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Follow the Crypto

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111–118 of 118 posts

Re: Follow the Crypto

#111
post #105
post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost every “Show HN” that’s about a library has someone ask what the library actually does and why is it useful. If the only answer is “crpyto” and essentially all crypto is fraud, I can’t imagine why people aren’t more excited. I think vague promises is exactly how you could sum up most crypto-related libraries as well. There’s supposedly some useful usecase, but right now it only contributes to North Korean nucle…

> there doesn’t seem to be anything in the entire crypto industry that isn’t fraud or crime > If the only answer is “crpyto” and essentially all crypto is fraud Emphasis mine. There can be no intelligent conversation with someone whose confirmation bias is so deep they live in a black-and-white world. You have no interest in a conversation, only shouting slogans and exaggerated claims.

Nakamoto consensus (the combination of longest chain rule for consensus and PoW for sybil resistance) was a minor innovation in distributed computing, specifically state machine replication. That had previously been solved in the late 1990s in the permissioned setting with BFT-type protocols (such as PBFT).

What's new in crypto is permissionlessness which enables decentralisation [1]. That has

a) basically no benefits that cannot be achieved through (permissioned) distributed computing, except censorship resistance, or, as normal people call it, regulation dodging, and

b) it comes at enormous costs (in terms of inefficiency, cumbersomeness, etc.)

Crypto is systematically and inherently designed for and suitable for crime.

[1] You can claim that LCR also expanded the design space in the partially synchronous model from always consistent and eventually available to always available and eventually consistent, but again, not a huge benefit.

Re: Follow the Crypto

#112
post #7

Any breakdown for what incumbent banks, payments platforms and remittance organizations have spent to maintain existing dominance of these industries? Every time you purchased something with a card, you give the card provider 2% of the price. There's a lot of interest in maintaining that.

Only in some jurisdictions.

Wikipedia: > In the United States, the fee averages approximately 2% of transaction value.[2] In the EU, interchange fees are capped to 0.3% of the transaction for credit cards and to 0.2% for debit cards, while there is no cap for corporate cards.

Re: Follow the Crypto

#113
post #15
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're gonna convince people there are practical applications of cryptocurrencies outside of grift and crime when they actually see them and find them useful in their own lives, and not before.

Yes. Stablecoins are a proxy for real world usage.

What does that mean?

Re: Follow the Crypto

#114
post #37
post #2

Molly White’s latest project, tracking political contributions of the cryptocurrency industry. White’s data shows these PACs dwarf even much larger industries in this political cycle.

The fact that it is a Molly White project means take it with a basketball sized grain of salt. She has deeply held beliefs and keeps cherry picking until the data supports them. I'm not sure the data supports crypto spending more than other industries in lobbying, I think they are just doing it via a single PAC rather than spinning up dozens of targeted PACs for each race.

I kind of wish Molly White spent more time researching and disseminating information on CBDCs — the PACs to me are emergent behavior due to popularity and rise of crypto ETFs so there's not much of a story there.

ETFs aren't really financial instruments that the mainstream public will likely interact with or directly invest in, but CBDCs will probably proliferate wildly throughout the global economy in a matter of years so it's a bit of a missed chance for the public to weigh in on them.

Re: Follow the Crypto

#116
post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

anarchism doesn't maximize peoples freedom

Anarchism rejects hierarchies and centralized power in favor of maximizing individual liberty.

it doesn't really maximize individual liberty, ultimately almost anyone would end up with less liberty in practice, except for people choosing to centralize power i.e. rejecting anarchism

Re: Follow the Crypto

#117
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that it is a Molly White project means take it with a basketball sized grain of salt. She has deeply held beliefs and keeps cherry picking until the data supports them. I'm not sure the data supports crypto spending more than other industries in lobbying, I think they are just doing it via a single PAC rather than spinning up dozens of targeted PACs for each race.

The project uses public data from the FEC, and the code is all open source. I'd invite you to verify for yourself that I am not cherrypicking data.

Posting something to github does not shift the burden of proof for fantastic claims onto the community.

You also completely failed to address my larger point, which is that the data or code is not flawed, your assumptions are.

Re: Follow the Crypto

#118
post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The project uses public data from the FEC, and the code is all open source. I'd invite you to verify for yourself that I am not cherrypicking data.

Posting something to github does not shift the burden of proof for fantastic claims onto the community. You also completely failed to address my larger point, which is that the data or code is not flawed, your assumptions are.

"[She] keeps cherry picking until the data supports them" certainly sounds a lot like you saying the data and/or code is flawed. What "fantastic claim" am I making that you don't think I'm addressing?
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