5 ms·

>I would call "unproven". Why wouldn't you call it novel? It's only 10 year old technology at this stage.

jakelazaroff 8y ago
Because the vast majority of crypto/blockchain things are either outright scams, obviously doomed to fail ("it's Yelp but crypto!") or misapplied ("we're using blockchain intternally"). I honestly can't think of a single crypto startup that's had a compelling product. Edit: typos.
- decentralised 8y ago
  How does that make them less novel? Your impression that the "vast majority of crypto/blockchain thing are either outright scams" is a personal opinion for which you can't find supporting evidence. The SEC has only issued a hand full of notifications and LOST the only court case I've seen so far.
  - jakelazaroff 8y ago
    "Scam" was only one of three categories I mentioned, but regardless here's a nice long list: https://www.scambitcoin.com/blacklist https://www.scambitcoin.com/blacklist Ten years into the Web we had Google, Amazon, Geocities, eBay, Flash games, and thousands of existing companies moving their operations online. What is a single blockchain-related success we can point to other than cryptocurrency exchanges?
    - decentralised 8y ago
      Who manages that list? Why do you trust it? edit: I looked through the site and most of the "scams" seemed more like basic phishing sites than actual blockchains or cryptocurrencies
      - DonHopkins 8y ago
        Your anecdote is irrelevant. Scam sites usually give up their bitcoin related domains when they fail, which invariably get taken over by basic phishing sites. You should look on the Internet Archive to see what the scam sites were actually doing, before they went out of business and had their domains taken over by phishers. Funny that you trust and parrot Bitcoin scammers, but you don't trust a list of Bitcoin scammers. Afraid some you've invested in, hyped and promoted yourself might show up?
        deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
        decentralised 8y ago
        What anecdote? I've pointed out that most of the scams didn't actually involve a blockchain or tokens, as the SEC cases against a few of them show. The question of who manages the list is important so we can tell what method was used and what's the motivation to keep it. One of the areas I'm most interested is cryptoeconomics and of course fairness and transparency matter to me which is why I wonder why would you defend this site as if you knew it to be true and accurate.
        DonHopkins 8y ago
        Your anecdote about looking through the site. How could you possibly not understand that? Nothing I said in any way was a defense of the site. Where did you get that idea? You're obviously not reading anything that I wrote, and just trying to be contrary to make it sound like you're making an argument. Please don't bother replying if you can't understand what I'm saying, and make stuff up that I didn't say.
    - anongraddebt 8y ago
      We had these companies by '99, so assume the starting point for the ten year timeline is 1989. The 'internet' had already been opened up to certain universities/institutions in 1981 (and was in government R&D years before that). There were plenty of people in 1991 who said the internet wasn't going to be or do much of anything. The most charitable reading of the crypto tech timeline is to say that the bubble popped at the protocol layer instead of the application layer. In that case, we're somewhere around 1989-1993/94. Maybe we're still waiting for a Tim Berners-Lee. Who knows.
- adam 8y ago
  You might check out numer.ai, along with their coming data marketplace, Erasure. They've been running for awhile...
berbec 8y ago
What other ten year old technologies, that went on to be successful, were as useless for their stated purpose as crypto? If crypto is money, can I: Spend it at Amazon? My grocery store? My corner deli? Pay my rent? Pay my employees? If crypto is a store of value can I trust it will have any rational storage value over any time period?
- yxhuvud 8y ago
  Digital cameras, when invented back in the 70s. It took decades until they were usable, and still another decade until they started to approach the quality of nondigital.
  - berbec 8y ago
    Great example!
  - gl00pp 8y ago
    And the industry leader (Kodak) at the time didn't think digital would be useful and delayed R&D. But don't worry they came up with Kodakcoin!
    - DonHopkins 8y ago
      To convert Kodakcoin to cash, you have to send rolls of 12 Kodakcoins at a time off for a week to the lab to be developed. But just wait until some day there will finally be a Coinomat booth in every shopping center parking lot that can develop your Kodakcoins into cash in only 24 hours!
  - lalaland1125 8y ago
    Yes, but the real world advantages of digital cameras were apparent from the very start. Currently there are zero real world practical use cases for cryptocurrency that aren't associated with illegal activity. If anyone knows of legal applications of cryptocurrency, feel free to respond. I'd love to be proven wrong.
throwawaymath 8y ago
Why not both?

Because the vast majority of crypto/blockchain things are either outright scams, obviously doomed to fail ("it's Yelp but crypto!") or misapplied ("we're using blockchain intternally"). I honestly can't think of a single crypto startup that's had a compelling product. Edit: typos.

decentralised 8y ago
How does that make them less novel? Your impression that the "vast majority of crypto/blockchain thing are either outright scams" is a personal opinion for which you can't find supporting evidence. The SEC has only issued a hand full of notifications and LOST the only court case I've seen so far.
- jakelazaroff 8y ago
  "Scam" was only one of three categories I mentioned, but regardless here's a nice long list: https://www.scambitcoin.com/blacklist https://www.scambitcoin.com/blacklist Ten years into the Web we had Google, Amazon, Geocities, eBay, Flash games, and thousands of existing companies moving their operations online. What is a single blockchain-related success we can point to other than cryptocurrency exchanges?
  - decentralised 8y ago
    Who manages that list? Why do you trust it? edit: I looked through the site and most of the "scams" seemed more like basic phishing sites than actual blockchains or cryptocurrencies
    - DonHopkins 8y ago
      Your anecdote is irrelevant. Scam sites usually give up their bitcoin related domains when they fail, which invariably get taken over by basic phishing sites. You should look on the Internet Archive to see what the scam sites were actually doing, before they went out of business and had their domains taken over by phishers. Funny that you trust and parrot Bitcoin scammers, but you don't trust a list of Bitcoin scammers. Afraid some you've invested in, hyped and promoted yourself might show up?
      - deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
      - decentralised 8y ago
        What anecdote? I've pointed out that most of the scams didn't actually involve a blockchain or tokens, as the SEC cases against a few of them show. The question of who manages the list is important so we can tell what method was used and what's the motivation to keep it. One of the areas I'm most interested is cryptoeconomics and of course fairness and transparency matter to me which is why I wonder why would you defend this site as if you knew it to be true and accurate.
        DonHopkins 8y ago
        Your anecdote about looking through the site. How could you possibly not understand that? Nothing I said in any way was a defense of the site. Where did you get that idea? You're obviously not reading anything that I wrote, and just trying to be contrary to make it sound like you're making an argument. Please don't bother replying if you can't understand what I'm saying, and make stuff up that I didn't say.
  - anongraddebt 8y ago
    We had these companies by '99, so assume the starting point for the ten year timeline is 1989. The 'internet' had already been opened up to certain universities/institutions in 1981 (and was in government R&D years before that). There were plenty of people in 1991 who said the internet wasn't going to be or do much of anything. The most charitable reading of the crypto tech timeline is to say that the bubble popped at the protocol layer instead of the application layer. In that case, we're somewhere around 1989-1993/94. Maybe we're still waiting for a Tim Berners-Lee. Who knows.
adam 8y ago
You might check out numer.ai, along with their coming data marketplace, Erasure. They've been running for awhile...

berbec 8y ago

What other ten year old technologies, that went on to be successful, were as useless for their stated purpose as crypto? If crypto is money, can I: Spend it at Amazon? My grocery store? My corner deli? Pay my rent? Pay my employees? If crypto is a store of value can I trust it will have any rational storage value over any time period?

yxhuvud 8y ago
Digital cameras, when invented back in the 70s. It took decades until they were usable, and still another decade until they started to approach the quality of nondigital.
- berbec 8y ago
  Great example!
- gl00pp 8y ago
  And the industry leader (Kodak) at the time didn't think digital would be useful and delayed R&D. But don't worry they came up with Kodakcoin!
  - DonHopkins 8y ago
    To convert Kodakcoin to cash, you have to send rolls of 12 Kodakcoins at a time off for a week to the lab to be developed. But just wait until some day there will finally be a Coinomat booth in every shopping center parking lot that can develop your Kodakcoins into cash in only 24 hours!
- lalaland1125 8y ago
  Yes, but the real world advantages of digital cameras were apparent from the very start. Currently there are zero real world practical use cases for cryptocurrency that aren't associated with illegal activity. If anyone knows of legal applications of cryptocurrency, feel free to respond. I'd love to be proven wrong.

throwawaymath 8y ago

Why not both?