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You are not seeing the whole picture and don't understand the goal of the "coin" in a "blockchain". I would strongly urge you to do some research so that you ca

You are not seeing the whole picture and don't understand the goal of the "coin" in a "blockchain". I would strongly urge you to do some research so that you can make up your mind from a place of knowledge instead. http://github.com/jpantunes/awesome-cryptoeconomics http://github.com/jpantunes/awesome-cryptoeconomics

chrisco255 9y ago
This. I don't think a lot of people grasp that cryptocurrency is more than just a distributed ledger. It's as much of an economic innovation as a technical one.
- aaron-lebo 9y ago
  Nobody fails to grasp the possibilities of these currencies, what they disagree with is utility to hype value. When people throw out "you don't get this" as an argument against skepticism, it sounds naive and a little insulting. This quote was in that NYT "Everyone's Getting Rich.." article: The tone turns somber. “Sometimes I think about what would happen to the future if a bomb went off at one of our meetings,” Mr. Buttram said. Mr. Hummer said, “A bomb would set back civilization for years.” There's too much of that exaggerated thinking.
  - decentralised 9y ago
    I don't mean to sound insulting or naive but maybe I am doing so by accident. Let me try in another way, what is the motivation for hobbyists and companies like Fidelity to buy mining hardware to secure a public blockchain?
    - aaron-lebo 9y ago
      I don't understand the nature of your question, but I'd say: to make money. That is the primary overriding incentive in this discussion. People will lie, cheat, and steal for a dollar, they'll definitely do it for 1 million.
      - decentralised 9y ago
        Ok, so people make money by running mining hardware that keeps a blockchain network decentralised and trustworthy. The value of the token increases with the number of people who participate in the network (Metcalfe's ...) and due to speculation on the underlying value of having trust and consensus without a centralised authority. The problem with centralised authority is that, despite the very best intentions of those involved, the centralisation of power reduces the overall ability of a market to operate freely, and the blockchain is the product of Anarcho-Capitalists who believe markets should be free from any central power.
        bildung 9y ago
        I think this is clear to pretty much anyone interested in this. The technicalities are not the point. Question is, what is the actual problem to solve? That doesn't get solved by postgres? Not a potential one, but a real, existing one.
        decentralised 9y ago
        I don't have detailed knowledge of the project but from memory, the proposition was to leapfrog the govTech infrastructure needed for land registries. Traditional infrastructure can be expensive to maintain and in many regions the paperwork is still just that; paper. A move from paper copies to a digital format would already be a good enough solution, which I think is your point, but here there is an opportunistic use of a single tool to avoid the costs of a couple of servers with remote backups times the number of locations needed for full coverage. edit: I was responding to the wrong thread but I'll leave it anyway. This refers to the use of blockchain for land registry in Ghana.
nabla9 9y ago
Coins are just the last part of long trend of financialization with somewhat different technological implementation. You take an underlying asset and you create financial instrument that enables more efficient trading and valuation in the marketplace. I understand blockchain and cryptoeconomic angle better than I understand the current system and I suspect that it's the same with you. When I talk to people who understand current finance systems, including clearing and settlement I think my own enthusiasm is party based on my own ignorance of what already exists.
- decentralised 9y ago
  The tokens on a blockchain fulfil the goal of providing economic incentives for the perpetuation of the network itself. I would gladly spend time explaining this over and over again but it seems all my comments are downvoted so I'm not motivated to provide free content on hacker news.
thisisit 9y ago
I tried some of the introductory stuff and even that is difficult for me. How about an ELIF of the goals of the coin?
- decentralised 9y ago
  I find this (http://ncase.me/trust/ http://ncase.me/trust/) to be the easiest point of entry to game theory. If you are serious about learning cryptoeconomics please feel free to ping me and I'll help in any small way I can.
- vec 9y ago
  There's two separate things that get conflated in these discussions. The first is the blockchain, which is a technical innovation that allows a client to decide which version of a shared event log to trust, even if it doesn't trust any of the servers attempting to perform the update. The ELI5 version is that the record that took the most total work to generate is correct. Since generating a fraudulent record requires doing more total work than was done to generate the correct one from the point of the fraudulent change forward, creating a fraudulent record quickly becomes computationally infeasable as changes get older. The second are cryptocurrencies, which are an attempt to mint a currency (a literal, if not physical, coin) independent of any government by, essentially, reintroducing the gold standard. Except instead of gold we're using blockchains, which it turns out can be engineered to behave economically like precious metals do under the right circumstances. Separating the two concepts, and specifically avoiding putting on your engineer hat when you're thinking about the half that's more political manifesto than anything else, will go a long way in helping you get a toehold on what's going on.
  - DSMan195276 9y ago
    The problem with the 'blockchain without a coin' idea is the incentive. Why would people spend money to mine a blockchain which provides nothing to pay them back for it? Without the incentive, why would you care who is mining the blocks, and why would care about mining blocks faster then other people? You wouldn't. But at the same time, without having that race to have the most mining power, the argument that it is computationally infeasible to change the blockchain becomes incorrect. There is now no guarantee that the amount of 'work' currently keeping the network going is actually enough to be computationally infeasible to change if someone buys enough computers. Bitcoin technically doesn't guarantee the last detail either, but by paying miners it becomes worth it to them to keep buying the fastest hardware and most hardware they can.
the_gastropod 9y ago
There's a reason this "CLEARLY YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND" has become a meme [1]. It's a card readily pulled anytime someone is critical of the crypto hype. What I've found more often to be true is proponents of crypto hype lack basic finance and economic knowledge. There's a reason most economists aren't on the crypto bandwagon, and it's not because they're afraid of it. [1] https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DTawkY2X0AU6k84.jpg:large https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DTawkY2X0AU6k84.jpg:large
- decentralised 9y ago
  If you think the tokens on a blockchain serve no useful purpose then "CLEARLY YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND" the blockchain. Try something different; show me that you know how a blockchain works and you understand the purpose of the tokens.
sho 9y ago
Your comment isn't very helpful. How about your share some of your insights about the "whole picture" instead of posting some giant list of random links about something called "cryptoeconomics". To me, cryptoeconomics currently seems to consist of designing unscalable systems to convert fiat currency into CO2 and useless digital tokens, some of which can manipulate other useless digital tokens, etc, all achieving pretty much nothing. So how about spreading some light?
- decentralised 9y ago
  Let me know if any of the articles below serves the purpose better for you. https://medium.com/@jpa_of_snc/blockchain-the-revolution-will-be-decentralised-8371952ff076 https://medium.com/@jpa_of_snc/blockchain-the-revolution-wil... https://medium.com/@jpa_of_snc/ethereum-the-machinery-of-change-60de08222480 https://medium.com/@jpa_of_snc/ethereum-the-machinery-of-cha... edit: at least you could read the definition of cryptoeconomics....
  - sho 9y ago
    I've looked at that first article before. Nearly every single example listed could be done with a standard DB and/or required centralised trust. The author of the article doesn't appear to have put two and two together that if the land registry in Ghana wants a centralised public DB then obviously only the land registry itself should ever be allowed to write to that DB and why on earth do you need a massive, slow public network that the registry would need to pay to use just to confirm that it was in fact the land registry when it could just use a private key? I do however think blockchains are an excellent, useful concept. Verifiable, non-repudiable, write-only audit logs are a fine idea and I can think of many uses for them. I've never heard a reason why they need to be run on inefficient, unscalable, power-hungry, untrusted, adversial public networks, however.
    - decentralised 9y ago
      So, for transparency... I'm the author of both articles. It's true that they could be done with a standard DB which would be managed like most of the other public / government IT throughout the developing world. The key to understanding the use cases is to look at the blockchain capabilities one by one and see where Ghana benefits from having a hard to modify public database. If there is any subject that you would like to see developed or answered feel free to let me know. I usually write my articles as a way of responding to FAQ I receive in my consulting business.

chrisco255 9y ago

This. I don't think a lot of people grasp that cryptocurrency is more than just a distributed ledger. It's as much of an economic innovation as a technical one.

aaron-lebo 9y ago
Nobody fails to grasp the possibilities of these currencies, what they disagree with is utility to hype value. When people throw out "you don't get this" as an argument against skepticism, it sounds naive and a little insulting. This quote was in that NYT "Everyone's Getting Rich.." article: The tone turns somber. “Sometimes I think about what would happen to the future if a bomb went off at one of our meetings,” Mr. Buttram said. Mr. Hummer said, “A bomb would set back civilization for years.” There's too much of that exaggerated thinking.
- decentralised 9y ago
  I don't mean to sound insulting or naive but maybe I am doing so by accident. Let me try in another way, what is the motivation for hobbyists and companies like Fidelity to buy mining hardware to secure a public blockchain?
  - aaron-lebo 9y ago
    I don't understand the nature of your question, but I'd say: to make money. That is the primary overriding incentive in this discussion. People will lie, cheat, and steal for a dollar, they'll definitely do it for 1 million.
    - decentralised 9y ago
      Ok, so people make money by running mining hardware that keeps a blockchain network decentralised and trustworthy. The value of the token increases with the number of people who participate in the network (Metcalfe's ...) and due to speculation on the underlying value of having trust and consensus without a centralised authority. The problem with centralised authority is that, despite the very best intentions of those involved, the centralisation of power reduces the overall ability of a market to operate freely, and the blockchain is the product of Anarcho-Capitalists who believe markets should be free from any central power.
      - bildung 9y ago
        I think this is clear to pretty much anyone interested in this. The technicalities are not the point. Question is, what is the actual problem to solve? That doesn't get solved by postgres? Not a potential one, but a real, existing one.
        decentralised 9y ago
        I don't have detailed knowledge of the project but from memory, the proposition was to leapfrog the govTech infrastructure needed for land registries. Traditional infrastructure can be expensive to maintain and in many regions the paperwork is still just that; paper. A move from paper copies to a digital format would already be a good enough solution, which I think is your point, but here there is an opportunistic use of a single tool to avoid the costs of a couple of servers with remote backups times the number of locations needed for full coverage. edit: I was responding to the wrong thread but I'll leave it anyway. This refers to the use of blockchain for land registry in Ghana.

nabla9 9y ago

Coins are just the last part of long trend of financialization with somewhat different technological implementation. You take an underlying asset and you create financial instrument that enables more efficient trading and valuation in the marketplace. I understand blockchain and cryptoeconomic angle better than I understand the current system and I suspect that it's the same with you. When I talk to people who understand current finance systems, including clearing and settlement I think my own enthusiasm is party based on my own ignorance of what already exists.

decentralised 9y ago
The tokens on a blockchain fulfil the goal of providing economic incentives for the perpetuation of the network itself. I would gladly spend time explaining this over and over again but it seems all my comments are downvoted so I'm not motivated to provide free content on hacker news.

thisisit 9y ago

I tried some of the introductory stuff and even that is difficult for me. How about an ELIF of the goals of the coin?

decentralised 9y ago
I find this (http://ncase.me/trust/ http://ncase.me/trust/) to be the easiest point of entry to game theory. If you are serious about learning cryptoeconomics please feel free to ping me and I'll help in any small way I can.
vec 9y ago
There's two separate things that get conflated in these discussions. The first is the blockchain, which is a technical innovation that allows a client to decide which version of a shared event log to trust, even if it doesn't trust any of the servers attempting to perform the update. The ELI5 version is that the record that took the most total work to generate is correct. Since generating a fraudulent record requires doing more total work than was done to generate the correct one from the point of the fraudulent change forward, creating a fraudulent record quickly becomes computationally infeasable as changes get older. The second are cryptocurrencies, which are an attempt to mint a currency (a literal, if not physical, coin) independent of any government by, essentially, reintroducing the gold standard. Except instead of gold we're using blockchains, which it turns out can be engineered to behave economically like precious metals do under the right circumstances. Separating the two concepts, and specifically avoiding putting on your engineer hat when you're thinking about the half that's more political manifesto than anything else, will go a long way in helping you get a toehold on what's going on.
- DSMan195276 9y ago
  The problem with the 'blockchain without a coin' idea is the incentive. Why would people spend money to mine a blockchain which provides nothing to pay them back for it? Without the incentive, why would you care who is mining the blocks, and why would care about mining blocks faster then other people? You wouldn't. But at the same time, without having that race to have the most mining power, the argument that it is computationally infeasible to change the blockchain becomes incorrect. There is now no guarantee that the amount of 'work' currently keeping the network going is actually enough to be computationally infeasible to change if someone buys enough computers. Bitcoin technically doesn't guarantee the last detail either, but by paying miners it becomes worth it to them to keep buying the fastest hardware and most hardware they can.

the_gastropod 9y ago

There's a reason this "CLEARLY YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND" has become a meme [1]. It's a card readily pulled anytime someone is critical of the crypto hype. What I've found more often to be true is proponents of crypto hype lack basic finance and economic knowledge. There's a reason most economists aren't on the crypto bandwagon, and it's not because they're afraid of it. [1] https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DTawkY2X0AU6k84.jpg:large https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DTawkY2X0AU6k84.jpg:large

decentralised 9y ago
If you think the tokens on a blockchain serve no useful purpose then "CLEARLY YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND" the blockchain. Try something different; show me that you know how a blockchain works and you understand the purpose of the tokens.

sho 9y ago

Your comment isn't very helpful. How about your share some of your insights about the "whole picture" instead of posting some giant list of random links about something called "cryptoeconomics". To me, cryptoeconomics currently seems to consist of designing unscalable systems to convert fiat currency into CO2 and useless digital tokens, some of which can manipulate other useless digital tokens, etc, all achieving pretty much nothing. So how about spreading some light?

decentralised 9y ago
Let me know if any of the articles below serves the purpose better for you. https://medium.com/@jpa_of_snc/blockchain-the-revolution-will-be-decentralised-8371952ff076 https://medium.com/@jpa_of_snc/blockchain-the-revolution-wil... https://medium.com/@jpa_of_snc/ethereum-the-machinery-of-change-60de08222480 https://medium.com/@jpa_of_snc/ethereum-the-machinery-of-cha... edit: at least you could read the definition of cryptoeconomics....
- sho 9y ago
  I've looked at that first article before. Nearly every single example listed could be done with a standard DB and/or required centralised trust. The author of the article doesn't appear to have put two and two together that if the land registry in Ghana wants a centralised public DB then obviously only the land registry itself should ever be allowed to write to that DB and why on earth do you need a massive, slow public network that the registry would need to pay to use just to confirm that it was in fact the land registry when it could just use a private key? I do however think blockchains are an excellent, useful concept. Verifiable, non-repudiable, write-only audit logs are a fine idea and I can think of many uses for them. I've never heard a reason why they need to be run on inefficient, unscalable, power-hungry, untrusted, adversial public networks, however.
  - decentralised 9y ago
    So, for transparency... I'm the author of both articles. It's true that they could be done with a standard DB which would be managed like most of the other public / government IT throughout the developing world. The key to understanding the use cases is to look at the blockchain capabilities one by one and see where Ghana benefits from having a hard to modify public database. If there is any subject that you would like to see developed or answered feel free to let me know. I usually write my articles as a way of responding to FAQ I receive in my consulting business.