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The Edited Latecomer’s Guide to Crypto

mollywhite.net

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Re: The Edited Latecomer’s Guide to Crypto

#251

Post by uncomputation »

rvz wrote: post #192
flaque wrote: post #120

The issue with crypto is that reasonable use cases are early, and don’t attract attention except for niche communities. There’s a few big ones, for example, filecoin right now has created a commodity market for storage that is currently 10,000 cheaper than S3 in some instances. (See file.app for stats) But realistically, the interesting projects are very small and hard to find. However, scams and ponzi schemes, by th…

The only 'NFT' that has a use-case so far is ENS [0] and domain names on the blockchain. The JPEG NFTs (which don't have a use-case) have captured the hype of the critics and that will likely collapse in the long term and those NFTs are what the critics will just keep talking about. There is a product that is using it for identities already: [1][2] I can see businesses using ENS or similar solutions as a way to repla…

> merchants can use it for users to donate / pay towards verified names e.g: (myshopname.eth)

Most businesses will have a problem with anyone being able to look them up on etherscan and see their entire transaction history and account balance.

Re: The Edited Latecomer’s Guide to Crypto

#252

Post by rdiddly »

aprinsen wrote: post #171

I gave the original NYT article a read when it was published and I have no idea how it could have been approved outside of the opinion section. Really shameful to present the obviously pro crypto piece as neutral or informational and I have only two explanations: - ancient editorial staff approved it because they really don't understand crypto or - there's some kind of market for front page real estate

Maybe it was pushed by the CIA spooks known to be close collaborators and/or on staff there? (Like Saddam's WMDs?)

Let's brainstorm what interest the CIA might have in crypto.

Re: The Edited Latecomer’s Guide to Crypto

#253

Post by uncomputation »

seanhunter wrote: post #241
Animats wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't make much sense for concert tickets, unless you want to enable scalping. The lifetime of a ticket is short.

There are people starting to use NFTs for tickets precisely to circumvent scalpers and allow a legitimate secondary market to exist in which the primary artist benefits from resales. There are real reasons for a secondary market to exist (eg you've got concert tickets and suddenly get sick and can't go or something) the problem right now is that the existing secondary market is broken so prices are insane for the rea…

> You went to my concert, now you can get into a special channel on my discord/get early access to my album etc

This is one of those use cases which sounds super cool but when you think about it, doesn’t really make any sense. I mean, maybe I’m just an antisocial person, but why would I want to be put in essentially a group chat for every person attending the Screaming Monkeys Band Tampa 11/23 concert? Early access for an album? You mean, the album you already presumably just heard… at the concert?

Re: The Edited Latecomer’s Guide to Crypto

#254

Post by seanhunter »

uncomputation wrote: post #253
seanhunter wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are people starting to use NFTs for tickets precisely to circumvent scalpers and allow a legitimate secondary market to exist in which the primary artist benefits from resales. There are real reasons for a secondary market to exist (eg you've got concert tickets and suddenly get sick and can't go or something) the problem right now is that the existing secondary market is broken so prices are insane for the rea…

> You went to my concert, now you can get into a special channel on my discord/get early access to my album etc This is one of those use cases which sounds super cool but when you think about it, doesn’t really make any sense. I mean, maybe I’m just an antisocial person, but why would I want to be put in essentially a group chat for every person attending the Screaming Monkeys Band Tampa 11/23 concert? Early access f…

Lots of people really like this - you're in a fan community where it's ok to be a fan and people aren't going to criticise the fact you like this particular band. The artist can do AMAs direct with their fans without the trolling etc that infect a lot of social media because everyone in that channel is in the same community.

As for buying an album you heard at the concert, yes. If you like what you heard at the concert, why wouldn't you want to hear it again? People listen to music more than once per tune.

You may not see these things as a benefit but a lot of people do.

Re: The Edited Latecomer’s Guide to Crypto

#255

Post by dmitriid »

jakupovic wrote: post #177
eoo wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bitcoin is as obsolete as POSIX. It's ossified, and not changing is a feature.

Terrible POSIX, 50+ years later it's everywhere. Any project can only hope yo be as successful

It is actually terrible and outdated, and very few systems implement all of it.

Re: The Edited Latecomer’s Guide to Crypto

#256

Post by tromp »

thinkmassive wrote: post #219
tromp wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What I was wondering was: is there a better number? e.g., is there a way to calculate the amount of USD put into a cryptocurrency across a timeframe? For PoW coins there is. For every day in the coin's price history, multiply said price by the number of newly mined coins that day, and sum over all days. Sadly, I don't know of any site that publishes such a metric, although the column "PoW Produced (24h)" of [1] sho…

CoinMetrics has done research in this area, for example Realized Capitalization: https://coinmetrics.io/realized-capitalization/

That one seems to correspond less to "money put in" though. As they note, just having Satoshi move his one million bitcoin would increase Realized Capitalization enormously, even though no new money is put in.

Sum of daily price times daily emission on the other hand represents the total miner revenue; how much they would have made if they sold their mined coins as soon as possible (ignoring coinbase maturity for simplicity), which presumably upperbounds the total amount of money spent by miners on hardware and electricity.

Re: The Edited Latecomer’s Guide to Crypto

#257

Post by uncomputation »

aprinsen wrote: post #171

I gave the original NYT article a read when it was published and I have no idea how it could have been approved outside of the opinion section. Really shameful to present the obviously pro crypto piece as neutral or informational and I have only two explanations: - ancient editorial staff approved it because they really don't understand crypto or - there's some kind of market for front page real estate

> there's some kind of market for front page real estate

Absolutely there is. If you want an even clearer example, take a look at the front page of the Wall Street Journal under the “Editorial Staff” section. The “reporting” there is almost always some rich, more conservative guy who basically paid to get his post on the front page of a relatively dry, and even somewhat activist-oriented (eg Facebook Files) paper.

Re: The Edited Latecomer’s Guide to Crypto

#258

Post by tasuki »

rvz wrote: post #192
flaque wrote: post #120

The issue with crypto is that reasonable use cases are early, and don’t attract attention except for niche communities. There’s a few big ones, for example, filecoin right now has created a commodity market for storage that is currently 10,000 cheaper than S3 in some instances. (See file.app for stats) But realistically, the interesting projects are very small and hard to find. However, scams and ponzi schemes, by th…

The only 'NFT' that has a use-case so far is ENS [0] and domain names on the blockchain. The JPEG NFTs (which don't have a use-case) have captured the hype of the critics and that will likely collapse in the long term and those NFTs are what the critics will just keep talking about. There is a product that is using it for identities already: [1][2] I can see businesses using ENS or similar solutions as a way to repla…

Yes, this is also the only nft use case I've been able to understand so far.

I'm a fan of Handshake [0]. The project raised ten million of venture capital money and gave it away to free software developers [1].

It's an attempt at a decentralised DNS root zone, a replacement for icann. It would also obsolete certificate authorities: certificates would be guaranteed by the blockchain, under direct control of the respective domain owners.

[0]: https://handshake.org/

[1]: https://handshake.org/grant-sponsors/

Re: The Edited Latecomer’s Guide to Crypto

#259

Post by dmitriid »

lhorie wrote: post #157
librish wrote: post #36

Until someone has built a crypto product that creates values (for the purpose of this discussion it can be a good or a service would be willing to spend USD on even if it wasn't a crypto) crypto is a negative-sum game. Any USD taken out of the system someone else has to have put in, plus whatever the miners take out. Fortunes aren't created, they are redistributed.

I'm curious if this comment is a usual fare of shallow dismissal or if you are aware of current applications of crypto in the wild and consider them to be useless nonetheless. One example that comes to mind is that Docusign offers a product that uses Ethereum for storing evidence of contracts in a decentralized medium. That seems like a fairly legitimate application for the technology. Another example (albeit possibl…

> One example that comes to mind is that Docusign offers a product that

Yes, they "offer a profuct", but don't even use it themselves because it's too expensive.

> BitTorrent tokens as a "currency" for "buying" download speed by incentivizing people to keep nodes running within its P2P network

Incentivizing how?

> Do you consider these types of applications to be negative sums? If so, why?

If you "incentivize" people, it means that someone gains. If someone gains, someone loses. At best these are zero-sum games.

Re: The Edited Latecomer’s Guide to Crypto

#260

Post by roenxi »

di4na wrote: post #242
sneak wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is very different than you sending money via an intermediary bank. I dare you to describe a method of wire transfer to Kyiv that works in that quantity and timescale and is practically usable by the recipient that quickly and cannot be blocked by your local government's policies. There simply isn't anything close to that. People that think that this is the same as a wire via a regulated bank are ignorant of the sp…

None because if it was a high quantity method it would get regulated or banned by society The regulations exist for a reason. The reason crypto do not have them is because there is no quantity. Not because it is magically immune to existing in societies

Society has banned the consumption of illegal drugs (!). How is that ban going vis a vis shutting the market down? Ditto copyright infringement. Some things the government cannot ban.

Without the ability to create and control chokepoints like banking institution, it may be impossible to stop people voting with their feet when it comes to international crypto transfers. Especially once people figure out what privacy preserving designs work in practice.

Given the whispers around unbanking political protesters, at some point it may become necessary to deal in crypto to have a political opinion. They can't arrest everyone.

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