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“You Don't Own Web3”: A Coinbase Curse and How VCs Sell Crypto to Retail

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Re: “You Don't Own Web3”: A Coinbase Curse and How VCs Sell Crypto to Retail

#31

Post by mizzao »

> for the last few years, Coinbase put out the names of coins they were thinking to list, but never did. I analyzed those coins - and found they did even better than the ones that made it, and the VC-backed ones didn’t show any of the same underperformance.

This is implying a causal relationship that may be misleading. Is it that coins invested in by VCs underperform? Or is it that fraudulent or scammy coins are more likely to seek out VC investment?

Or worse, is it that rug-pulling scammers are both more likely to seek out VC and list on Coinbase to take as much money as they can and run?

Re: “You Don't Own Web3”: A Coinbase Curse and How VCs Sell Crypto to Retail

#32

Post by saurik »

andutu wrote: post #25

Anything I talk about below is not financial advice. Full disclosure: My crypto holdings consist of around 1 ETH and $5 worth of BTC on Coinbase. Anyone remember Monero? A POW crypto using state of the art cryptography such as ring signatures and Bulletproofs to guarantee private, secure transactions? It's secure enough that almost half of all dark web transactions are done using it despite its market cap being a fra…

> True, Monero doesn't have smart contract support...

This is way more central to why people aren't building on it than you seem to give credit to: people simply can't build on it... I mean, even Bitcoin is programmable (which is how people have been able to build stuff like Lightning and bridges to contract side chains like rsk). Not being programmable--which sadly is kind of a trade-off for their core premise of being "actually private" (not that I am saying that is insurmountable, but it hasn't been solved yet)--means you don't see an ecosystem built on it and thereby no software dependent on it and thereby no "investment" in the platform is really possible. What makes the smart contract platforms potentially interesting is that actually DO SOMETHING problem might be willing to pay for: provide a trustless transactional data store on which you can build other more complex behaviors.

Re: “You Don't Own Web3”: A Coinbase Curse and How VCs Sell Crypto to Retail

#33

Post by babyshake »

yeetaccount4 wrote: post #29

Moxie Marlinspike had a good take on this, specifically about NFTs being a blockchain with a web link to the “asset”. Whoever controls the server (or DNS) controls the “asset”. If I was to seriously entertain the notion of NFTs I’d at least want my token to be a hash of the “asset” in question (or hashes, computed with differing algos, in case of collisions). Anything else is a non starter. We’re one hilarious hack a…

I might be wrong but I believe if the NFT metadata links to a protocol like IPFS and the NFT contract does not allow the metadata URL to be updated, it is not possible for the link or linked content to be altered.

Re: “You Don't Own Web3”: A Coinbase Curse and How VCs Sell Crypto to Retail

#34

Post by opportune »

andutu wrote: post #25

Anything I talk about below is not financial advice. Full disclosure: My crypto holdings consist of around 1 ETH and $5 worth of BTC on Coinbase. Anyone remember Monero? A POW crypto using state of the art cryptography such as ring signatures and Bulletproofs to guarantee private, secure transactions? It's secure enough that almost half of all dark web transactions are done using it despite its market cap being a fra…

Monero isn't listed in lots of the most popular exchanges because, since it actually works and has a utility beyond speculation, regulators have threatened exchanges with retribution. See [0] in which Brian Armstrong (Coinbase CEO) does express passing interest in listing it.

If HN people are still interested in acquiring it, the most secure fiat onramp is through localmonero.co [1]. It's listed on some centralized exchanges [2] if you're ok with the really invasive checks they will run you through, and on some Dex's if you already have crypto [3].

[0] https://decrypt.co/36731/heres-why-coinbase-still-hasnt-list....

[1] https://localmonero.co/

[2] https://www.kraken.com

[3] Haveno, but not sure how production-ready it is. Probably others.

Re: “You Don't Own Web3”: A Coinbase Curse and How VCs Sell Crypto to Retail

#36

Post by vmception »

andutu wrote: post #25

Anything I talk about below is not financial advice. Full disclosure: My crypto holdings consist of around 1 ETH and $5 worth of BTC on Coinbase. Anyone remember Monero? A POW crypto using state of the art cryptography such as ring signatures and Bulletproofs to guarantee private, secure transactions? It's secure enough that almost half of all dark web transactions are done using it despite its market cap being a fra…

Speculation drives innovation in every economy.

The privacy play is a supercycle aspect of crypto worth checking into every 4 or 5 years.

State level actions are hindered because even the state knows they can only make a move once before the anti fragility of crypto kicks in. Crypto becomes more resilient under pressure because there is no financial incentive to improve these kinds of boring technologies, and so the pressure galvanizes people to develop the boring thing they already knew needed to be done.

So you are not inaccurate, but it will come.

Check out SECRET network, its hide smart contract states which effectively means token privacy. They have a trustless enough bridge to and from Monero, and bridges to the broader defi ecosystem.

Re: “You Don't Own Web3”: A Coinbase Curse and How VCs Sell Crypto to Retail

#37

Post by aaroninsf »

Curious if rising interest rates put an end to the party.

Had an interesting debate with a friend yesterday, he thinks the money laundering value is so high the NFT market will never collapse; I opined that the appetite for any single get-rich-quick scheme is bounded by the number of peers one has who lose out; and that personal experience of that kind is weighted higher than the irrational exuberance; at that when the bit flips and the latter begins to be viewed through a soured lens of failing to Get Rich, things decay quickly, and the next fad takes hold.

At which point the "market" for NFTs implodes as can fully be anticipated, because while the money laundering would love it not to, it needs noise and chaos to get away with its own targeted grift.

Reminded, I need to order more popcorn. Gonna be a great show.

Re: “You Don't Own Web3”: A Coinbase Curse and How VCs Sell Crypto to Retail

#38

Post by vmception »

opportune wrote: post #34
andutu wrote: post #25

Anything I talk about below is not financial advice. Full disclosure: My crypto holdings consist of around 1 ETH and $5 worth of BTC on Coinbase. Anyone remember Monero? A POW crypto using state of the art cryptography such as ring signatures and Bulletproofs to guarantee private, secure transactions? It's secure enough that almost half of all dark web transactions are done using it despite its market cap being a fra…

Monero isn't listed in lots of the most popular exchanges because, since it actually works and has a utility beyond speculation, regulators have threatened exchanges with retribution. See [0] in which Brian Armstrong (Coinbase CEO) does express passing interest in listing it. If HN people are still interested in acquiring it, the most secure fiat onramp is through localmonero.co [1]. It's listed on some centralized e…

I would say AVOID fiat meetups.

The centralized exchange issue with Monero is over now because you can access Monero through bridges.

Secret Network has wrapped Monero, full defi functionality and and a bridge to the Monero network and vice versa. These are autonomous and permissionless, so the trusted swappers and goodwill of exchanges is no longer needed. Regulators were playing whack a mole with their relationships to exchanges that listed Monero and now the technology improved to make that approach irrelevant: Antifragile in action.

Re: “You Don't Own Web3”: A Coinbase Curse and How VCs Sell Crypto to Retail

#39

Post by b112 »

jack_pp wrote: post #30
andutu wrote: post #25

Anything I talk about below is not financial advice. Full disclosure: My crypto holdings consist of around 1 ETH and $5 worth of BTC on Coinbase. Anyone remember Monero? A POW crypto using state of the art cryptography such as ring signatures and Bulletproofs to guarantee private, secure transactions? It's secure enough that almost half of all dark web transactions are done using it despite its market cap being a fra…

I won't comment about the gold rush aspects of crypto right now because they're pretty obvious but regarding the PoW algorithm of Monero, I think that's its fatal flaw long term. Any coin that doesn't have a huge moat of ASIC miners backing it up is vulnerable to attack. You can't attack bitcoin without coordinating existing miners but any coin that can be mined with general CPUs could be attacked by govts or corps w…

Any government with large stockpiles of unused, general compute resources, could snap its fingers, and make large stockpiles of any compute resources appear.

The 'buy military gear' police budget of any medium sized US city, could be diverted for one year, and probably buy any specific compute resource you cite.

This just isn't a defense against governmental or corporate attack.

It's not even defense against a bored billionaire.

Re: “You Don't Own Web3”: A Coinbase Curse and How VCs Sell Crypto to Retail

#40

Post by opportune »

vmception wrote: post #38
opportune wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Monero isn't listed in lots of the most popular exchanges because, since it actually works and has a utility beyond speculation, regulators have threatened exchanges with retribution. See [0] in which Brian Armstrong (Coinbase CEO) does express passing interest in listing it. If HN people are still interested in acquiring it, the most secure fiat onramp is through localmonero.co [1]. It's listed on some centralized e…

I would say AVOID fiat meetups. The centralized exchange issue with Monero is over now because you can access Monero through bridges. Secret Network has wrapped Monero, full defi functionality and and a bridge to the Monero network and vice versa. These are autonomous and permissionless, so the trusted swappers and goodwill of exchanges is no longer needed. Regulators were playing whack a mole with their relationship…

Localmonero doesn't just use fiat meetups, though that's one option.

Agreed that atomic swaps/crypto:crypto are the way to go for the best UX though in general the fiat->crypto ramp will still be invasive.

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