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Things cryptocurrency enthusiasts probably won't tell you

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Re: Things cryptocurrency enthusiasts probably won't tell you

#181

Post by jmcqk6 »

aianus wrote: post #118
prostoalex wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> selling expensive items like gold bars or cash online So as a consumer I finally have the opportunity to buy an expensive item over the Internet, get swindled by an unscrupulous seller sending me an empty box (if anything), and have absolutely no recourse? Is that the value proposition here?

Yes, you have an additional opportunity. You don't have to use it if you're not comfortable with the seller or the chance of being swindled. However, reputation systems seem to work alright, as evidenced by silk road where you really had no recourse but orders did come through. You could also use an escrow service.

Not the commenter you're replying to, but I have to add this.

I'm sure there's been a lot of analysis done with regards to the actual amount of fraud on Silk Road (and it's various incarnations and similar services), right?

There's no way that criminals with even lower oversight behave better.

The idea that you could have an environment where you lack the fraud protections you have in other environments leads to lower fraud rates is absurd, and would require a lot of evidence to demonstrate. An appeal to reputation systems doesn't cut it.

Re: Things cryptocurrency enthusiasts probably won't tell you

#182

Post by walterstucco »

earlz wrote: post #102
walterstucco wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think that the cryptocurrency/blockchain space is the next big thing in the world on-par with the internet with the difference that internet worked exactly as planned from the beginning, had a clear goal and solved a real problem.

Did it though? Sure, the base protocol (TCP/IP) has mostly been unchanged up until IPv6, but the early implementations had plenty of bugs and limitations. And the goals solved were less clear back then as well, especially when BBS etc somewhat directly solved the problem of "get some data from another party without leaving your house" quite simply. Remember, there was once a time where there was no standardized image…

> Did it though? Sure, the base protocol

Yes, it did

Cryptocurrencies are not working right now, not even as intended by their authors

Re: Things cryptocurrency enthusiasts probably won't tell you

#183

Post by aianus »

jmcqk6 wrote: post #181
aianus wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, you have an additional opportunity. You don't have to use it if you're not comfortable with the seller or the chance of being swindled. However, reputation systems seem to work alright, as evidenced by silk road where you really had no recourse but orders did come through. You could also use an escrow service.

Not the commenter you're replying to, but I have to add this. I'm sure there's been a lot of analysis done with regards to the actual amount of fraud on Silk Road (and it's various incarnations and similar services), right? There's no way that criminals with even lower oversight behave better. The idea that you could have an environment where you lack the fraud protections you have in other environments leads to lowe…

> There's no way that criminals with even lower oversight behave better.

There are no bigger criminals with lower oversight than anonymous drug sellers on silk road, and yet most people did get their orders. That was my point.

> The idea that you could have an environment where you lack the fraud protections you have in other environments leads to lower fraud rates is absurd

It's not absurd at all. For example, if you are a legitimate gold seller and you accept credit cards orders with shipping addresses in Romania you will get destroyed by fraud from buyers.

An alternate system where payments are made in Bitcoin results in zero buyer fraud and a reputation system a la Silk Road (plus the ability to sue the non-anonymous seller in court) can reduce the potential for seller fraud to a point where it's worth taking the risk to save X% on the price of your gold.

Re: Things cryptocurrency enthusiasts probably won't tell you

#184

Post by erikpukinskis »

snappyTertle wrote: post #61
earlz wrote: post #22

I think that the cryptocurrency/blockchain space is the next big thing in the world on-par with the internet. But it still has a long way to go. In the late 90s you could say "X on the internet" and get tons of investment. Now it's the same but with "X on the blockchain". We are going through growing pains now, and there definitely needs to be some regulation introduced to curb the many scams. My personal hope though…

People should take responsibility for their own actions. A lot of ICOs are fluff and high risk. People should be aware of that before they invest. If they don't do their research, they shouldn't blame lack of regulation for their laziness. How would regulation fix this? Who would enforce regulations? You would necessarily have to centralize things and hand over power to an authority. This would defeat the purpose of…

> How would regulation fix this?

Two ways I'm aware of:

1) Require documentation ahead of time that will make prosecution harder after the fact. Without documentation scammers can just say "oops, we lost our client database" or "oops, we never recorded a document for that investor". You can still commit fraud while submitting heavy documentation, but it gets harder not to paint yourself into a lie.

2) Firewalls between parts of an ecosystem. Maybe it's problematic for and exchange to trade a security it itself issued. You make that illegal, and then colluding entities need to communicate across corporate boundaries, which is harder to keep hidden.

I sort of agree with you that this runs counter to decentralization. But the decentralization community has yet to implement voluntary versions of these things. Where's the crypto SEC that I can opt into which maintains strict reporting and audit requirements tied to the issuer's financial stake? Until we have credible versions of that I don't see how we can say we don't need the SEC.

Re: Things cryptocurrency enthusiasts probably won't tell you

#185

Post by mrep »

Tepix wrote: post #180
joosters wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the exchange fees magically vanished?

You can transfer money to Coinbase for free with a SEPA transfer. Transfer from Coinbase to GDAX for free. Buy crypto currency without fees by placing maker orders on GDAX. Then transfer the crypto coins into your own wallet without a fee.

Wow, that sounds insanely complex not to mention risky due to all the hacks cryptocurrencies have suffered.

I'll take my safe and free direct deposit. I actually had a case where a bank teller gave me the wrong state's routing number because she thought my account should be based in the one she lived and not the one that was set up. My entire month's pay went to the wrong account and I freaked out when i figured out what happened. I went to a chase bank and explained the problem, they found the money in the other account and were able to send it into mine.

Screw up the bitcoin address in any one of those transactions and your money is permanently gone.

Re: Things cryptocurrency enthusiasts probably won't tell you

#186

Post by ebcode »

joosters wrote: post #157
xwvvvvwx wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm very interested to see how far things can be decentralised. I have no real ideas what this would look like but I wonder if there are decentralised approaches to regulation that would work (community decides together who the bad actors are?)

I'm very interested to see how far things can be decentralised. The problem is that crypto people seem overly keen on decentralising without thinking whether or not there is an actual advantage in doing so, or whether the advantages might outweigh the disadvantages. There is an unfortunate viewpoint that decentralisation is just always a "good thing".

> There is an unfortunate viewpoint that decentralisation is just always a "good thing".

Well, to put cryptocurrency in its historical context, the design-decision to make the architecture of the internet(/darpanet) decentralized was because of the very real and persistent possibility of global thermonuclear war. If you want your computer networks to stay up after NY, DC and SF have all been wiped off the map, decentralization is fairly key.

So I would say yeah, the world has changed, and decentralization is now always a good thing. It's not just "crypto people", it's "people"[0] carrying on in "software"[1] what is already a decades-old trend in computer networking.

[0,1] scare quotes because people and software are both scary

Re: Things cryptocurrency enthusiasts probably won't tell you

#187

Post by RationPhantoms »

4010dell wrote: post #98

This article should be the README before getting into Crypto world. First article to point out 21.co. What is their product ??? Read on twitter - A guy asked MA a question for 100$ on 21.co platform, got "NO" as answer. 100$ for a NO...So a guy spent his hard earned 100$ on a question to a VC. VC made money, Donated that to charity to show off and gather "philanthropy" point in his smug circle, got tax savings maybe,…

But 21.co has a legitimate business model. They should have some sort of 3rd party metric guaranteeing a quality answer but I definitely like the premise.

Re: Things cryptocurrency enthusiasts probably won't tell you

#188

Post by gnaritas »

swfsql wrote: post #175
gnaritas wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bitcoin was a security the second it came into existence. The law doesn't need to retroactively be applied, it always applied. New things aren't somehow immune from existing law because they haven't been explicitly named by the law. The law doesn't need to say "crypto's are securities" for crytpo's to be securities. Don't confuse regulators clarifying how they're going to enforce the law with changes in the law. Thos…

> The law doesn't need to retroactively be applied, it always applied. New things aren't somehow immune from existing law because they haven't been explicitly named by the law. The law doesn't need to say "crypto's are securities" for crytpo's to be securities. How about.. when a law is wrong? or if it's not just? or is changed, for this matter? since you think it's retroactively applied, which way or which one of 2…

The law isn't wrong, bitcoin is obviously a financial security and always was from its inception. Nothing is being retroactively applied here. The only issue here is cryto fans odd beliefs thinking crypto is somehow immune to existing regulations.
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