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What Problem Blockchains Solve

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Re: What Problem Blockchains Solve

#61

Post by jagger27 »

pengwing wrote: post #10

Ethereum has only been around since 2015. Naturally smart contracts, DAos and NFTs are somewhat newer technology, still exhibiting flaws. Block chain as a concept with the single use case of store of value has been around since 2009 in the form of Bitcoin. So let me only pick one battle here: The problem is federally-issued inflationary currency. Bitcoin solves it.

I don't want to live in a society where some unknown shadowy figure(s) may or may not still hold the keys to the greatest fortune in human history.

Re: What Problem Blockchains Solve

#62

Post by arcticbull »

ur-whale wrote: post #59
_xnmw wrote: post #51

What blockchains solve is the whole pesky problem of following the law and paying taxes, and being a normal member of society. No wonder that much of the early crypto literature was all about anarchy. To this day, the only useful thing that crypto has enabled (on a very small scale) international asset transfer that bypasses mainstream financial systems. As Diehl[1] wrote, decentralized trustless systems are only use…

The problem with statist thinking like this is that it never ever takes into account what happens when the state fails. This is a typical way of looking at the world from people who were lucky enough to grow up in a society that sort of works, unfortunately not the norm for a large fraction of the human race. I suspect that - had you lived under German occupation in 39-45 - you would have a very different take on thi…

If your state fails you have much, much bigger problems than your hard currency.

So much so, that your hard currency is kind of a rounding error in this situation.

If the state loses its monopoly on violence, well, someone can just beat you until you're dead or you give up your private keys. Either one should be fine.

I don't optimize my life for some hypothetical dystopian failed state situation in any other aspect of my life. I don't have a fallout shelter in my back yard. I don't have bricks of gold. I don't have Kalashnikovs. I don't have bullets. I don't keep a stash of canned peaches. I don't have gas masks or iodine pills. This isn't Metro Exodus. It's massively inefficient to plan for such a situation in any aspect of my life.

The risk-reward profile is just flat out nuts. I can't know ahead of time beyond these key resources what I'd actually need. And I know I can't count on the internet being up for me to trade spreadsheet cells for gasoline in the apocalypse - nor can I count on good actors to have 51% control of the network.

Why on earth would we force our currency to operate as though there was a German occupation at all times, and take on all the massive inefficiency that goes along with it? Especially when its climate implications are pushing us towards this dystopian future.

Re: What Problem Blockchains Solve

#63

Post by arcticbull »

0x0nyandesu wrote: post #57
arcticbull wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, that's called regulatory arbitrage. It's not a [edit](unique) use case, it's basically crime, give or take. You're just skipping the AML and KYC checks that you'd ordinarily be required to take. Believe it or not sending money takes a few milliseconds in a classical system, except for, you know, regulatory and compliance checks that coiners pretend aren't actually needed. The use cases are: regulatory arbitrag…

TIL private transactions and paying with cash should be illegal according to articbull of HN.

Not at all, cash is a terrible way of conducting illegal transactions, doubly so at scale. There's a reason the cartels used to use binders of gift cards - and now, well, Bitcoin.

It's practically impossible to get meaningful quantities of it without having a SAR or CTR filed against you. Denominations are small so having a large amount is visible, risky, bulky and inefficient. Not to mention hard to explain away. And it's practically impossible to deposit meaningful quantities of it without having a SAR or CTR filed. The whole modern financial system is designed to catch criminals using cash.

Cash does a good job of threading the needle, taking into consideration the need for individuals to have a peer-to-peer, anonymous, offline decentralized currency while also taking into consideration regulatory and compliance needs.

I've nothing against cash, it has it's place, and no need to put words in my mouth.

Re: What Problem Blockchains Solve

#64

Post by sofixa »

0x0nyandesu wrote: post #46
arcticbull wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, that's called regulatory arbitrage. It's not a [edit](unique) use case, it's basically crime, give or take. You're just skipping the AML and KYC checks that you'd ordinarily be required to take. Believe it or not sending money takes a few milliseconds in a classical system, except for, you know, regulatory and compliance checks that coiners pretend aren't actually needed. The use cases are: regulatory arbitrag…

I always tell people of how my mother was smuggling Soviet rubles stitched into her coat when she flew to NYC to immigrate to America and in the real world people are aghast at the unjust laws of the USSR while on the internet everyone is like "but the law". Fuck the law. Law != Justice. Use some critical thinking skills for once. You earned your wealth. It's not the government's.

I'm sure there's a name for this fallacy, but to put it bluntly, you can just apply logic applicable to the fucking Soviet Union for any country and law system.

> You earned your wealth. It's not the government's

A common misconception among libertarians and alike; that's outright false. Pretty much everyone in a regular developed/ing country, especially in a centrally planned economy like the USSR, has wealth because a society and a government enable it. Be it with infrastructure, education, regulations, monetary system, or whatever. For examples how important those are for any wealth generation, look at Venezuela or Turkey.

Re: What Problem Blockchains Solve

#65

Post by sofixa »

ur-whale wrote: post #59
_xnmw wrote: post #51

What blockchains solve is the whole pesky problem of following the law and paying taxes, and being a normal member of society. No wonder that much of the early crypto literature was all about anarchy. To this day, the only useful thing that crypto has enabled (on a very small scale) international asset transfer that bypasses mainstream financial systems. As Diehl[1] wrote, decentralized trustless systems are only use…

The problem with statist thinking like this is that it never ever takes into account what happens when the state fails. This is a typical way of looking at the world from people who were lucky enough to grow up in a society that sort of works, unfortunately not the norm for a large fraction of the human race. I suspect that - had you lived under German occupation in 39-45 - you would have a very different take on thi…

But very few people in the world today are under the risk of having to live in such a situation.

Re: What Problem Blockchains Solve

#66

Post by pengwing »

PeterCorless wrote: post #25
pengwing wrote: post #10

Ethereum has only been around since 2015. Naturally smart contracts, DAos and NFTs are somewhat newer technology, still exhibiting flaws. Block chain as a concept with the single use case of store of value has been around since 2009 in the form of Bitcoin. So let me only pick one battle here: The problem is federally-issued inflationary currency. Bitcoin solves it.

"we find no evidence of any positive links between inflation and either Bitcoin or Ethereum during times of increasing forward inflation expectations. This raises significant doubts over the ability of cryptocurrencies to hedge expected inflation in the short- or long-run." https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016517652...

A really great study, albeit of a completely different topic. Let me explain the it in layman's terms: Can expectation of inflation be used as a trading signal to profit from a rising price of Bitcoin and Ethereum? Result: Not really, it was only briefly possible during Covid19 and does not hold as a general relationship.

My point was: BTC is more deflationary than USD. A relationship between the topic of the study and my statement does not exist. But if you read chart 1 of Figure 1 carefully, you will find that its data in fact supports my statement.

Re: What Problem Blockchains Solve

#67

Post by okokwhatever »

dmitriid wrote: post #48
HatchedLake721 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look into smart contracts

1. They don't work outside blockchain 2. You've replaced a natural language that people understand with a program in an esoteric programming language How is this a unique solution etc.?

Two words: Cost, Speed. One concept: Kill the middleman

Easy, next one.

Re: What Problem Blockchains Solve

#68

Post by omnimus »

_xnmw wrote: post #51

What blockchains solve is the whole pesky problem of following the law and paying taxes, and being a normal member of society. No wonder that much of the early crypto literature was all about anarchy. To this day, the only useful thing that crypto has enabled (on a very small scale) international asset transfer that bypasses mainstream financial systems. As Diehl[1] wrote, decentralized trustless systems are only use…

I dont know if by anarchy you mean anarchism but crypto has always been about libertarianism. Anarchism is generaly social and left leaning. At some ofcourse crypto libertarians wanted to coopt cool word and invented cryptoanarchism. But thats what they love to do (web3).

Re: What Problem Blockchains Solve

#69

Post by dmitriid »

okokwhatever wrote: post #67
dmitriid wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. They don't work outside blockchain 2. You've replaced a natural language that people understand with a program in an esoteric programming language How is this a unique solution etc.?

Two words: Cost, Speed. One concept: Kill the middleman Easy, next one.

> Two words: Cost, Speed

- Extremely costly

- Very slow

> One concept: Kill the middlemain

You're not killing middlemen. The moment you step outside blockchain, you need middlemen.

When you need someone to verify that this esoteric code actually encodes you contract, you need middlemen. etc.

> Easy, next one.

If you ignore reality, everything is easy, sure.

BTW. Contracts-as-code have been done since computers became a thing.

Re: What Problem Blockchains Solve

#70

Post by pengwing »

da-x wrote: post #28
pengwing wrote: post #10

Ethereum has only been around since 2015. Naturally smart contracts, DAos and NFTs are somewhat newer technology, still exhibiting flaws. Block chain as a concept with the single use case of store of value has been around since 2009 in the form of Bitcoin. So let me only pick one battle here: The problem is federally-issued inflationary currency. Bitcoin solves it.

However so far it's not proving to be a currency (short term stability, long term deprecation or preservation) but only an asset class (short term instability, long term preservation). So far it is only proving that it cannot be both. For assets, one can choose to invest in already existing inflation resistant assets, and many investors and even unsophisticated laypeople did that across the ages before Bitcoin was in…

BTC is already a de-facto currency in El Salvador and somewhat short term stable.

As an asset class BTC solves yet another problem: It is a better version of gold due to the hard supply cap.

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