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Fintech dystopia

fintechdystopia.com

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Re: Fintech dystopia

#91

Post by ranger207 »

gronglo wrote: post #26

[flagged]

NFTs are ownership (by some definition of "ownership") of assets on the blockchain. The blockchain is a database that's good for trustless transactions between a sufficient number of competing parties. Video game item transfer's problems have nothing to do with the problems blockchains purport to solve. The problems faced by developers wanting to allow transferring items between different games are primarily IP licensing agreements so that developers of one game have a license to use the assets from the other game, followed by actually finding a use for items in two different games. Since the two developers need to have agreements already in place, that obviates the need for a trustless database. The most likely scenario for one item to be useful across two different games is that both games are the same genre (ie, shooter, RTS game, etc), which reduces the likelihood of developers being open to licensing agreements because their games would be competitors. NFT item transfer has never made sense for these reasons

Re: Fintech dystopia

#92

Post by fragmede »

wmf wrote: post #46
raytopia wrote: post #18

Beside Cryptocurrency and GNU Taler have there been anyother attempts at p2p digital currency?

There were a bunch of attempts before Bitcoin but they weren't compelling enough to get any users.

There was E-gold in 1996 and then there was Paypal and PayPal's doing their own cryptocurrency PyUSD these days.

Re: Fintech dystopia

#93

Post by ranger207 »

ArtTimeInvestor wrote: post #54

I think people here on HN keep underestimating the relevance of crypto for four reasons: What crypto is already useful for is not to replace the cash in your pocket and your savings account. It is useful to replace SWIFT and Fort Knox. What crypto will be useful for in the future is uncertain. But uncertainty does not mean pie in the sky. How the internet would be used was uncertain in the 70s. Yes, nerds were alread…

Why is crypto better at replacing SWIFT and Fort Knox rather than, say, SEPA or fiat currency (which replaced Fort Knox shortly after the invention of ARPANET)?

Re: Fintech dystopia

#94

Post by potamic »

wmf wrote: post #49
neumann wrote: post #32

This is a really fun well-written and on point set of articles. Thank you for sharing. I feel like at this point there isn't anybody defending stablecoins who isn't using them primarily speculative investment/trading. There has yet to be a usecase for distributed ledger that isn't solved better by a centralised ledger other than niche counter-culture solutions whose users are typically blinkered to the fact that they…

The other legit use for stablecoins is allowing people in Venezuela, Argentina, etc. to hold US dollars while the US government pretends they don't know this is happening. (Officially the US does not encourage dollarization of other economies against their will.) I agree that a centralized US dollar CBDC that isn't run by scammers would be a simpler way to do this.

If a country does not allow their citizens to exchange currency, then this is as good as a black market and comes with the same risks as obtaining currency through any other black market means.

Re: Fintech dystopia

#95

Post by Prunkton »

so much japing, so little substance and to make a point LETS JUST SWITCH TO CAPS and round it off with a reddit comment - this is capitalism baby!

Also, what is this headline even about? Why the bashing on fintech? I worked for 4 fintechs and communicated with many more, not a single one was blockchain related.

Why is this even on hn?

If you want to read proper criticism of blockchain, read Molly White's essays instead

https://blog.mollywhite.net/blockchain/

Re: Fintech dystopia

#96

Post by csomar »

neumann wrote: post #32

This is a really fun well-written and on point set of articles. Thank you for sharing. I feel like at this point there isn't anybody defending stablecoins who isn't using them primarily speculative investment/trading. There has yet to be a usecase for distributed ledger that isn't solved better by a centralised ledger other than niche counter-culture solutions whose users are typically blinkered to the fact that they…

I agree with the premise that on a tech basis, a centralized ledger is just as good, if not better, than a decentralized one.

The problem stablecoins are solving are self-inflicted: KYC to open a bank account, restricted nationalities, account freezes, capital controls, taxation over-reach, etc.

At some point someone figured out that if they start over, there is a lot of “value” to be unlocked out there; and paid/lobbied/sponsored the right person to execute on that.

Re: Fintech dystopia

#97

Post by nytesky »

mattbillenstein wrote: post #72

I looked at crypto a little for a startup - the thing that isn't usually mentioned is the huge downside of custody. Not your keys, not your coin - and holding those keys securely, think fire, theft, hacks, backdoored hardware wallets, etc - is really really hard to get correct. And if you mess up once anywhere - poof - all your money is gone and there's nothing you can do to get it back.

Yeah who in this world has never had to reset a password? That’s what this means. That laser inscribed metal fob with you keys on it may as well be made of platinum.

And I’ve never felt clear on how people trust wallet, hot or cold — at some point they connect to the internet for transactions, and all the vendors seem suspect. I really doubt most users are building their wallet from code reviewed cryptographically signed source… but maybe I’m wrong?

Re: Fintech dystopia

#98

Post by fragmede »

andsoitis wrote: post #90
didibus wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It helped me to start from the problem it tries to solve. Fundamentally, we've been making digital versions of everything. We have digital phone calls, television, bookkeeping, document writing, drawing, etc. One thing we didn't have digitally was a currency. Why would we want a digital currency? For similar reasons to all the other stuff above. It's more convenient. When you "transfer money" from your bank account t…

> When you "transfer money" from your bank account to another, your bank has to physically move the associated cash from it's vault to the other banks vault, by hiring secure trucks, people, and so on. That’s not at all what happens! Transfers are done digitally, physical cash does not move between vaults or bank branches.

Since the invention of the computer, sure, but before that, yes they did at some point reconcile. Even today, cash still physically moves from the mint to banks to consumers.

Re: Fintech dystopia

#99

Post by troupo »

smsm42 wrote: post #84
_9ptr wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, a lot of people don't understand the old money system either

In fact, there's probably less people who understand the old money system than those that understand the crypto math. After all, the latter can be readily learned from books and whitepapers, go figure where do you learn how actually the real monetary system works, in all its complexity, and how would you even get such level of access without being member of the Fed board.

Yes. Because no one has ever written any readily available books and white papers on old money.

Re: Fintech dystopia

#100

Post by csomar »

wmf wrote: post #49
neumann wrote: post #32

This is a really fun well-written and on point set of articles. Thank you for sharing. I feel like at this point there isn't anybody defending stablecoins who isn't using them primarily speculative investment/trading. There has yet to be a usecase for distributed ledger that isn't solved better by a centralised ledger other than niche counter-culture solutions whose users are typically blinkered to the fact that they…

The other legit use for stablecoins is allowing people in Venezuela, Argentina, etc. to hold US dollars while the US government pretends they don't know this is happening. (Officially the US does not encourage dollarization of other economies against their will.) I agree that a centralized US dollar CBDC that isn't run by scammers would be a simpler way to do this.

The reason they don’t want a CBDC is to be able to collect interest on behalf of the people holding the currency. If the state launches a blockchain CBDC, the state will profit. It’s too much money not to corrupt the most powerful people on the planet.
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