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Cryptocurrencies add nothing useful to society, says chip-maker Nvidia

theguardian.com

311–320 of 377 posts

Re: Cryptocurrencies add nothing useful to society, says chip-maker Nvidia

#311
post #143

>Cryptocurrencies add nothing useful to society I wonder what kind of society Nvidia wants? Crypto (some of it) offers a freedom to buy and spend that is not corporately regulated. Some crypto brings huge investment in energy production; Green where the society structures it to be, not green where the society structures it not to be. Did they think gaming brought more value to society? Its nice that AI will 'reinvent…

*buy and sell

Re: Cryptocurrencies add nothing useful to society, says chip-maker Nvidia

#312
post #268
post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what you're saying is that we need a front-end layer with content-addressable hashes? Like Beaker Browser with Dat, or like IPFS gateways? And then we have a truly decentralized ecosystem in which billions of dollars are invested and trading. And no one owns it! They can't introduce a 100% fee or deactivate their contracts. I read the code. It is impossible.

Yes. I said in my first comment that you can use other tools to access smart contracts. My point is, all of these tools have central leadership and centralized auxiliary services (DNS, discord, etc). Without the centralized leadership or centralized services, these protocols can’t function.

DHTs arent centralized.

As I said there needs fo be a front end that is based on DHT. Freenet. Beaker Browser. IPFS. Why not?

Re: Cryptocurrencies add nothing useful to society, says chip-maker Nvidia

#313
post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am aware, and that is indeed very bad, but do you realize how irrelevant that is?

Irrelevant to a response regarding both the importance of human rights and the spread of syphilis? I can't imagine an instance where it would be more relevant, I'd be interested to hear why it's not though.

The topic of discussion is the limits on human rights that can reasonably arise to protect the public from real harm.

What you're throwing into the mix is a suspension of human rights for... unethical research? Failing to see the distinction is really not something I can help you with.

Re: Cryptocurrencies add nothing useful to society, says chip-maker Nvidia

#314
post #123
post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A Ponzi scheme pays profits to earlier investors with funds from more recent investors. You just described how Social Security in the USA is funded. Its billed as government-run social insurance, but funded as a ponzi.

1. "Profits" is a relevant keyword there. 2. If Social Security were to fail, the US government would be free to decide between canning it (or reducing it) or funding it from more taxes (or delaying retirement age, which is kinda both); in none of these cases is this itself going to threaten the USA economy or the USD currency.

[deleted]

Re: Cryptocurrencies add nothing useful to society, says chip-maker Nvidia

#315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The story of 'dollar backed by petrol' is fiction. Petrodollar exists as much as a corndollar exists. The dollar is US Treasury debt.

If I follow your train of logic, why does Russia carry USD reserves?

Currencies are used to facilitate settlement of international trade. Trade in various goods and services.

Central banks often carry reserves of various currencies to help with those international settlements and to manipulate currency values.

Re: Cryptocurrencies add nothing useful to society, says chip-maker Nvidia

#316
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Search isn’t a business!” Blockchain and Web3 ended up mostly being zero sum games. But that doesn’t mean it’s not capable of being so much more. Who remembers the silly and tags? The Web has come a long way. And personally, for all its faults, I find Web3 better than Web2 in terms of economics - rather than giant server farms and Big Tech monopolies, we have UniSwap and Aave Marketplace and Filecoin etc. The networ…

> But that doesn’t mean it’s not capable of being so much more. No, the enormous amount of wasted investment and energy with no progress means that it's not capable of being much more. Crypto somehow managed to start at its best and most productive, and got worse day by day. Buying pizzas or drugs with Bitcoin was so much funner than what crypto developed into.

Just because you don't see the progress doesn't mean it's not there.

Just to pick one random thing from this month: https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2023/03/01/ethereum-activates-...

Re: Cryptocurrencies add nothing useful to society, says chip-maker Nvidia

#317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

are you trying to tell me that the world’s second largest economy banning cryptocurrency had no real impact on demand for cryptocurrency?

I wasn't referring to the demand for units of cryptocurrency on particular networks. I was referring to actual industry, i.e. the companies that are researching, improving, and selling the technology itself.

the industry is a result of the demand

Re: Cryptocurrencies add nothing useful to society, says chip-maker Nvidia

#318
post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Irrelevant to a response regarding both the importance of human rights and the spread of syphilis? I can't imagine an instance where it would be more relevant, I'd be interested to hear why it's not though.

The topic of discussion is the limits on human rights that can reasonably arise to protect the public from real harm. What you're throwing into the mix is a suspension of human rights for... unethical research? Failing to see the distinction is really not something I can help you with.

What I've thrown into the mix is a suspension of human rights that was claimed to be for the purpose of protection but in reality caused harm. It wasn't simply "unethical research." If HIV and Syphilis are the best examples of reasons to suspend human rights then we are lacking in good examples. Far more often than not, human rights are a form of protection and their suspension is a guise for causing harm.

Re: Cryptocurrencies add nothing useful to society, says chip-maker Nvidia

#319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I follow your train of logic, why does Russia carry USD reserves?

Currencies are used to facilitate settlement of international trade. Trade in various goods and services. Central banks often carry reserves of various currencies to help with those international settlements and to manipulate currency values.

I see now -- the specific label of petro is wrong, but the general idea that the hegemonic control of critical commodities -> currency control is not then? And saying petrodollar would be like saying porkyuen or semiconductoryuen or something similar

Re: Cryptocurrencies add nothing useful to society, says chip-maker Nvidia

#320
post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Neither does the P/E ratio of a company, yet it's still a fundamental used to value stocks. Earnings is used to create a valuation of a stock. Price-to-earnings is the result. As a company's earnings increase, the stock's value increases. As a country's earnings increase, there is no similar correlation with its currency. > Relative to which other currencies? Relative to a standard basket of goods.

> Earnings is used to create a valuation of a stock Is it? Many times stocks perform well at earnings and shareholders still put on a fit and downvote its price. Conversely, they often upvote its price based on some PR hype instead of actual earnings.

Theoretically, a stock's fair value is the sum of their current and (discounted) future earnings.

> Many times stocks perform well at earnings and shareholders still put on a fit and downvote its price.

Price fluctuations at earnings calls are due to relative earnings expectations, not the absolute value of the earnings itself. Such stock revaluation is due to investors suddenly having more accurate earnings figures to price into their valuation.

> Conversely, they often upvote its price based on some PR hype instead of actual earnings.

"PR hype" pumps represent increased market expectations of actual future earnings, however tenuous those expectations may be.

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