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Blockchain is a Semantic Wasteland https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18267585 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18267585 Stablecoins are not stable (they

Blockchain is a Semantic Wasteland https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18267585 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18267585 Stablecoins are not stable (they cannot be due to counterparty risk) or coins (centralized trust). There are actual problems that need to be solved in the space. You could be working on research into scaling trustless systems; into UX design for trustless wallets; better hardware wallet design; and so on and so forth. Instead, you've created a crappy inefficient form of the US Dollar and you're pumping it to make money in trading fees. Is that... fun?

pavel_lishin 8y ago
> Is that... fun? No, but it is allegedly profitable!
seibelj 8y ago
Tether became a fundamental component of the crypto ecosystem by allowing crypto / fiat trades and price discovery without needing routine access to the legacy banking system. USDC, GUSD, etc. are trying to replace Tether by accomplishing the same thing without the baggage and distrust of Tether. There may be core risks of asset-backed stablecoins but compared with everything else in the ecosystem they are much more reliable.
traverseda 8y ago
I'm working on a stable coin project right now (unsurprisingly almost all of the time and costs are process and regulation). And yeah, it relies on centralized trust for issuance, so it's hard to call it a "coin" in the same way bitcoin is, but I do believe it solves real problems. There's a lot you can do with a collateralized-cryptographic-asset-on-a-distributed-ledger (or stablecoin) that you can't do with a bank account. For one thing, you can write your own wallet app that works however you want it. That would be like if all banks implemented the same standard, and you could use any app to control your accounts. You can use it to do some interesting things, like write apps that require two-to-sign for certain types of transactions, or write a generic two-factor auth that works with any of these apps. You could write an arbitration service for settling disputes, or do actual (less than 10 cents) micro-transactions since the processing fees are fractions of a cent. There's a lot of potential from letting programmers interact with the finance system more concretely, and that's the problem at least some of these stablecoins are trying to solve. Not Gemini, but over on the stellar network that's what we're working on.
- JoachimSchipper 8y ago
  > There's a lot you can do with a collateralized-cryptographic-asset-on-a-distributed-ledger (or stablecoin) that you can't do with a bank account. (...) That would be like if all banks implemented the same standard, and you could use any app to control your accounts. Sure, given universal adoption. In reality, it's more like an API that controls, charitably, one bank - why shouldn't people just use Stripe / Paypal / ...?
  - traverseda 8y ago
    Well on the stellar network it includes a distributed exchange, so as long as the assets are on the stellar network you can pay out using `foo`, and they can receive payment in `bar`.
- esotericn 8y ago
  Hmm. So it seems to me that the value is primarily in pushing back the frontier of the interface with the legacy system, right? If you can provide very high levels of likelihood that the issuer will not be shut down, it works. I'm just not convinced this is practical. KYC is _always_ going to be required at the interface (with the legacy system), which means the interface won't be used much, which I think makes providing proof that reasonable exchange for USD is possible very hard. And if you push it back further and require KYC for every transaction - at that point it's PayPal with an API.
  - traverseda 8y ago
    >And if you push it back further and require KYC for every transaction - at that point it's PayPal with an API. Not necessarily, the stellar compliance protocol allows firms to set up peering agreements and share KYC information. It would definitely require a shift in the KYC/AML laws to use the compliance protocol as your KYC. We're canada based, so the law may be different in your municipality. Those kinds of peering agreements are how we can get a pseudo-decentralized KYC/AML layer, and "know who our customers transact with". We're not expecting to need KYC for every transaction at this time though.
decentralised 8y ago
Err.. Stablecoins are stable, hence the definition. https://github.com/jpantunes/awesome-cryptoeconomics#stablecoins https://github.com/jpantunes/awesome-cryptoeconomics#stablec... That being said, there's a big difference between a pegged currency and an algorithmic stablecoin like the DAI or Bancor.
leppr 8y ago
> Blockchain is a Semantic Wasteland Ironic that you would quote that article yet completely ignore its meaning in the rest of your comment? Stablecoins are a superset of centralized voucher tokens like Tether. Research into trustless price-stable cryptocurrencies is an ongoing effort, which realization will have a huge impact on the crypto ecosystem. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18287231 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18287231 Price stability is as big a barrier to adoption as speed and end-user experience are. Discrediting or wilfully misleading the public on that point is harmful to the field as a whole.
fembot__ 8y ago
Of all the things to work on in blockchain that are more interesting than an IOU coin, the best you could come up with was wallet UX and hardware wallet design?
- esotericn 8y ago
  I don't know what you mean by "in blockchain". In the Bitcoin ecosystem and with most of its' offshoots, huge quantities of people are using centralized "wallet" software because the decentralized stuff doesn't scale and is too hard to use. Hardware wallets are part of that. A cryptocurrency with high TPS could support NFC or similar payments on a HW wallet. Type in your amount, tap the terminal, done. I think that large custodial companies like Coinbase and Gemini represent existential threats to Bitcoin.

pavel_lishin 8y ago

> Is that... fun? No, but it is allegedly profitable!

seibelj 8y ago

Tether became a fundamental component of the crypto ecosystem by allowing crypto / fiat trades and price discovery without needing routine access to the legacy banking system. USDC, GUSD, etc. are trying to replace Tether by accomplishing the same thing without the baggage and distrust of Tether. There may be core risks of asset-backed stablecoins but compared with everything else in the ecosystem they are much more reliable.

traverseda 8y ago

I'm working on a stable coin project right now (unsurprisingly almost all of the time and costs are process and regulation). And yeah, it relies on centralized trust for issuance, so it's hard to call it a "coin" in the same way bitcoin is, but I do believe it solves real problems. There's a lot you can do with a collateralized-cryptographic-asset-on-a-distributed-ledger (or stablecoin) that you can't do with a bank account. For one thing, you can write your own wallet app that works however you want it. That would be like if all banks implemented the same standard, and you could use any app to control your accounts. You can use it to do some interesting things, like write apps that require two-to-sign for certain types of transactions, or write a generic two-factor auth that works with any of these apps. You could write an arbitration service for settling disputes, or do actual (less than 10 cents) micro-transactions since the processing fees are fractions of a cent. There's a lot of potential from letting programmers interact with the finance system more concretely, and that's the problem at least some of these stablecoins are trying to solve. Not Gemini, but over on the stellar network that's what we're working on.

JoachimSchipper 8y ago
> There's a lot you can do with a collateralized-cryptographic-asset-on-a-distributed-ledger (or stablecoin) that you can't do with a bank account. (...) That would be like if all banks implemented the same standard, and you could use any app to control your accounts. Sure, given universal adoption. In reality, it's more like an API that controls, charitably, one bank - why shouldn't people just use Stripe / Paypal / ...?
- traverseda 8y ago
  Well on the stellar network it includes a distributed exchange, so as long as the assets are on the stellar network you can pay out using `foo`, and they can receive payment in `bar`.
esotericn 8y ago
Hmm. So it seems to me that the value is primarily in pushing back the frontier of the interface with the legacy system, right? If you can provide very high levels of likelihood that the issuer will not be shut down, it works. I'm just not convinced this is practical. KYC is _always_ going to be required at the interface (with the legacy system), which means the interface won't be used much, which I think makes providing proof that reasonable exchange for USD is possible very hard. And if you push it back further and require KYC for every transaction - at that point it's PayPal with an API.
- traverseda 8y ago
  >And if you push it back further and require KYC for every transaction - at that point it's PayPal with an API. Not necessarily, the stellar compliance protocol allows firms to set up peering agreements and share KYC information. It would definitely require a shift in the KYC/AML laws to use the compliance protocol as your KYC. We're canada based, so the law may be different in your municipality. Those kinds of peering agreements are how we can get a pseudo-decentralized KYC/AML layer, and "know who our customers transact with". We're not expecting to need KYC for every transaction at this time though.

decentralised 8y ago

Err.. Stablecoins are stable, hence the definition. https://github.com/jpantunes/awesome-cryptoeconomics#stablecoins https://github.com/jpantunes/awesome-cryptoeconomics#stablec... That being said, there's a big difference between a pegged currency and an algorithmic stablecoin like the DAI or Bancor.

leppr 8y ago

> Blockchain is a Semantic Wasteland Ironic that you would quote that article yet completely ignore its meaning in the rest of your comment? Stablecoins are a superset of centralized voucher tokens like Tether. Research into trustless price-stable cryptocurrencies is an ongoing effort, which realization will have a huge impact on the crypto ecosystem. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18287231 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18287231 Price stability is as big a barrier to adoption as speed and end-user experience are. Discrediting or wilfully misleading the public on that point is harmful to the field as a whole.

fembot__ 8y ago

Of all the things to work on in blockchain that are more interesting than an IOU coin, the best you could come up with was wallet UX and hardware wallet design?

esotericn 8y ago
I don't know what you mean by "in blockchain". In the Bitcoin ecosystem and with most of its' offshoots, huge quantities of people are using centralized "wallet" software because the decentralized stuff doesn't scale and is too hard to use. Hardware wallets are part of that. A cryptocurrency with high TPS could support NFC or similar payments on a HW wallet. Type in your amount, tap the terminal, done. I think that large custodial companies like Coinbase and Gemini represent existential threats to Bitcoin.