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This article is misinformed. The past two years have seen a Cambrian explosion of apps on ethereum. financial apps on ethereum - https://defipulse.com/ https:/

by spir 6y ago

This article is misinformed. The past two years have seen a Cambrian explosion of apps on ethereum. financial apps on ethereum - https://defipulse.com/ https://defipulse.com/ - https://uniswap.info/home https://uniswap.info/home - https://compound.finance/ https://compound.finance/ - https://nexusmutual.io/ https://nexusmutual.io/ - https://bloom.co/ https://bloom.co/ - https://baseline-protocol.org https://baseline-protocol.org - https://augur2.eth.link/ https://augur2.eth.link/ non-financial apps on ethereum - https://audius.org/ https://audius.org/ - https://ens.domains/ https://ens.domains/ - https://decentraland.org/ https://decentraland.org/ popular newsletter - https://weekinethereumnews.com/ https://weekinethereumnews.com/

mgraczyk 6y ago
Yeah thanks to COVID there is a ton of new interest in defi as a form of unregulated gambling.
- chrisco255 6y ago
  I don't know if you've seen the stock market lately... clearly the largest casino in the world is on Wall Street. But anyways, DeFi has tons of use cases including automated crop insurance based on weather events, decentralized money markets for car loans, tokenized rental real estate, synthetic derivatives, standard savings and loans utilizing stablecoins, etc etc. The notion that blockchain hasn't found product market fit in 2020 is laughably outdated.
  - vmception 6y ago
    If you notice, the primary arguments against blockchain and crypto require holding it to a standard higher than any asset class in existence. Its a mixture of “I don't respect this market and thats the only actual distinction” along with “I have no idea these criticisms are present in actual currencies as well as the stock market and commodities spot markets and credit market and derivatives market and collectibles market” Eventually they move the goal post so far that they are giving actual relevant criticisms of blockchain technology, like scalability concerns And then they get flipped into realizing they can actually contribute to the solution and spread awareness And then in a few short years they have enough clout to raise capital in the space
    - mgraczyk 6y ago
      Not everyone is an uninformed cynic. I founded a crypto gambling startup and advised and managed ICOs for dozens of companies and syndicates. Most economic activity in Defi is unregulated gambling, but I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing.
      - vmception 6y ago
        > Not everyone is an uninformed cynic. There are relevant criticisms of the space, but the relevant ones are exclusively inside the space and are distinctly not irreconcilable as it is permissionless to build or advocate for consensus changes to implement something that was built. The external criticisms lack nuance and masquerade their observations as absolute limitations.
        mgraczyk 6y ago
        ..... Honestly have no idea what you're saying. I'm actively involved in the Compound community contributing "inside", but I don't think that matters. Outside criticism isn't automatically invalid just because it comes from outside.
        vmception 6y ago
        > The external criticisms lack nuance and masquerade their observations as absolute limitations.
  - mgraczyk 6y ago
    What percentage of defi assets are used for the purposes you described vs speculation? It's difficult to analyze rigorously but I could give you a lower bound on speculation by looking at interday altcoin movement on makerdao and compound. I think it's completely fair to characterize defi as "predominantly speculation", which I've editorialized into "unregulated gambling".
    - vmception 6y ago
      > I think it's completely fair to characterize defi as "predominantly speculation", which I've editorialized into "unregulated gambling". You replied to my other comment, so this is exhibit A of a useless higher standard levied exclusively on the blockchain space, without acknowledging every other asset class. Even with you not considering that a problem, and congratulations for that, the point in caring deflects away from what is happening and every asset class in existence. In currencies, M0 is the small sliver of the supply use for goods and services, with the entire M1, M2, MB all used for speculation and is largely illiquid. In stocks, credit, derivatives and commodities the same distribution is seen. Its not odd for cryptoassets to have the same phenomenon occurring. The interesting thing is just the overlapping feature set of all other asset classes at once, as well as the additional unique nature of cryptoassets. The DeFi space in particular is converting non-interest bearing assets into interest bearing ones. That has market traction, and it is permissionless and of unlimited size, caveat emptor and that's a personal choice which has nothing to do with the viability of the space.
      - mgraczyk 6y ago
        Decentralized lending is ~100% used right now for taking leveraged positions. Interest is paid because people have different beliefs about the value of the leveraged asset. I call that gambling. It's a personal choice if you went to call it something different.
        vmception 6y ago
        I don't draw distinctions between negative expected value table games and positive expected value financial games, and by that standard Mortgages and insurance is gambling and there is nothing wrong with that. My point is that the nomenclature isn't useful because its not different than other asset classes, but absolutely is used as an indictment against this asset class and market. Whether you and I are personally pragmatic about it as a personal choice or not.
Skunkleton 6y ago
I looked through a few of those, and I struggle to see how those are superior to traditional solutions to the same problems. Care to enlighten me?
- capnorange 6y ago
  open source, permissionless, programmable, trustless, unstoppable.
  - sjwright 6y ago
    Nothing is trustless. It just distributes trust which makes it harder but by no means impossible for your trust to become misplaced.
  - arkis22 6y ago
    theyve changed the blockchain a couple of times so no.
    - capnorange 6y ago
      blockchains are immutable for all practical purposes using social consensus/governance rules.
      - arkis22 6y ago
        sure. it's immutable. they'll just fork the data and force you to choose. a lot of people enjoy not playing by the rules. https://www.coindesk.com/ethereum-executes-blockchain-hard-fork-return-dao-investor-funds https://www.coindesk.com/ethereum-executes-blockchain-hard-f...
        capnorange 6y ago
        agreed. Here "they'll" is not Vitalik/co, it's in control of the node validators, ofcourse you are affected by this if are in disagreement of the majority. The reason why it will be difficult to pull off a hard fork today[1]. See UASF for the success in community governance. This is good proof that the users are always in control, not miners or Vitalik. [1] https://www.coindesk.com/binance-may-consider-bitcoin-rollback-following-40-million-hack#:~:text=In%20the%20wake%20of%20a,network%20to%20return%20the%20funds https://www.coindesk.com/binance-may-consider-bitcoin-rollba...
arkis22 6y ago
and they've done... what?
mdoms 6y ago
We've been hearing this same story about various blockchain technologies for a decade.
- vmception 6y ago
  “composability” has absolutely changed that Its the interchangeably parts feature of smart contracts. Was missing before this year. Analogous to how interchangeable parts heralded the industrial revolution. The DeFi space would not be growing by orders of magnitude a quarter without that.
auston 6y ago
https://magic.link/ https://magic.link/ also pretty cool and https://handshake.org/ https://handshake.org/ also awesome
- tptacek 6y ago
  Isn't Handshake the thing premised on IANA handing over control of the DNS to a premined cryptocurrency network so they can resell it? I keep wondering if I can do that with ARP. It's like that episode of The Office with the business seminar and the guy whose business idea is just that he gets a 1c cut of every credit card transaction.
  - auston 6y ago
    @tptacek if this is an "and": > premised on IANA handing over control of the DNS AND that hand over is to a premined cryptocurrency network so they can resell it? Then not as far as I can tell. If it's or, then yes. It looks like there is a 15% pre-mine: https://handshake.org/files/handshake.txt https://handshake.org/files/handshake.txt
Animats 6y ago
DefiPulse - a scheme for speculating in the future price of Etherium. Uniswap - a scheme for assisting with speculating in cross rates between various cryptocurrencies. Compound - it pays interest. But who's paying the interest? It doesn't seem to make loans. Possible Ponzi. Nexus Mutual - insurance against failure of smart contracts, based on smart contracts. Bloom - "validate anything about anyone." A signing service for identity document / email / etc tuples. Baseline - Main use seem to be sealed-bid RFPs. Augur - "Your global, no-limit betting platform". All of these are either gambling schemes or solve a non-problem.
- vmception 6y ago
  Your use of unnecessary pejoratives undermine any point you think you are making.
- Acrobatic_Road 6y ago
  DefiPulse is just a page with information about cryptocurrency. It's like calling coinmarketcap.com a scheme. Maybe you should bother to understand what you're looking before laying down your ignorant judgement. Uniswap solves many problems (trustless cross-asset exchange, liquid markets without market makers, decentralized orderbook problem, decentralized price feeds, etc) >Compound - it pays interest. But who's paying the interest? People who want loans in cryptocurrency.

by spir 6y ago

mgraczyk 6y ago

Yeah thanks to COVID there is a ton of new interest in defi as a form of unregulated gambling.

chrisco255 6y ago
I don't know if you've seen the stock market lately... clearly the largest casino in the world is on Wall Street. But anyways, DeFi has tons of use cases including automated crop insurance based on weather events, decentralized money markets for car loans, tokenized rental real estate, synthetic derivatives, standard savings and loans utilizing stablecoins, etc etc. The notion that blockchain hasn't found product market fit in 2020 is laughably outdated.
- vmception 6y ago
  If you notice, the primary arguments against blockchain and crypto require holding it to a standard higher than any asset class in existence. Its a mixture of “I don't respect this market and thats the only actual distinction” along with “I have no idea these criticisms are present in actual currencies as well as the stock market and commodities spot markets and credit market and derivatives market and collectibles market” Eventually they move the goal post so far that they are giving actual relevant criticisms of blockchain technology, like scalability concerns And then they get flipped into realizing they can actually contribute to the solution and spread awareness And then in a few short years they have enough clout to raise capital in the space
  - mgraczyk 6y ago
    Not everyone is an uninformed cynic. I founded a crypto gambling startup and advised and managed ICOs for dozens of companies and syndicates. Most economic activity in Defi is unregulated gambling, but I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing.
    - vmception 6y ago
      > Not everyone is an uninformed cynic. There are relevant criticisms of the space, but the relevant ones are exclusively inside the space and are distinctly not irreconcilable as it is permissionless to build or advocate for consensus changes to implement something that was built. The external criticisms lack nuance and masquerade their observations as absolute limitations.
      - mgraczyk 6y ago
        ..... Honestly have no idea what you're saying. I'm actively involved in the Compound community contributing "inside", but I don't think that matters. Outside criticism isn't automatically invalid just because it comes from outside.
        vmception 6y ago
        > The external criticisms lack nuance and masquerade their observations as absolute limitations.
- mgraczyk 6y ago
  What percentage of defi assets are used for the purposes you described vs speculation? It's difficult to analyze rigorously but I could give you a lower bound on speculation by looking at interday altcoin movement on makerdao and compound. I think it's completely fair to characterize defi as "predominantly speculation", which I've editorialized into "unregulated gambling".
  - vmception 6y ago
    > I think it's completely fair to characterize defi as "predominantly speculation", which I've editorialized into "unregulated gambling". You replied to my other comment, so this is exhibit A of a useless higher standard levied exclusively on the blockchain space, without acknowledging every other asset class. Even with you not considering that a problem, and congratulations for that, the point in caring deflects away from what is happening and every asset class in existence. In currencies, M0 is the small sliver of the supply use for goods and services, with the entire M1, M2, MB all used for speculation and is largely illiquid. In stocks, credit, derivatives and commodities the same distribution is seen. Its not odd for cryptoassets to have the same phenomenon occurring. The interesting thing is just the overlapping feature set of all other asset classes at once, as well as the additional unique nature of cryptoassets. The DeFi space in particular is converting non-interest bearing assets into interest bearing ones. That has market traction, and it is permissionless and of unlimited size, caveat emptor and that's a personal choice which has nothing to do with the viability of the space.
    - mgraczyk 6y ago
      Decentralized lending is ~100% used right now for taking leveraged positions. Interest is paid because people have different beliefs about the value of the leveraged asset. I call that gambling. It's a personal choice if you went to call it something different.
      - vmception 6y ago
        I don't draw distinctions between negative expected value table games and positive expected value financial games, and by that standard Mortgages and insurance is gambling and there is nothing wrong with that. My point is that the nomenclature isn't useful because its not different than other asset classes, but absolutely is used as an indictment against this asset class and market. Whether you and I are personally pragmatic about it as a personal choice or not.

Skunkleton 6y ago

I looked through a few of those, and I struggle to see how those are superior to traditional solutions to the same problems. Care to enlighten me?

capnorange 6y ago
open source, permissionless, programmable, trustless, unstoppable.
- sjwright 6y ago
  Nothing is trustless. It just distributes trust which makes it harder but by no means impossible for your trust to become misplaced.
- arkis22 6y ago
  theyve changed the blockchain a couple of times so no.
  - capnorange 6y ago
    blockchains are immutable for all practical purposes using social consensus/governance rules.
    - arkis22 6y ago
      sure. it's immutable. they'll just fork the data and force you to choose. a lot of people enjoy not playing by the rules. https://www.coindesk.com/ethereum-executes-blockchain-hard-fork-return-dao-investor-funds https://www.coindesk.com/ethereum-executes-blockchain-hard-f...
      - capnorange 6y ago
        agreed. Here "they'll" is not Vitalik/co, it's in control of the node validators, ofcourse you are affected by this if are in disagreement of the majority. The reason why it will be difficult to pull off a hard fork today[1]. See UASF for the success in community governance. This is good proof that the users are always in control, not miners or Vitalik. [1] https://www.coindesk.com/binance-may-consider-bitcoin-rollback-following-40-million-hack#:~:text=In%20the%20wake%20of%20a,network%20to%20return%20the%20funds https://www.coindesk.com/binance-may-consider-bitcoin-rollba...

arkis22 6y ago

and they've done... what?

mdoms 6y ago

We've been hearing this same story about various blockchain technologies for a decade.

vmception 6y ago
“composability” has absolutely changed that Its the interchangeably parts feature of smart contracts. Was missing before this year. Analogous to how interchangeable parts heralded the industrial revolution. The DeFi space would not be growing by orders of magnitude a quarter without that.

auston 6y ago

https://magic.link/ https://magic.link/ also pretty cool and https://handshake.org/ https://handshake.org/ also awesome

tptacek 6y ago
Isn't Handshake the thing premised on IANA handing over control of the DNS to a premined cryptocurrency network so they can resell it? I keep wondering if I can do that with ARP. It's like that episode of The Office with the business seminar and the guy whose business idea is just that he gets a 1c cut of every credit card transaction.
- auston 6y ago
  @tptacek if this is an "and": > premised on IANA handing over control of the DNS AND that hand over is to a premined cryptocurrency network so they can resell it? Then not as far as I can tell. If it's or, then yes. It looks like there is a 15% pre-mine: https://handshake.org/files/handshake.txt https://handshake.org/files/handshake.txt

Animats 6y ago

DefiPulse - a scheme for speculating in the future price of Etherium. Uniswap - a scheme for assisting with speculating in cross rates between various cryptocurrencies. Compound - it pays interest. But who's paying the interest? It doesn't seem to make loans. Possible Ponzi. Nexus Mutual - insurance against failure of smart contracts, based on smart contracts. Bloom - "validate anything about anyone." A signing service for identity document / email / etc tuples. Baseline - Main use seem to be sealed-bid RFPs. Augur - "Your global, no-limit betting platform". All of these are either gambling schemes or solve a non-problem.

vmception 6y ago
Your use of unnecessary pejoratives undermine any point you think you are making.
Acrobatic_Road 6y ago
DefiPulse is just a page with information about cryptocurrency. It's like calling coinmarketcap.com a scheme. Maybe you should bother to understand what you're looking before laying down your ignorant judgement. Uniswap solves many problems (trustless cross-asset exchange, liquid markets without market makers, decentralized orderbook problem, decentralized price feeds, etc) >Compound - it pays interest. But who's paying the interest? People who want loans in cryptocurrency.