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Overstock.com Assembles Coders to Create a Bitcoin-Like Stock Market

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Re: Overstock.com Assembles Coders to Create a Bitcoin-Like Stock Market

#61

Post by dublinclontarf »

NhanH wrote: post #18

Can anyone knowledgeable (especially those that do not like bitcoin) weigh in as to why this would be a bad idea ? I'm asking this sincerely, and not being sarcasm, as I don't know enough about either Bitcoin or stock market to make a judgement. And this seems ... different enough that I'm not sure my reaction should be "damn the future is here", or "what a bunch of craps".

As the company issuing shares, unless you get the approval of the SEC (i.e. you're regulated to sell shares to the general public) you will be fined and prosecuted.

It you are a non U.S. based company you will be chased by the SEC for issuing shares to U.S. citizens, which brings you under their jurisdiction(so says them).

Re: Overstock.com Assembles Coders to Create a Bitcoin-Like Stock Market

#62

Post by tvhiggins »

chc wrote: post #16
awt wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If there were a law that could prevent regulatory capture then I would say go for it, more regulation.

With or without regulatory capture, I can't see how the problem we face is too much oversight on Wall Street.

imo its the fact that we're so reliant on 3-4 big banks as opposed to 100 banks. if it were more decentralized, US could afford less regulation and just let companies succeed/fail on their own. can't do that in the current climate

Re: Overstock.com Assembles Coders to Create a Bitcoin-Like Stock Market

#63

Post by ewzimm »

colordrops wrote: post #56
slg wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am curious how someone can come away from the last decade of Wall Street behavior and conclude the answer to the problem is less regulation.

People come away concluding that, because the problem with Wall Street is not deregulation, despite all the propaganda to the contrary. The problem was selective regulation or deregulation, whatever benefited Wall Street, as well as selective enforcement and interpretation of law. In a nut shell, Wall Street is in control and reconfigures the legal apparatus to their advantage; they don't randomly dismantle it.

I think people like to simplify regulation as either good or bad and fail to consider how biased it can be. Unbiased software rules that can be openly analyzed and force everyone to play fair are good. Selective regulation written by those with money is terrible.

Re: Overstock.com Assembles Coders to Create a Bitcoin-Like Stock Market

#64

Post by Kalium »

ThomPete wrote: post #38
Kalium wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if that's the case, how do you convince the network that the shares need to be invalidated? How do you do that in a way that can't be faked? That sounds a lot like another set of private keys to me. We already know those are vulnerable to being stolen.

Because the protocol is transparent so you can trace what happened? Ebay and Paypal solve 60million disputes a year using software. http://techcircle.vccircle.com/2011/02/08/ebay-paypal-solve-... I am not saying I know how to do this just saying that I don't think it's going to be as hard as some might thing. But sure I could be wrong. And keep in mind. No system is perfect. Neither is the crypto-protocol. But it doe…

Just because you can trace how shares/money moved doesn't mean you can convince the rest of the network that the movement was improper.

This doesn't meet any sane definition of "good enough". It gives up a bunch of protections for no real gains.

Re: Overstock.com Assembles Coders to Create a Bitcoin-Like Stock Market

#65

Post by zanny »

wpietri wrote: post #52
zanny wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because I know when a place is likely safe to eat at, I spend more money in restaurants and I'm more willing to try new places. And the inverse of this, is that if a restaurant listed food safety scores irrespective of state mandate, you would visit those restaurants more, and if most people agreed, those restaurants would prosper and those not adopting food safety scores would suffer. Except in that situation ther…

That's a fine hypothetical, but a) I know of no city where restaurants voluntarily put together such a system, and b) if each restaurant gets to pick who evaluates it, there's no particular reason for customers to trust the scores. I also don't buy your view that the magic sparkle ponies of the market will always take care of everything. I think your approach works in theory, with infinitely smart and well informed h…

It works in that given example. Of course if you invent an arbitrary number it holds no value. But the OP postulates that through force of state having safety criteria restaurants must advertise is a systemic benefit to the food service industry, and if it actually was, then restaurants everywhere would naturally adopt it if it increases consumer participation and revenues.

More than anything I'm trying to indicate that safety ratings are not actually benefiting the restaurants if they are not adopting similar systems elsewhere. And if they had a private rating system it would only mean anything if there was some consortium that posted standards. Consider the ESRB, which is not a state review board but exists to keep states from instituting review boards in the US on video games. They specify their rating criteria in available records and are utilized industry wide because the users of the rating board find it a net benefit.

I'm not going to argue that consumers do not benefit somewhat from food safety ratings, but it is also not purely black and white, because by compelling restaurants to produce them, if they are not a market positive effect (and like I said, the lack of a natural appearance of such a system outside mandate indicates it is most likely not) then the consumer pays for those reviews with a more significant expense on the part of restaurants than the restaurants make as a result of increased traffic, which means they must raise prices systemically to compensate, and you end up paying more.

Except in a sane market, you should be able to pay more if you want to only shop at restaurants that give safety ratings from some public consortium in the first place. But then you have the choice.

Re: Overstock.com Assembles Coders to Create a Bitcoin-Like Stock Market

#67

Post by slg »

zanny wrote: post #65
wpietri wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a fine hypothetical, but a) I know of no city where restaurants voluntarily put together such a system, and b) if each restaurant gets to pick who evaluates it, there's no particular reason for customers to trust the scores. I also don't buy your view that the magic sparkle ponies of the market will always take care of everything. I think your approach works in theory, with infinitely smart and well informed h…

It works in that given example. Of course if you invent an arbitrary number it holds no value. But the OP postulates that through force of state having safety criteria restaurants must advertise is a systemic benefit to the food service industry, and if it actually was , then restaurants everywhere would naturally adopt it if it increases consumer participation and revenues. More than anything I'm trying to indicate…

The scenario you paint isn't common for a number of reasons, but the primary issue is information asymmetry.

I don't know enough about food preparation and don't have access to the kitchen of a restaurant, so I have no idea how to properly assign it a health rating. The restaurant itself can obviously produce a health rating, but if they are the type of place to skimp on health issues, it isn't that much of a stretch to believe they may lie about health issues. The free market result will then be a mess. Customers who want a healthy restaurant won't know which ones are truly healthy. That makes it a hard to justify paying the premium for a health rating that could just be a lie. The restaurants then have little motivation to actually care about health since they can't prove it to their customers. In the end, you will have a market that is dominated by cheap and low quality goods (check out "the market for lemons" [1]).

The video game system is not an exact equal. The main difference is that there generally isn't information asymmetry in video games. The customer will be able to play the game and by the end of it have all the same information as the creators of the game. That provides accountability. A classic example of both that accountability and information asymmetry was GTA and the whole hot coffee scandal. The developers hid sexually explicit content in the game that was not factored into the rating. Once knowledge of that leaked out, there was a lot of backlash and the rating for the game was eventually changed.

Banking, finance, and Wall Street likely have even more information asymmetry than the food industry, hence the need for an external and trusted source of oversight.

[1] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Market_for_Lemons

Re: Overstock.com Assembles Coders to Create a Bitcoin-Like Stock Market

#68

Post by chc »

tvhiggins wrote: post #62
chc wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With or without regulatory capture, I can't see how the problem we face is too much oversight on Wall Street.

imo its the fact that we're so reliant on 3-4 big banks as opposed to 100 banks. if it were more decentralized, US could afford less regulation and just let companies succeed/fail on their own. can't do that in the current climate

I don't think it would look the way you imagine. There are lots of computer software vendors, but if you wiped out Apple, Microsoft and a few core Linux contributors, you'd pretty much wreck the computer world, even for people who directly use other vendors. The existence of smaller players does not negate the influence of the larger ones.

Re: Overstock.com Assembles Coders to Create a Bitcoin-Like Stock Market

#69

Post by wyager »

smacktoward wrote: post #44
eric_bullington wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>take some rich people's money And there lies the rub. So the wealthy man can take advantage of start-up investing, but the government in its infinite wisdom, forbids the middle-class man from doing the same under penalty of imprisonment for the person offering the security.

Yes, it is truly a moral imperative that we allow people who can't afford to be ripped off access to the same "investment opportunities" as people who can. Freeeeeeeedom!

You know how people always complain about the rich getting richer? That frequently happens because they're given exclusive access to those "rip-offs" you're claiming average people should be excluded from.

Re: Overstock.com Assembles Coders to Create a Bitcoin-Like Stock Market

#70

Post by ThomPete »

Kalium wrote: post #64
ThomPete wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the protocol is transparent so you can trace what happened? Ebay and Paypal solve 60million disputes a year using software. http://techcircle.vccircle.com/2011/02/08/ebay-paypal-solve-... I am not saying I know how to do this just saying that I don't think it's going to be as hard as some might thing. But sure I could be wrong. And keep in mind. No system is perfect. Neither is the crypto-protocol. But it doe…

Just because you can trace how shares/money moved doesn't mean you can convince the rest of the network that the movement was improper. This doesn't meet any sane definition of "good enough". It gives up a bunch of protections for no real gains.

Perhaps perhaps not. It seems pretty early still to say anything with certainty.
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