Earlier quoted context omitted.
Still waiting to see even one single useful use case for cryptocurrency and block-chain storage. It's all a grift to take money away from stupid retail investors trying to get rich quick.
We've had two crypto threads in the past two days. They both had a real world use case in the top comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32080174 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32094142 Or do those not count?
Celsius acknowledges $1.2B hole in balance sheet
121–130 of 339 posts
Re: Celsius acknowledges $1.2B hole in balance sheet
#122If I read it correctly it's more like a 1.8 bn hole. They are counting 600m of their own token, which already had only 170m or whatever of market cap, which presumably now is absolutely worthless. I don't mean worthless in a conceptual sense like all crypto, but this specific brand of made up money is based on the trust of a bankrupt lender. Nobody is buying that and counting it as 600m of asset is absurd. It's like…
So exactly like the federal reserve or the social security administration buying US bonds then?
Re: Celsius acknowledges $1.2B hole in balance sheet
#123Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are features of cryptocurrencies that would actually be useful in today's financial services. The main one would be near instant settlement. If I make a transaction on Bitcoin, that transaction is completely settled and verified and approved over a hundred thousands times within an hour. All parties can trust that the transaction happened and everyone has their money. That's not possible in today's financial sy…
Then look at _why_ you don't have it in today's financial services. Is it because there is some technology lacking that only blockchain and cryptocurrencies can solve? No, it's because in the years of financial market experience, people realise the risks don't outweigh the rewards. Cryptocurrencies and block chain isn't solving a problem, it's just spruiking the pro's side of a pro's and con's decision.
Sure it has limitations, but the base network layer is there and functioning (with 100% uptime) for anyone to use without needing to ask for permission. That's the value.
Re: Celsius acknowledges $1.2B hole in balance sheet
#124Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is informative, but I'm not sure how illuminating it is to say that a business's business model was great, except they didn't follow it, they followed a completely different business model that was terrible? Isn't the actual business model of a business... the business model that they actually followed?
If I build you a model of a building that's fine, and then I build a building that isn't like the model, I think it's reasonable to still say that the model was fine.
A lot depends on whether the "business model" presented publicly was deceptive.
Re: Celsius acknowledges $1.2B hole in balance sheet
#125Earlier quoted context omitted.
If its bank transfers between trusted entities why do you need blockchain?
This is called the ACH network and there's no way to trace, undue, or recall transactions. It has been used in bank robberies [1] and numerous financial institutions and payment processors who are not banks use it, not all of whom are trustworthy. [1] https://www.kaspersky.com/about/press-releases/2015_the-grea...
Re: Celsius acknowledges $1.2B hole in balance sheet
#126Earlier quoted context omitted.
For reasons I don’t claim to understand, their token is still trading at about a third of where it was three months ago: https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/celsius/
Terra classic is still trading... at $0.00009 https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/terra-luna/ It had a big jump when Terra 2.0 was launched. (That coin is, inexplicably, still trading in the $2 range, by people who are looking to add a lot of excitement to their life.)
Re: Celsius acknowledges $1.2B hole in balance sheet
#127Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Interbank nightly balance settlements between large institutions. A distributed cryptographic ledger would be great for this kind of thing. A private “coin” between mostly trusted partners with provisions for reversing transactions as needed. But they’re already trusted partners who already have a functioning settlement mechanism that already has provisions for reversing transactions. Jamming a blockchain on top of…
How many serious bugs have there been in bitcoin? All I’m talking about is a simple ledger, not the fancy smart contact nonsense.
You wrote:
> > A private “coin” between mostly trusted partners with provisions for reversing transactions as needed.
Either you’re doing that with a smart contract, or you’re just plain trusting the other people to reverse it when asked, in which case there’s zero reason to be using a blockchain to begin with.
You don’t want or need trustless ledgers to interact with trusted parties - that’s a big increase in complexity for zero gain.
Re: Celsius acknowledges $1.2B hole in balance sheet
#128Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It's like writing yourself a bunch of IOUs and claiming it gives you wealth. I think you just described monetary policy.
“Monetary policy” is backed up by the military. What are Celsius’ tokens backed up by?
Re: Celsius acknowledges $1.2B hole in balance sheet
#129The fact that the entire crypto market simply followed the public markets in the downturn, rather than being a haven for wealth that people flocked to for safety, means that "Crypto" is unambiguously just another speculative asset like Art (but worse).
I’m confused what the alternative is. If it’s valuable and people lose value somewhere in their life, they will exchange their valuable thing to make up for it.
Re: Celsius acknowledges $1.2B hole in balance sheet
#130Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are features of cryptocurrencies that would actually be useful in today's financial services. The main one would be near instant settlement. If I make a transaction on Bitcoin, that transaction is completely settled and verified and approved over a hundred thousands times within an hour. All parties can trust that the transaction happened and everyone has their money. That's not possible in today's financial sy…
I get instant settlement of cash transfers in my country. No blockchain was required. Switching to blockchain isn't any easier than simply improving the existing system.