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I'm not convinced that association with cryptocurrency does much to give the appearance of credibility, trustworthiness and stability to keybase.io I associate

I'm not convinced that association with cryptocurrency does much to give the appearance of credibility, trustworthiness and stability to keybase.io I associate crypto with shonk, which puts keybase.io in the "this is a crypto thing? Hmmm.... shonky." category. I guess it depends on what the corporate goals of keybase.io are - I think it was identity management or something rather being a crypto player. edit: I should qualify that I've always seen and continue to see keybase.io as being a really reputable and stable company and not shonky. I guess I was a bit jaded by being flooded with crypto ads on every social media platform 12 months ago or so.

StavrosK 8y ago
Sure, but unless cryptocurrency makes it into trustworthy software with legitimate uses instead of just speculation, it's always going to remain dodgy. I really wish all the speculators just went away.
xur17 8y ago
> I associate crypto with shonk, which puts keybase.io in the "this is a crypto thing? Hmmm.... shonky." category. I'm sorry to hear that. There is a lot of scammy behavior in the space, but there is also a lot of interesting work going on. It just turns out that the shitty people speak the loudest, so they're the ones you hear about, rather than all of the people heads down working hard on interesting problems. I don't think it is intellectually honest to dismiss the entire space as a scam due to the bad actors.
- api 8y ago
  The defense is to point out some genuinely useful work going on in the space that doesn't revolve around speculation.
  - michaelsbradley 8y ago
    How about pure development work to build tools that can be used to experiment with and build atop decentralized technologies such as IPFS and Ethereum blockchain, etc.? https://embark.status.im/ https://embark.status.im/ https://github.com/embark-framework/embark https://github.com/embark-framework/embark
    - k__ 8y ago
      IPFS seems to solve an actual problem without too much overhead tho...
      - michaelsbradley 8y ago
        See: https://github.com/MetaMask/metamask-extension/pull/4405 https://github.com/MetaMask/metamask-extension/pull/4405.
  - xur17 8y ago
    * Bitcoin's lightning network * Stable coins (Dai, USDC, etc) * What Keybase just built (much easier way to manage keys for wallets) * Makerdao's decentralized loan system The first 2 enable you to transfer value over the internet in a cheap and non-revokable way (internet cash). The third one simplifies wallet management for the first two. The last one opens up a bunch of new opportunities for borrowing money without having to trust your counterparty. All of this enables people to transfer value without any middlemen. And separate from this, projects like IPFS / Filecoin (if they actually work) would let you store data without using a centralized third party.
    - drawnwren 8y ago
      I agree that crypto could be valuable. But, (1) the lightning network has been repeatedly attacked as unworkable trash and (2) there needs to be a reason to make crypto transactions other than drugs or vaguely crypto-anarchist philosophy. (b) Tether's recent scandal has made all stable coins fairly suspect. (d) The makerdao system has some pretty serious problems. High liquidation rates and skyrocketing fees both come up. If anything, crypto has taught us (through the plethora of 2018/19 crypto scams) that revokability is a feature of transactions that is _valuable_. I'd say my biggest takeaways from crypto, currently, are that there is not such thing as 'without having to trust the other party' and that all of the middlemen in the current financial system do provide more value than just taking a cut (while that value is probably not proportional to the cut that they take). All that said, I'm still optimistic on crypto. However, I think it's unrealistic to expect it to replace a significant part of the web in its current form.
      - RustyRussell 8y ago
        > (1) the lightning network has been repeatedly attacked as unworkable trash [ Disclosure: I work on the lightning specification and one of the implementations ] I'm sure it has been attacked (because "cryptos, bro"), I'm disappointed that it made you dismiss it. FWIW, I switched from Linux Kernel development to developing Lightning after almost 20 years: I find it ambitious, high-potential and fascinating, as well as challenging.
  - ChainOfFools 8y ago
    I would add to that some explanation as to why the proposed decentralization of custody, control and leverage inherent in any cryptocurrency proposition should be expected to remain stable indefinitely rather than collapse into a conventional, de facto centralized model under the inexorable pressure of competition to derive profit from such a system
  - ericflo 8y ago
    I have a bunch of data backed up on the Sia file storage marketplace. Works fine for that purpose for me today.
  - fourstar 8y ago
    You just described literally anything new.
feanaro 8y ago
> I associate crypto with shonk, which puts keybase.io in the "this is a crypto thing? Hmmm.... shonky." category. This is unnecessary bias, though. If you look past the drama, cryptocurrency is a powerful and useful invention.
- dogecoinbase 8y ago
  If something is primarily used for scams, it's a perfectly reasonable heuristic to associate it with scams. I understand why Keybase is doing this (the attraction of cryptocurrency is profound, and not just because there's so much money being thrown around), but it not do anything for their credibility.
- gumby 8y ago
  > cryptocurrency is a powerful and useful invention. Can you explain? Intellectually interesting? No question. But powerful or useful (I consider them synonyms)? I'd like to see some actual examples. This is genuine curiosity, not snark. I'm on the board of a blockchain startup who has a legitimate application for a blockchain -- an aspirin. But this application could have been done 20 years ago if there hadn't been patent issues for hash chains. And while the engineers are enthusiastic to do a coin nobody can explain why someone else would want to buy one, except in the hope that someone someday would pay more for it. I've seen a few vaguely interesting applications cor crypto currencies, but they are all been at best 'vitamins'. I've yet to see an 'aspirin'.
  - btown 8y ago
    Are there any resources describing the patent issues for hash chains? Have patents expired, or does cryptocurrency somehow work around them?
  - mirimir 8y ago
    Basically, it's Internet money. So like the Internet, it's very difficult for governments to fsck with. They can try, of course, but there will always be levels of overlay networks that they can't touch. This is one aspect of the cypherpunk vision. Being ~anonymous online, cryptocurrencies are my only option for buying and selling stuff online. Leasing VPN services, servers, VPS, etc. Getting paid for writing and other consulting work. The speculation aspect is just meme-driven bullshit. What we need is cryptocurrencies with stable values, for online commerce. I'm not sure what you mean by "aspirin" vs "vitamins". But for me, getting out from under the thumb of government is extremely interesting.
808sunset 8y ago
I realize the word “shonk” in Australia is used without any ethnic meaning, but in some places it does have and can be offensive. I point this out not to be a busybody or to take offense, but just mention it for anyone else who might have thought “that’s some interesting slang” and start using it
caprese 8y ago
so weird that we live in two totally different worlds, this was a completely benign announcement to me, but to you all of this cognitive dissonance has flooded your mind what I saw: Hm Stellar has a Development Fund, and people within Keybase' engineering team that wanted cryptocurrency security to be easier so less people get scammed what you saw: questionable corporate goals because things involving cryptocurrency involve people getting scammed fascinating, to say the least, it is a perspective.
twohearted 8y ago
from TFA: "One year ago, we announced that Keybase is supported by the Stellar Development Foundation." Don't have to look much farther for motives. However, may I suggest a slight amendment to your statement and thinking: The association with keybase.io does much to give the appearance of credibility, trustworthiness and stability to cryptocurrency.
fmajid 8y ago
Exactly. I haven't used them until now, I will make sure to actively avoid them now. To paraphrase Keynes, it's not good security policy to base it on the workings of a casino.
jillesvangurp 8y ago
Understandable. But you have to consider that the Stellar foundation has been supporting keybase.io financially. Also, your association of cryptocurrencies with scams is understandable given the sorry state of e.g. the Ethereum and EOS ecosystems which are dominated by get rich quick schemes, pyramid schemes, gambling apps, and other stuff. Not exactly enthusiastic about that myself. However, among its peers, Stellar is relatively respectable in the sense that it has some serious corporate partners (i.e. normal legal entities in normal jurisdictions) and quite a few stable coins issued by fintech companies for the purpose of supporting international payments. And with support/involvement of regulators in many countries. Additionally there seem to be some serious use cases emerging. The most significant of those would be IBM building a SEPA competitor on top of stellar with dozens of international banks. But there are other applications as well. Keybase associating with Stellar is not necessarily a bad deal for them as they get money without giving away shares (presumably). And given the nature of their technology, crypto wallets are a natural use case for them as the whole point of their platform is making key management usable for end users and crypto wallets are literally nothing else than key pairs.

StavrosK 8y ago

Sure, but unless cryptocurrency makes it into trustworthy software with legitimate uses instead of just speculation, it's always going to remain dodgy. I really wish all the speculators just went away.

xur17 8y ago

> I associate crypto with shonk, which puts keybase.io in the "this is a crypto thing? Hmmm.... shonky." category. I'm sorry to hear that. There is a lot of scammy behavior in the space, but there is also a lot of interesting work going on. It just turns out that the shitty people speak the loudest, so they're the ones you hear about, rather than all of the people heads down working hard on interesting problems. I don't think it is intellectually honest to dismiss the entire space as a scam due to the bad actors.

api 8y ago
The defense is to point out some genuinely useful work going on in the space that doesn't revolve around speculation.
- michaelsbradley 8y ago
  How about pure development work to build tools that can be used to experiment with and build atop decentralized technologies such as IPFS and Ethereum blockchain, etc.? https://embark.status.im/ https://embark.status.im/ https://github.com/embark-framework/embark https://github.com/embark-framework/embark
  - k__ 8y ago
    IPFS seems to solve an actual problem without too much overhead tho...
    - michaelsbradley 8y ago
      See: https://github.com/MetaMask/metamask-extension/pull/4405 https://github.com/MetaMask/metamask-extension/pull/4405.
- xur17 8y ago
  * Bitcoin's lightning network * Stable coins (Dai, USDC, etc) * What Keybase just built (much easier way to manage keys for wallets) * Makerdao's decentralized loan system The first 2 enable you to transfer value over the internet in a cheap and non-revokable way (internet cash). The third one simplifies wallet management for the first two. The last one opens up a bunch of new opportunities for borrowing money without having to trust your counterparty. All of this enables people to transfer value without any middlemen. And separate from this, projects like IPFS / Filecoin (if they actually work) would let you store data without using a centralized third party.
  - drawnwren 8y ago
    I agree that crypto could be valuable. But, (1) the lightning network has been repeatedly attacked as unworkable trash and (2) there needs to be a reason to make crypto transactions other than drugs or vaguely crypto-anarchist philosophy. (b) Tether's recent scandal has made all stable coins fairly suspect. (d) The makerdao system has some pretty serious problems. High liquidation rates and skyrocketing fees both come up. If anything, crypto has taught us (through the plethora of 2018/19 crypto scams) that revokability is a feature of transactions that is _valuable_. I'd say my biggest takeaways from crypto, currently, are that there is not such thing as 'without having to trust the other party' and that all of the middlemen in the current financial system do provide more value than just taking a cut (while that value is probably not proportional to the cut that they take). All that said, I'm still optimistic on crypto. However, I think it's unrealistic to expect it to replace a significant part of the web in its current form.
    - RustyRussell 8y ago
      > (1) the lightning network has been repeatedly attacked as unworkable trash [ Disclosure: I work on the lightning specification and one of the implementations ] I'm sure it has been attacked (because "cryptos, bro"), I'm disappointed that it made you dismiss it. FWIW, I switched from Linux Kernel development to developing Lightning after almost 20 years: I find it ambitious, high-potential and fascinating, as well as challenging.
- ChainOfFools 8y ago
  I would add to that some explanation as to why the proposed decentralization of custody, control and leverage inherent in any cryptocurrency proposition should be expected to remain stable indefinitely rather than collapse into a conventional, de facto centralized model under the inexorable pressure of competition to derive profit from such a system
- ericflo 8y ago
  I have a bunch of data backed up on the Sia file storage marketplace. Works fine for that purpose for me today.
- fourstar 8y ago
  You just described literally anything new.

feanaro 8y ago

> I associate crypto with shonk, which puts keybase.io in the "this is a crypto thing? Hmmm.... shonky." category. This is unnecessary bias, though. If you look past the drama, cryptocurrency is a powerful and useful invention.

dogecoinbase 8y ago
If something is primarily used for scams, it's a perfectly reasonable heuristic to associate it with scams. I understand why Keybase is doing this (the attraction of cryptocurrency is profound, and not just because there's so much money being thrown around), but it not do anything for their credibility.
gumby 8y ago
> cryptocurrency is a powerful and useful invention. Can you explain? Intellectually interesting? No question. But powerful or useful (I consider them synonyms)? I'd like to see some actual examples. This is genuine curiosity, not snark. I'm on the board of a blockchain startup who has a legitimate application for a blockchain -- an aspirin. But this application could have been done 20 years ago if there hadn't been patent issues for hash chains. And while the engineers are enthusiastic to do a coin nobody can explain why someone else would want to buy one, except in the hope that someone someday would pay more for it. I've seen a few vaguely interesting applications cor crypto currencies, but they are all been at best 'vitamins'. I've yet to see an 'aspirin'.
- btown 8y ago
  Are there any resources describing the patent issues for hash chains? Have patents expired, or does cryptocurrency somehow work around them?
- mirimir 8y ago
  Basically, it's Internet money. So like the Internet, it's very difficult for governments to fsck with. They can try, of course, but there will always be levels of overlay networks that they can't touch. This is one aspect of the cypherpunk vision. Being ~anonymous online, cryptocurrencies are my only option for buying and selling stuff online. Leasing VPN services, servers, VPS, etc. Getting paid for writing and other consulting work. The speculation aspect is just meme-driven bullshit. What we need is cryptocurrencies with stable values, for online commerce. I'm not sure what you mean by "aspirin" vs "vitamins". But for me, getting out from under the thumb of government is extremely interesting.

808sunset 8y ago

I realize the word “shonk” in Australia is used without any ethnic meaning, but in some places it does have and can be offensive. I point this out not to be a busybody or to take offense, but just mention it for anyone else who might have thought “that’s some interesting slang” and start using it

caprese 8y ago

so weird that we live in two totally different worlds, this was a completely benign announcement to me, but to you all of this cognitive dissonance has flooded your mind what I saw: Hm Stellar has a Development Fund, and people within Keybase' engineering team that wanted cryptocurrency security to be easier so less people get scammed what you saw: questionable corporate goals because things involving cryptocurrency involve people getting scammed fascinating, to say the least, it is a perspective.

twohearted 8y ago

from TFA: "One year ago, we announced that Keybase is supported by the Stellar Development Foundation." Don't have to look much farther for motives. However, may I suggest a slight amendment to your statement and thinking: The association with keybase.io does much to give the appearance of credibility, trustworthiness and stability to cryptocurrency.

fmajid 8y ago

Exactly. I haven't used them until now, I will make sure to actively avoid them now. To paraphrase Keynes, it's not good security policy to base it on the workings of a casino.

jillesvangurp 8y ago

Understandable. But you have to consider that the Stellar foundation has been supporting keybase.io financially. Also, your association of cryptocurrencies with scams is understandable given the sorry state of e.g. the Ethereum and EOS ecosystems which are dominated by get rich quick schemes, pyramid schemes, gambling apps, and other stuff. Not exactly enthusiastic about that myself. However, among its peers, Stellar is relatively respectable in the sense that it has some serious corporate partners (i.e. normal legal entities in normal jurisdictions) and quite a few stable coins issued by fintech companies for the purpose of supporting international payments. And with support/involvement of regulators in many countries. Additionally there seem to be some serious use cases emerging. The most significant of those would be IBM building a SEPA competitor on top of stellar with dozens of international banks. But there are other applications as well. Keybase associating with Stellar is not necessarily a bad deal for them as they get money without giving away shares (presumably). And given the nature of their technology, crypto wallets are a natural use case for them as the whole point of their platform is making key management usable for end users and crypto wallets are literally nothing else than key pairs.