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Why blockchain is not yet working (2018)

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Re: Why blockchain is not yet working (2018)

#201

Post by AngrySkillzz »

playingchanges wrote: post #185
throw0101a wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The market cap is a counter argument because it shows the trust people See also Enron, WorldCom, Nortel, Bre-X (for the Canadians out there). > […] and lately corporations put into Bitcoin as a store of wealth and a hedge against inflation. Given its volatility, I'm not sure how useful it is as a store of wealth. Less than a year ago it lost half its value in two days (before the recent run-up): * https://www.cnbc.…

Funny I actually viewed the 2020 BTC drawdown (and subsequent rapid recovery) as my number one buy signal for the current crypto bull market. In a time period when the Dow loses almost 13% in a single day and the fed has to use every move in the playbook to maintain liquidity, crypto holds its own with no fed assistance at all. As for inflation, I’m guessing the exact opposite argument to yours was being made in the…

Or you could say that cryptocurrencies are incredibly correlated with the stock market and thus don't actually serve as a hedge for risk at all

Re: Why blockchain is not yet working (2018)

#202

Post by pavlov »

hanniabu wrote: post #169
pavlov wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This claim is often made and it just makes no sense to me. Let’s say I’m invoicing someone abroad for $100k USD. Today they send me a wire transfer. It costs about 25 USD (fixed fee, but in this case 0.025% of the transaction, i.e. negligible) and normally completes the same day. The payment is made in the currency of my invoice, so I’m guaranteed to receive the right amount. (Any currency exchange is the sender’s re…

If it wasn't an issue then this wouldn't be happening: https://news.bitcoin.com/central-bank-of-nigeria-orders-bank...

An African central bank is suspicious of cryptocurrency. How is that somehow evidence that wire transfers are difficult?

I guess if the use case is “I want to send $1M from Iran to an American who will distribute the money to Nigerian accounts”... Then yes, that is presumably easier to execute in crypto. But there are also pretty good reasons why countries want to keep an eye on that kind of flows.

Re: Why blockchain is not yet working (2018)

#203

Post by imtringued »

Melting_Harps wrote: post #131
tsimionescu wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> help create an automated arbitration system, divorced entirely from the whims of Mankind No. That is simply not possible with anything resembling today's technology. We'll have flying cars on a Mars city before automated arbitration on real world matters. > help build the future we all want and maybe have a chance of creating a post-scarce World. Except fixed supply currency is going back in the other direction. An…

> No. That is simply not possible with anything resembling today's technology. We'll have flying cars on a Mars city before automated arbitration on real world matters. I don't disagree about its current feasibility, but I think that's mainly so because of a distortion of incentives and that so many are invested in this model (the few) despite how horrible it is (to the detriment of the many) as so many people are in…

>>This smacks of outright detached privilege only HNers can conjure up from its ivory tower, go to countries that suffer from hyperinflation and still suffer from severe capital controls after that period all of which prevent wealth creation before you make such a claim.

Hyperinflation is merely the symptom. If you think you can cure a failed state by treating it's symptoms you are just going to make things worse through ignorance.

>What you have just said is just beyond belief and I cannot seriously take what you say serious.

The unfortunate reality is that the problems lie much deeper than in just something as irrelevant as the currency.

Think about it. If you can buy 10kg of laundry detergent for $1 how come that country didn't simply export its ultra cheap products and grew its economy that way? You know, like China. Why is China different? It's easy. China had competition in Hong Kong and an easy model to copy and most importantly, the government did copy the working model and invested into a capitalist China.

Here's the thing. Governments can make and break their countries. A crappy deflationary currency will never achieve anything.

Re: Why blockchain is not yet working (2018)

#204

Post by AngrySkillzz »

janoc wrote: post #128
RurouniK wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait until you find out what happens when people try to take out their money all at once from banks... I remember back in the day when people used to call early internet users internetfreaks and zealots. Now it's the same with Bitcoin. Whatever...

Yes, we all remember well what happened e.g. with Mt Gox. Not sure what your point here is - as if panic and runs on the banks were somehow magically prevented by crypto.

And the hilarious part is, we actually have regulations like capital requirements and FDIC insurance and central bank lenders-of-last-resort to prevent bank runs? Whereas crypto has... none of that? And unaudited Tether pumping >$1B into the crypto ecosystem every week

Re: Why blockchain is not yet working (2018)

#205

Post by m3kw9 »

hanniabu wrote: post #168
m3kw9 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was once I transferred money from Bitcoin to a Bitcoin cash address accidentally. The money was lost forever. It was a weird reason due to being syncing , but yeah you could lose money just like that while most people wouldn’t be able to explain it or understand it.

That has been solved with more user friendly wallets. If you're using a Qt wallet you'd think you knew what you were doing. The Qt wallet actually even tells you not to do anything until it's done syncing so you must have closed that overlay and ignored that warning. User error, that's your fault.

Actually i got no such warning. But your explanation re-enforces how easy things can go wrong.

Re: Why blockchain is not yet working (2018)

#206

Post by meowkit »

zaphar wrote: post #173
jcfrei wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the typical argument on a very technical board such as HN where blockchain is synonymous with a specific implementation. But that's an outdated way to think about blockchains. Yes, Bitcoin's implementation is a huge resource hog and slow. But for most newer projects "blockchain" just means an auditable trail of state changes. Whether you implement this with the shiniest newest db paradigm or some simple SQL d…

If you claim that a blockchain is just an auditable trail of state changes (i.e. a Merkle tree) Then the proponents of blockchain technology chime in on how it's more than just that. It's also a matter of consensus for that technology. And in point of fact the consensus mechanisms of most blockchains are terrible. Highly inefficient, vulnerable to majority attacks for different types. The "idea" of a globally consist…

Of course its inefficient. Thats the tradeoff.

I guess servers are terrible computers too because you can’t carry them in your pocket?

Or phones are terrible computers because they can only stay powered for a day or two?

Blockchain is horribly inefficient in almost every regard. But thats the trade off.

Re: Why blockchain is not yet working (2018)

#207

Post by [deleted] »

packetlost wrote: post #122
lima wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the technology is broken beyond fixability [citation needed] Crypto ideologues are a strawman. Anyone working on the actual tech agrees that blockchains are useful if, and only if, you can't rely on a single party and need a decentralized, trustless append-only database. Otherwise, why bother with the extra complexity? That's the whole point of blockchains, after all. Technology choices are complex set of trade-off…

Correct. The problem is there's virtually nothing that actually benefits from those things. A strong case case could be made for a truly decentralized global currency and maybe smart-contracts, but not "a store of value" or "revolutionizing supply chain bookkeeping".

[deleted]

Re: Why blockchain is not yet working (2018)

#208

Post by AngrySkillzz »

scsilver wrote: post #143
loceng wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's been research done to show that multiple times just a few people manipulated the price of Bitcoin to its heights - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-01-14/research-... - and the Bitcoin community main mantra is "HODL" and they call themselves the "army of the HODLers" for a reason: they're waiting for enough of society to be manipulated/trick people into thinking the history of the "steady" increas…

The money transfered from late adopters to early adopters is the massive amounts of old money mad from the wealth of kingdoms and colonialization. Personally I think having an infinitely divisible, fixed asset, protected by cryptography and not statutes, is a democratic upheaval of captured financial systems. You dont need blood, legacy, heritage to capture these assets, just information. Maybe having physical wealth…

citation needed, most of the increases in global wealth and output are due to technological innovation and increased trade and improved governance. If you are going to claim that all the worlds wealth is just extractive you are going to need a big source for that. Most economic historians disagree with you.

Re: Why blockchain is not yet working (2018)

#209

Post by meowkit »

ashtonkem wrote: post #190
jcfrei wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm absolutely aware of the shortcomings of the currently most popular blockchain technologies. But calling specific implementations (like Bitcoin or Ethereum) a failure when people are paying thousands of dollars each block to use it is pretty bold.

> But calling specific implementations (like Bitcoin or Ethereum) a failure when people are paying thousands of dollars each block to use it is pretty bold. And people were willing to pay hundreds of dollars for plush toys with the appropriate tags preserved in plastic. Bubbles are a thing, and the crowd can be wrong. To pretend otherwise is silly. More fundamentally, the original promise of Bitcoin was that it would…

And there are cryptos like Nano that fulfill this original promise.

Technology evolves over time. Just because its not perfect at the first go, doesn’t mean it should go in the trash.

Re: Why blockchain is not yet working (2018)

#210

Post by imtringued »

slim wrote: post #194
jokethrowaway wrote: post #78

Bitcoin is the mongodb of finance: You like its features but in reality most people don't need them. Mongo's scalability sounds great until you find yourself reimplementing a relational database for your 1000 users app. Bitcoin decentralisation sounds great but must people don't need it. You just need a less evil and less corrupt government and better fintech. You're curing the symptoms, not the cause.

Bitcoin decentralisation sounds great but must people don't need it. You just need a less evil and less corrupt government and better fintech. your second sentence inadvertently convinced me I need bitcoin

That less corrupt government will provide 1000% gains for everyone. Bitcoin will give that only to those who buy it aka rich people.
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