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Crypto Winter, or Crypto Ice Age?

technollama.co.uk

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Re: Crypto Winter, or Crypto Ice Age?

#151

Post by whatisweb3 »

CaptainZapp wrote: post #140
whatisweb3 wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is your preferred way to transfer funds that can be received instantly in Canada, US, South America, UK and Europe? Transferability is a basic primitive of crypto but not the only feature. Others like decentralized escrow and multi-signatory wallets achieve new functionality that is non trivial in traditional banking system.

> Others like decentralized escrow and multi-signatory wallets Uhh, multi-signatory bank accounts are about as old as banking.

Old and clunky. Try setting up a multisig on the weekend with a few friends around the world, who all use different banks. It usually involves a lot of time, paperwork, lock-in to a single bank, monthly fees, sharing private data, and strict limitations on use.

In comparison you and several friends can set up a m-of-n account in a couple of transactions, closer to the flow and ease of setting up a new WhatsApp group.

Re: Crypto Winter, or Crypto Ice Age?

#152

Post by SkyMarshal »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #139
beernet wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this 2018? The comments are the same. Not a crypto head but nay sayers will be nay sayers. Kinda disappointing

> Is this 2018? Nope [1]. [1] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FEDFUNDS

Yeah this is the first time cryptocurrency is being tested in an inflationary and potentially very high interest rate environment. It’s clear that it’s all just another risk asset, whose price goes up when credit/money is cheap and plentiful, and down when it’s not.

A big question is, can Bitcoin miners (and validators on other blockchains) survive? Going to get some useful empirical evidence on that question over the next few years.

Re: Crypto Winter, or Crypto Ice Age?

#153

Post by peoplefromibiza »

axg11 wrote: post #39
pavlov wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wire transfers in North America are literally 40 years behind the evolution of bank transfers in EU and UK. Sending money in Europe is free and increasingly often instantaneous 24/7. It will be very difficult for crypto to reach the level of convenience available on unified infrastructure created through sensible regulation. Lacking that, maybe Americans will have to keep settling for all these clunky, incompatible i…

That's the point! Locally, there are great options almost everywhere. In Canada, I can e-transfer (Interac) anyone and the transfer is ~instant. Across borders the solutions are much worse. Crypto is the only payment rail that can realistically reach _everywhere_.

more than 350 billion/year travel from US to Europe as payments for exported goods.

I think it already works...

locally in EU means SEPA is available in 36 countries (includes some non-euro area and non-EU countries) and to more than 500 million people.

Re: Crypto Winter, or Crypto Ice Age?

#154

Post by peoplefromibiza »

dghlsakjg wrote: post #86
pavlov wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wire transfers in North America are literally 40 years behind the evolution of bank transfers in EU and UK. Sending money in Europe is free and increasingly often instantaneous 24/7. It will be very difficult for crypto to reach the level of convenience available on unified infrastructure created through sensible regulation. Lacking that, maybe Americans will have to keep settling for all these clunky, incompatible i…

He lives in Canada. Canadians don't live in the same country as Americans. Canadians don't have the same banks as Americans. Canadians can do money transfers instantly between any bank using e-transfer. He was talking about transferring money out of the Canadian network of banks to a foreign entity (guessing based on it being denominated in USD). As a European can you transfer money to, say, Vietnam without using clu…

> As a European can you transfer money to, say, Vietnam without using clunky 40 year old technology like wires?

clunky like for a flat fee of less than 5 euros available in a few hours as real money, directly available without having to setup anything?

the need for a new payment system not based on available infrastructure or an evolution of it is marginal at best.

Trivia: there is a video of Bezos telling the story of some customer sending money to buy books in the early days of Amazon hidden inside a 3.5' floppy disk.

Once they received the floppy they retrieved the money and shipped the books.

True or not, most things don't need nearly instant money transfer to work and that's a feature.

Re: Crypto Winter, or Crypto Ice Age?

#155

Post by peoplefromibiza »

ciupicri wrote: post #110
pavlov wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wire transfers in North America are literally 40 years behind the evolution of bank transfers in EU and UK. Sending money in Europe is free and increasingly often instantaneous 24/7. It will be very difficult for crypto to reach the level of convenience available on unified infrastructure created through sensible regulation. Lacking that, maybe Americans will have to keep settling for all these clunky, incompatible i…

We must have different definitions of Europe because I live in Romania (which has been a member of the European Union since 2007) and yet even national transfers are not instantaneous if you're doing them in the evening, not to mention the weekend. And don't get me started with transfers to other European countries. I also think you meant cheap, not free. By the way I find it funny that some banks tax the receiver, s…

SEPA is available in Romania.

Re: Crypto Winter, or Crypto Ice Age?

#156

Post by rafaelero »

quonn wrote: post #148
rafaelero wrote: post #107

If the author didn't bother to mention central banks, monetary policy or currency debasement in the article, I don't think he quite gets the real value of Bitcoin.

So there was never a way to invest money before? Such as buying gold, stock, bonds, real estate or natural resources such as oil?

None of these have the needed properties to act like currency.

Re: Crypto Winter, or Crypto Ice Age?

#157

Post by imtringued »

SkyMarshal wrote: post #25

Bitcoin has lost more than 80% of its value at least four times in its short 10yr existence. It, and all other crypto, are highly volatile. Every time they go through one of these stages, people publish articles like these, asking if this time is the end. But the builders just keep building, advancing the tech and extending its capabilities. Largely because cryptocurrencies are a fascinating engineering problem, whic…

Imagine if the real economy ran on this currency. It wouldn't last very long.

Re: Crypto Winter, or Crypto Ice Age?

#158

Post by tornato7 »

p4bl0 wrote: post #134
tornato7 wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let’s forget any bridges to physical assets for a minute; cryptocurrencies, or more broadly scarce digital assets, have an unfathomably large TAM. More and more of our lives are being spent online instead of dealing with real world assets, giving increasing value to the GDP of digital assets over time. First, the entire financial system can and will be made digital, making every dollar you deal with every day a digit…

TAM? Maybe define uncommon acronym before using them. I cannot even find its expansion using Google. > First, the entire financial system can and will be made digital It already is. > making every dollar you deal with every day a digital asset that can falls under blockchain That is a very bold statement. > Then, you have all online goods: (…) Those all suffer from the exact same problem than physical assets, they ex…

I'm not saying that all digital goods will be traded on blockchains, just that they could be, so they fall under the Total Addressable Market (not an uncommon acronym among yc folk at least).

Likewise, in-game items and other digital assets can exist in or outside of a blockchain. They can serve their original purpose when on-chain as well. I can expand on my point about interoperability:

Blockchains are not typically natively interoperable between them (exception might be rollups), but all assets on a blockchain are. If I create a video game and tokenize my items + currency, I suddenly open up a world of possibilities for users and developers to expand on whatever in-game functionality I can make with my limited team, like:

- Making items tradable on DEXs - Borrowing and lending services - New UIs and tracking tools - Clubs and clans that verify ownership - Derivatives and staking

In a world with tokenized assets, I could easily make a deal with a guy on the internet to let him stay in my decentraland property for 3 weeks in exchange for a ticket to a digital Marshmello concert - completely trustlessly and transactionally.

Re: Crypto Winter, or Crypto Ice Age?

#159

Post by beepbeepcabbage »

whatisweb3 wrote: post #135
notyourav wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m currently in Turkey. I can transfer funds from any bank account to another in about 1 sec., for a very low or no fee, 7/24. I can even withdraw money from an ATM w/o a card just by scanning a QR code from banks app. All merchants have adapted contactless visa etc.. payments. I honestly don’t see how crypto has a sliver of chance as payment alternative.

What is your preferred way to transfer funds that can be received instantly in Canada, US, South America, UK and Europe? Transferability is a basic primitive of crypto but not the only feature. Others like decentralized escrow and multi-signatory wallets achieve new functionality that is non trivial in traditional banking system.

I pay friends in the us regularly via Wise and PayPal and it arrives within seconds every time - all while crypto is folding, doing layoffs, running away with people's money etc.. it's not even a competition. I will take wise + Ideal any day over any crypto or US bank I have ever used.

Re: Crypto Winter, or Crypto Ice Age?

#160

Post by gjvnq »

dcolkitt wrote: post #47
pavlov wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wire transfers in North America are literally 40 years behind the evolution of bank transfers in EU and UK. Sending money in Europe is free and increasingly often instantaneous 24/7. It will be very difficult for crypto to reach the level of convenience available on unified infrastructure created through sensible regulation. Lacking that, maybe Americans will have to keep settling for all these clunky, incompatible i…

But that's the point, crypto is a coordination mechanism that in most cases serves as an alternative when you don't have effective and trustworthy centralized institutions. It's pretty clear that (in this case) European financial regulators did a good job coordinating an effective and efficient electronic money transmission system. But the whole world is not Sweden. Even in America, which is relatively first world wi…

Since you mentioned Latin America...

Brazil has had same business day electronic transfers (TED) since 2002 and next day electronic transfers (DOC) since 2001 or earlier. However people often didn't want to use them for small amounts because of the flat fee.

Brazilian also rarely use checks to pay rent, utilities and other similar stuff. Since 1993, we have a thing called boleto bancário which is like an invoice that has its own number and bar code ao that people can pay them at any bank (with some rare exceptions).

Brazil's Central Bank (BCB) recently-ish introduced Pix, a digital and near instantaneous electronic transfer scheme that is free for natural persons and that is supported by every bank and bank-like financial organizations due to a BCB imposition.

So overall I would say that banking in Brazil is way more standardized and practical than in the US.

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