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The Handwavy Technobabble Nothingburger of Crypto

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Re: The Handwavy Technobabble Nothingburger of Crypto

#531

Post by acjohnson55 »

sjtindell wrote: post #502
acjohnson55 wrote: post #474

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Read through your other comments, and I don't think that there being a market for money games is sufficient to keep the crypto train going, if it can't find its way into the underpinnings of the real economy. People play money games with things that are indispensable, like the stock market. Failing that, I'm skeptical that people will find crypto interesting after it finds its top. It may just find itself as a perpetually fringe and somewhat seedy sector, like MLM -- a place where fortunes are made off the backs of folks who are betting their meager savings on a chance at better prospects.

Re: The Handwavy Technobabble Nothingburger of Crypto

#532

Post by anon9001 »

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.

It's hard to believe $2.6T worth of crypto is all for criminal applications. Maybe you've overlooked something.

Re: The Handwavy Technobabble Nothingburger of Crypto

#533

Post by breuleux »

sjtindell wrote: post #495
breuleux wrote: post #464

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think it’s mostly jealousy and a feeling that they missed the boat, so they want to see it sink. If crypto and defi live up to their promise, no one is going to "miss the boat". People at large will start getting paid in cryptocurrencies and they will start using them in transactions. If there are only a limited number of boats for this thing, that means it's a bubble and it's going to pop. Personally, I struggle…

I commented this further down and am interested in your thoughts. One thing I’ve come to appreciate more when we talk about the “real value” being produced is that these are essentially just money games. Lots of established Wall Street firms play money games for a (very, very good) living. I’ve come to accept more that what people on Wall Street do is real. Games are real. I don’t personally buy into the “new world c…

I guess I can understand the idea of blockchains as a better way to play financial games. That's a valid use for which there is demand. Another use I can understand is hedging against political instability. Neither personally appeal to me, but I get it.

Still, it seems to me that an awful lot of people are playing this game with scant knowledge of the rules or of what's involved, which is a bit like investing in Tesla without understanding what a car is. I also feel that a lot of the "value" that has been built up is predicated on the idea that Bitcoin (and/or other coins) will indeed become the new world currency. I have seen a few people saying this very thing (or close to it) in this post's comments.

That's not to say they are wrong. However, if the outcome of defi is limited to playing financial games, there is a point where people will lose confidence in this "new world currency" forecast and the price of BTC will see a severe correction.

And that's one thing that I find bothersome in this whole craze: the fact that many ideas in the crypto space have legitimate value does not imply that it is profitable to invest in any existing technology. The future CAN be defi at the same time that Bitcoin might crash to zero, if it happens to be the wrong horse. Worse yet, existing entrenched interests in cryto have a vested interest in making sure that the only technologies that succeed are those they have a stake in, so if Bitcoin succeeds, that may very well be at the expense of vastly superior technology. I think there is a very real risk that the success of Bitcoin will either prevent or significantly delay the emergence of good, efficient blockchain technology.

Re: The Handwavy Technobabble Nothingburger of Crypto

#534

Post by spiddy »

AlexandrB wrote: post #476
rawtxapp wrote: post #436

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's one way of looking at it, but most stocks don't pay dividends, so that "equity" is also not that tangible either, unless you're like a majority shareholder that you can change company direction. When you buy a stock, that money doesn't go to the company, it goes to previous investor, unless the company issues more stock (usually the opposite happens). Also, Bitcoin's success doesn't mean those companies will s…

A stock literally represents a unit of ownership of the underlying company. No, it's not tangible in the "I can touch it" sense - unless you get a LOT of it as you said, but it's backed by hundreds of years of contract law precedent. When I own stock I get quarterly reports on the performance of the company - revenue, profit, etc. - these allow me to evaluate whether I think the company is doing well or poorly and ga…

When you buy bitcoin you are _investing_ in the possibility that the bitcoin will be part of the economic network.

The earlier you invest the better the returns. As time passes and bitcoin grabs hold a position the S curve of possible returns will be less. Same as investing in stocks.

The value is brought by being early adopter. Historically bitcoin is gaining adoption, but one would argue we're still early.

Paradoxically if you think that bitcoin is useless, it's early, if you think it's a sure thing, it's late.

That has nothing to do with bitcoin though, it's universally true for any type of risk investment.

Re: The Handwavy Technobabble Nothingburger of Crypto

#535

Post by ineptech »

thewarrior wrote: post #432
ineptech wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The anti-crypto case is not that it's "worse" than some other speculative investment asset (gold, comic books, etc), it's that crypto is a speculative asset, as opposed to the things it's sometimes claimed to be (e.g. currency, a new way to do finance, etc).

This is something I’m stumped myself about. HN etc says crypto has no value and I wonder about other things in conventional finance that are of speculative value : Gold - Sure it’s a good store of value as a metal but so is bitcoin. If Gold can be valuable because lots of people value it as a store of value so can Bitcoin. In fact bitcoin is arguably better than Gold. The total wealth of the world is 1000 trillion. B…

> Bitcoin has a non zero floor price. I think anyone would agree with this.

I don't. I don't think it's literally zero - even if it drops to $.01 some people will still buy it on the theory that it might go up to $.02. But all of its value is speculative, I don't think it has any intrinsic value (which is equivalent to saying I don't think participating in the crypto economy, smart contracts and all that, has value). And the reasons are as explained in the article - beyond avoiding regulators, it doesn't allow us to do much that we couldn't do before, and what it allows us to do isn't all that valuable.

Even if I knew with absolute certainty that I would never be able to sell it for a profit, I might still buy gold, e.g. to make conductive wire. That's the intrinsic value. What's the equivalent for BTC? How many bitcoins would you buy if you knew that you would not be able to sell them for a profit?

Re: The Handwavy Technobabble Nothingburger of Crypto

#536

Post by koonsolo »

TomSwirly wrote: post #514
koonsolo wrote: post #456

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's like talking to an old person about computer games. They literally see 0 value and don't get why we are all excited about it. Most feel it's a net negative on society. And yes, that's also a market that dwarfs all of its neighbors.

"You're old and foolish" is also not an argument in favor of cryptocurrencies.

You don't get it do you? There is no point in giving arguments to people who don't understand.

All this HN discussions have proven that already, no? Do you really think at this point you or me are going to change someones opinion with arguments?

Re: The Handwavy Technobabble Nothingburger of Crypto

#537

Post by moolcool »

pcthrowaway wrote: post #516
almostkorean wrote: post #419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most (not all) web3 games don't have a server. Just frontend interacting with a smart contract

And what do you think you're getting the frontend assets from? They certainly don't live on-chain, and usually aren't open source.

Distribution of binaries of obsolete games is a solved problem. It costs money to leave dedicated servers running for legacy titles, but costs nothing to leave the Steam page online. Plenty of commercial games are also free to download, but cost money to register and actually play.

Re: The Handwavy Technobabble Nothingburger of Crypto

#538

Post by ur-whale »

acjohnson55 wrote: post #481
thewarrior wrote: post #432

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is something I’m stumped myself about. HN etc says crypto has no value and I wonder about other things in conventional finance that are of speculative value : Gold - Sure it’s a good store of value as a metal but so is bitcoin. If Gold can be valuable because lots of people value it as a store of value so can Bitcoin. In fact bitcoin is arguably better than Gold. The total wealth of the world is 1000 trillion. B…

One huge difference between Bitcoin and gold is that gold can be possessed purely on one's own. Bitcoin requires the continuous expenditure of energy to maintain the record of ownership.

> energy to maintain the record of ownership.

That is entirely incorrect.

Energy is expended to allow transfer of ownership, not to maintain the record.

If all miners save one dude with a laptop stopped to mine transactions tomorrow, you still wouldn't be able to spend Bitcoins for which you don't own the private key.

Re: The Handwavy Technobabble Nothingburger of Crypto

#539

Post by almostkorean »

pcthrowaway wrote: post #516
almostkorean wrote: post #419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most (not all) web3 games don't have a server. Just frontend interacting with a smart contract

And what do you think you're getting the frontend assets from? They certainly don't live on-chain, and usually aren't open source.

Yes I realize that could be an issue, but it's way easier to address than keeping a server alive. See: https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_flash_games

Re: The Handwavy Technobabble Nothingburger of Crypto

#540

Post by horsawlarway »

throwaway21332 wrote: post #484
horsawlarway wrote: post #444

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But now we're back to a spot where bitcoin doesn't work as a fungible good without an appeal to an outside authority of some sort. Whether that's escrow/insurance/legal contract/etc. We started with: "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." Except the ledger doesn't actually pro…

The ledger gives you a guarantee that only you can spend the BTC that you have access to. Nobody can "freeze" your UTXO or forbid you from accepting transactions. Sure, the state can declare that the Bitcoin you own is not legitimate. It might do so because you're unable to prove the source of funds or maybe because it doesn't like your race or something else about you. The cool thing about Bitcoin is that it is mone…

> The cool thing about Bitcoin is that it is money that is separated from the state, the same way like Gold is. So as long as you can find a jurisdiction that considers your funds valid, you can escape your state violence. Of course this has it's pros and cons, but that's how it works when you separate money from the state.

But this is true of all assets!

Bitcoin's only tangible value is that it weighs nothing (which is actually a nice property if you're fleeing your current government - gold is heavy!). But I don't think that's enough to make it a good long term value store for the amount of capital pouring into it.

And just like other assets - I believe its value is entirely based on having a government somewhere that will enforce a code of conduct around exchanges of that asset, and a definition of ownership.

The government issues the currency because the government is able & willing to do absolutely anything in order to resolve disputes between parties that involve real assets - up to and including killing people, killing corporations, or even trying to kill other governments.

Without that commitment, bitcoin sits in a really strange place. I don't believe it will hold value if the governments of more major economies stop supporting it.

Either way - Appreciate the conversation! Thanks for helping fill some time on an otherwise boring afternoon before the holidays!

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