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I'm sorry but this is so absurd. They are doing the equivalent of printing their own monopoly money in the garage and then selling it for real currency... dolla
by nodesocket 9y ago
I'm sorry but this is so absurd. They are doing the equivalent of printing their own monopoly money in the garage and then selling it for real currency... dollars.
- notadoc 9y ago"A fool and his money are soon parted" Sounds fitting, huh?
- devindotcom 9y agoAnd on the internet, a fool and his folly are soon united.
- jamespitts 9y agoMetaphors are not as useful as historical analogies or actual descriptions of what is going on. Basically, a new form of fast finance has emerged, connected with a blockchain technology which enables the financing mechanism as well as potential applications that are financed. It is not monopoly money as much as it is speculative vendor financing.
- hendzen 9y agoWe have "speculative vendor financing" - normally in the form of OTC stocks, i.e. pink sheets. This seems like an even less regulated way of trading pink sheets, except funded by a bunch of software people with a lot of disposable income instead of some mob guys in a boiler room in New Jersey.
- H4CK3RM4N 9y agoThe whole point of the blockchain is that you can't forge currency without controlling 50%+ of the computing power in the network.
- hendzen 9y agoSure... and 3 guys in China control 50%+ of the Bitcoin network, and ETH mining will eventually centralize as well. What's your point? I'd rather have Janet Yellen controlling my currency than Jihan Wu/Barry Silbert/Brian Armstrong.
- crazy1van 9y agoCould you elaborate on why you'd prefer Yellen?
- MachinShinn- 9y agoA life time of scholarship dedicated to economics on monetary policy?
- Jabanga 9y agoThree guys run pools, which have relatively limited power. The control is in the hands of those who own the hardware that points to those pools. And the beautiful thing is that there's no barrier to entry to participating in hashing, or in the case of Ethereum's soon-to-be-implemented staking. It's massively parallel, with smaller hash-producers/stakers having nearly the same profitability as large ones, and nearly no minimum investment required to enter. This is diametrically opposed to any central banking scheme, which is extremely hierarchical, with the representatives of regional banks sitting alongside high-ranking political appointees to create monetary policy and make decisions as significant as buying a trillion dollars worth of privately owned assets from large privately owned financial institutions. The current centralized monetary scheme is the reason 42% of corporate profits since 1972 have been earned by the financial sector.
- anguswithgusto 9y agoIt is not Monopoly money, it is... >decks out Monopoly money with a bunch of smart-sounding technological bells and whistles ...ephemeral hyper-velocity funny money!
- sabujp 9y agos/ephemeral/ethereal/
- anguswithgusto 9y agoIt is not Monopoly money, it is... >decks out Monopoly money with a bunch of smart-sounding technological bells and whistles ...ephemeral hyper-velocity funny money!
- thejay 9y agoPretty much what the central banks are doing around the world.
- branchless 9y agoCentral banks: fine, they are the state. It's a problem when private banks are doing this (they are) and when central banks are doing it and using it to purchase assets to bail out in the main the rich.
- peculiar 9y ago>> They are doing the equivalent of printing their own monopoly money in the garage and then selling it for real currency... > Pretty much what the central banks are doing around the world. Exactly. So why choose the currency of a couple of dudes over the central bank's one? Show me an ethical cryptocurrency with equal opportunities for everyone and no taxes in a form of pre-mining, decreasing block rewards & other stuff like that and I'll be the first one to use it.
- Alex3917 9y agoBlockchain is perhaps the most economically important invention of the last 500 years. Right now the whole space is worth less than $100B, and it's going to be worth tens or hundreds of trillions of dollars. Obviously valuations have far outpaced the present usefulness of these technologies, but because the pie is so enormous it would be irrational not to overpay. Right now prices are too out-of-whack with reality so it's inevitable that there will be a correction, but it's entirely understandable why this is happening. It's sad though that most people on HN have now apparently become the older generation representing the entrenched interests, rather than being the disruptors.
- CPLX 9y agoIt might be #3 behind the transistor and the internal combustion engine.
- Alex3917 9y agoWhat's valuable isn't the transistor and the internal combustion engine themselves per say, but rather the new networks they enable: rail, roads, informations, etc. Blockchain is also a new network, and the math for analyzing its value is the same as the math for analyzing the value of any other network. In this case I would say that it's going to be the most valuable new network since the rise of global shipping during the age of sail.
- CPLX 9y agoActually the blockchain might be #4, behind the discovery of the concept of atoms and molecules and the resultant birth of modern chemistry in the 1600's.
- acdha 9y agoThose had immediate applications which made new capabilities possible. Blockchains are neat tech but nowhere near that level of impact yet.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- lsadam0 9y agoAbsurdity of the action has no correlation to profitability of said action.
- ErikVandeWater 9y agoIf that were true there would be no economy.
- the_cat_kittles 9y agowhat? original claim: how absurd something is has no bearing on how successful it is. you: this implies there is no economony. me: how?
- Jabanga 9y agoThe economy would be destroyed if people didn't usually engage in economic activity that caused the level of wealth across the economy to increase. It's reasonable to assume absurd actions generally cause a net loss to the economy.
- 35bge57dtjku 9y agoAnyone can make their own coupons. :)
- douche 9y agoIt works for a while, until it crashes down, ala groupon