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Algorithmic stablecoins are provably impossible without continuous funding

fragileequilibrium.substack.com

11–20 of 264 posts

Re: Algorithmic stablecoins are provably impossible without continuous funding

#11
post #7

Not a crypto fan but I'm beginning to see that our entire economy is proving impossible without continuous manipulation by the fed

> Not a crypto fan but I'm beginning to see that our entire economy is proving impossible without continuous manipulation by the fed

Just like driving a car proves impossible without continuous manipulation by its driver.

Re: Algorithmic stablecoins are provably impossible without continuous funding

#13
post #7

Not a crypto fan but I'm beginning to see that our entire economy is proving impossible without continuous manipulation by the fed

> our entire economy is proving impossible without continuous manipulation by the fed

I don't believe that's the case.

However, once you've put your hand in the meat grinder of debt, what you just said becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Re: Algorithmic stablecoins are provably impossible without continuous funding

#14
post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vitalik says: > While there are plenty of automated stablecoin designs that are fundamentally flawed and doomed to collapse eventually, and plenty more that can survive theoretically but are highly risky, there are also many stablecoins that are highly robust in theory, and have survived extreme tests of crypto market conditions in practice. Hence, what we need is not stablecoin boosterism or stablecoin doomerism, bu…

I don't know if there are many that are robust in theory and in practice. MakerDAI is the only one I can think of that might fall into that category.

Any stablecoin that follows the same logic as DAI (i.e. overcollateralized debt-based stablecoins) could also apply (at least in theory). This includes (but is not limited to) sUSD, MIM, LUSD, MAI, agEUR...

Re: Algorithmic stablecoins are provably impossible without continuous funding

#15
post #7

Not a crypto fan but I'm beginning to see that our entire economy is proving impossible without continuous manipulation by the fed

What does this even mean? How would fiat work without control?

"When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure."

The idea behind prices in a market economy is that they're an information-carrying abstraction. They let producers at every stage of the value chain understand the relative costs that go into different alternate ways of producing a good, without needing to understand every single stage of the supply chain and all the decisions that their suppliers made. And it also gives them information about relative demand, so that producers which make things that nobody want go bankrupt and those make things that lots of people want rake in windfall prices.

The whole point of the Fed is to alter prices, on one hand to keep producers from raking in windfall prices (price stability) and on the other to prevent too many of them from going bankrupt all at once (full unemployment).

Problem is that when you do this too much, for too long, the biggest input to a firm's production decisions becomes the Fed funds rate. When it goes up, time to layoff people, because the cost of capital just went up and you can't do anything without capital. When it goes down, time to go on a hiring frenzy because if there's money for the taking and you're not the one taking it, you get outcompeted by the ones who are. Over time this begins to dominate all other signals that pricing normally provides, like producing goods efficiently and making things lots of people want. You get companies like Uber, which lose money on every transaction but make it up in fundraising.

In turn this increases sensitivity to the Fed's actions, which limits their freedom to take them. If the whole economy breaks when you raise rates to 1.5% (as happened in 2019), it becomes very hard to raise rates above 1.5%. So rates get pegged below the natural rate of interest (which equilibrates supply of savings with demand for productive investment), lots of economically dubious projects get funded, you inflate a perma-bubble, and you can't deflate it without taking down the whole economy.

Re: Algorithmic stablecoins are provably impossible without continuous funding

#16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does this even mean? How would fiat work without control?

"When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure." The idea behind prices in a market economy is that they're an information-carrying abstraction. They let producers at every stage of the value chain understand the relative costs that go into different alternate ways of producing a good, without needing to understand every single stage of the supply chain and all the decisions that their suppliers mad…

> The idea behind prices in a market economy is that they're an information-carrying abstraction.

No, the idea behind prices is that they are what the participants in particular trades think it is worth trading at.

The normative argument for the superiority of laissez-faire economies may involve market prices as an information carrying mechanism, but that normative argument is much newer than market economies, and is not the “idea behind prices in a market economy”. The benefits some people see (or imagine) in something after the fact are not the underlying purpose of the thing.

Re: Algorithmic stablecoins are provably impossible without continuous funding

#17
post #7

Not a crypto fan but I'm beginning to see that our entire economy is proving impossible without continuous manipulation by the fed

> Not a crypto fan but I'm beginning to see that our entire economy is proving impossible without continuous manipulation by the fed Just like driving a car proves impossible without continuous manipulation by its driver.

cue autonomous vehicles.

Seriously though this is a very wrong analogy. The economy is more like an ecosystem where individuals interact with themselves & the environment. It doesn't need continuous manipulation. In fact it tends to distort than aid.

Re: Algorithmic stablecoins are provably impossible without continuous funding

#18
post #7

Not a crypto fan but I'm beginning to see that our entire economy is proving impossible without continuous manipulation by the fed

I don't think anybody operates under the delusion that the Federal Reserve isn't applying policy to the economy? That's in stark contrast to the seemingly common delusion that cryptocurrency economics are uniquely free of manipulation.

Re: Algorithmic stablecoins are provably impossible without continuous funding

#19
Let me share my theory that the economy is impossible or paradoxical and that the American dream is impossible and that everything is built on by faith.

To buy a loaf of bread, the price needs to pay for the wheat, ovens, energy and the employee costs. This relationship is recursion. The staff of the bread company need to afford bread of their own and shelter and energy and transportation.

Everyone is thereby supporting themselves and everyone else with what they purchase. This guarantees poverty as not everyone can scale their earnings to provide for themselves and everyone else as the prices all come from the same money supply. Inflation is baked in. This is why central banks don't want wage growth. If you understand recursion and recursive relationships then you understand that poverty is baked into the system. (Edit: due to not everyone producing more than they cost)

Think what this means for people at the bottom and give to the poor.

Re: Algorithmic stablecoins are provably impossible without continuous funding

#20
post #7

Not a crypto fan but I'm beginning to see that our entire economy is proving impossible without continuous manipulation by the fed

Well duh, that is the whole point of the fed - tweaking the dials to smooth out the peaks and troughs. Sometimes that doesn’t work, or works only after the fact, but the last 70 years or so has been fairly smooth sailing compared to what came before.

The worst is when it works to smoothen out the peaks but the cost is silently screwing over poor people. So everyone at the top can pat themselves on the back, and people in the middle start blaming capitalism.
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