The Great Crypto Grift May Be Unwinding • Hacker News Board

Re: The Great Crypto Grift May Be Unwinding

#321

Post by Nursie » Fri, May 20, 2022, 4:15 AM UTC

prepend wrote: post #300

nouveaux wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A good place to look for middleman that can be cut with blockchain is the exchange between two random people that a third party needs to trust. The example with the email in the court is a bad example because it is not the court's job to prove whether or not an email is fraudulent. It is the opposing counsel. Non digital evidence works the same way. This is why you have expert witnesses to verify or invalidate some e…

> The example with the email in the court is a bad example because it is not the court's job to prove whether or not an email is fraudulent. But it’s good because it is acceptable, predictable, durable, and low cost. Blockchain is solving for a problem that doesn’t exist as there aren’t a ton of fraud cases in this area (accused nor proven). So perhaps there’s an argument for the new uses that would be possible witho…

You've run into a person here who has confused "a blockchain would fix this" with "better systems, standards and openness would fix this, the exact implementation doesn't matter so much".

I ran into one last week talking about concert tickets. Apparently we could fix the problems of ticketmaster dominance by using a blockchain. When I proposed that an API+DB system would do the job just as well, and we have an authority in the picture already (the venue operator) so distributed trust was overkill, I was told "good luck getting ticketmaster to use your API system".

Because apparently the data-structure and trust model now dictate how the market works, and if we just chant "blockchain" loud enough, that'll magically fix monopoly issues. It's very weird thinking.

I mean, sure, if we force ticket issuing, or the land registry or whatever onto a public blockchain solution, that would address some of the issues. But the improvement comes from the forcing, not the specific tech...

Re: The Great Crypto Grift May Be Unwinding

#322

Post by landa » Fri, May 20, 2022, 4:23 AM UTC

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #53

landa wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you really believe it doesn't have "any value at all" then I invite you to sell it short. That's a free $30,000. The nice thing about markets is that you can express your opinion, and that market opinions without corresponding positions can be ignored.

The fact that I've seen many, many rejoinders to "crypto has no long term value" in the "well, just short it then" vein makes me think these talking points must be what the cool kids on r/Bitcoin or somewhere are spewing. I don't necessarily believe all crypto is going to zero, but for Bitcoin specifically I believe (a) that proof of work is definitely unsustainable as the market cap grows and (b) given the power of…

> cool kids on r/Bitcoin

I don't use Reddit or any other social networks. This is the only site I post anything on. My suggestion to put a trade on instead of just saying stupid things on the Internet comes from institutional trading culture.

Anyone can say anything. Almost nobody backs it up with money.

Re: The Great Crypto Grift May Be Unwinding

#323

Post by vlovich123 » Fri, May 20, 2022, 4:43 AM UTC

nouveaux wrote: post #293

prepend wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s accepted in court that a simple email showing the file as an attachment is acceptable. Certainly blockchains are more trustworthy, but acceptableness in court is a pretty low bar. I mean having something signed on paper in front of a notary is acceptable. What cases are you involved with where a notary isn’t acceptable? Or a non-blockchain digital signature? I’m involved in really high dollar amount contracts an…

A good place to look for middleman that can be cut with blockchain is the exchange between two random people that a third party needs to trust. The example with the email in the court is a bad example because it is not the court's job to prove whether or not an email is fraudulent. It is the opposing counsel. Non digital evidence works the same way. This is why you have expert witnesses to verify or invalidate some e…

I'm still not convinced blockchain is a good solution here. Why is a cryptographic signature by each party that they acknowledge the transfer insufficient?

About the only arguable place is maybe escrow but the marginal increase in cost of traditional escrow vs blockchain seems insignificant vs the magnitudes of monies being discussed. Additionally, if I make a mistake and send things to the wrong account, with escrow & traditional banking I probably can unwind that transaction. With blockchain, not so much.

Re: The Great Crypto Grift May Be Unwinding

#324

Post by prepend » Fri, May 20, 2022, 11:51 AM UTC

Nursie wrote: post #321

prepend wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The example with the email in the court is a bad example because it is not the court's job to prove whether or not an email is fraudulent. But it’s good because it is acceptable, predictable, durable, and low cost. Blockchain is solving for a problem that doesn’t exist as there aren’t a ton of fraud cases in this area (accused nor proven). So perhaps there’s an argument for the new uses that would be possible witho…

You've run into a person here who has confused "a blockchain would fix this" with "better systems, standards and openness would fix this, the exact implementation doesn't matter so much". I ran into one last week talking about concert tickets. Apparently we could fix the problems of ticketmaster dominance by using a blockchain. When I proposed that an API+DB system would do the job just as well, and we have an author…

I’d love to see Tickmaster’s blockchain+NFT system for how horrible and anti-user it would be.

I agree with both points. For a while it seemed like small venues were using indie $1 ticket processing services that would basically just generate a QR code and keep everything cheap. But those seem to be going away as Ticketmaster just takes over and turns a $1 transaction into a $20 transaction.

If venues just used Shopify then they’d have their db+api solution. But I think vendors like being able to 1) reduce their work, 2) blame Ticketmaster for all fees, and 3) make more money.

For the same reason vendors don’t use api+db, I don’t see them using a blockchain.

Another reason is that blockchains are forever and I don’t see the value in a huge blockchain with mostly garbage data of tickets sold 50 years ago. This seems like a really unnecessary expense for something simple like temporal transactions that are meaningless after the event.

An api+db can be flushed out so the storage costs are very low.

Re: The Great Crypto Grift May Be Unwinding

#325

Post by ASalazarMX » Fri, May 20, 2022, 7:43 PM UTC

oceanghost wrote: post #298

nobrains wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "frankly, the dollar ain’t so bad." It might be not bad. For you. Perhaps you are an American. Whenever your government prints more dollars, because the rest of the world holds dollar reserves, the value of those reserves go down. So everyone else in the world basically finances the US money printing. So, if you are an American, the dollar is not bad. Its actually very, very good. But for the rest of the world (96%…

* and that transferred wealth is mostly spent on an enormous military budget such that most countries have to spend relatively little on defense.

* and that transferred wealth is mostly spent on an enormous military budget

FTFY. It's not done out of philanthropy.

Re: The Great Crypto Grift May Be Unwinding

#326

Post by andirk » Fri, May 20, 2022, 9:33 PM UTC

mwcremer wrote: post #185

_vdpp wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same reason you don’t keep all your savings under the mattress. There have been a number of stories about people losing or corrupting their crypto wallets. Once it’s gone, it’s gone.

Which raises an interesting question: what fraction of Bitcoin, for example, is effectively lost forever? I assume minuscule, but like entropy it never decreases?

I assume its some large % of all bitcoin is lost especially from early adopters mining thousands of then worthless tokens.

Re: The Great Crypto Grift May Be Unwinding

#327

Post by aliswe » Fri, May 20, 2022, 10:38 PM UTC

vlovich123 wrote: post #323

nouveaux wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A good place to look for middleman that can be cut with blockchain is the exchange between two random people that a third party needs to trust. The example with the email in the court is a bad example because it is not the court's job to prove whether or not an email is fraudulent. It is the opposing counsel. Non digital evidence works the same way. This is why you have expert witnesses to verify or invalidate some e…

I'm still not convinced blockchain is a good solution here. Why is a cryptographic signature by each party that they acknowledge the transfer insufficient? About the only arguable place is maybe escrow but the marginal increase in cost of traditional escrow vs blockchain seems insignificant vs the magnitudes of monies being discussed. Additionally, if I make a mistake and send things to the wrong account, with escrow…

to me a blockchain is very similar to a cryptographic signature used in a recursive manner, meaning that a new document which is based on the previous document history includes the signatures for all those documents and signs it all in order to prove that the chain has not been tampered with.

im not at all a blockchain proponent but i really see a usecase here. but then again i see even git as a blockchain so its not that it would be expensive or exciting to get it working. (Dubai reportedly uses blockchain for their property register)

this is actually a common attack vector in countries like Pakistan were someone falsifies a stamped court document that actually the current owner of a certain property is not valid because he bought it from someone who did not actually own the property. the rightful owner is therefor me. (called qabza in urdu)

Re: The Great Crypto Grift May Be Unwinding

#328

Post by throw123123123 » Sat, May 21, 2022, 7:46 AM UTC

dpweb wrote: post #68

etaioinshrdlu wrote: post #23

Crypto cannot create wealth, only move it around. If too many people become crypto-rich and try to spend it on real-world assets, the assets will just inflate in price. What can happen is that crypto could replace other forms of money. Governments will likely fight this tooth and nail however, because crypto is currently an anti-government technology.

Money is a creation of government, and frankly, the dollar ain’t so bad. If my bank goes under I’m protected by the FDIC. If Coinbase goes under they have the right to use my money to pay their creditors.

Money is a private creation, government just made it illegal to run private money.

Re: The Great Crypto Grift May Be Unwinding

#329

Post by scyclow » Tue, May 24, 2022, 1:30 PM UTC

Godel_unicode wrote: post #320

scyclow wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whether or not you think NFTs are stupid and totally worthless, there's a fairly extensive economy based around fine art NFTs where collectors (who view them more as consumption goods than investments) buy and sell in ETH. And despite wild fluctuations in ETH USD, people's mental accounting is generally denominated in ETH.

I'm unconvinced that most people who buy NFTs are doing it for non-gambling reasons. Where's the market in smart displays you can hook up to your wallet and show you your NFTs? Other than Twitter hexagons, are people doing anything with their NFTs? I have seen very few people talking about the price of something in ETH without a parenthetical giving the current USD value.

As I said, I'm not trying to convince you that they aren't stupid and worthless here -- just that there's a flourishing and highly functioning ecosystem built around them, which couldn't really exist in any other context.

Also, there are plenty of smart display companies popping up. Check out Infinite Objects or Atomic Forms.

Re: The Great Crypto Grift May Be Unwinding

#330

Post by unclebucknasty » Tue, May 24, 2022, 6:46 PM UTC

nradov wrote: post #306

unclebucknasty wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Crypto cannot create wealth, only move it around. If too many people become crypto-rich... Not really understanding this. If crypto is just moving wealth around, then how can "too many" people become crypto-rich?

The “too many" part is obviously subjective, but cryptocurrencies are all just zero-sum trading vehicles similar to Ponzi schemes. Unlike real businesses which expect natural resources or build things, there is no new wealth being created in cryptocurrency. Mathematically, only a minority of participants can ever get rich. The majority of participants are suckers who will be left holding worthless coins when bubbles…

In your previous comment, you wrote:

>If too many people become crypto-rich and try to spend it on real-world assets, the assets will just inflate in price.

My point was that your logic is flawed. If crypto just moves wealth around vs creating it, as you also assert, then it won't materially change the number of wealthy people. Hence, it wouldn't be a mechanism for causing the inflation you predict.