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Protocols like IPFS, BitTorrent produce tangible value for the users. In all fairness it would be nice to see them getting at least something in order of $10 mi

Protocols like IPFS, BitTorrent produce tangible value for the users. In all fairness it would be nice to see them getting at least something in order of $10 million for their nice effort. These new ICO's are manufactured to give the company that develops them hundreds of millions or even speculative billions in paper. How long until people realize again that these products have near-zero marginal cost? Artificial scarcity can be circumvented by just copying Ethereum and creating cheaper alternative.

Erlich_Bachman 9y ago
Ethereum produces tangible value for it's users: transferring money and ability to create ICOs (just to name two). People value transferring money. It's a challenging technological task, which the humanity has been trying to solve for many years. It's a task that many people find useful. You don't mind paying 3% to your credit card company, do you? Even if you do, evidently many people around the world don't. Why is Ethereum (or another cryptocurrency) not considered "tangible value"? It wasn't clear if you were talking about actual Ethereum itself or any of the ICOs that are based on it. If you were talking about ICOs, the answer is even simpler: they are just like stocks. It's like you asking "why are people giving all this money to that company?". It's because some of those companies have a business, or a business idea and people want to support it. (There are scams too, of course, but sometimes it's not easy to know which one is real and which is a scam, and so people take chances.) > Artificial scarcity can be circumvented by just copying Ethereum and creating cheaper alternative. You're welcome to try, if you think it is so simple. Ethereum Classic-people have tried, and they even had an actual legitimate reason (the DAO hack), not just a vague "we want to create a cheaper alternative" motive. Look at the price charts and see how well it went for them.
- Nokinside 9y ago
  >Ethereum produces tangible value for it's users Yes. I agree. The potential capital efficiency for for these services is vastly greater than credit cards. You are trying to undersell the potential in distributed computing platform and smart contract technology if you defend the current cost structure. The promise of these technologies is to reduce cost of financial transactions almost without limit. Lets look into the future of efficient and revolutionary transaction and smart contact technology. If billion people do 10 transactions per day (alternatively 10 billion 1 transactions per day) with cost $0.01 per transaction, the cost of this service would be only $10 million per day or 3.65 billion a year. Remove the operating costs in competitive markets and the profit margins will be extremely low. The beauty of efficient established markets is that profits will be driven down. Artificial scarcity created by different coin protocols is temporary phenomenon. It dies when the hype dies.
  - walterstucco 9y ago
    Not defending the actual system but Banks have higher operational costs because they pay real people to get the job done And even if we account for speculation, speculators are on cryptocurrencies as well and it's even easier to create scams with them, very few in the world understand more than 5% of how they work
albertgoeswoof 9y ago
Ethereum is quite good though, up there with IPFS and BitTorrent in terms of innovation. But I get your point - imagine a world where we were all paid competitive wages to work on OSS instead of high-ROI investments.

Erlich_Bachman 9y ago

Ethereum produces tangible value for it's users: transferring money and ability to create ICOs (just to name two). People value transferring money. It's a challenging technological task, which the humanity has been trying to solve for many years. It's a task that many people find useful. You don't mind paying 3% to your credit card company, do you? Even if you do, evidently many people around the world don't. Why is Ethereum (or another cryptocurrency) not considered "tangible value"? It wasn't clear if you were talking about actual Ethereum itself or any of the ICOs that are based on it. If you were talking about ICOs, the answer is even simpler: they are just like stocks. It's like you asking "why are people giving all this money to that company?". It's because some of those companies have a business, or a business idea and people want to support it. (There are scams too, of course, but sometimes it's not easy to know which one is real and which is a scam, and so people take chances.) > Artificial scarcity can be circumvented by just copying Ethereum and creating cheaper alternative. You're welcome to try, if you think it is so simple. Ethereum Classic-people have tried, and they even had an actual legitimate reason (the DAO hack), not just a vague "we want to create a cheaper alternative" motive. Look at the price charts and see how well it went for them.

Nokinside 9y ago
>Ethereum produces tangible value for it's users Yes. I agree. The potential capital efficiency for for these services is vastly greater than credit cards. You are trying to undersell the potential in distributed computing platform and smart contract technology if you defend the current cost structure. The promise of these technologies is to reduce cost of financial transactions almost without limit. Lets look into the future of efficient and revolutionary transaction and smart contact technology. If billion people do 10 transactions per day (alternatively 10 billion 1 transactions per day) with cost $0.01 per transaction, the cost of this service would be only $10 million per day or 3.65 billion a year. Remove the operating costs in competitive markets and the profit margins will be extremely low. The beauty of efficient established markets is that profits will be driven down. Artificial scarcity created by different coin protocols is temporary phenomenon. It dies when the hype dies.
- walterstucco 9y ago
  Not defending the actual system but Banks have higher operational costs because they pay real people to get the job done And even if we account for speculation, speculators are on cryptocurrencies as well and it's even easier to create scams with them, very few in the world understand more than 5% of how they work

albertgoeswoof 9y ago

Ethereum is quite good though, up there with IPFS and BitTorrent in terms of innovation. But I get your point - imagine a world where we were all paid competitive wages to work on OSS instead of high-ROI investments.