41–50 of 83 posts
The author sums up everything that is wrong with crypto in two sentences: > I was getting excited about every new cryptography protocol, and economics too seemed to me to be part of that broader worldview: it's the mathematical tool for understanding and figuring out how to improve the social world. No, it isn't. This kind of hubris is what hides what Crypto is, which is a game of greater fools and nothing more.
The cool thing about Vitalik’s blog is that it is decentralized. The blog uses decentralized storage (IPFS) and uses a decentralized ENS domain (vitalik.eth). If you use a web3 browser like brave browser vitalik.eth resolves natively in the browser without the need to use the ENS+IPFS (eth.limo) gateway.
I’m not sure how you could read this post and conclude that “the cool thing” about it is that it is decentralized.
By far, the coolest thing about Vitalik’s blog is his writing, in its thoughtfulness and humility.
That it’s decentralized speaks to his commitment to his beliefs.
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Sure, but that’s my point exactly. You need an offramp. The only offramp is someone else (or some exchange) buying your crypto. They would be the “greater fool” in this case. Even if you earn crypto, that crypto came from a “lesser fool.” You’re just the intermediary.
> Sure, but that’s my point exactly. > You need an offramp. > The only offramp is someone else (or some exchange) buying your stocks. > They would be the “greater fool” in this case. > Even if you earn stocks, that stock came from a “lesser fool.” > You’re just the intermediary.
So dividends, buybacks, and takeovers don't exist?
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Bitcoin has been around for 15 years at this point and there is absolutely no confusion about the technical underpinnings. It has handily survived attempts at government shutdowns in China and serious interest rate hikes. Numerous scams have come, gone and had no impact on hodlers. At this point it is no longer reasonable to just claim it is a greater fools game without an argument for why. The evidence right now see…
I feel the comparison to gold is a bit of a reach. Gold is valuable because: 1. People see it as a store of value 2. It has some useful physical properties 3. People use it as a decoration Possibly there are other reasons as well, but those are the ones that come immediately to mind. As far as I can tell, Bitcoin only shares attribute #1. It doesn’t have intrinsic properties that make it useful into larger systems (t…
* Can only pull new bitcoin into existence by paying a hefty market-determined price.
* Can transfer them iff you know a certain secret.
* Can verify that a certain number of bitcoin are linked to a specific secret.
* Can technically transfer bitcoin without approval from a legally blessed 3rd party
There is no asset outside of crypto with those properties. Turns out that combination is worth, so far, billions. Probably more as it settles in and people get used to the idea. Will Bitcoin last forever like gold? No. Will it last long enough? Looks like it. Is crypto valuable? Judgement is in, market says yes.
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Close. We pay money to use other people's times _and_ resources (capital) and outputs (widgets). Take Netflix. You watching a whole lot of Netflix for $400 a month (or whatever they are charging these days) doesn't make people work any differently than paying for it and not watching it, or, truth be told, not paying for it (as an individual), or, in the rare case, watching it without paying for it. Thanks to the magi…
>Close. We pay money to use other people's times _and_ resources (capital) and outputs (widgets) If these other things still require time as an input to create them, isn't it still just time at the end of the day?
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Bitcoin has been around for 15 years at this point and there is absolutely no confusion about the technical underpinnings. It has handily survived attempts at government shutdowns in China and serious interest rate hikes. Numerous scams have come, gone and had no impact on hodlers. At this point it is no longer reasonable to just claim it is a greater fools game without an argument for why. The evidence right now see…
I feel the comparison to gold is a bit of a reach. Gold is valuable because: 1. People see it as a store of value 2. It has some useful physical properties 3. People use it as a decoration Possibly there are other reasons as well, but those are the ones that come immediately to mind. As far as I can tell, Bitcoin only shares attribute #1. It doesn’t have intrinsic properties that make it useful into larger systems (t…
It already is a useful way to exchange value, people do it all the time.
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I think crypto is inherently a scam - a distributed pyramid scheme. Am I now "people" with "opinions"?
But seriously, there are 1000's of cryptocurencies, you can't logic the possibility that even one was built with 'non-scammy' intentions? Cause 1 is all it takes to refute that 'ceyotocurrencies are inherently a scam'. I'm sure your being vacecious, but there are those that would comment that seriously.
But that's not really the point. You seem to think that I can't really exist and any "person" with such an "opinion" is a part of a propaganda operation or trying somehow to artificially lower the price (with a post!) to buy in.
Can you accept that real people think crypto is a scam?
The author sums up everything that is wrong with crypto in two sentences: > I was getting excited about every new cryptography protocol, and economics too seemed to me to be part of that broader worldview: it's the mathematical tool for understanding and figuring out how to improve the social world. No, it isn't. This kind of hubris is what hides what Crypto is, which is a game of greater fools and nothing more.
Bitcoin has been around for 15 years at this point and there is absolutely no confusion about the technical underpinnings. It has handily survived attempts at government shutdowns in China and serious interest rate hikes. Numerous scams have come, gone and had no impact on hodlers. At this point it is no longer reasonable to just claim it is a greater fools game without an argument for why. The evidence right now see…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, that quote is correct. Let me restate it in a way that may appeal more to pessimists: Money is a form of mind control. You use money to get people, groups, institutions, to do what they normally wouldn't. Economics is the study of manipulating that power. Cryptocurrencies would then be, or was supposed to be, about radically resetting economic priorities, in part by washing away the old incentives (by cutting the…
> Economics is the study of manipulating that power. Hello! Your friendly neighborhood economist here. Economics is the study of resource allocation under scarcity. In your comment, I think you actually mean Game Theory and Mechanism Design, which are about assessing strategic behavior (Game Theory) and about creating mechanisms that align with strategic behavior to result in preferred outcomes (Mechanism Design, sor…
As an economist, would you be able to explain (because I truely do not understand) why "the study of resource allocation under scarcity" is more important than (and/or prevents) meaningful action on climate change?