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The Great Crypto Grift May Be Unwinding

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Re: The Great Crypto Grift May Be Unwinding

#261

Post by razemio »

woodruffw wrote: post #231
razemio wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is different use case. How would I prove that a file existed without a middlemen? I would gladly switch since the method I am currently using isn't exactly cheap.

> How would I prove that a file existed without a middlemen? How are you defining "middleman"? You can do this with any basic commitment scheme: take a cryptographically secure hash of your file and publish it somewhere that's either (1) trivially copyable, or (2) difficult to tamper with. Alternatively, you could do an online scheme where someone asks you for your proof and you present them with your hash after bein…

I work with ALOT of documents that have a deadline / need to be finished at a certain time. The blockchain helps me to proof mathematical in front of a curt that the file already existed at a given date. It is the most secure way that I know.

A simple example of what I need without a middlemen.

A student writes a thesis. The last time he is allowed to modify the file is friday evening. He can now send the file via mail or deliver in person to prove that the thesis was finished by then. However he then trusts either the mail server administration or the person at the front desk. This is fine in most cases and works like this since decades. I however do not want to trust a person or company. I do not want ANY possible explanation how I could have archived it in a different way.

Re: The Great Crypto Grift May Be Unwinding

#262

Post by arcticbull »

robocat wrote: post #259
arcticbull wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fundamentally sound as what ? - As a currency, it's garbage. Currencies are inflationary to incentivize spending. A deflationary currency incentives hoarding, and harms the economy by dropping velocity. All the worst periods in history have been deflationary, not inflationary. Currencies benefit from being able to respond to changes in population, to shocks, to changing demographics. And they shouldn't cost a fully-r…

> A deflationary currency incentives hoarding Really… Do people hoard value shares which have predictable returns that beat inflation? Is most gold or property hoarded, or is it traded? (Either is expected to rise in “value” over time, expected that is by the average person). I suspect most people try to get the best returns. Hoarding might occur in a depression, but otherwise the concept is questionable?

> Do people hoard value shares which have predictable returns that beat inflation?

Of course, but those aren't currencies they're equities. That's what they're there for.

> Is most gold or property hoarded, or is it traded? (Either is expected to rise in “value” over time, expected that is by the average person).

Gold is shiny pebbles.

It's fundamentally not worth much more than its industrial value (a tiny fraction of it's market value) and I wouldn't recommend anyone hold that either. It's not productive. It doesn't do anything but sit there, shiny, until consumed for industrial purposes.

> Hoarding might occur in a depression, but otherwise the concept is questionable?

Why would you spend something today if it's going to buy you more tomorrow? You wouldn't, to the extent possible. Thats why we separate short-term intentionally lossy store of value and medium of exchange (currency) and long-term store of value (equity, real estate, etc). We don't combine them due to their antithetical goals. Trying to do so is regressive.

Re: The Great Crypto Grift May Be Unwinding

#263

Post by guerrilla »

razemio wrote: post #153
woodruffw wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We've been able to do this for decades. It's a core part of our PKI ecosystem.

Not without a middlemen that we trust (cert authority in this case).

Now we trust mining pools which can become monopolies instead... Everyone seems to not see the positive feedback loops somehow. It results in the same system in the end.

Re: The Great Crypto Grift May Be Unwinding

#264

Post by vishnugupta »

arikr wrote: post #18
0xB31B1B wrote: post #13

The best crypto grift was the neobank startups that were front ends for investing in anchor, a 20%APY crypto ponzi. Anchor crashed with Luna and all those startups kept their money in failed stable coins and have folded and failed to make payroll. They lost all of their money and all of their customers money. Woof

Which Neobanks have gone bust or are likely to as a result of Luna?

https://twitter.com/FatManTerra/status/1527153694218797058

Re: The Great Crypto Grift May Be Unwinding

#265

Post by mrow84 »

razemio wrote: post #130
sk0g wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you’d be an idiot to ignore the realistic and adopted use-cases Ignoring the hostility, what would you list as the realistic and adopted use-cases for crypto?

You can proof that a digital file existed at a given time and hasn't been altered since. It is something that I use on a daily basis.

How do you use it, out of interest?

Re: The Great Crypto Grift May Be Unwinding

#266

Post by orwin »

onionisafruit wrote: post #194
woodruffw wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where was it implied that it wasn't? Of course it's cryptography.

Nevermind me. I was being an idiot thinking crypto was cryptography.

For 30+ year olds who learned by cracking video games, used eMule/limewire and partipated in crypto CTF, crypto is still cryptography, but let's be honest, this usage is loosing.

Re: The Great Crypto Grift May Be Unwinding

#267

Post by quickthrower2 »

guerrilla wrote: post #263
razemio wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not without a middlemen that we trust (cert authority in this case).

Now we trust mining pools which can become monopolies instead... Everyone seems to not see the positive feedback loops somehow. It results in the same system in the end.

You might enjoy this:

https://youtu.be/J9nv0Ol-R5Q

Re: The Great Crypto Grift May Be Unwinding

#268

Post by threatofrain »

razemio wrote: post #261
woodruffw wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How would I prove that a file existed without a middlemen? How are you defining "middleman"? You can do this with any basic commitment scheme: take a cryptographically secure hash of your file and publish it somewhere that's either (1) trivially copyable, or (2) difficult to tamper with. Alternatively, you could do an online scheme where someone asks you for your proof and you present them with your hash after bein…

I work with ALOT of documents that have a deadline / need to be finished at a certain time. The blockchain helps me to proof mathematical in front of a curt that the file already existed at a given date. It is the most secure way that I know. A simple example of what I need without a middlemen. A student writes a thesis. The last time he is allowed to modify the file is friday evening. He can now send the file via ma…

Naive response here, but that particular use case seems solved by a central authority, where the school is the entity that (1) cares the most and (2) should other students or decentralised entities be involved in observing student progress?

Re: The Great Crypto Grift May Be Unwinding

#269

Post by dns_snek »

alexb_ wrote: post #234

There is absolutely zero legal usecase for cryptocurrencies. None. "oh but it might be useful for doing-" you are wrong. Full stop. "but what about censorship" Circumventing government censorship is, by definition, illegal. "but what about trustless" We do not live in a world where there is nobody that can be trusted. And if we did, why the hell would you want a currency where nothing can ever be reversed? "but what…

> There is absolutely zero legal usecase for cryptocurrencies. None. "oh but it might be useful for doing-" you are wrong. Full stop.

What's with the dismissive, ignorant and hostile attitude? There are plenty of legal businesses that will accept cryptocurrencies - Mullvad VPN for example.

> Cryptocurrencies have many great uses. You can gamble with them, you can buy drugs with them [...]

Why are you surprised? Replace "cryptocurrencies" with "cash" and the same use cases apply, it's a currency after all, facilitating transactions is the core purpose of cryptocurrencies.

> EVERY SINGLE OTHER USE, WITHOUT EXCEPTION, is something that centralized systems already do well.

Yes, centralized systems handle most of our transactions just fine, most of the time. Do you expect people to have to argue in favor of choice while setting an impossibly high bar for any kind of competition?

Do you believe in freedom of speech?

Re: The Great Crypto Grift May Be Unwinding

#270

Post by piva00 »

WFHRenaissance wrote: post #142
jankyxenon wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are the adopted and realistic use cases?

See reply.

> Smart contracts, DAOs, payments, self-sovereign identity, tokenization of real world assets, a few security use-cases, operating markets for prediction and asset-trade outside the control of external authorities (libertarian wet dream stuff), insurance and legal arbitration outside of the control of external authorities (more wet dreaming, but it’s happening), supply chain / provenance of assets…

None of this has proven any value in the real world.

Libertarian wet dreams are the other side of the coin of communists' wet dreams: utopian, not based on reality, not feasible in our current reality.

Legal arbitration is only possible under a legal system, that is under a government, that has a military and other enforcement powers. Some bits proving that a contract is valid won't change that...

As usual from the cryptospace, it's all techno-babble built on a house of cards that hasn't given anything to reality except an easier way to transfer funds without KYC, so basically it's a wet dream for criminal activities: scams, drug deals and so on.

Ring me up when all these wet dreams become a reality, they've been repeated ad nauseam for quite a few years already and nothing has really materialised.

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