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Do Cryptocurrencies Provide ANY() Real-Economic Value at All?

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Re: Do Cryptocurrencies Provide ANY() Real-Economic Value at All?

#71

Post by robjan »

mindcandy wrote: post #68
dmitriid wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, literally not better than an existing contract, but with the added complexity of coding it and having both the landlord and the tenant be programmers versed in esoteric languages to verify it.

That’s a super-bad-faith argument. Did you personally write the legal contract for the last place you were a tenant of without any involvement from a lawyer? No. Your landlord might have hired a lawyer. Mine used an off-the-shelf legal contract. For common situations like rent, open-source contracts are inevitable. This will give people who could never afford lawyers (think 3rd world) access to much of the results mi…

Most countries include some kind of arbitration when something is disputed e.g was the damage caused by negligence or wear and tear? The smart contract can't settle disputes like this without a trusted party.

Re: Do Cryptocurrencies Provide ANY() Real-Economic Value at All?

#72

Post by WnZ39p0Dgydaz1 »

smt88 wrote: post #63
mindcandy wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not a smart contract dev, but here’s my understanding. You have three fundamental tools to worth with: money, time and signaling consent. The only way to enforce consequences without lawyers is collateral. So, you could have a contract that requires two months rent as a deposit to start. From there you can have simple rules: if the contract expires, the tenant gets the deposit back. At the end of the contract, th…

This smart contract has no way of knowing if/what the damages are, whether the rent was paid in cash, or whether a million other legal issues are happening. For example, in most places, tenants may stop paying rent if their heat breaks in the winter and the landlord won't fix it promptly. The central authority will always be human courts. Smart contracts can't observe or record anything except crypto, which makes the…

Yes, you will always need humans to make human judgements but they don't need to be part of a court or central authority. With reputation and consensus incentive systems in place, these judgements can be made by trusted 3rd parties and feed back into the smart contract without the need for a single central authority.

The point isn't to get rid of humans or trusted 3rd parties. It's to get reduce the reliance on a single centralized entity that may be corrupt, inefficient, or malicious.

Re: Do Cryptocurrencies Provide ANY() Real-Economic Value at All?

#73

Post by wheresmycraisin »

WnZ39p0Dgydaz1 wrote: post #70
wheresmycraisin wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The tenant is mentally ill, has a gun, and is refusing to leave. The enforcer says "f that". What do you do now?

This is a spectrum similar to taking out loans and performing liquidations. If the person you are giving a loan too is sketchy you may refuse the loan or charge higher interest. The same principle applies here as physical eviction is fundamentally about risk. There is an "auction" on the eviction and potential evictors can decide how risky the eviction is. More risky evictions will require a larger payout.

So the ability to get out of predatory situations depends on how much money you have.

Re: Do Cryptocurrencies Provide ANY() Real-Economic Value at All?

#74

Post by mindcandy »

smt88 wrote: post #63
mindcandy wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not a smart contract dev, but here’s my understanding. You have three fundamental tools to worth with: money, time and signaling consent. The only way to enforce consequences without lawyers is collateral. So, you could have a contract that requires two months rent as a deposit to start. From there you can have simple rules: if the contract expires, the tenant gets the deposit back. At the end of the contract, th…

This smart contract has no way of knowing if/what the damages are, whether the rent was paid in cash, or whether a million other legal issues are happening. For example, in most places, tenants may stop paying rent if their heat breaks in the winter and the landlord won't fix it promptly. The central authority will always be human courts. Smart contracts can't observe or record anything except crypto, which makes the…

Smart contracts are not going to instantly replace government with a techno-libertarian utopia. They are going to make government, lawyer and bank services a lot less necessary. And, they are going to provide a lot of alternative services to people without access to effective government/financial services.

Smart contracts can’t observe anything but time, crypto and signaling from users/automated services. For disputes you need an independent third party to cast a deciding vote. A government judge is common option. But, you and I can agree to grant that vote to a non-government agent instead.

Legal rental contracts are non-trivial. A rental smart contract would similarly require more rules than we care to spell out here. But, “If the tenant and the notary both vote that there is bullshittery going on with the property, rent is suspended.” sounds like a reasonable thing to include.

Re: Do Cryptocurrencies Provide ANY() Real-Economic Value at All?

#75

Post by pgesmm »

mindcandy wrote: post #66
pgesmm wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Suppose we two make a "smart contract": I say I pay 100k, you say you sell me a functional car. Let's say you then deliver a broken car. Now what? How can't we have disputes, we did a "smart contract"?

You and I can agree on an independent 3rd party as a notary. If within a six months of the sale both you and the notary sign off that the deal was not fulfilled (the car is junk), you get the $100k back. That means I can’t spend the $100k directly for six months. But, I can easily take out a six month loan against it. That way it’s liquid for me and still safe for you. The loan agent is taking on the risk in exchange…

Good point, but are cryptocurrencies then needed (adding currency trafo risks)?

Further, how do you select the trusted 3rd party--can't you get screwed here if there are "multiple" 3rd party notaries? As far as I can see, you can't get rid of some "central" authority

Re: Do Cryptocurrencies Provide ANY() Real-Economic Value at All?

#76

Post by mindcandy »

robjan wrote: post #71
mindcandy wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s a super-bad-faith argument. Did you personally write the legal contract for the last place you were a tenant of without any involvement from a lawyer? No. Your landlord might have hired a lawyer. Mine used an off-the-shelf legal contract. For common situations like rent, open-source contracts are inevitable. This will give people who could never afford lawyers (think 3rd world) access to much of the results mi…

Most countries include some kind of arbitration when something is disputed e.g was the damage caused by negligence or wear and tear? The smart contract can't settle disputes like this without a trusted party.

Yes. But, as elaborated elsewhere in this thread, the reputable dispute arbitrator does not have to be a government agent. In countries where government agents are installed through corruption and paid in bribes, handing the 3rd vote on who gets the Bitcoin to someone based on reputation rather than appointment is a great boon.

Re: Do Cryptocurrencies Provide ANY() Real-Economic Value at All?

#77

Post by mindcandy »

pgesmm wrote: post #75
mindcandy wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You and I can agree on an independent 3rd party as a notary. If within a six months of the sale both you and the notary sign off that the deal was not fulfilled (the car is junk), you get the $100k back. That means I can’t spend the $100k directly for six months. But, I can easily take out a six month loan against it. That way it’s liquid for me and still safe for you. The loan agent is taking on the risk in exchange…

Good point, but are cryptocurrencies then needed (adding currency trafo risks)? Further, how do you select the trusted 3rd party--can't you get screwed here if there are "multiple" 3rd party notaries? As far as I can see, you can't get rid of some "central" authority

At some point you have to trust somebody. Who is more trustworthy for your situation: a government agent, a financial officer or some reputation service? Think about that as someone in a third world country...

Re: Do Cryptocurrencies Provide ANY() Real-Economic Value at All?

#78

Post by pinkybanana »

notwedtm wrote: post #22
pinkybanana wrote: post #19

I got rich with Bitcoin, the value in my life has been quite tangible. I live in big house, drive a nice car, I don't have to work unless I want to. This is how I would pretty much define value. Q1. by accepting and preferring BTC as a payment for my services, I was able to retain better value/purchasing power from my labour long-term. By changing my fiat currency to BTC I was able to also increase my purchasing powe…

Luck/intelligence != value There are plenty of people who have been ruined by bitcoin as well. The fact that you were either lucky enough to ride the right waves, or smart enough to see the bad ones, does not equate to any value at all.

My life has improved a lot thanks to Bitcoin, that equals very objective value for me. Maybe you are talking about "value for society" or something more abstract? Value is very simple concept and Bitcoin obviously provides it to many in rising fiat value. These "doesn't provide value" just seem to throw the commonly used definition out of the window and talk on another definition plane.

Re: Do Cryptocurrencies Provide ANY() Real-Economic Value at All?

#79

Post by smt88 »

WnZ39p0Dgydaz1 wrote: post #72
smt88 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This smart contract has no way of knowing if/what the damages are, whether the rent was paid in cash, or whether a million other legal issues are happening. For example, in most places, tenants may stop paying rent if their heat breaks in the winter and the landlord won't fix it promptly. The central authority will always be human courts. Smart contracts can't observe or record anything except crypto, which makes the…

Yes, you will always need humans to make human judgements but they don't need to be part of a court or central authority. With reputation and consensus incentive systems in place, these judgements can be made by trusted 3rd parties and feed back into the smart contract without the need for a single central authority. The point isn't to get rid of humans or trusted 3rd parties. It's to get reduce the reliance on a sin…

> It's to get reduce the reliance on a single centralized entity that may be corrupt, inefficient, or malicious.

This makes sense only in places with very corrupt legal systems.

But if the legal system is corrupt in favor of one side (let's assume it's the landlord), why would the landlord mutually agree to arbitration?

Please provide a very specific example of something that happens now that a smart contract would fix. I can't think of anything.

Re: Do Cryptocurrencies Provide ANY() Real-Economic Value at All?

#80

Post by smt88 »

mindcandy wrote: post #74
smt88 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This smart contract has no way of knowing if/what the damages are, whether the rent was paid in cash, or whether a million other legal issues are happening. For example, in most places, tenants may stop paying rent if their heat breaks in the winter and the landlord won't fix it promptly. The central authority will always be human courts. Smart contracts can't observe or record anything except crypto, which makes the…

Smart contracts are not going to instantly replace government with a techno-libertarian utopia. They are going to make government, lawyer and bank services a lot less necessary. And, they are going to provide a lot of alternative services to people without access to effective government/financial services. Smart contracts can’t observe anything but time, crypto and signaling from users/automated services. For dispute…

> They are going to make government, lawyer and bank services a lot less necessary.

All the benefits of smart contracts are available with regular old software.

Why hasn't software destroyed these services already?

> “If the tenant and the notary both vote that there is bullshittery going on with the property, rent is suspended.” sounds like a reasonable thing to include.

Why do you need a smart contract for this? The tenant can do this right now without any software help or public ledger.

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