Live data from Hacker News

Why I have zero faith in crypto venture capitalists

bennettftomlin.com

51–60 of 242 posts

Re: Why I have zero faith in crypto venture capitalists

#51
post #42

I find crypto super interesting and have dipped my toes in with some small real money just to force myself to try out different products. That said, so far, almost 10 years in, there really are not a lot of real world use cases. Sure there are glorified POCs of things that could potentially lead in the direction of real world use cases. But most of these products/tokens are just extremely meta. Tokens you get paid/pa…

This opinion is really common, I used to have it but what changed my mind was realizing there are not really any "real world" use cases. I look at crypto as actual money, with the same definition: "money is a verifiable record that is generally accepted". Money in of itself does not have any "real world" use cases, money is money. Money facilitates economic velocity and growth in the same way crypto does, except cryp…

Examples?

Re: Why I have zero faith in crypto venture capitalists

#52
post #42

I find crypto super interesting and have dipped my toes in with some small real money just to force myself to try out different products. That said, so far, almost 10 years in, there really are not a lot of real world use cases. Sure there are glorified POCs of things that could potentially lead in the direction of real world use cases. But most of these products/tokens are just extremely meta. Tokens you get paid/pa…

This opinion is really common, I used to have it but what changed my mind was realizing there are not really any "real world" use cases. I look at crypto as actual money, with the same definition: "money is a verifiable record that is generally accepted". Money in of itself does not have any "real world" use cases, money is money. Money facilitates economic velocity and growth in the same way crypto does, except cryp…

> Banks make money with money, they don't make money with real use cases.

Banks make money with money + effort. They provide loans and vet the recipients of those loans, because the banks are exposed to the risk of default (at least, ideally, obviously this failed in 2008). If you want a small business loan, then you typically have to have not only a good credit rating, but a business plan. Sounds like a real use case to me.

Re: Why I have zero faith in crypto venture capitalists

#53
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's say Gamestop is shutdown tomorrow. There is real estate, there is IP, and there are physical products that could all be sold to recoup losses. There is intrinsic value there regardless of whether the current stock price has greatly exceeded those values. The overwhelming majority of cryptocurrency investments have no intrinsic value.

And crypto projects that are derivatives on real world assets, like fiat currencies (stablecoins) or stocks (synthetic tokens), have equivalent backing. If the project were to dissolve, there would be assets backing that. Not suggesting this is the case here, but I keep seeing this worrisome trend where people are stuck in the Bitcoin and ICO world from 5 years ago and think nothing has changed and they don't really…

A startup equity consists of the startup's net assets, so the owners have a claim on these assets. In the case of these "governance rights" what assets do the holders have a claim on?

Re: Why I have zero faith in crypto venture capitalists

#54
post #5

It’s always hilarious to me how so many crypto/blockchain startups have words like “trust” and “transparency” written all over their landing pages. In reality you have an insane amount of fraud and shadiness going in order to increase some arbitrary token value.

I’ve always considered unregulated advertising claims to be a reflection of the weakness of the product: A food with “Quality” in the brand name is almost always the low-shelf cheap version. “Comfort” in a motel means you’ll have a cheap bed and noisy, rattling air conditioning. Etc. The unbridled crypto space is chock full of these signals.

It's like how many dictatorships have the word "Democratic" in their official country name.

Re: Why I have zero faith in crypto venture capitalists

#55
post #42

I find crypto super interesting and have dipped my toes in with some small real money just to force myself to try out different products. That said, so far, almost 10 years in, there really are not a lot of real world use cases. Sure there are glorified POCs of things that could potentially lead in the direction of real world use cases. But most of these products/tokens are just extremely meta. Tokens you get paid/pa…

This opinion is really common, I used to have it but what changed my mind was realizing there are not really any "real world" use cases. I look at crypto as actual money, with the same definition: "money is a verifiable record that is generally accepted". Money in of itself does not have any "real world" use cases, money is money. Money facilitates economic velocity and growth in the same way crypto does, except cryp…

+1 - crypto-based lending is an incredibly smooth digital process vs legacy dollar-based lending, which is frankly a nightmare of "wire cutoff deadlines," entering the same info 40 times for 6 people, "security theatre" like call-to-confirm and notary public with people who don't know you and are trusting pieces of paper, etc etc etc

Re: Why I have zero faith in crypto venture capitalists

#56
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's say Gamestop is shutdown tomorrow. There is real estate, there is IP, and there are physical products that could all be sold to recoup losses. There is intrinsic value there regardless of whether the current stock price has greatly exceeded those values. The overwhelming majority of cryptocurrency investments have no intrinsic value.

And crypto projects that are derivatives on real world assets, like fiat currencies (stablecoins) or stocks (synthetic tokens), have equivalent backing. If the project were to dissolve, there would be assets backing that. Not suggesting this is the case here, but I keep seeing this worrisome trend where people are stuck in the Bitcoin and ICO world from 5 years ago and think nothing has changed and they don't really…

What percentage of cryptocurrencies are backed by real world assets? Who ensures that this backing is actually baked into the cryptocurrency and isn't just some marketing speak? For example there is Tether which claimed to be backed by USD. "[I]t turns out that the stablecoin that used to say it was 100 per cent backed by cash reserves is in fact . . . 2.9 per cent backed by cash reserves".[1]

[1] - https://www.ft.com/content/529eb4e6-796a-4e81-8064-5967bbe3b...

Re: Why I have zero faith in crypto venture capitalists

#57

Honestly, all these cryptos have to do is bake themselves into in-game currency for any video game. Fortnite crypto could be a multi billion dollar market. I would love to just buy an army in Starcraft, pillage your base and take your crypto, then sell it on Coinbase. If we are truly to live in a job-less world with basic income, I’m gonna need shit to do.

“Pay-to-win” is generally not considered to be a recipe for fun games, as far as I know. Having a sudden flood of rich assholes coming in and crushing people because all the best guns are a trivial real-money purchase for them sounds like a good way to kill a game.

Re: Why I have zero faith in crypto venture capitalists

#58

I find crypto super interesting and have dipped my toes in with some small real money just to force myself to try out different products. That said, so far, almost 10 years in, there really are not a lot of real world use cases. Sure there are glorified POCs of things that could potentially lead in the direction of real world use cases. But most of these products/tokens are just extremely meta. Tokens you get paid/pa…

I think of it like this. Various tokens give you certain types of exposures with different risk profiles. Yields are so high because of the risk. This really isn't so different from the centralized financial system where we have built complex structures (exotic derivatives, structured products, etc) to give you certain types of exposures. The difference is that DeFi is globally accessible and permissionless. Even if…

I don't think you're wrong conceptually. But in practical terms:

1) the traditional options with varying risk profiles are mostly legitimate. The ratio of scam to authentic project is much higher in crypto. Or if not "scam", products where the creators (as pointed out in this article) might be perfectly happy if the product turned out to be successful, but mostly don't care because they make their money up front: reward with very little risk. Retail customers take all the risk. Traditional financial products align incentives better because if no one want is, no one is making transaction or management fees either. They're (mostly) only successful if customers are successful

2) Financial products based on crypto have no real-world assets backing them, making their prices much more volatile. If you're investing in traditional high risk product that ultimately relies on a real-world commodity like oil, you can make reasoned predictions on where oil demand might be headed. Your might make a high risk bet that oil prices are going to bottom out from their current peak due to decreased demand after the Summer and a minor resurgence in COVID as more and more people go back to work and then kids stop distance learning and mostly go back to school in the fall, etc. You might be wrong, but you can see an actual underlying asset with real-world utility to make better reasoned decisions. It is much harder to do that with crypto when a tweet by some high profile billionaire (Elon comes to mind) or rumors of regulatory scrutiny could send prices soaring or plummeting. This is very rare in traditional financial products.

I also don't think crypto will ever ever ever replace government regulated markets. It may become part of them, but not replace. The government (at least in the US) is already regulating crypto. CTR's are already required, the SEC has stepped in pretty heavily to classify most crypto as securities, complete with the requirements that comes with that, etc. It can be decentralized but still regulated, and governments are simply not going to allow crypto to take away their ability to control their own monetary policy. Plenty of governments may wish to move on from the USD being the default world reserve currency, but that's because they want it to be something they have more control over. Crypto doesn't fill that role.

All the US would have to do is regulate how every US bank works with crypto, and require that US banks only work with foreign banks that follow similar requirements. Any foreign bank wanting to do business even remotely related to the US-- which is nearly all of them, would have no choice but to follow. Or the US could regulate how businesses are able to accept crypto as a currency. Businesses don't operate in a decentralized abstraction layer: They operate in physical locations. It might be difficult to seize their crypto assets if they violate the law (though not impossible) but still very easy to seize & shutdown their physical assets, throw people in jail, etc.

Sure, if crypto could somehow avoid all of that until it became the de facto medium of exchange, governments would have a much harder time doing this. But it's not like governments aren't aware of what's going on, and as I said the regulation has already begun.

Re: Why I have zero faith in crypto venture capitalists

#59

I find crypto super interesting and have dipped my toes in with some small real money just to force myself to try out different products. That said, so far, almost 10 years in, there really are not a lot of real world use cases. Sure there are glorified POCs of things that could potentially lead in the direction of real world use cases. But most of these products/tokens are just extremely meta. Tokens you get paid/pa…

> there really are not a lot of real world use cases.

It's effectively just one. To make illegal transactions. That's a long list of things: drugs, hiding wealth, evading currency controls, extortion, and so on. Otherwise, existing currency and transfer mechanisms are more or less available and convenient.

Re: Why I have zero faith in crypto venture capitalists

#60

The VC model has always flirted with being a Ponzi scheme, but ultimately some startups _do_ make money somewhat consistently, so the model is risky but fair to retail investors. But a crypto project is not a traditional scalable company. It does not make money as platforms traditionally do. It's open source and distributed. I truly cannot understand how it differs from a huge Ponzi scheme.

I agree with you, but looking at what comes out of Silicon Valley these days, there is a fine line between "ponzi scheme" (in the broad sense) and "re-invest everything in growth and hope to get acquired". I'd push back that many traditional startups, most of which end up never being profitable but still exit in one way or another due to hype and investor relationships, are just as close to pump and dump schemes as m…

The reality is that we need a new term than ponzi scheme to determine if we are willing to respect a financial model or not

The state (us government) has made it clear that there is no distinction it can stand behind anymore

sometimes earlier investors get paid out by newer investors

whether it’s a high yield investment program, a poorly run hedge fund, or the entire corporate bond market, or social security, or herbalife, or defi

The debate over the name of the payout system is no longer productive, as ponzi scheme - as a pejorative term - doesn’t tell you anything

Post reply on HN