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The endless search for a crypto use case

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Re: The endless search for a crypto use case

#221

Post by zen_1 »

NikolaNovak wrote: post #95
snapcaster wrote: post #3

I mean it has good use cases they're not just the ones that scheme promoters want to be true. I know TFA pokes some holes in the censorship resistance attribute of bitcoin but i think everyone can agree it does provide value transfer solution that is much harder to block than Visa/Stripe/etc. 1). Silk Road or dark net markets in general. Can't be done with Visa or other existing solutions at any kind of scale 2). Fun…

>>These people got blocked by traditional payment providers but still received crypto. I thought their crypto payments were tracked (open ledger) and basically nixxed? I.e. this was the grand counter-example of crypto use case :- We can discuss our personal opinion on the Canadian protests of Winter of 2022, but I strongly believe that for average citizen, Crypto payments leave a HUGE exposure / attack surface. YES,…

That's not a trait of crypto in general, just bitcoin (and ETH, and most other non privacy-focused coins). Take a look at Monero or ZCash to see how untraceable the trucker convoy (or similar) donations would have been if they had just used a different cryptocurrency.

Re: The endless search for a crypto use case

#222

Post by Gazoche »

whitepaint wrote: post #69

Ens domains, PoolTogether, Aave and more: https://ethereum.org/en/dapps/ Have these people writing these kind of articles ever downloaded a browser wallet and played around with Defi? The amount of ignorance here is staggering. How is it on HN? HN is supposed to be a place for people who are tech savvy and are able to think about the future and imagine it different from yesterday.

* Ens domains: so it's sort of a DNS for cypto resources? Cool I guess, but it has no use outside of the crypto space.

* PoolTogether: that's literally a lottery. Hardly an innovation.

* Aave: oh, _another_ crypto lending platform. Aside from the fact that most of these are Ponzi/scams that have collapsed in spectacular fashion recently (see Anchor, Celsius, etc), this is another app that only exists within crypto to earn more crypto.

Those 3 examples illustrate the problem of "dApps". There may be a vibrant ecosystem of idea and apps, but when you try to unwind them you realize most of them are entirely self-referential within the crypto ecosystem and there's no utility connecting them to the real world. That's because the few apps that do try to connect to the real world quickly realize that the space of problems that can actually be solved by crypto there is ridiculously small.

Re: The endless search for a crypto use case

#223

Post by xcavier »

Personally I am curious why no one is exploring the M2M applications of crypto.

If we look forward to the time all (most?) vehicles are autonomous, I can see a need for a ‘market mechanism’ which allows vehicles to request/cede priority.

Driver A wants to get to Point B in a hurry, so has an incentive to request Drivers C and D to allow their vehicle to pass. If Drivers C and D have no rush, they accept the incentive. Crypto (or a similar token), handled by the vehicles, enable this.

Re: The endless search for a crypto use case

#224

Post by silentsea90 »

Aunche wrote: post #189
silentsea90 wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Price of Bitcoin inflating at the same rate as fiat printing = Bitcoin deflating while fiat inflates. That's good right?

My point is that there is no reason for the price of Bitcoin to inflate alongside actual commodities, which is validated by the fact that BTC fell while inflation rose. Gold similarly has a low correlation with inflation.

In the short term, absolutely no asset class is immune to fed monetary policy ie interest rates, QE/QT. In the long run, fiat has only lost value relative to all hard assets (gold, RE, Bitcoin etc) I'm not sure how what you're saying is an indictment of Bitcoin or gold.

Re: The endless search for a crypto use case

#225

Post by lern_too_spel »

anonymoushn wrote: post #216
lern_too_spel wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You stated that you are directly paying these employees without the facilitator who was previously paying the payroll taxes on your behalf.

You should perhaps read the comment again? The comment mentions two disjoint sets of people who are presently paid in different ways. It does not mention any transition of any people between the sets.

The second set of people must also be paid according to the laws of the country they are currently residing in. By paying them without informing the country, you are skirting its laws and doing so in a way that is easily tracked.

Re: The endless search for a crypto use case

#226

Post by bagacrap »

otikik wrote: post #140

It has the same use case as snake oil. With some extra turns: * A pyramidal scheme (with extra steps) "buy this, the price is always going up" * You are doing this on a parallel market where authorities have little/no vision (yet). * Plus you are marketing it to people who are distrustful of authorities The last two points seem especially tailored to make scams and deception go unpunished.

pretty sure authorities have plenty of visibility into Bitcoin. It's pretty hard to turn it into fiat after you steal it, and turn it into fiat you must if you wish to spend it

Re: The endless search for a crypto use case

#227

Post by bagacrap »

olalonde wrote: post #115
JohnFen wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem, though, is that you give up the benefits of working within a regulated system. Things like being able to stop or reverse mistaken or fraudulent transfers, protections from fraud, protections from whoever is handling your money for you (with crypto, someone is still handling your money for you) going out of business, etc. Everything has an upside and a downside. But in the regulated system, you at least h…

By government's hands being out of Bitcoin, I was mostly referring to its fixed money supply and the fact that its "permissionless", like cash. > Things like being able to stop or reverse mistaken or fraudulent transfers, protections from fraud, protections from whoever is handling your money for you (with crypto, someone is still handling your money for you) going out of business, etc. That's only true when you do o…

visa and Mastercard can unilaterally reverse transactions whereas the entire point of crypto is that there's no centralized authority that can rewrite history

Re: The endless search for a crypto use case

#228

Post by bagacrap »

uoaei wrote: post #141
olalonde wrote: post #14

To me, the fact that Bitcoin is a money out of the hands of governments, or anyone really, is the use case. It's also cool that you can use your brain to effectively store your money. Of course, if you believe that governments are good stewards of money, you will probably not find a use case.

As soon as it becomes big enough, the US govt has the power and ability to effectively 51% the entire network. They haven't yet only because it doesn't threaten the dollar.

or just, you know, make it illegal, immediately shutting down Coinbase and cutting off the law abiding 99% of the population from using it. What is the value of a Bitcoin after it's banned by one or more major countries?

Re: The endless search for a crypto use case

#229

Post by bagacrap »

silentsea90 wrote: post #76
TremendousJudge wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it really? If you can't change it for goods and services before turning it back into regular, government controlled currency, is it out of the hands of governments? If China can get all the miners to move to Kazakhstan, were they ever out of government control?

You may have answered your own question. You don't need to turn it back into fiat for it to be used in the long run. Lightning network makes txns quick and cheap, and BTC volatility has been going down enough that it isn't hard to imagine it being stabler short term against fiat (though long term it will gain value as fiat collapses)

btc volatility has been going down? is this a joke? it's worth a third of what it was less than a year ago.

plus every time I sell or transfer, it's a taxable event, which makes use as a currency incredibly onerous

Re: The endless search for a crypto use case

#230

Post by bagacrap »

sputknick wrote: post #142

Disclaimer: I was an early investor, and still "hodl" crypto, so I'm not without my bias. Dating a viable use case versus other tech depends on when you set the creation date. The internet wasn't commercially viable for its first 25 years. Also we are getting closer and closer to a viable use case for the most basic use case for crypto, payments. Solana Pay and a few others have working products, the problem is netwo…

huh? visa pays me 2%, not the other way around. I don't pay 2% more when I use my cc instead of cash, rather, I receive rewards. You could claim that the grocery store has to increase prices due to the fees that visa charges them, but I think you'd be wrong: visa provides a service that is cheaper than the store handling cash (security, transportation, slower transactions etc). Visa also provides a service to me, which is that if someone steals my card and buys groceries, I can get my money back. No crypto system will ever support that.
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