Is Filecoin a $257 million Ponzi scheme? [pdf] • Hacker News Board

Re: Is Filecoin a $257 million Ponzi scheme? [pdf]

#51

Post by dumbfounder » Thu, Nov 30, 2017, 5:13 PM UTC

pavlov wrote: post #14

soneca wrote: post #3

edit: Weird, I thought I was commenting on another thread, about Nobel laureates criticizing Bitcoin. I saw it on my phone, then opened HN at my notebook to comment. I misread the title and commented here, but now I can't find the correct thread (was it flagged?). I am growing this idea that Bitcoin (and any cryptocurrency that is affected by aggressive price growth) is an anti-fragile indirect multilevel marketing s…

The bad news is that Diamond was able to correlate to status, a strong (if subjective) value that is part of humanity since always. BTC only appeal is its value as money ... Startup idea: Bitcoin wedding rings. A beautiful gold ring with a private key engraved on the inside. Give your loved one the gift of BTC! Your commitment to each other, eternalized on the global blockchain. Gentlemen may prefer blondes, but the…

I had this idea a few weeks ago. I think it would sell, but how do you tie the ring to the bitcoin effectively?

Re: Is Filecoin a $257 million Ponzi scheme? [pdf]

#52

Post by chockZ » Thu, Nov 30, 2017, 5:16 PM UTC

pavlov wrote: post #32

realPubkey wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where I come from your nickname would soon be "4-fingers"

Same risk with a $10k diamond ring, right? Yet people buy those from Tiffany's.

Doesn't a diamond ring lose value once it is sold, though, in terms of re-sell value? A ring worth one bitcoin is not going to lose value once it is sold (aside from market volatility).

Re: Is Filecoin a $257 million Ponzi scheme? [pdf]

#53

Post by pcwalton » Thu, Nov 30, 2017, 5:17 PM UTC

keymone wrote: post #40

soneca wrote: post #3

edit: Weird, I thought I was commenting on another thread, about Nobel laureates criticizing Bitcoin. I saw it on my phone, then opened HN at my notebook to comment. I misread the title and commented here, but now I can't find the correct thread (was it flagged?). I am growing this idea that Bitcoin (and any cryptocurrency that is affected by aggressive price growth) is an anti-fragile indirect multilevel marketing s…

Well, bitcoin is actually solving a real world problem, unlike diamond. Seems way too much effort and thinking for a ponzi, I mean the result is actually groundbreaking work.

Bitcoin is a poor solution to the problem of transferring money: it's slow, power-inefficient, controlled by an oligopoly of miners, and vulnerable to scams.

Re: Is Filecoin a $257 million Ponzi scheme? [pdf]

#54

Post by jstanley » Thu, Nov 30, 2017, 5:19 PM UTC

whyrusleeping wrote: post #43

jstanley wrote: post #2

Filecoin is a huge disappointment to me. IPFS is fantastic technology, but the main developers getting sidetracked with yet another scammy ICO is the last thing we need.

Hey, ipfs dev here. The amount of work being done on ipfs has been increasing continually. Work on filecoin is not detracting from ipfs development, and we are bringing on more people for ipfs, libp2p and filecoin.

Glad to hear it :)

Re: Is Filecoin a $257 million Ponzi scheme? [pdf]

#55

Post by ianopolous » Thu, Nov 30, 2017, 5:19 PM UTC

pavlov wrote: post #14

soneca wrote: post #3

edit: Weird, I thought I was commenting on another thread, about Nobel laureates criticizing Bitcoin. I saw it on my phone, then opened HN at my notebook to comment. I misread the title and commented here, but now I can't find the correct thread (was it flagged?). I am growing this idea that Bitcoin (and any cryptocurrency that is affected by aggressive price growth) is an anti-fragile indirect multilevel marketing s…

The bad news is that Diamond was able to correlate to status, a strong (if subjective) value that is part of humanity since always. BTC only appeal is its value as money ... Startup idea: Bitcoin wedding rings. A beautiful gold ring with a private key engraved on the inside. Give your loved one the gift of BTC! Your commitment to each other, eternalized on the global blockchain. Gentlemen may prefer blondes, but the…

You could make it able to sign transactions from the account with something like a Java ring: https://www.javaworld.com/article/2076641/learn-java/an-intr...

Though for a wedding ring you'd clearly need a different look.

Re: Is Filecoin a $257 million Ponzi scheme? [pdf]

#56

Post by eco » Thu, Nov 30, 2017, 5:20 PM UTC

synctext wrote: post #11

[Author here] short answer taken from our .PDF file: "Considering that Dropbox [53] currently holds around 500 petabytes of user data [54], one could argue that Filecoin is overvalued." Study we conducted with a master student at Delft University of Technology. Open lab notes when writing this paper: https://github.com/Tribler/tribler/issues/3097 Note TUDelft has currently 8 professors in their http://blockchain-lab.…

Dropbox feels like the wrong thing to compare it to. IPFS isn't really for storing files privately. Public S3 buckets would be closer. I don't have any numbers to say if it's overvalued based on how much public cloud storage there is (I wouldn't be surprised if it were though).

Re: Is Filecoin a $257 million Ponzi scheme? [pdf]

#57

Post by superbrama » Thu, Nov 30, 2017, 5:21 PM UTC

keymone wrote: post #40

soneca wrote: post #3

edit: Weird, I thought I was commenting on another thread, about Nobel laureates criticizing Bitcoin. I saw it on my phone, then opened HN at my notebook to comment. I misread the title and commented here, but now I can't find the correct thread (was it flagged?). I am growing this idea that Bitcoin (and any cryptocurrency that is affected by aggressive price growth) is an anti-fragile indirect multilevel marketing s…

Well, bitcoin is actually solving a real world problem, unlike diamond. Seems way too much effort and thinking for a ponzi, I mean the result is actually groundbreaking work.

Yes, early computer pioneers also engaged in groundbreaking work.

A huge mainframe filled with vacuum tubes seems to fit here. That’s bitcoin, currently, but for “magic internet money”. The bandwidth, throughout, and power utilization are what you might expect from such a first generation technology experiment.

The benefits of bitcoin are eclipsed by the meteoric rise, and this price increase is the basis for most new folks getting on board, not so they can use it now as a currency.

Re: Is Filecoin a $257 million Ponzi scheme? [pdf]

#58

Post by keymone » Thu, Nov 30, 2017, 5:25 PM UTC

pcwalton wrote: post #53

keymone wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, bitcoin is actually solving a real world problem, unlike diamond. Seems way too much effort and thinking for a ponzi, I mean the result is actually groundbreaking work.

Bitcoin is a poor solution to the problem of transferring money: it's slow, power-inefficient, controlled by an oligopoly of miners, and vulnerable to scams.

Because it’s not a primarily solution to transferring money, it’s primarily decentralized, trustless and censorship-resistant solution to that. Of course centralized solutions are cheaper and more efficient.

Re: Is Filecoin a $257 million Ponzi scheme? [pdf]

#59

Post by SippinLean » Thu, Nov 30, 2017, 5:26 PM UTC

soneca wrote: post #3

edit: Weird, I thought I was commenting on another thread, about Nobel laureates criticizing Bitcoin. I saw it on my phone, then opened HN at my notebook to comment. I misread the title and commented here, but now I can't find the correct thread (was it flagged?). I am growing this idea that Bitcoin (and any cryptocurrency that is affected by aggressive price growth) is an anti-fragile indirect multilevel marketing s…

Cool, what does this have to do with Filecoin, their ICO, and Ponzi schemes?

A MLM scheme is that: a scheme requiring a central actor to pay commissions. This is why Bitcoin and decentralized currency has never fit this definition.

You could say there are some abstract resemblances (BTC bagholders encourage others to buy) but this is just abstract and not specific enough to fit the definition.

We've seen people run Ponzis using BTC, we've seen ICOs structured as Ponzis. However "Bitcoin is a Ponzi/pyramid/MLM" will never be true; not literally at least.

Re: Is Filecoin a $257 million Ponzi scheme? [pdf]

#60

Post by keymone » Thu, Nov 30, 2017, 5:28 PM UTC

superbrama wrote: post #57

keymone wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, bitcoin is actually solving a real world problem, unlike diamond. Seems way too much effort and thinking for a ponzi, I mean the result is actually groundbreaking work.

Yes, early computer pioneers also engaged in groundbreaking work. A huge mainframe filled with vacuum tubes seems to fit here. That’s bitcoin, currently, but for “magic internet money”. The bandwidth, throughout, and power utilization are what you might expect from such a first generation technology experiment. The benefits of bitcoin are eclipsed by the meteoric rise, and this price increase is the basis for most ne…

1) those mainframes got people to the moon

2) nothing in bitcoin protocol precludes it from adopting more efficient solutions when such appear, what people seem to miss is that proof of work itself and energy spent securing the ledger will always correlate with value stored