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Is Web3 Bullshit?

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Re: Is Web3 Bullshit?

#191

Post by woodruffw »

lottin wrote: post #185
woodruffw wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> which is a big assumption because it assumes bitcoin deposits at institutions will always be backed by full reserves Where is this assumption coming from? I have never heard this before. > that doesn't mean that the supply of bitcoins in a particular economic area will be fixed. It most certainly won't, unless international trade stops. Putting non-competing sectors of the economy in competition against each other…

> Where is this assumption coming from? I have never heard this before. The global supply of bitcoins is fixed if and only if financial institutions are not allowed to hold fractional reserves against deposits.

Maybe I’m missing something obvious here, but it’s not clear why (1) any bank would offer a Bitcoin denominated account, or (2) how it even makes sense to perform fractional banking against Bitcoin. You can’t change the underlying amount in the ledger and the ledger is the value source, unlike physical Federal Reserve Notes.

Re: Is Web3 Bullshit?

#193

Post by abacadaba »

bko wrote: post #145
flooow wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the crypto community wants to demonstrate that it isn't a giant Ponzi scheme, why not come up with a non-deflationary token, which will not massively reward 'early adopters' at the expense of everyone else, in perpetuity? (A non-deflationary token would be one where the supply grows by some reasonable percentage every year, effectively acting as a flat tax on one's holdings). In reality, non-deflationary cryptocur…

Isn't Ether (on ethereum), the second most valuable token after bitcoin, non-deflationary? There's no cap and the monetary policy changes regularly. I don't think anyone believes that there is a hard cap. Same is true for BNB, Tether and SOL the third, fourth and fifth most popular coins. What are you talking about? Random shit-coins that have deflationary economics?

after EIP-1559 eth is now deflationary, part of/related to the switch to proof of stake.

https://btcpro.com/2021/09/05/eth-becomes-deflationary-burn/

Re: Is Web3 Bullshit?

#194

Post by JohnFen »

"web3" certainly looks like BS to me. Or, at least, it's just a buzzword lacking any real meaning.

But perhaps I simply don't understand it sufficiently. No matter how many explanations or advocacy pieces I've read about bringing the blockchain to the web, I don't see what the actual value of doing that is. The cost/benefit ratio of it seems incredibly unfavorable.

Re: Is Web3 Bullshit?

#195

Post by jrochkind1 »

I think this is a pretty astute analysis/taxonomy of analysis.

I'm interested in read/study more about: "the broad political-economic or cultural questions: who is participating in, sponsoring, and getting rich off of web3 technologies? What is the particular political or economic dynamic that makes the blockchain attractive? Given this, what will it be used for?", or "the culture, values, and especially the backers of the web3 world."

These are all things to be investigated that don't have a "yes" or "no" answer, but are instead "what's going on and what might it mean.".

The only thing I found myself taking issues with is the author's confidence that the technical issues ("Can the blockchain do anything that other currently existing technology cannot do and/or do anything better or more efficiently than other currently existing technology?") are "difficult to definitively resolve to everyone's satisfaction" but the second category "Will the blockchain form the architecture of the internet of the future" has a simple yes or no answer that will somehow be definitively resolvable.

My own thinking-as-an-engineer reaches the opposite conclusion -- the first category are relatively simple technical answers which can be be evaluated on technical merit, while the second category is future-prediction, political dispute, and narrative choice, and that's what's difficult to "resolve to anyone's satisfaction" with a consensus determination somehow.

Probably both categories are actually a mixture of both.

But what's going on right now is more knowable than predictions of future paradigm shifts, either way. That's actually the main thing I take from OP, let's lessen my interest in arguing about predicting the future, and increase it into looking into "what the hell is going on right now anyway". (Like what are the social and cultural and political factors in the current rise of blockchain interest, and who does it benefit?)

Re: Is Web3 Bullshit?

#196

Post by realce »

JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #190
fivea wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Show me a stock anyone is interested in that isn’t expected to go up and reward early adopters. Eve though you framed your challenge as a "no true Scotsman" argument, history is packed with IPOs that tanked after the companies went public. https://money.howstuffworks.com/10-biggest-ipo-flops.htm Last year Uber dropped considerably when it's IPO got out of the gate. The main mistake of your argument is trying to com…

No one was interested in it. :) I don’t see why stocks have tangible value and tokens used to interact with a network don’t. A stock is a vacuous unverifiable virtual piece of paper. At least if you have a Bitcoin or Ether you can prove what you have and know how many there are. https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2017-02-17/dole-f... Most stocks don’t even have dividends any more so what else is a stock for o…

A stock represents ownership in a company that makes things. The value of the stock is relative to the performance of the company, not the amount of fools available to sell to.

Crypto represents nothing and is backed by nothing other than sunk-cost.

Re: Is Web3 Bullshit?

#197

Post by jrochkind1 »

_vufv wrote: post #33

One aspect that I strongly dislike about "web3" is that it poisons the discourse with its incentives. I don't believe that every person on Twitter with $BTC in their profile understands or can knowledgeably argue the benefits of Web3, but their crypto holdings make them a hard-lined crypto zealot in the hopes of multiplying few hundred dollars they've put in. It's fairly widely known how laughable it is to look for u…

Indeed. Or, as the OP says:

> This is not really that rare online, where basically all discourse is subconsciously understood to be people taking speculative positions on various topics (called "takes") against the value of their online brand, but it's particularly acute in the web3 world, where every project and community is blockchain-based, and all of your beliefs can be and usually are securitized into crypto tokens that can rise and fall in value

And also, as I agree with the OP, about blockchain and about our world in general right now:

> But my feeling is also: Why do I have to bet at all?! Why am I in this awful, ugly, unfun casino in the first place?? Is there a way out of the casino?? And if not, can I at least just get slowly tanked on free booze and annoy people with a reminder that the house always wins?

Re: Is Web3 Bullshit?

#198

Post by abacadaba »

flooow wrote: post #117
iso1210 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't that Dogecoin? (although inflation rate itself is deflationary - dropping from 5% pa about now to 2% in about 20 years)

Yes, sort-of, the supply grows by a fixed absolute quantity every year. I don't really consider it to be a serious attempt at a useful cryptocurrency though. I suspect any coin attempting price-stability (minimum requirement for a useful currency) would need some kind of central bank to control and guarantee the supply. (We have that already too! It's called Tether and it ain't great.)

> I don't really consider it to be a serious attempt at a useful cryptocurrency though.

was being widely used for tipping when the lightning network was just a twinkle in btc's eye

seems to have declined for that purposed, but was the reason i have a small bag still. maybe missed my chance to sell at $0.70 but my original $70 bag i got to tip an openra server ended up doing quite nice ;)

someday my doge will hit $1

Re: Is Web3 Bullshit?

#199

Post by lottin »

woodruffw wrote: post #191
lottin wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Where is this assumption coming from? I have never heard this before. The global supply of bitcoins is fixed if and only if financial institutions are not allowed to hold fractional reserves against deposits.

Maybe I’m missing something obvious here, but it’s not clear why (1) any bank would offer a Bitcoin denominated account, or (2) how it even makes sense to perform fractional banking against Bitcoin. You can’t change the underlying amount in the ledger and the ledger is the value source, unlike physical Federal Reserve Notes.

Well, crypto-exchanges already offer deposit accounts backed with reserves. If at any point the reserve ratio falls below 1 (we don't know if this has already happened), the quantity of bitcoins in circulation will increase as a result of that.

Re: Is Web3 Bullshit?

#200

Post by notacoward »

mattlondon wrote: post #7

It saddens me that they chose "web3" for the latest crypto pyramid scheme. Call it what you want, but please don't sully the web with your plat du jour crypto antics. Also for what it is worth, the web has been decentralised from the very start, I don't see what the fuss is about apart from just everyone getting rich selling the next hot coin/token/whatever.

What did you expect from people who ruined "crypto" by using it for only one kind of system of which cryptography is only one element?
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