8 ms·

pop goes the bubble!

omarchowdhury 8y ago
That is an an underestimation of the technical, financial and social value of distributed ledger technology if Cryptokitties sales is your bubble barometer. Let's see what's going to happen to finance. The fiat-crypto infrastructure that has been and is continuing to be laid out by multiple varied parties is an indicator for the recurrence of another bull market, especially when the current market cap is compared to the the cash, stocks and commodities that are out there, each kind of which crypto assets are identical to. The best thing we can hope for is the next bull run to be based on actual use, working products that add benefit and value to market society. And who knows, maybe it'll all even become transformative.
- foepys 8y ago
  Please enlighten us: what are real-world applications of blockchain technology that provide a benefit to anyone in any sector? Please remember that there are over 7 billion people in the world that want to potentially use it, so Bitcoin (or similar) are not working as a payment system.
  - omarchowdhury 8y ago
    The current real world application is a test to see how money or forms of value can be coordinated among distributed decentralized networks. Just the experimentation is a value and benefit for humanity. One should remove the idea that Bitcoin will be the winner as a payment system. It could be Bitcoin with its Lightning Network implementation, or it could be something better. As it seems scalability is your specific gripe here, there are competing distributed ledger technologies that are working towards or already have solved this to an extent better than Bitcoin. Understand that this goal of scalable, decentralized multi-nodal coordination is not an easy and simple problem, but it is a problem that market participants are working towards, and solutions are necessarily constantly evolving, because is that not what markets do?
    - Blindedwino 8y ago
      It's a very costly and potentially ruining way to do experimentation though.
      - omarchowdhury 8y ago
        And out of that experiment are coming other experiments that work to solve for the issues.
  - throwawayqdhd 8y ago
    This is my exact problem. I haven't been able to use any of these cryptocurrencies to do actual work so far. Everything has existed on the plane of theory and whitepapers so far. Nearly a decade after BTC's release and nearly half a decade after's ETH, shouldn't there be a few mainstream applications using them?
    - dumbfoundded 8y ago
      I don't think they have to be mainstream enough for you to have actual value. I run a CBD store and it's extremely hard for CBD companies to get banking without exorbitant fees. For example, it costs ~2.5% for normal companies to process a credit card payment through stripe. For us, it costs >7%. Many of my competitors and suppliers are turning to cryptocurrencies for the lower fees and guaranteed certainty of payment. The impact of crypto is yet to be fully estimated but it seems as if there isn't any existing system crypto cannot replicate and there are many systems enabled by crypto that existing systems will fail to create.
      - icebraining 8y ago
        Are you in the US? I think that's a particular limitation of your country's payment systems, with its over-reliance on credit cards. In most other places you can use payment systems which are less vulnerable to fraud (since they use a push-style system, not pull) and much harder to chargeback. Cryptocurrencies might have an edge for a while, but don't count on it long-term.
        dumbfoundded 8y ago
        I am in the US. Is there a form of internet commerce that doesn't depend on credit cards?
        icebraining 8y ago
        Absolutely. Here in Portugal they don't even appear in the top 3, and in many other EU countries they're not the first. Many of them are developed by the local banking system (like iDEAL[1]), but SEPA transfers are used too, since they're usually free. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IDEAL https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IDEAL
  - garmaine 8y ago
    Bitcoin as a settlement system would work just fine at that scale.
    - dmitriid 8y ago
      It wouldn't. At that scale it would cost hundreds of dollars and several days per settlement.
    - raverbashing 8y ago
      Bitcoin is every day making absolutely sure it scales less, costs more, is more dependent on centralization and alienates more people. It's not even funny. Go for ETH, BCH, Dash, or whatever, Bitcoin is proud to continually shoot themselves in the foot.
  - lawn 8y ago
    So your argument is since not all 7 billion people cannot use it it's not working as a payment system and therefore it does not provide any benefit to anyone in any sector? Geez.
    - foepys 8y ago
      No, you didn't comprehend what I said. I said that it doesn't work as a payment system, so they should name something else where it's good at. Can you name another application in any sector?
      - lawn 8y ago
        It works well as a payment system. Some other applications: provably fair gambling, decentralized voting and an uncensorable twitter (ex memo.cash).
        foepys 8y ago
        Payment system: The corresponding blockchain would nearly instantly overload and reach data sizes beyond good and evil for everyone to handle. The result would be middlemen (aka banks) that are able to save the whole blockchain and handle your trust requirements. Today's light wallets require trust as well and every user of those can potentially be fed fraudulent blocks without them noticing. Gambling: why is that better than a non-blockchain, regulated solution? The results have to come from somewhere, so that is a centralized point of trust you inevitably need. Unless you mean that the odds are decided "fairly" then I question why you would bet your money at a place where you can't trust the odds, or why you don't bet elsewhere where the odds are more in your favor. Decentralized voting: I don't know why anybody would want that. If you don't control who votes, you end up with rigged votes. Unless you mean that only the block producers (miners) vote, then you will end up in an oligarchy. Uncensorable Twitter: If by "uncensorable" you mean immutable: nobody sane wants that. Once somebody posts child pornography to the blockchain, you will have to explain to the police why you have child pornography on your computer.
        8y ago
- anoncoward111 8y ago
  Agreed. It would be like saying Toys R Us going bankrupt is representative of the toy industry as a whole. Or that the Zimbabwean Dollar is representative of all fiat

That is an an underestimation of the technical, financial and social value of distributed ledger technology if Cryptokitties sales is your bubble barometer. Let's see what's going to happen to finance. The fiat-crypto infrastructure that has been and is continuing to be laid out by multiple varied parties is an indicator for the recurrence of another bull market, especially when the current market cap is compared to the the cash, stocks and commodities that are out there, each kind of which crypto assets are identical to. The best thing we can hope for is the next bull run to be based on actual use, working products that add benefit and value to market society. And who knows, maybe it'll all even become transformative.

foepys 8y ago
Please enlighten us: what are real-world applications of blockchain technology that provide a benefit to anyone in any sector? Please remember that there are over 7 billion people in the world that want to potentially use it, so Bitcoin (or similar) are not working as a payment system.
- omarchowdhury 8y ago
  The current real world application is a test to see how money or forms of value can be coordinated among distributed decentralized networks. Just the experimentation is a value and benefit for humanity. One should remove the idea that Bitcoin will be the winner as a payment system. It could be Bitcoin with its Lightning Network implementation, or it could be something better. As it seems scalability is your specific gripe here, there are competing distributed ledger technologies that are working towards or already have solved this to an extent better than Bitcoin. Understand that this goal of scalable, decentralized multi-nodal coordination is not an easy and simple problem, but it is a problem that market participants are working towards, and solutions are necessarily constantly evolving, because is that not what markets do?
  - Blindedwino 8y ago
    It's a very costly and potentially ruining way to do experimentation though.
    - omarchowdhury 8y ago
      And out of that experiment are coming other experiments that work to solve for the issues.
- throwawayqdhd 8y ago
  This is my exact problem. I haven't been able to use any of these cryptocurrencies to do actual work so far. Everything has existed on the plane of theory and whitepapers so far. Nearly a decade after BTC's release and nearly half a decade after's ETH, shouldn't there be a few mainstream applications using them?
  - dumbfoundded 8y ago
    I don't think they have to be mainstream enough for you to have actual value. I run a CBD store and it's extremely hard for CBD companies to get banking without exorbitant fees. For example, it costs ~2.5% for normal companies to process a credit card payment through stripe. For us, it costs >7%. Many of my competitors and suppliers are turning to cryptocurrencies for the lower fees and guaranteed certainty of payment. The impact of crypto is yet to be fully estimated but it seems as if there isn't any existing system crypto cannot replicate and there are many systems enabled by crypto that existing systems will fail to create.
    - icebraining 8y ago
      Are you in the US? I think that's a particular limitation of your country's payment systems, with its over-reliance on credit cards. In most other places you can use payment systems which are less vulnerable to fraud (since they use a push-style system, not pull) and much harder to chargeback. Cryptocurrencies might have an edge for a while, but don't count on it long-term.
      - dumbfoundded 8y ago
        I am in the US. Is there a form of internet commerce that doesn't depend on credit cards?
        icebraining 8y ago
        Absolutely. Here in Portugal they don't even appear in the top 3, and in many other EU countries they're not the first. Many of them are developed by the local banking system (like iDEAL[1]), but SEPA transfers are used too, since they're usually free. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IDEAL https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IDEAL
- garmaine 8y ago
  Bitcoin as a settlement system would work just fine at that scale.
  - dmitriid 8y ago
    It wouldn't. At that scale it would cost hundreds of dollars and several days per settlement.
  - raverbashing 8y ago
    Bitcoin is every day making absolutely sure it scales less, costs more, is more dependent on centralization and alienates more people. It's not even funny. Go for ETH, BCH, Dash, or whatever, Bitcoin is proud to continually shoot themselves in the foot.
- lawn 8y ago
  So your argument is since not all 7 billion people cannot use it it's not working as a payment system and therefore it does not provide any benefit to anyone in any sector? Geez.
  - foepys 8y ago
    No, you didn't comprehend what I said. I said that it doesn't work as a payment system, so they should name something else where it's good at. Can you name another application in any sector?
    - lawn 8y ago
      It works well as a payment system. Some other applications: provably fair gambling, decentralized voting and an uncensorable twitter (ex memo.cash).
      - foepys 8y ago
        Payment system: The corresponding blockchain would nearly instantly overload and reach data sizes beyond good and evil for everyone to handle. The result would be middlemen (aka banks) that are able to save the whole blockchain and handle your trust requirements. Today's light wallets require trust as well and every user of those can potentially be fed fraudulent blocks without them noticing. Gambling: why is that better than a non-blockchain, regulated solution? The results have to come from somewhere, so that is a centralized point of trust you inevitably need. Unless you mean that the odds are decided "fairly" then I question why you would bet your money at a place where you can't trust the odds, or why you don't bet elsewhere where the odds are more in your favor. Decentralized voting: I don't know why anybody would want that. If you don't control who votes, you end up with rigged votes. Unless you mean that only the block producers (miners) vote, then you will end up in an oligarchy. Uncensorable Twitter: If by "uncensorable" you mean immutable: nobody sane wants that. Once somebody posts child pornography to the blockchain, you will have to explain to the police why you have child pornography on your computer.
        8y ago
anoncoward111 8y ago
Agreed. It would be like saying Toys R Us going bankrupt is representative of the toy industry as a whole. Or that the Zimbabwean Dollar is representative of all fiat