21–30 of 36 posts
Increasing the number of people using the dollar is at least a clear goal considering how often we inject it into countries and governments around the world. In 2020 you don’t conquer with guns, you conquer by economic dependence.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Bitcoin was created to solve micro transactions. https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf The cost of mediation increases transaction costs, limiting the minimum practical transaction size and cutting off the possibility for small casual transactions, and there is a broader cost in the loss of ability to make non-reversible payments for non- reversible services. It’s the community that pivoted to something else. PS: Two diffe…
The average bitcoin transaction cost was over $1.50 last month, and it can only handle a maximum of about 7 transactions a second. Why would bitcoin be good for small transaction? https://ycharts.com/indicators/bitcoin_average_transaction_f...
In theory a miner wants to have the highest number of profitable transactions possible, but we ended up with collusion to drive up prices and thus miner proffits.
I have been wondering why the US doesn't make a trial crypto dollar. If it doesn't work out what is the cost? Relatively nothing. If it does work out? it would strengthen the USD position as the global settlements layer and give the US control over a new monetary domain. For examples of this see LIBOR/"Eurodollar"
Why? What extra functionality does creating a cryptocurrency enable?
What I find really surprising is that the government hasn't created a set of standardized APIs for financial transactions, flowing through traditional web/cloud/mobile tech. From a tax collection/enforcement perspective, it would seem to be in their interest to make "smart money" with convenient P2P digital transactions. Given the transparent corruption between Washington and banking institutions, I wonder if they don't want to risk being disinter-mediated, or if no politicians have even tried to pursue such a thing (the closest being Warren's plans to add banking services to USPS, which I think is a great idea).
The killer app was supposed to be DAOs, ICOs, and decentralized finance/web 3.0. Instead we got another asset bubble. This is why we can’t have nice things.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why? What extra functionality does creating a cryptocurrency enable?
It's often forgotten that the only real benefit of blockchains is that they are distributed; one can implement all the same functionality using centralized databases. What I find really surprising is that the government hasn't created a set of standardized APIs for financial transactions, flowing through traditional web/cloud/mobile tech. From a tax collection/enforcement perspective, it would seem to be in their int…
I don’t really see why the govt. would need to create such a system; the private banking and consumer finance space has been doing an acceptable job so far.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's often forgotten that the only real benefit of blockchains is that they are distributed; one can implement all the same functionality using centralized databases. What I find really surprising is that the government hasn't created a set of standardized APIs for financial transactions, flowing through traditional web/cloud/mobile tech. From a tax collection/enforcement perspective, it would seem to be in their int…
I think blockchain fans consistently overstate the utility of distributed processing from the end users perspective. Any blockchain payment system I’ve seen was strictly inferior to existing mechanisms. I don’t really see why the govt. would need to create such a system; the private banking and consumer finance space has been doing an acceptable job so far.
Moreover, as BTC mining consolidation demonstrates, it's certainly possible that distributed systems tend to devolve to quasi-centralized systems with extra steps (Exhibit B: GitHub massively dominating the "distributed" git ecosystem).
> the private banking and consumer finance space has been doing an acceptable job so far
...really? Can I join you in your alternate universe? :) The fact that none of the consumer payment systems (PayPal/Venmo/etc) interoperate with one another is nothing short of embarrassing in 2020. Or the fact that ACH doesn't operate on weekends or holidays, as though all transactions were still processed by humans working M-F 9-5. And that's saying nothing of the missed opportunity for smart money / smart contracts to be baked into USD itself.
We don't need blockchains to upgrade money; just government mandates/incentives for standardized APIs to be implemented by banks and user-facing applications.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think blockchain fans consistently overstate the utility of distributed processing from the end users perspective. Any blockchain payment system I’ve seen was strictly inferior to existing mechanisms. I don’t really see why the govt. would need to create such a system; the private banking and consumer finance space has been doing an acceptable job so far.
While I favor "distributed all the things" from a political/ideological perspective, it indeed carries massive performance and utility tradeoffs, compared to centralized solutions, and is very difficult to sell to end users without a critical mass of adoption / network effects. Moreover, as BTC mining consolidation demonstrates, it's certainly possible that distributed systems tend to devolve to quasi-centralized sys…
The unavailability of ACH on the weekends is less of a protocol problem and more of a habitual problem; bank transfers used to require people doing work by hand, and that habit remained.
I think smart contracts have proven themselves to be significantly less useful than originally anticipated.
The killer app was supposed to be DAOs, ICOs, and decentralized finance/web 3.0. Instead we got another asset bubble. This is why we can’t have nice things.
Crypto going mainstream will happen. It will happen when debit cards to crypto accounts will pay merchants, and the merchants receive USD. AND when the rates are tiny.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The average bitcoin transaction cost was over $1.50 last month, and it can only handle a maximum of about 7 transactions a second. Why would bitcoin be good for small transaction? https://ycharts.com/indicators/bitcoin_average_transaction_f...
The theory was bitcoin would have low overhead as the only limit was machine time which should be cheap. However, an artificial transaction limit was created which creates artificial scarcity and thus high transaction fees. In theory a miner wants to have the highest number of profitable transactions possible, but we ended up with collusion to drive up prices and thus miner proffits.
? there's nothing artificial about a transaction limit. it is p2p and fault tolerant, and there's no such thing as unlimited data storage yet. this is by design.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The average bitcoin transaction cost was over $1.50 last month, and it can only handle a maximum of about 7 transactions a second. Why would bitcoin be good for small transaction? https://ycharts.com/indicators/bitcoin_average_transaction_f...
The theory was bitcoin would have low overhead as the only limit was machine time which should be cheap. However, an artificial transaction limit was created which creates artificial scarcity and thus high transaction fees. In theory a miner wants to have the highest number of profitable transactions possible, but we ended up with collusion to drive up prices and thus miner proffits.