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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

#241

Post by olalonde »

fortuna86 wrote: post #122
olalonde wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Specifically they don’t understand why it is the way it is. It didn’t just magically appear this way full of obvious flaws. It grew over thousands of years That's just an argument in defense of status quo. It's actually pretty common for industry outsiders to disrupt old industries. Think Uber/Airbnb/Facebook/Tesla, etc. Thousand year old industries get disrupted all the time.

> Thousand year old industries get disrupted all the time. They really don't. The fundamentals of banking as an industry haven't changed in hundreds if not thousands of years. Real estate, etc.

Up until few years ago, banking required trust. That's a pretty big fundamental.

Re: The endless search for a crypto use case

#242

Post by soco »

colordrops wrote: post #183
NikolaNovak wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Your story is an anecdote, and an interesting one, but not sure if your conclusions are valid. Crypto is used in China for subverting government oversight, and they are far more advanced than Bosnia at digital control.

And what do you think, they are successful because the crypto schemes are so powerful, or because the CCP is letting them go with it?

Re: The endless search for a crypto use case

#243

Post by olalonde »

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.

So what? It would cost like 50+ billion dollars to censor the network for a few hours until the mining algorithm is changed.

Re: The endless search for a crypto use case

#244

Post by evelynsalt »

Crypto uses less energy than huge data-centers. Hear me out: Proof-of-Stake is more energy efficient than a data-center and runs on small devices like Raspberry Pi. Modern blockchains like MINA only store the ZK proof for the whole chain, so, even the storage requirements are very minimal.

Already a 6 kW rack will soon cost 7500 Euro in Germany. After that that will be the case around the world. That is when Web 3.0 will make a comeback.

Re: The endless search for a crypto use case

#245

Post by olalonde »

Synaesthesia wrote: post #145
nmilo wrote: post #112

The author somehow misses the number one use case of crypto: as a currency. You can buy things with Bitcoin right now. Therefore each bitcoin has a value. You can move bitcoins around to move value around. Simple as that. The only problem is that, yes, it is indeed early. I don't know why the author brings up the App Store, as if both Bitcoin and the iPhone App Store are even remotely comparable just because they cam…

Sure but with the various transaction fees, exchange fees and waiting time for confirmation, and price instability, isn't it easier to just use existing financial services to buy things?

Maybe if you are not one of the billions of unbanked people.

Re: The endless search for a crypto use case

#246

Post by olalonde »

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…

> And yet, I feel it's the people IN position of Western privilege, who have NOT experienced actual 'dystopian future', and what a hostile government actually CAN do, and what living under duress is ACTUALLY like

A lot of the arguments in this thread could apply to free speech as well. Pretty scary how many HNers feel that way.

Re: The endless search for a crypto use case

#247

Post by arbol »

bagacrap wrote: post #230
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, whi…

> if someone steals my card and buys groceries, I can get my money back. No crypto system will ever support that.

Why not? If it's been implemented by VISA then it can be implemented elsewhere. Your essentially talking about insurance and risk management, both of which can be done on-chain.

Re: The endless search for a crypto use case

#248

Post by arbol »

majewsky wrote: post #160
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…

What's the business incentive for a validator to charge that much lower costs? If they know they have the cheapest offering on the market already, it doesn't make business sense to undercut Visa by that much (or, at most, to only undercut them until they've achieved monopoly).

The price comes from the number of Validators offering their service. If there are many then the price goes down and vice versa. This is just basic economics.

The current offering of VISA, Mastercard, etc. is somewhat limited and there is a barrier to entry. Therefore, artificially high costs can be maintained.

Re: The endless search for a crypto use case

#249

Post by whywhywhywhy »

staticassertion wrote: post #172
whywhywhywhy wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try to fly with over $10,000 (Not even a lot of money these days) in cash and see what happens. Might change your opinion of it.

What opinion? You just demonstrated an example of subverting government authority, which is exactly what I said it can be useful for. I didn't make any judgment about doing so.

How is carrying money around subverting government authority? You can carry 500K in your wallet on your bank card but if you carry 10K in cash it's somehow different?

Re: The endless search for a crypto use case

#250

Post by Synaesthesia »

peyton wrote: post #211
Synaesthesia wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure but with the various transaction fees, exchange fees and waiting time for confirmation, and price instability, isn't it easier to just use existing financial services to buy things?

For international services, often no.

What are bitcoin fees like these days?
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