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Andreessen on Crypto

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Re: Andreessen on Crypto

#71

Post by lowkey »

mypastself wrote: post #68
lowkey wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One option today is Chainlink which uses a host of oracles to achieve distributed consensus on real-world prices, weather or other signals.

And how would Chainlink prove that a particular side of a contract has, say, delivered a particular item or performed a particar service and the other party’s funds must be released?

Chainlink hasn’t solved for every external blockchain integration - I never claimed they did. Chainlink simply provides a distributed consensus mechanism for getting real world observations in a robust and difficult to manipulate way, onto a blockchain.

Re: Andreessen on Crypto

#72

Post by lowkey »

lottin wrote: post #66
lowkey wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Distributed consensus eliminates a whole host of problems associated with centralized middlemen. For example, with Bitcoin the rules of the system are transparent to all participants and cannot be changed by any single party. 21 million coins is the limit and the emission rate is fixed. With traditional fiat, no one can promise or predict the supply or debasement rate this year, next year or ten years from now.

> Distributed consensus eliminates a whole host of problems associated with centralized middlemen. Which ones? > With traditional fiat, no one can promise or predict the supply or debasement rate this year, next year or ten years from now. Nobody wants to predict the supply. What people want to predict is the inflation rate, and the inflation rate is only predictable when you have a central bank.

My comment provided the first example (currency supply and debasement rate) but you then go on to claim that nobody wants those things.

I want those things as do others so objectively your claim is false.

Also your claim that inflation rate is only predictable when you have a central bank is just plain silly. It makes no sense.

Re: Andreessen on Crypto

#73

Post by dcolkitt »

jyu wrote: post #42

The world and society at large has seen an erosion of trust. For the naysayers, ask yourself: - do you trust your government more or less than your parents - do you trust the mainstream media more or less than your parents - do you trust big companies to do the right thing more or less than your parents As we culturally become less trusting, we need different tools to organize and determine value. Protocols that enab…

I believe open source software is now the most trusted segment of society. (Prior to a few years ago, I’d say peer reviewed science, but the replication crisis has not been kind to its image.) Most people in the know probably trust Linus and the kernel team far more than the intelligence team or Vitalik more than Janet Yellen or Postgres more than Oracle or Wikipedia more than Harvard.

To that extent there’s going to be a major push, where practically feasible, to replace existing institutions with open software and protocols. Trust is more efficient, and trusted entities will long-term outcompete untrusted.

The technology doesn’t yet exist, but if you could replace JP Morgan with a DAO, how does JP Morgan not watch its business crumble. Why would any stakeholder choose to trust an opaque bank over an open protocol?

Re: Andreessen on Crypto

#74

Post by emerged »

jyu wrote: post #42

The world and society at large has seen an erosion of trust. For the naysayers, ask yourself: - do you trust your government more or less than your parents - do you trust the mainstream media more or less than your parents - do you trust big companies to do the right thing more or less than your parents As we culturally become less trusting, we need different tools to organize and determine value. Protocols that enab…

I trust crypto developers and users even less than I trust those other things.

Re: Andreessen on Crypto

#75

Post by tim333 »

nixpulvis wrote: post #27
ZephyrBlu wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're synonymous, and crypto is the colloquial term.

They are only synonyms to coinheads.

Dictionary has

1) a person who secretly supports or adheres to a group, party, or belief.

2) cryptocurrency.

3) cryptography.

obvs the perceived meaning of words depends on context. You can't really just declare 3) is the only true meaning.

Re: Andreessen on Crypto

#76

Post by nixpulvis »

tim333 wrote: post #75
nixpulvis wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are only synonyms to coinheads.

Dictionary has 1) a person who secretly supports or adheres to a group, party, or belief. 2) cryptocurrency. 3) cryptography. obvs the perceived meaning of words depends on context. You can't really just declare 3) is the only true meaning.

Funny, my dictionaries don't have a definition for "crypto" at all. Google gives only the following two definitions for me:

1. short for cryptography.

2. (informal) a person having a secret allegiance to a political creed, especially communism.

Or as a prefix / combining form:

1. concealed; secret.

From the Greek kruptos.

I have no idea who manages www.dictionary.com, but I honestly wouldn't be surprised if they took payments from coinheads to push this shit.

Re: Andreessen on Crypto

#77

Post by mypastself »

lowkey wrote: post #71
mypastself wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And how would Chainlink prove that a particular side of a contract has, say, delivered a particular item or performed a particar service and the other party’s funds must be released?

Chainlink hasn’t solved for every external blockchain integration - I never claimed they did. Chainlink simply provides a distributed consensus mechanism for getting real world observations in a robust and difficult to manipulate way, onto a blockchain.

It sounds to me like the technology doesn’t really replace lawyers with code, then. The one use case presented so far is a contract that relies on publicly available data arbitered by a majority of external sources, each of which is presumably inducted into the system by a trusted third party.

Re: Andreessen on Crypto

#78

Post by lottin »

lowkey wrote: post #72
lottin wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Distributed consensus eliminates a whole host of problems associated with centralized middlemen. Which ones? > With traditional fiat, no one can promise or predict the supply or debasement rate this year, next year or ten years from now. Nobody wants to predict the supply. What people want to predict is the inflation rate, and the inflation rate is only predictable when you have a central bank.

My comment provided the first example (currency supply and debasement rate) but you then go on to claim that nobody wants those things. I want those things as do others so objectively your claim is false. Also your claim that inflation rate is only predictable when you have a central bank is just plain silly. It makes no sense.

You said there are a "whole host of problems associated with centralized middlemen" but the only "problem" you mention is the unpredictability of the money supply in fiat currencies, which, leaving aside whether it's even a problem, it certainly isn't representative of a set of problems "associated with centralized middlemen".

And the claim that the inflation rate is unpredictable in the absence of an adaptive monetary policy is not controversial among economists, as far as I know. If you think such a claim is "plain silly" and that it "makes no sense" maybe you need to explain why.

Re: Andreessen on Crypto

#79

Post by lowkey »

mypastself wrote: post #77
lowkey wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chainlink hasn’t solved for every external blockchain integration - I never claimed they did. Chainlink simply provides a distributed consensus mechanism for getting real world observations in a robust and difficult to manipulate way, onto a blockchain.

It sounds to me like the technology doesn’t really replace lawyers with code, then. The one use case presented so far is a contract that relies on publicly available data arbitered by a majority of external sources, each of which is presumably inducted into the system by a trusted third party.

Give it a chance.

It may not replace every contract in every case but Ethereum in conjunction with Chainlink does address an increasing number of legacy contract use cases.

This is a nascent technology and per the article, major structural transformations such as this may play out over 30 or more years.

If you are genuinely curious I would suggest reading up on the details of how Chainlink works [1]. As you can see these are not trivial challenges and the solutions often require a bit of effort to understand. (Not claiming to be an expert, just an interested student)

[1] https://chain.link/solutions

Re: Andreessen on Crypto

#80

Post by [deleted] »

lowkey wrote: post #71
mypastself wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And how would Chainlink prove that a particular side of a contract has, say, delivered a particular item or performed a particar service and the other party’s funds must be released?

Chainlink hasn’t solved for every external blockchain integration - I never claimed they did. Chainlink simply provides a distributed consensus mechanism for getting real world observations in a robust and difficult to manipulate way, onto a blockchain.

[deleted]
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