611–620 of 650 posts
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I think the decentralized web pieces are starting to fall in place: decentralized file storage, decentralized domain names, decentralized communities and streaming, decentralized payments, etc. I wouldn't declare it "failed technology" just yet.
Did Filecoin actually gain any traction?
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DAI is mostly minted from ETH, at a rate of $150 collateral to $100 DAI. https://daistats.com/#/ . The $200m DAI minted from WBTC represents 0.02% of Bitcoin's market cap.
Is what I outlined still basically correct in terms of describing the utility of an overcollateralized loan? That is: Use crypto for collateral to borrow stablecoins, to buy more crypto, to make profit (hopefully exceeding loan interest) when the crypto price goes up. Or do I have that all wrong? I really am not sure that I grok how this works, at all. I'm trying to figure out what is going on in this space and you s…
| "What's Ethereum's killer app?" we asked ourselves not long ago. Now we know. It's the world's best publicly-accessible settlement platform for financial transactions. I don't see any evidence of this being true.
I would say that the killer app currently is decentralised finance, lending and trading for example on the chain. The second killer app is NFTs, basically the exchange of art on the chain.
Art is probably the worst use-case for NFT. NFT work well for memberships, tickets, virtual land in games, etc. For art, not so much.
It doesn't solve ownership: any one else can "own" the same piece of art, it's only the NFT that is unique. It doesn't solve scarcity: the author can make more copies and wrap them into other NFTs. It doesn't solve authenticity: any one can wrap existing art into an NFT and sell it.
Basically the only thing NFT art solve is anteriority and possibly authorship: you can prove that you made a piece of art before a certain date, and that you published it first.
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> It gives freedom to people, how is that bad? That's just a slogan. The devil is in the details. To use an extreme example: Murder laws removes my freedom to kill random people; how is that good?
That impinges on someone else's freedom. I'd go with something like selling 2 kidneys or contracts that result in indentured servitude.
It is always a tradeoff. In the case of the particular tech discussed, it's a tradeoff between being able to somewhat control crime (e.g, making payment for human trafficking harder, making it possible to reverse theft) and financial privacy. It's freedom from having things stolen and freedom from being regulated.
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Putting supply chain on a blockchain isn't about verifying the authenticity of the goods. Its about being able to buy and sell the goods at any time, hedge out price risk, etc.
> Its about being able to buy and sell the goods at any time, hedge out price risk, etc. Can you explain this in greater detail? I don't wish to be a naysayer, but I don't understand how those concepts are blockchain-specific. Goods being re-sold/diverted while in transit was a regular occurrence prior to the existence of blockchain technologies. What is being brought to the table that is new?
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Do you not pay the loan back in Bitcoin? How would you exercise the 300% gain while also paying the loan back?
So if Bitcoin grows 300%, that means your collateral is now worth 300% more. You can either withdraw a portion of it back to your normal wallet or you can just borrow more against the same collateral. So it's like a credit line that's always appreciating in value. If one day, you need the whole collateral for whatever reason, then you'd pay the loan to unlock it fully and withdraw it.
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Interesting. I think I know somebody who might be interested in something similar: ie, put X BTC as collateral for a loan, and pay it back after a year to get X BTC. Any pointers for where I could learn how this could work?
Or you could just treat that collateral as a credit line that's always growing, if it grows faster than your spending, just withdraw a portion of your collateral. Just look at Youtube videos on makerdao, there's some good ones out there and try it for yourself once you feel comfortable with small amounts. Once you actually try it, you're going to be like "this is the future", every single one of my friends that tried…
Everything is denominated in Bitcoin, which is always going up in price. Everyone borrows some lame legacy asset X and collateralixes with Bitcoin.
Do weird things happen? for example of Bitcoin is ubiquitous then the price of Bitcoin essentially gets factored out of the equation, so this magical leverage goes away. There are other effects but this idea that this is the future (or rather that this is a superior future ) seems a bit naive to me. Gravity will catch up to you no matter what.
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If what you are saying is true then this is literally the housing crisis with variable rate loans and a collapsing market putting everybody underwater. If the value of the item used as collateral sinks then you go from fine to broke in an instant.
The total being used as collateral can be seen here https://defipulse.com/defi-lending , and https://nexostatistics.com/loans/ . A small proportion of market cap, and these loans have low loan to value ratios - typically 20%; no-one wants to risk liquidation.
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I've read some detailed discussions from people in the industry explaining how blockchains don't help. And I've read some very high level, breezy assertions from people outside the industry asserting that blockchains can help (although they never spell out how, exactly). As far as I can tell: 1. There's a pretty big issue with containers having the wrong contents (eg, counterfeit items loaded initially, or contraband…
This, a thousand times _this_! I've worked in shipping for decades. There is no problem with BOLs magically changing with no traceability (which blockchain could solve, I guess, if that problem existed?). There is no problem with checking that the seal on a box at arrival is the same seal that was on the box when it departed. The only viable purpose I've heard for blockchain is quasi-anonymous decentralized trust neg…
Any society that adopts trust will be able to compete very well against a society of no trust.
Thst is my conjecture at any rate.