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I find it sad that crypto currency with it's really useful interesting features is seen, almost exclusively, as a vehicle for investment thrill rides (ie get-ri

I find it sad that crypto currency with it's really useful interesting features is seen, almost exclusively, as a vehicle for investment thrill rides (ie get-rich-quick bullshit). Wouldn't be nice to have crypto-currency where the focus is simply as a robust and secure medium in which to exchange goods and services? Am I missing something fundamental about currency in wishing this?

elif 10y ago
That's the view traditional financial market people have, and also the view that they have of apple. Their perspective is not the only one, but definitely the sexy one that media can profit from. As for the exchange of services, that is the basis of ethereum. Instead of computing Sha(Sha()) over and over again, the mining network is a global turing-complete computer designed around arbiterless smart-contracts.
- _coldfire 10y ago
  Ethereum is still doing pointless hash crunching, just with Keccak-256 instead. The energy wastage will go away with a move to PoS Regardless, the smart contract computing is still removed from the consensus mechanism.
hackermailman 10y ago
Yes, I've been using digital currencies since early 2000s, and when cryptocurrencies first appeared the idea of a decentralized payment system was a godsend but even back then it was investment schemes that received the most attention sadly. One great idea that never materialized was anonymous services could be insured finally, so you could bootstrap your hobby exchange with an insurance guarantee held by semi-trusted people in the scene. For example a small instant exchange requiring no sign up, with a $10k multi-sig insurance fund and since the blockchain is open you can at all times verify that said instant exchange is not exceeding their insurance.
FabHK 10y ago
And the sad thing is that Bitcoin is not even particularly good as a medium of exchange, as it is not anonymous, not particularly fast, and getting rather too expensive for small transactions.

elif 10y ago

That's the view traditional financial market people have, and also the view that they have of apple. Their perspective is not the only one, but definitely the sexy one that media can profit from. As for the exchange of services, that is the basis of ethereum. Instead of computing Sha(Sha()) over and over again, the mining network is a global turing-complete computer designed around arbiterless smart-contracts.

_coldfire 10y ago
Ethereum is still doing pointless hash crunching, just with Keccak-256 instead. The energy wastage will go away with a move to PoS Regardless, the smart contract computing is still removed from the consensus mechanism.

hackermailman 10y ago

Yes, I've been using digital currencies since early 2000s, and when cryptocurrencies first appeared the idea of a decentralized payment system was a godsend but even back then it was investment schemes that received the most attention sadly. One great idea that never materialized was anonymous services could be insured finally, so you could bootstrap your hobby exchange with an insurance guarantee held by semi-trusted people in the scene. For example a small instant exchange requiring no sign up, with a $10k multi-sig insurance fund and since the blockchain is open you can at all times verify that said instant exchange is not exceeding their insurance.

FabHK 10y ago

And the sad thing is that Bitcoin is not even particularly good as a medium of exchange, as it is not anonymous, not particularly fast, and getting rather too expensive for small transactions.