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The Handwavy Technobabble Nothingburger of Crypto

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Re: The Handwavy Technobabble Nothingburger of Crypto

#651

Post by itsthejb »

floatboth wrote: post #270
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.

Now you need to trust developers who wrote the client code, trust large mining(/staking whatever) pools not to collude and 51% you, and uhhhh trust yourself to not lose the fucking keys, or to be an expert in all the various "protection" schemes like multi-signature wallets (until they explode because there's a bug in them)… You also have to 100% trust yourself to not get scammed — there's no chargeback if you do.

Regarding not losing the keys (ie. responsibility for your own security), this was my #1 grounds for skepticism in crypto when I first entered the space. I could predict that without some compromise on this, most people would not use crypto. However, social recovery is already one potential solution for that, so don’t discount that surprising ideas can come up (https://cryptonews.com/news/social-recovery-wallet-is-better...)

Re: The Handwavy Technobabble Nothingburger of Crypto

#652

Post by can16358p »

rzanella wrote: post #218
can16358p wrote: post #121

Not being pegged to a centralized, state-controlled currency is a dealbreaker for me. It's still in infancy and it's true that 99% of the projects are get-rich-quick schemes with no intrinsic value. Though, I think the author lives in a country with a trustworthy government because that's not the case for many people including me. In the last two days my country's currency has shaken much more than crypto and I don't…

Not being pegged to a state-controlled currency means your devalued currency competes with stronger ones, at least on the fictitious transitional period, you're sure you want that ? Assuming a stateless money, when/if someone then steals your crypto coin, which gov't backed law/judicial system are you gonna turn to ?

The probability of government controlling/seizing my money or fixing foreign currency rates (effectively limiting my income severely) is more than someone compromising my crypto wallets. I don't do anything illegal, I just live in a country with an extremely corrupted government and economy.

Re: The Handwavy Technobabble Nothingburger of Crypto

#653

Post by can16358p »

didroe wrote: post #221
can16358p wrote: post #121

Not being pegged to a centralized, state-controlled currency is a dealbreaker for me. It's still in infancy and it's true that 99% of the projects are get-rich-quick schemes with no intrinsic value. Though, I think the author lives in a country with a trustworthy government because that's not the case for many people including me. In the last two days my country's currency has shaken much more than crypto and I don't…

If you're going to use a different currency, why not just use USD or EUR?

Because the government is corrupted in my country and at any time they can seize my money or fix currency rates. Crypto, even in its fluctating nature, is safer than either my country's currency or keeping USD/EUR etc in a bank here (and I don't have any other option).

Re: The Handwavy Technobabble Nothingburger of Crypto

#654

Post by koonsolo »

mypalmike wrote: post #622
koonsolo wrote: post #560

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems to be your definition of a ponzi scheme. At least on wikipedia they don't agree with that definition.

I described attributes of a Ponzi scheme. These attributes may apply to other investments. I made no attempt to define anything. You infer where inference is not applicable.

Buy low sell high are not atrributes of a ponzi scheme.

Re: The Handwavy Technobabble Nothingburger of Crypto

#655

Post by bildung »

mandmandam wrote: post #648
bildung wrote: post #643

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So you have no evidence or sources to your previous claims? As expected. If someone comes around and claims to have invented a perpetuum mobile, it is not my duty to disproof them. > Projects such as what? Such as Bitcoin or Ethereum. > First of all evidence that it isn't a 'blockchain'? It's in their whitepapers, read it up. With all due respect, I don't get the feeling you know what these words mean. Hint: the G…

> apparently Nano is trivially DDOSable for very small amounts of money Do a little more research - Nano had real life spam attacks, then mitigated the spam problem with an innovative 'bucket' method. This put the lie to the common Bitcoin Maxi claim that "There has to be something expensive to compensate for the lack of central coordination." As for Nano not being a blockchain; hint: there are chains of blocks. Look…

> Nano had real life spam attacks, then mitigated the spam problem with an innovative 'bucket' method

So option a) - the whitepaper doesn't reflect reality. And the solution was to make transactions more expensive and slower.

> there are chains of blocks.

With the caveat of the blocks being single transactions and the "blockchain" reflecting only single accounts.

Re: The Handwavy Technobabble Nothingburger of Crypto

#656

Post by SuoDuanDao »

worik wrote: post #623
SuoDuanDao wrote: post #621

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is your response to the idea that it can automate the role of a trusted third party in commerce, thereby removing much of the opportunity for abuse of this role?

Trust really matters in commerce. Doing away with trust is bad. If we do not trust each other there is no technology on Dog's Green Earth that can save us. Can you be trusted? Ask yourself.

>Can you be trusted? Ask yourself.

Talk about a con man's answer. I get multiple calls a week by people claiming to be my credit card provider, the tax arm of my country's civil service, or the president of the company I work for. Of course some people can't be trusted. Relying on universal trust is a recipe for universal corruption, and your answer to someone pointing that out is to try and turn the problem with trust on them specifically?

At least come up with some better lies, this is just insulting everyone's intelligence.

Re: The Handwavy Technobabble Nothingburger of Crypto

#657

Post by SuoDuanDao »

worik wrote: post #624
SuoDuanDao wrote: post #542

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Inflationary vs deflationary instruments. Sovereign currencies are typically inflationary because central banks print them to a greater or lesser degree, National Assets like gold or land reserves are typically deflationary. Bitcoin is more the latter.

Why are "National Assets" (and what s the definition of that) deflationary? Inflation/deflation is in my experience measured as money V. assets. Assets on their own are neither. Have I got that wrong?

No, I think you're right in a technical sense. My point was that, maybe because the relevant timelines are longer for nation-states than households, their easily liquifiable assets tend to rise in value over time. A country might have gold reserves, which reduces the risk of lending to it and lets them borrow at a better interest rate. The gold reserve isn't money, the government sells bonds for money, but it can be converted to money fairly quickly.

Bitcoin, similarly, is more of an asset with a fixed supply that can be quickly converted to money. Calling it 'deflationary' is probably some imprecise labeling on my part.

Re: The Handwavy Technobabble Nothingburger of Crypto

#658

Post by kmmlng »

aunty_helen wrote: post #299
kmmlng wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> easy electronic transfers within 5 seconds for no charge This is certainly not the case everywhere in the EU. In Germany for example it usually takes days. Not sure about other countries.

In Germany there's SOFORT, it takes litterally the time to click through the interface to transfer money. I can get money from Germany to Colombia in under a minute via n26 and transferwise. Maybe we're not talking about the same country.

Well sure, I can send money around using third-party services, but the official banking system is not that fast.

Re: The Handwavy Technobabble Nothingburger of Crypto

#659

Post by CTDOCodebases »

horsawlarway wrote: post #566
CTDOCodebases wrote: post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After enough confirmations a transaction is final and I can trust that the transaction is final and my account balance on the ledger is correct. Present forms of digital cash do not offer this. A payment can be reversed if the buyer claims the transaction was fraudulent and the banks involved agree to reverse the transaction. Money can be accidentally withdrawn from my account and I have to ask the bank to return it.…

But the trust that a bitcoin transaction is final isn't enough trust to make an exchange! Lets say you and I decide right now that we're going to use these comments to make an exchange. I will give you $5 of bitcoin in exchange for you mailing me a postcard. Now what? How do we proceed in a meaningful manner? How do we go about making that exchange happen if we assume that either party is self-interested, and not int…

"But the trust that a bitcoin transaction is final isn't enough trust to make an exchange!"

Correct. Who said it was?

"How do we go about making that exchange happen if we assume that either party is self-interested, and not interested in actually completing the deal?"

We don't make that exchange in that case. Or like you mentioned we both acknowledge that we don't trust each other and get a trusted third party involved who we both trust more that the each other. No payment method is immune to this. Notice though that regardless of how much trust that we have or don't have for each other we can both trust that if you do send me $5 of Bitcoin I will receive it. Provided I've taken the necessary steps the transaction will not be reversed. Also note that if I wish I can also be certain that no one can erase whatever I rightfully claim is mine from the ledger or transfer it to another address once I have received it. This cannot be said for any non crypto digital payment system currently.

Bitcoin is a shared digital ledger hosted on a transaction network that is not controlled by a single trusted third party. The thing that keeps the ledger in check with reality is the correctness that it guarantees to those who are using the network to send and receive payments.

If you say you are going to send me a 1700 sats to post a postcard to you and I deliver as promised but in reality you don't perform your part of the deal the ledger is still correct. You still owe me 1700 sats according the deal we made and I can confirm this by checking the ledger. The ledger itself does not know about the deal we made but we both know we made a deal and according to that deal you still owe me 1700 sats. Now with a traditional bank what happens if you claim you sent it and the bank says you didn't. How can I verify that the transaction took place? I can't. I have to trust what you or the bank tell me and I don't know who is telling the truth. Maybe the transaction got lost. Maybe you didn't send it. There is no way to discover the reality of the situation without having to make an uninformed choice about who I trust.

At present Bitcoin is still clunky and has many issues both technical and non-technical to overcome. It is unknown whether these issues can or will be overcome. It has a far way to go if it is to realise the creators vision in a meaningful way by gaining mainstream adoption and use as "digital cash".

Re: The Handwavy Technobabble Nothingburger of Crypto

#660

Post by pennaMan »

nice_byte wrote: post #423
pennaMan wrote: post #405

Crypto is all about decentralized proof of trust yet somehow this eludes people who should know better. Please show me how you solve decentralized proof of trust (double spend) with postgres. Indeed, crime did have a need for anonymous proof of trust that crypto solved. Why did crime have a need for that? Because crime lies beyond the realm of the status quo. Criminals are to the status quo as pioneers and revolution…

you mean what payment systems and any online game with in-game currency have solved?

>payment systems

You mean monopolisitc central payment systems like visa and mastercard that can push to deny service to a legal business like onlyfans on random religious grounds?

>any online game

Last time I checked the economy of world of warcraft was owned and controlled by Activison-Blizzard, including rights to all in-game currencies, so I don't even know what this argument is supposed to mean.

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