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In defense of cryptocurrency

blog.cryptographyengineering.com

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Re: In defense of cryptocurrency

#541

Post by throw0101a »

jlmb wrote: post #433
tiluha wrote: post #421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The system does not handle it. If that is a problem for you, then cryptocurrencies are not for you. In a way it's like cash. If your wallet is stolen, there is no easy way to get your money back.

In reality, a crypto wallet is better compared to a bank account, though. Most people don't carry their life savings (or comparable amounts) in cash.

> In reality, a crypto wallet is better compared to a bank account, though. Most people don't carry their life savings (or comparable amounts) in cash.

I would think it was the exact opposite.

A 'regular' bank account has reversibility, and so if there are some shenanigans you can (potentially) get your money back. With a cryptocurrency 'bank account' (wallet), if anything bad happens you're SOL.

Re: In defense of cryptocurrency

#542

Post by Nursie »

once_inc wrote: post #371
ninkendo wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The base layer is melting the planet, for one thing.

Bitcoin mining isn't melting the planet. It's not even using more energy than Christmas lights or wash dryers. The comparisons made with [insert random country here] is dumb, because any worldwide phenomenon has a large chance to use more energy than [insert same random country here]. Even if the base layer of Bitcoin is using energy, one can argue that the functionality it offers (trustless, borderless, permissionle…

> it’s not even using more energy than Christmas lights

This claim appears to be untrue -

https://charlesarthur.medium.com/does-bitcoin-use-less-energ...

tl;dr - the claim appears to be based on a combination of pre-LED figures in the US, and just plain wrong figures from other countries, and is probably out by a couple of orders of magnitude.

Re: In defense of cryptocurrency

#543

Post by warkdarrior »

dmitriid wrote: post #498
bradwood wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But for houses, you could use an NFT to represent digital ownership of the underlying physical asset.

> could use an NFT to represent digital ownership of the underlying physical asset So, you arrive at "your" property with a 20x20 pixel jpeg that you call your ownership rights (even such a jpeg would be prohibitively expensive to store on blockchain, but whatever). So, you arrive, and there's someone else living there. They don't want to move out, no matter how much you wave your jpeg around. What does your NFT give…

They may even have a copy of your JPEG! Now you are really screwed...

Re: In defense of cryptocurrency

#544

Post by warkdarrior »

BearsEatBeats wrote: post #458
dcolkitt wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many real world systems are "nearly trustless". Of course you still need some sort of court system if someone decides to break bad. But in the 99%+ of times you're in the happy path, economic transactions occur based on autonomous rules encoded in software. The analogy I like to use is what's harder to buy a $1 million house or $1 million of Microsoft stock? The former process takes weeks, and dozens of man hours fro…

> "You can sell your house atomically and instantly to anyone in the world with no lawyers or escrow agents. You can pledge it as collateral and borrow against it. You can fractionalize it and sell a portion." Who enforces seizure when lendee defaults but the lender is "anyone in the world"?

The smart contract, man. It's smart contracts all the way down.

Re: In defense of cryptocurrency

#545

Post by warkdarrior »

lottin wrote: post #326
IanCal wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't get your point here, there's not a legally required minimum fee being skipped.

Few countries allow unrestricted movement of people, goods and capitals across their borders. Payment systems that are meant to support cross-border transactions need to deal with that. If your way of dealing with these regulations is ignoring them, well... now you have two problems.

Hmmm, it's almost as if cryptocurrencies are the regexes of the financial world.

Re: In defense of cryptocurrency

#546

Post by shkkmo »

toolz wrote: post #532
shkkmo wrote: post #528

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure what you mean by "the most outlandish route possible to smear someones name". I fail to see why me asserting that not spending the coins isn't strong evidence about Satoshi's motivations is some how a smear or trying to assign guilt? The entire conversation started because someone pointed out that just because Satoshi said something doesn't mean it has to be true (although they made that point in a rude…

I see your interpretation now, my apologies. When I read "scheme" I understood that to be slander and mean satoshi had malicious intentions. If you understand scheme to simply be a benign way of suggesting his plan was wrong then it de-escalates this entire conversation. I thought you were defending the a comment claiming satoshi was being malicious. I would've done better to search for a more charitable interpretati…

Persono, I think that Satoshi was an idealist but not a saint and the reasons that the funds have not been accessed are not due to altruism.

If Satoshi did stretch the truth or lie in that quote, I would be inclinded to view it as motivated by ideolatry rather than greed. However, any speculation as to motives is fairly pointless given the lack of information.

Re: In defense of cryptocurrency

#547

Post by strofcon »

everfree wrote: post #503
strofcon wrote: post #479

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Value is subjective in many cases, yes, but there is still intrinsic value in the device itself, if we have to boil it down. You missed that bit - the intrinsic part is literally the metals of which the device is made. Even failing that, it's useful as a weighted object. You can get down to the nuts and bolts of a thing with intrinsic value, such that even in the vent that society collapses and there's no coordinated…

I'm not going to argue with you about how a Macbook is valuable to melt down, or has intrinsic value as a paperweight. Frankly I think that line of thinking is a dead-end for insight. I also don't believe it's helpful to ponder the value of objects in the context of societal collapse. If that's your definition of intrinsic value, I don't think it's useful or practical. All money falls into the greater fool category.…

I mean, sure, if you'd like to ignore the entire point of inherent or intrinsic value, then... go for it? Weird flex, but sure.

And no, it's not circular - "negative sum game" is literally baked into the concept of a purely speculative unbacked "asset". More money has to go in than can possibly come out, and there's precisely zilch to show for it.

Any place that accepts crypto is simply immediately selling it for fiat, and making the customer pay more than they otherwise would in fees and headache.

Anyway, it's fun to be obtuse, I know, but you're pushing the limits here.

Re: In defense of cryptocurrency

#548

Post by cy_overlord »

dragonwriter wrote: post #507
cy_overlord wrote: post #505

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Who is hosting the blockchain?" Miners/Stakers who is incentivize to validate the network and maintain the collective consensus. All your points are valid and universally known but the more important here is whether or not those vulnerabilities are inherently caused by the nature of blockchain or tehcnical problems that we can/need to solve. A good blockchain is not owned by anyone, any changes made need to go throu…

> But if I travel back to the 70's and told you that someday you can run an Internet company, would you believe it? If I understood what you were talking about, I would probably idly wonder how I could fit it in between being President of the United States, a firefighter, an astronaut, and a professional soccer player, but I wouldn't actually disbelieve it. (Hey, in the part of the 1970s where I was alive at all, I w…

Exactly, I don't see blockchain as a solution to cure world hunger or help us "decentralised" everything but I won't dismissed it as a possible route to a new future. I have high hopes for it to be a better future than it turning out to be a buzzword the same way that I will dismiss the dot com idea (the notion that every business and everything needs the Internet) but I strongly believe in the underlying technology that connects everyone and everything.

Re: In defense of cryptocurrency

#549

Post by cy_overlord »

dmitriid wrote: post #510
cy_overlord wrote: post #499

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In an ideal world, things will be build to facilitate the trust, we don't have to trust any programmer at all. The trust in put on the code itself which not one but all of us agreed upon. Today, we don't have the tools to allow people to actually understand it but it doesn't mean that we won't in the future. Abstraction layers will be built. Of course this is an optimistic speculation. I'm personally not attached to…

> In an ideal world There are ponies and magical unicorns that grant you wishes. > Abstraction layers will be built. And those abstractions will definitely be built and will be different from any existing ones because? And once again we will have to trust people building them that they are built correctly. > I'm excited about innovative opportunities that it enabled. And those innovative opportunities are what exactl…

An opportunity to do things differently. The Internet today have flaws and we had exhausted all the possible way to build a better one on existing technology.

Blockchain present us with a new way to coordinate online activities and transactions. It's the right path forward? We don't know, at least not until we exhaust all the possible options and therein lies a lot of opportunities for technical breakthroughs that could possible solve all the concerns we had, technically.

Re: In defense of cryptocurrency

#550

Post by strofcon »

everfree wrote: post #503
strofcon wrote: post #479

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Value is subjective in many cases, yes, but there is still intrinsic value in the device itself, if we have to boil it down. You missed that bit - the intrinsic part is literally the metals of which the device is made. Even failing that, it's useful as a weighted object. You can get down to the nuts and bolts of a thing with intrinsic value, such that even in the vent that society collapses and there's no coordinated…

I'm not going to argue with you about how a Macbook is valuable to melt down, or has intrinsic value as a paperweight. Frankly I think that line of thinking is a dead-end for insight. I also don't believe it's helpful to ponder the value of objects in the context of societal collapse. If that's your definition of intrinsic value, I don't think it's useful or practical. All money falls into the greater fool category.…

Wait did you actually say "all money falls into the greater fool category"?

You... Really ought to look up what greater fool theory is. And maybe money, too, while you're at it.

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