In general, I don't expect to commodities to change value just because some currency was redistributed.

Printing currency makes that currency (and consequently, anything pegged to it) lose value compared to not doing so, because increasing supply decreases market clearing value.

Re: The Handwavy Technobabble Nothingburger of Crypto

#506

Post by sjtindell »

danielmarkbruce wrote: post #466
sjtindell wrote: post #452

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah the language is a bit strong. I’m serious about the jealousy though - perhaps it’s just me. But when I see someone making a boatload on Tesla and I’m sitting there thinking it’s ridiculous, where does that really come from? All I know is I probably wouldn’t care either way if I’d owned some…and since my experiences with day trading and algorithmic trading, I’m convinced 90% of finance is emotional. It clouds the…

You are sitting there thinking it's ridiculous on Tesla. Are you thinking it's ridiculous on Google? Or Apple? Don't give yourself a hard time :) I think the Tesla stock price is ridiculous. It's not a jealousy thing. I don't think Google or Apple share prices are ridiculous, and more people made more money out of those two. If someone makes money in a ridiculous way, it's ok to think it's ridiculous.

True. The point I was making was one about emotion in finance - when I’m making money it’s easier to ignore rational doubts, and when I’m missing out it’s easier to focus on the negatives because a little voice in the back of my head wants it to fail.

Re: The Handwavy Technobabble Nothingburger of Crypto

#507

Post by IHLayman »

prewett wrote: post #345
rawtxapp wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> If you're in the majority of people who don't have those things ... Home ownership in the US is around 65% [0], so the majority do have an asset and mortgage. There are also some people who choose not to own a house but have other types of assets. Things really aren't as dire as you seem to think. And for those people who actually are harmed by inflation, I think the consensus is that they would be harmed by the ot…

From your Wikipedia article: “ The name "home-ownership rate" can be misleading. As defined by the US Census Bureau, it is the percentage of homes that are occupied by the owner. It is not the percentage of adults that own their own home. This latter percentage will be significantly lower than the home-ownership rate. Many households that are owner-occupied contain adult relatives (often young adults, descendants of the owner) who do not own their own home. Single building multi-bedroom rental units can contain more than one adult, all of whom do not own a home.”

According to the US Census in 2020, 139.68 million homes in the US with a 64% owner-occupied rate means 89.395 million homes are owner occupied. Let’s say 85% of those are dual-owned (by couples) which I could not get a solid statistic on but several policy websites seem to cite, and we will assume the other 15% are single owners. Then about 165 million people either own or partially own the house they live in, or roughly 50% of the population.

That is the slimmest of majorities, far less than the 65% implies.

[0] https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/US/PST045219

Re: The Handwavy Technobabble Nothingburger of Crypto

#508

Post by koonsolo »

mypalmike wrote: post #490
koonsolo wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Buying low and selling high is not a ponzi scheme.

The losers in a Ponzi scheme buy high and sell low. What did the winners do?

So real-estate, stocks and gold are all ponzi schemes?

Re: The Handwavy Technobabble Nothingburger of Crypto

#509

Post by cwkoss »

_xnmw wrote: post #483
cwkoss wrote: post #375

This is the second time this week I've seen an article from Diehl on the front page that is critical of cryptocurrency but has next to zero substance. Weird that people regard him as a crypto expert, he doesn't seem to understand the space very well. - Comparing Bitcoin to doge and shiba is laughable - Re progcoins, he says "After twelve years of these technologies existing" - Ethereum is only 6 years old... - Like m…

> crypto is going to be a major force in global finance for decades to come. Oh it'll stick around alright, and it will be a major force, just like drug dealing and insider trading and other illegal activities and scams that run rampant in the world. Ponzi schemes and promises of new riches will always exist, and there are enough suckers born every day to fall for new iterations of fancy digital woo-woo. > this autho…

The original decentralized value transfer was gold and other precious commodities.

Stablecoins are more like cash because, similarly, they are both subject to central bank's monetary policy.

Bitcoin is much more like gold, in that it can only be indirectly influenced by political policy.

Re: The Handwavy Technobabble Nothingburger of Crypto

#510

Post by djKianoosh »

blacksmith_tb wrote: post #208
mitchdoogle wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with bank accounts is the banks. The promise of crypto is that you don't need to trust any institution, such as a bank, to keep track of your money.

Which could be compelling if you lived in a society where the banks were extremely unstable, but looks terrible if you live in one with regulation, deposit insurance and and other account protections.

How much of the world have you described?

Bitcoin is better in those unstable currency countries. The market will decide (has decided in some cases). So maybe inexorably bitcoin will be the reserve currency for a large portion of the planet. And at some point there will be a tipping point where it's going to be attractive enough to all other central banks.

It turns an everyday person worldwide into equals with central banks. That's pretty radical.

Post reply on HN