4 ms·

Seriously. The risk adjusted return on whatever that crazy contraption is is almost certainly negative, and probably incalculably so. The idea that any sane f

Seriously. The risk adjusted return on whatever that crazy contraption is is almost certainly negative, and probably incalculably so. The idea that any sane financial instrument could increase its return by two points by the holders of it voting to do so is... I haven't the words.

induetimesir 7y ago
In a way, you're absolutely right. In another way, you're totally missing the point. Net ROI hasn't been great for people who were earning x% interest on their ETH while it tanked 50%+. But the _idea_ the animates DAI, the dream of a decentralized synthetic digital bearer asset, that's a worthwhile dream imo. It's not a simple idea to understand. And it's not simple to implement technically/socially. But DAI has been a beautiful experiment in attempting to create this new-fangled thing. and while the jury is still out on whether the model/architecture they've chosen will hold up, the experiment itself should, in my view, be declared a massive success - it has, for the most part, worked very well. And DAI opens the door to new experiments. And they'll come. A trickle at first. but in 10yrs, it'll be an entirely different landscape when it comes to complex financial instruments. They'll be available in the way stocks can be had on Robinhood. and more. bcs financial instruments that are currently too complex or expensive to be practical, will be within reach. The rabbit hole is deep. and it is real. You can dive in and start learning. Or yell at clouds until your boat gets lifted by a wave of innovation...
v64 7y ago
> The idea that any sane financial instrument could increase its return by two points by the holders of it voting to do so is... I haven't the words. Raising the savings rate will also raise the interest rate that those holding loans must pay. If a loan holder doesn't agree with the new interest rate, they are free to close out their loan.
- jacobsenscott 7y ago
  I'm not familiar with this product. How do you "close out" one of these loans? If you mean pay it off, nobody would take a loan they can just pay off at anytime, or where the interest rate can be just arbitrarily voted up.
  - v64 7y ago
    > If you mean pay it off, nobody would take a loan they can just pay off at anytime, or where the interest rate can be just arbitrarily voted up. It's true that the interest rate can be arbitrarily voted up. Despite this, 1.46% of all existing Ether (currently valued at $210,036,816) is staked as collateral in the system, so it's not accurate to say nobody would do this.
  - vinniejames 7y ago
    The loans are mostly used for leveraged trading or liquidity while maintaining a long position. Each loan is fully collateralized with the Ethereum token by the borrower
  - thebean11 7y ago
    > nobody would take a loan they can just pay off at anytime Isn't this just a revolving credit line?
spir 7y ago
> whatever that crazy contraption is The people who built "that crazy contraption" are pioneers in an industry that is going to help lift hundreds of millions out of poverty via cheap, non-predatory financial services and create trillions in wealth by further unifying the global market. I am somebody who spends hundreds of hours per year reading about Ethereum and blockchain. I could stop doing this whenever I want, I'm not bound by my employer or anything. I keep at it because the underlying technology and things being built with it are amazing and valuable. If you take one thing away from this thread, let it be that Bitcoin is the "Ask Jeeves" of cryptocurrency and the future is actively being built on Ethereum.
- lngnmn1 7y ago
  I would call naive bullshit. First of all, without real-world, not imaginary adoption the sentences like "lift hundreds of millions out of poverty via cheap, non-predatory financial services" are nothing but literally empty memes. Second, the projects like https://iohk.io/ https://iohk.io/ are way superior than current Ethereum in any dimension except that, and this is what makes it still alive, Ethereum is here for many year. Other than that, Ethereum is an amateur hobby project, badly designed by an uneducated amateurs, badly implemented by inexperienced amateurs, and has been obsoleted by literally tens of world-class teams. That iohk folks, for example, has been smart enough to employ (as research fellows) world's top experts in relevant fields who have produced world-class solutions way above any amateur crap currently in use. Even most of HN alumni barely understand what does it mean to have an executable specifications in Haskell (guaranteed lack of contradictions and guaranteed correctness of implementation) and verified by a proof-checker on-chain language (guaranteed soundness of the other-peoples's code) Nevertheless, it seems that there is literally no demand for adoption of these already up and running world-class top-tier solutions (by iohk) given that there is literally nothing better, nothing even close. Why? Because, it seems, that no one is interested in anything but speculations and memes. You literally have no idea, my friend.
- gl00pp 7y ago
  Ethereum is a centralized shitcoin

induetimesir 7y ago

In a way, you're absolutely right. In another way, you're totally missing the point. Net ROI hasn't been great for people who were earning x% interest on their ETH while it tanked 50%+. But the _idea_ the animates DAI, the dream of a decentralized synthetic digital bearer asset, that's a worthwhile dream imo. It's not a simple idea to understand. And it's not simple to implement technically/socially. But DAI has been a beautiful experiment in attempting to create this new-fangled thing. and while the jury is still out on whether the model/architecture they've chosen will hold up, the experiment itself should, in my view, be declared a massive success - it has, for the most part, worked very well. And DAI opens the door to new experiments. And they'll come. A trickle at first. but in 10yrs, it'll be an entirely different landscape when it comes to complex financial instruments. They'll be available in the way stocks can be had on Robinhood. and more. bcs financial instruments that are currently too complex or expensive to be practical, will be within reach. The rabbit hole is deep. and it is real. You can dive in and start learning. Or yell at clouds until your boat gets lifted by a wave of innovation...

v64 7y ago

> The idea that any sane financial instrument could increase its return by two points by the holders of it voting to do so is... I haven't the words. Raising the savings rate will also raise the interest rate that those holding loans must pay. If a loan holder doesn't agree with the new interest rate, they are free to close out their loan.

jacobsenscott 7y ago
I'm not familiar with this product. How do you "close out" one of these loans? If you mean pay it off, nobody would take a loan they can just pay off at anytime, or where the interest rate can be just arbitrarily voted up.
- v64 7y ago
  > If you mean pay it off, nobody would take a loan they can just pay off at anytime, or where the interest rate can be just arbitrarily voted up. It's true that the interest rate can be arbitrarily voted up. Despite this, 1.46% of all existing Ether (currently valued at $210,036,816) is staked as collateral in the system, so it's not accurate to say nobody would do this.
- vinniejames 7y ago
  The loans are mostly used for leveraged trading or liquidity while maintaining a long position. Each loan is fully collateralized with the Ethereum token by the borrower
- thebean11 7y ago
  > nobody would take a loan they can just pay off at anytime Isn't this just a revolving credit line?

spir 7y ago

> whatever that crazy contraption is The people who built "that crazy contraption" are pioneers in an industry that is going to help lift hundreds of millions out of poverty via cheap, non-predatory financial services and create trillions in wealth by further unifying the global market. I am somebody who spends hundreds of hours per year reading about Ethereum and blockchain. I could stop doing this whenever I want, I'm not bound by my employer or anything. I keep at it because the underlying technology and things being built with it are amazing and valuable. If you take one thing away from this thread, let it be that Bitcoin is the "Ask Jeeves" of cryptocurrency and the future is actively being built on Ethereum.

lngnmn1 7y ago
I would call naive bullshit. First of all, without real-world, not imaginary adoption the sentences like "lift hundreds of millions out of poverty via cheap, non-predatory financial services" are nothing but literally empty memes. Second, the projects like https://iohk.io/ https://iohk.io/ are way superior than current Ethereum in any dimension except that, and this is what makes it still alive, Ethereum is here for many year. Other than that, Ethereum is an amateur hobby project, badly designed by an uneducated amateurs, badly implemented by inexperienced amateurs, and has been obsoleted by literally tens of world-class teams. That iohk folks, for example, has been smart enough to employ (as research fellows) world's top experts in relevant fields who have produced world-class solutions way above any amateur crap currently in use. Even most of HN alumni barely understand what does it mean to have an executable specifications in Haskell (guaranteed lack of contradictions and guaranteed correctness of implementation) and verified by a proof-checker on-chain language (guaranteed soundness of the other-peoples's code) Nevertheless, it seems that there is literally no demand for adoption of these already up and running world-class top-tier solutions (by iohk) given that there is literally nothing better, nothing even close. Why? Because, it seems, that no one is interested in anything but speculations and memes. You literally have no idea, my friend.
gl00pp 7y ago
Ethereum is a centralized shitcoin