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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

#231

Post by SomeCallMeTim »

dogman144 wrote: post #153
SomeCallMeTim wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that crypto doesn't really solve those problems either . As the article says far more eloquently. I understand that you are saying you were burned by a central authority. But the truth is that the only way to get everything to work is with a central authority. The article gives examples of crypto being fully reliant on central authorities, for instance. Everything being done by crypto today could be do…

His example and your support is mixing up central authorities that matter for crypto. Crypto companies with legal exposure? Yes can be censored. Open source crypto protocols? As long as raspberry pi’s and digital comms exist, it’s akin to saying the govt can shut down Linux. This is the censorship resistance that matters. It’s not perfect (some ungodly amount of nodes are in AWS and the Trail of Bits report did a goo…

Open source crypto protocols are completely irrelevant without connections to crypto companies.

There's this fantasy that crypto can replace money, and that you would therefore never need to trade it for real dollars. That's not going to happen, for reasons outlined in the article and because no medium of exchange that's deflationary can ever be a currency.

If it goes up in value over time, it's an investment and people won't spend it.

Will the open source be free forever? Sure. Whatever. Can people run nodes that burn electricity? Yup. Does that matter? In no way that's relevant to the general public.

Worse, even the crypto networks themselves are subject to issues with their authority: Enough bad actors who join can steal the value of a large percentage of the network.

When we're looking at potential theft of billions of dollars, you better bet that someone will invest the hundreds of millions required to rewrite the chain and take control of a large number of coins.

Then what? Then everyone will need to get together and act like a central authority to either rewrite the chain back to its state before the attack, in which case you do need to rely on a central authority, or you need to admit that _allowing untrusted nodes into a financial network is a Bad Idea._

"Censorship resistance" is irrelevant too, by the way.

Re: The endless search for a crypto use case

#232

Post by anonymoushn »

lern_too_spel wrote: post #225
anonymoushn wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I have some good news and some bad news. The good news is that I have discovered that it is in fact legal to pay contractors in these countries. The bad news is that I also recently paid a local moving company for a move and purchased some onigiri at a convenience store without personally verifying that these businesses and their employees pay their taxes. Feel free to report me to the kōban.

Re: The endless search for a crypto use case

#233

Post by asah »

majewsky wrote: post #164
asah wrote: post #92

Truly 24x7x365 instant banking is a pretty great use case. TradFi isn't close.

SEPA Instant Credit Transfer [1] has a soft limit of 10 seconds and hard limit of 20 seconds for money transfers between accounts of different banks. What's the use case for "faster than 10 seconds"? [1] https://www.europeanpaymentscouncil.eu/what-we-do/sepa-insta...

Nice.

But the other cool thing about crypto is that it's programmable, so you can arrange 100s of transactions between parties. Micro finance loans, royalties and distribution, etc etc

Re: The endless search for a crypto use case

#234

Post by imtringued »

NikolaNovak wrote: post #154
game-of-throws wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My theory is that the likelihood someone understands the use cases is inversely correlated to their trust in government. For example: https://www.bbc.com/news/business-60912789 These articles all follow a common pattern. 1. The trigger – Inflation/distrust in government/bank withdrawal restrictions/paypal freezes your funds/country is at war/etc 2. The response – People gravitate towards a system that is resilient to…

I'm originally from Bosnia / Ex-Yugoslavia. Experienced hyperinflation, experienced civil war, experienced buying bread with 200,000 dinars one year and 2,000,000 next year etc. Experienced scary people with guns knocking at your door. My family and their ancestors all lost all their money and possessions numerous times over the last 100 years, including in the mid-90's. And yet, I feel it's the people IN position of…

Every time I am running a mental simulation about using a different currency as medium of exchange I come to the conclusion that the moment the government bans the currency, your network of people who will openly admit to accepting the currency will shrink to nothing. Yes you can't enforce the law on the Blockchain but you can still enforce the law in the physical store.

Re: The endless search for a crypto use case

#235

Post by imtringued »

majewsky wrote: post #136
game-of-throws wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If someone is trying to escape their local currency, they won't want an on/off ramp. In foreign nations with a large underground USD economy, people skip the local currency and trade/spend USD directly. The same could happen with BTC. In fact in the most extreme cases this transformation is already happening: https://www.reuters.com/technology/venezuelas-economy-regres... > But a major part of Venezuela's crypto oper…

How can everyone convert bolivars into bitcoin? That would imply that equal amounts of bitcoin are being sold by someone in exchange for bolivar. Who is that and why do they think it's a good deal?

People who spend it before it gets inflated but yes you are right, if everyone is posting sell orders and nobody is picking those up then the Bolivar will plummet vs Bitcoin.

Re: The endless search for a crypto use case

#236

Post by imtringued »

immigrantheart wrote: post #99
game-of-throws wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My theory is that the likelihood someone understands the use cases is inversely correlated to their trust in government. For example: https://www.bbc.com/news/business-60912789 These articles all follow a common pattern. 1. The trigger – Inflation/distrust in government/bank withdrawal restrictions/paypal freezes your funds/country is at war/etc 2. The response – People gravitate towards a system that is resilient to…

This is the only right answer. Pack it up. For real, every time I try to answer my I do crypto, often people just don't understand. They just don't. They just don't understand why I don't trust entities. If you don't understand this, then you don't understand crypto. Period. There is no other debate necessary. Period. Full stop. We go on our own way. Full stop.

Can you trust your local supermarket to accept Bitcoin if it is banned? The point of a currency is primarily to facilitate trade, everything on top of that is just there to make the process more efficient and lower transaction costs.

I personally think Bitcoin is a terrible currency for non speculative trading due to scaling problems and it's volatility.

Your own way is a deadend. There is nothing there. A currency is about relationships and trust. You can't own those things, you can at best only enforce them against people's will if they don't maintain them voluntarily.

Re: The endless search for a crypto use case

#237

Post by imtringued »

dogman144 wrote: post #153
SomeCallMeTim wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that crypto doesn't really solve those problems either . As the article says far more eloquently. I understand that you are saying you were burned by a central authority. But the truth is that the only way to get everything to work is with a central authority. The article gives examples of crypto being fully reliant on central authorities, for instance. Everything being done by crypto today could be do…

His example and your support is mixing up central authorities that matter for crypto. Crypto companies with legal exposure? Yes can be censored. Open source crypto protocols? As long as raspberry pi’s and digital comms exist, it’s akin to saying the govt can shut down Linux. This is the censorship resistance that matters. It’s not perfect (some ungodly amount of nodes are in AWS and the Trail of Bits report did a goo…

Banning Linux would result in stagnating development because most Linux developers do not want criminal prosecution. Only the most diehard contributers would remain. No more drivers upstreamed from vendors.

Re: The endless search for a crypto use case

#238

Post by imtringued »

silentsea90 wrote: post #67
rvz wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And on the other side of the ring, we have the anti-crypto absolutists who will do anything to: 'ban all crypto, 100%' , 'destroy all of it' , 'let it all die in a fire' , which I'm afraid is as equally delusional as the crypto utopians who believing that Bitcoin will be the world reserve currency. The truth of the matter is, both of these extreme camps are going to be very disappointed in the future.

What makes you think BTC utopians are going to be disappointed?

If the USD collapses the US will just issue a new currency and it's domestic economy will remain even if the might of the dollar in the global economy is gone.

Re: The endless search for a crypto use case

#239

Post by LatteLazy »

TremendousJudge wrote: post #187
LatteLazy wrote: post #13

The most interesting thing about Crypto is how much zeal it brings out BOTH for those in favour and those against it. If you think it has no use case, don't use it. If you think it does have a use case and you need that, use it.

I would be happy to ignore them, if it wasn't that: - They are always pushing their ideology into the spaces I frequent, forcing me to engage in some way, and - They vent their mining CO2 to the same planet where I happen to live.

You could say the exact same thing about basically any activity though. I have zero interest in watching sports, yet "they" insist on putting it on TV and pumping out CO2 for stadiums etc.

Personally, I think that's the right mindset to take here: I don't see the point, but people are allowed to do things I don't see the point of so

Re: The endless search for a crypto use case

#240

Post by olalonde »

bagacrap wrote: post #227
olalonde wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

My point was that this is not the entire point of crypto.
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