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The Handwavy Technobabble Nothingburger of Crypto

stephendiehl.com

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Re: The Handwavy Technobabble Nothingburger of Crypto

#661

Post by tim333 »

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?

Stuff like gold or bitcoin if used as currency can be deflationary as in be worth more over time against good and services.

Re: The Handwavy Technobabble Nothingburger of Crypto

#662

Post by tim333 »

spiddy wrote: post #447
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 piggyback on the legal aspects of dollars, and as long as you treat them as dollar-denominated assets, you're fine. The second you treat them as dollar-equivalents, you run the risk of a change in the value of that asset being something that the government is forced into supporting. Why is that scenario worse than now? Why is bank the preferred medium to support when they default?

It's getting worse because they are becoming more mainstream. The kind of scenario where the government might have to bail out is US Bank lends billions to something like Coinbase which holds lots of Tethers. Then Tether goes to zero, Coinbase bust, US Bank needs bailout. We're not there yet and it's best avoided.

Re: The Handwavy Technobabble Nothingburger of Crypto

#663

Post by tim333 »

Robotbeat wrote: post #118
freewilly1040 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Yeah, that whole no chargebacks concept as a “feature” of cryptocurrency has always been a head scratcher to me. I mean, yes, businesses may like that, but crooks like that even more, and it’s almost purely a negative to the vast majority of people, i.e. consumers. And it’s a core motivation for cryptocurrency, in the original Satoshi paper.

The idea was it would make transacting cheaper. Not sure that worked in practice.

Re: The Handwavy Technobabble Nothingburger of Crypto

#664

Post by tim333 »

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?

Not much. The hype is mostly gambling, ponzi schemes and the like.

Re: The Handwavy Technobabble Nothingburger of Crypto

#665

Post by wyager »

ineptech wrote: post #594
wyager wrote: post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All monetized assets like USD or gold are "speculative". I speculate that my dollar probably won't lose more than 10-20% of its value in the next year.

Anything that hasn't happened yet is "speculative" I guess, but in this context speculative means you bought it because you think you can sell it for more tomorrow, as opposed to buying it for its intrinsic value.

Right, like USD, except replace "for more" with "not too much less".

Re: The Handwavy Technobabble Nothingburger of Crypto

#666

Post by wyager »

compiler-guy wrote: post #577
wyager wrote: post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All monetized assets like USD or gold are "speculative". I speculate that my dollar probably won't lose more than 10-20% of its value in the next year.

The value of the dollar has a floor in that the US government requires that you remit your taxes in dollars. Sure, the US could cease to exist, but that is far less likely than any scenario where bitcoin goes to zero.

The demand introduced by US tax obligations is a vanishingly small fraction of USD demand.

Re: The Handwavy Technobabble Nothingburger of Crypto

#667

Post by derangedHorse »

user-the-name wrote: post #282
AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Whether you agree with that perspective is another thing. Many crypto enthusiasts, whether they are explicit about it or not, like the idea of creating an economic system that everyone can participate in that doesn't involve countless middle-men. Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't the whole blockchain thing depend on an uncountable number of middlemen to verify transactions? They just don't have to trust them. No…

Cryptocurrency involves numerous middle men, all of which charge very high fees. Miners, exchanges, smart contracts, they're all middlemen and they all charge fees. It's not that crypto enthusiasts don't like middle men, it's that they want to be the middle men.

Rather than the argument of having middle men vs not having middle men, I’d say that the transparency, accessibility, and hard-set consensus rules are what make something like the Bitcoin blockchain useful. It also allows privacy by means of the ability to generate key pairs and addresses easily and at-will. This combo of features mean that even with middlemen, there are certain rules that cannot be broken without the participation and knowledge of those who use the system.

With banks, money can be secretly and arbitrarily transferred by individuals of power and in some cases even gate-kept from the initial depositors. With crypto I never have to worry about my money being falsely spent under the cryptographic security guarantees of something like Bitcoin. Even with > 51% attacks it would be practically impossible to rewrite significant portions of history and are mostly limited to reorganizing and deleting recent transactions.

Re: The Handwavy Technobabble Nothingburger of Crypto

#668

Post by mandmandam »

bildung wrote: post #655
mandmandam wrote: post #648

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

The transactions are still fee-less and well under a second.

And yes, that's the caveat, if you want to ignore the genius of it and completely get it wrong instead of learning something. It uses blockchain; it's blockchain tech, but you are soo right to say it's not blockchain because it uses blockchian in an innovative way.

Jesus fucking Christ; people who can't admit when they're out of their depth really irritate the ever-living shit out of me. Not you though, you are hilarious.

Re: The Handwavy Technobabble Nothingburger of Crypto

#669

Post by worik »

SuoDuanDao wrote: post #656
worik wrote: post #623

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 tru…

So you think we can do without trust?

Can it be replaced by technology?

The pertinent question is still: Can you be trusted? Your answer to those first two questions answers the third

Re: The Handwavy Technobabble Nothingburger of Crypto

#670

Post by worik »

tim333 wrote: post #661
worik wrote: post #624

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Stuff like gold or bitcoin if used as currency can be deflationary as in be worth more over time against good and services.

Fiat money deflates too.
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