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In defense of cryptocurrency

blog.cryptographyengineering.com

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Re: In defense of cryptocurrency

#81

Post by almostkorean »

yadaeno wrote: post #32

You forgot to mention: if you lose your keys, youre fucked. That is, of course unless you trust a centralized unregulated entity to manage them for you.

This is a huge UX issue for anyone that wants to self-custody. In the same spirit as the OP, people are working on solutions for this. Vitalik posted about it last year: https://vitalik.ca/general/2021/01/11/recovery.html. I don't know the technical details, but Coinbase is launching a wallet system where the private key is "split" between the user and Coinbase.

After explaining improvements to this specific issue, it still feels like way too much friction for the average person to deal with. I think there will be more improvements as time goes on but maybe that's just the cost of doing self-custody. In the end, I guess it's up to the individual to decide whether it's worth it or not.

Re: In defense of cryptocurrency

#82

Post by agentultra »

Banana699 wrote: post #80
agentultra wrote: post #72

There's nothing to defend. More ink has been spilled by some of the top experts in the field explaining that there is no use case for blockchain technology itself. It's old technology that has been around for a long time. There's nothing unique or special about it. It's interesting what the pro-regulation crypto-currency shills are advocating for. In the US a couple of pro-crypto senators proposed a bill that would i…

>It's old technology that has been around for a long time. There's nothing unique or special about it I don't know how on earth can people be so confidently wrong, with almost religious fervor backing it up. It's not morally superior to be ignorant. Have you even read the post to the end ? Blockchains do solve a well known problem in distributed systems in a novel way. The main novelty is PoW consensus, a probabilist…

I'm experienced enough to read what papers and proofs have been published, have been a programmer for longer than not, but don't take my word for it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9nv0Ol-R5Q

So they found one way to prevent Sybil attacks that has been a well-known problem. Big deal.

Update

A "blockchain" is not a novel concept. The PoW system used is one way to prevent Sybil attacks when distributing work among untrusted peers, and that's it. Novel, neat, but useless.

If cryptocurrencies needed defending it's because they're a solution in search of a problem. All of the problems they've found so far appeal to conspiracy theorists: people who don't trust banks, government, and all kinds of things. In the mean time the people who've benefited the most have left thousands of people bereft of their life savings and ruined their lives.

My favourite right now are all the scammers who've turned around and stopped ripping off banks and old people and started targeting people who buy NFTs and adverise it on their socials. It'd be freaking hilarious to watch unfold if so many people weren't getting burned in the process.

Re: In defense of cryptocurrency

#83

Post by bowsamic »

kkielhofner wrote: post #79
bowsamic wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are huge crypto.com ads plastered over every F1 track, I don't think this is extremely obscure stuff. I've encountered a lot of non tech people who own crypto. I saw some number somewhere that estimated that around 17% of Ukrainians own crypto, with similar numbers for other countries. The idea that it is an extremely obscure thing also seems like a function of being in a HN tech bubble. There are crypto ads an…

Owning crypto != actually using it. Exchanges run private order books like any other investment org. People trading (gambling?) one ticker symbol (crypto or not) vs another (crypto or not) has absolutely nothing to do with real world use or utility. I can watch the Euro move up and down on forex and buy/sell to make money in my currency of choice while never touching a Euro, using it for anything, or having any real…

Is this supposed to be a critique of all financial investment or speculation? I'm not sure what else I'm supposed to take from this.

Also talk about moving the goalposts, we've gone from "no one knows about crypto or cares about if its good or bad" to "they don't really use it they just trade it"

Re: In defense of cryptocurrency

#84

Post by BiteCode_dev »

richardwhiuk wrote: post #17
BiteCode_dev wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More accurately: - Transactions are more expensive in BTC for small amounts, and more expensive in Visa for big amounts. - However this is only true if you use on chain transactions for BTC. BTC transactions using lightning are always cheaper than Visa no matter the amount. - Lightning nodes do not yet form a network big enough to cover 100% of the transactions, and most transactions are small, so the idea that VISA…

Large amounts aren't settled by VISA - they are settled by bank transfer.

Depends. I buy electronics with my VISA card for thousands of dollar, and clients sometime prefer to pay my gigs with a card as well.

Anything above 3000 will likely be cheaper using BTC.

But I see your point.

Re: In defense of cryptocurrency

#85

Post by wmf »

matkoniecz wrote: post #75
yieldcrv wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's not theoretical and I expect it to also become a larger percentage or the network over the next few years. it occurs mostly for economic reasons, it is somewhat accelerated by the common criticism but ironically mostly irrelevant while getting to the same outcome either way grid-reliant proof of work is probably going to get deprecated. (remote sites typically can connect to a grid to sell their own excess energ…

> it's not theoretical Can you gave examples of PoW using energy that would be wasted otherwise and is not something like reactivation of shut down fossil fuel power plants?

There are a lot of miners in Texas where occasionally the price of electricity goes negative because wind power exceeds demand. That's a rare scenario though, so the other 95% of the time miners are competing with consumers to buy electricity.

Re: In defense of cryptocurrency

#86

Post by kkielhofner »

j_walter wrote: post #66
kkielhofner wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Credit card fees include reward systems (points), zero liability fraud protection, extended warranties, car rental protection, dispute resolution/chargeback systems, customer service, support for tens of thousands of transactions per second, airline lounge access, priority entertainment tickets, airline miles - the list goes on and on. Whether you need any of these is debatable of course but it’s extremely disingenuo…

You don't pay for the fees...the vendor does. Not to mention all of the other fees they rake in. You can have other ways of making sure payments are safeguarded...actually one of the smartest ways to do this was setup on the dark web illegal markets where there was a middle man that didn't have custody of the money (at least in the best multisig ones) but was able to complete or reverse transactions if needed. Basica…

We all pay for the fees but IMO it's more than worth it considering all of the things I mentioned and more.

The other fees they rake in (I'm assuming you mean interest) are from issuing unsecured loans. That's another topic entirely.

Escrow is many thousands of years old and certainly exists in many forms in the financial system today. It's just that because of all of the other things I mentioned the average person uses it maybe a few times in their lives for very large and complicated transactions.

The suggestion to use escrow or some other kind of really convoluted system for extremely small payments when I can swipe a card anywhere in the world with all of the benefits mentioned above and more for relatively tiny fees is frankly ridiculous. Of course it makes sense for marketplaces where every single actor in the marketplace is breaking the law in the first place.

I've been involved in crypto since 2017 and I'm STILL waiting for a reasonable use case or application where it results in a net benefit for the average person.

Re: In defense of cryptocurrency

#87

Post by hericium »

99_00 wrote: post #57
hericium wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If the entire field turn into toxic waste that no one wants to touch it will be extremely undervalued. Bagholders will always try to find new victims. Crypto is praised even when it's in the shitter. "Buy the dip, it will be $200k before years end, I'd buy it myself but..." etc.

Ok. I don't understand your point. If this clarifies: I'm talking about blockchain technology and its applications. Not a particular blockchain asset.

It does. Still, not many applications for blockchains, but shitty assets.

Re: In defense of cryptocurrency

#88

Post by tshaddox »

propter_hoc wrote: post #29

This article is a rebuttal to a letter, that in his interpretation, claims: >[...] that the entire technology field is worthless and cannot be used for any practical purpose. However, instead of addressing the core issue of whether cryptocurrency or DLT serves any practical purpose, the article instead cherry-picks specific issues that he thinks are resolvable: * Energy waste * Transaction speed * Privacy The author…

But people are normally okay with things that are merely interesting or entertaining even if they are perhaps somewhat frivolous, so long as they don't have any obvious large societal downsides.

Re: In defense of cryptocurrency

#89

Post by tshaddox »

tptacek wrote: post #55
MattPalmer1086 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He says why he cares are the end. That it could be a viable payment system, if you solve the scaling and energy and regulation and a few other things.

It does not sound plausible that all of this engineering, required to make these systems even viable in the real world (and, we hope, preventing it from eventually demanding approximately as much energy as Eastern Europe, despite the weak incentives to actually accomplish that) is the best, fastest way to lower transaction fees for the working class.

But does comparative advantage apply? Perhaps the best way to solve problems isn't for everyone to work directly on what the single most important problem in the world is. What if it's actually often better for people to work on tasks they find the most suited to their interests and abilities?

Re: In defense of cryptocurrency

#90

Post by kkielhofner »

bowsamic wrote: post #83
kkielhofner wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Owning crypto != actually using it. Exchanges run private order books like any other investment org. People trading (gambling?) one ticker symbol (crypto or not) vs another (crypto or not) has absolutely nothing to do with real world use or utility. I can watch the Euro move up and down on forex and buy/sell to make money in my currency of choice while never touching a Euro, using it for anything, or having any real…

Is this supposed to be a critique of all financial investment or speculation? I'm not sure what else I'm supposed to take from this. Also talk about moving the goalposts, we've gone from "no one knows about crypto or cares about if its good or bad" to "they don't really use it they just trade it"

It's not a critique of financial investment or speculation. It's calling all of it what it is - financial investment and/or speculation. If someone claimed they were participating in changing the world and building the future of everything by shuffling Euros around on some forex platform and taking it home as USD you would be skeptical, correct? How is trading BTC any different?

You misunderstand me. Many people trade crypto but this doesn't equate to actual use. Crypto exchanges run order books just like a forex exchange or other investment platform with a SQL or whatever backend.

Do you really consider people speculating on insert-random-coin-ticker-on-exchange-here as use? It moves on an internal order book, it doesn't touch the blockchain itself. That is not use. That is people investing or speculating with an asset just like any other asset. It has nothing to do with the underlying technology or use. Nothing.

Looking at the chains themselves you will see that very few people actually transact off exchanges on actual blockchains (real use). This is what I mean when I say cryptocurrency USE is irrelevant. Buying and selling BTC to take it home in USD to buy a Lambo is not USE of BTC. It's financial investment/speculation on some random asset and USE of USD.

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