7 ms·

10+ years on, billions of dollars poured into various coins and ICOs and still nothing to show for it. It's like an even nerdier Star Citizen.

by simias 6y ago

vmception 6y ago
Its the strange higher standard put on crypto that’s oddest to me. Those ICO issuers have a great business model, haven’t cracked recurring revenue yet, but alot of revenue! There is also a large services sector, no different than the adtech sector or any other sector with questionable utility. I worked on many mobile apps that weren’t worth it for the company, and was praised for it. But crypto is the one that has to convince you of...... what? “There are alot of customers, go where the customers are - Except if it’s crypto, then I’ll just spend all my energy talking about unrelated crypto issues in a incoherent tirade.“
- wmf 6y ago
  Crypto people have been talking about "revolution" and "the future of money" for almost ten years and by that standard they aren't delivering.
  - vmception 6y ago
    The "future of money revolution" is one user story. It offers a place to express angst in monetary policy, no different than startup founders talking about disrupting whatever, it's the same wave. It offers some utility in that regard and is still growing at a noteworthy pace. (capital is bypassing bitcoin and going straight into stablecoins which settle on bitcoin and ether. bitcoin and ether are becoming primarily used as fuel. check the marketcap growth of stablecoins over the last 6 months, it is new capital.) I completely understand how to hold seizure-free assets, some of that involves the discretion of a judge with cash and physical property held in trust's name, some of that involves the permissionless nature of crypto, stored properly. Its just a tool and it's actually pretty okay at what it does. In other areas, 10 years ago I couldn't convert an international wire transfer into a domestic wire transfer, now I can and it avoids greater compliance scrutiny and speed, while retaining unlimited amounts, and inherits same day settlement. (corporate transaction another country paid in crypto, converted to fiat in local bank, transferred to local brokerage account, 6-7 figures or higher.) Without crypto, I as of recently have transferwise and now Revolut to do the same thing, which both have an extremely long list of unsupported businesses and transfer limits that are pretty decent but not as good. There is a slower regulatory process of making any of this practical, which is still happening, such as the processes that allowed Kraken to get that bank charter. Wyoming's laws were passed in 2018, went into force 2019, and Kraken was in regulatory approval since then. On the federal level, of OCC just gave its gracings to national banks to custody digital assets, this year! This will be challenged, primarily by Wyoming lobbyists, who wants Congress to make that order or not. Only Bitcoin has risk management financial products, not even Ethereum yet, in 2020. There is also a large market of customers in the crypto arena, and high margin business models that don't require that many customers in order to book 7 figures of revenue.
    - anon9001 6y ago
      Another thing that's exciting about crypto is that it lets users participate in more fair borrowing/lending. As it stands today, you can lend at your coins at a yield rate close to the borrow's lending rate. That effectively makes all lenders, collectively, "the bank". It also means that borrowers will get a competitive rate for borrowing against their collateral. This will end the days of getting 0% in your savings accounts while the bank is getting 10% lending out your money once people realize they can lend out their dollars themselves for a much higher yield. It also lets you lend out your speculative crypto investments. Imagine if you could buy AMZN or NFLX and also lend it out to other people on margin. That's exactly how a margin account works, but of course your brokerage isn't going to let you do it. Crypto lets you play the role of issuing the margin rather than borrowing it, if you so choose. People that are dismissing crypto have no idea what a revolution in finance this is going to cause.
      - notahacker 6y ago
        People have been able to lend actual coins since before the banking system existed and there's a vast ecosystem of financial products and intermediaries that will allow you to get higher yields than bank accounts from lending directly to specific companies or people (or buying their debt) without touching crypto. And you can't buy and hold but also lend AMZN or NFLX with crypto. Sure, you can buy assets that don't have real profit streams attached and lend them to short sellers, but I have no idea why anyone would think that revolution would be a net benefit to them....
        anon9001 6y ago
        How many people are involved in processing that vast ecosystem of intermediaries? It's a wild amount of inefficiency. Every major city has giant buildings filled with people pushing numbers on spreadsheets to make those products work. They're extremely inefficient. And to interact with those systems, you need to go through a middleman like a brokerage. I think the analogue is Ally bank, which is known to give the largest returns on savings accounts, currently yielding a whopping 2%. Compare that with a crypto-ecosystem lender like Nexo which is yielding 8-10% on the same asset (USD). > Sure, you can buy assets that don't have real profit streams attached and lend them to short sellers, but I have no idea why anyone would think that revolution would be a net benefit to them... That's one of the profit streams my stock broker uses. Why shouldn't it be available to me? The reason why you don't have access to any of these money-making "institutional" products (like lending stocks, underwriting insurance, or serving as a market-maker) is because they require a lot of administrative overhead. When you replace them with smart contracts, you democratize all of these services. In a few years, it will be common for people to buy/sell/lend/insure all kinds of assets (physical, virtual, derivatives) from their phone without a middleman. You can do it today if you're an advanced user with enough money to overcome the currently high transaction costs.
  - companyhen 6y ago
    It's a brand new technology. That's like being disappointed by where the Internet was at in the late 80s or early 90s.
    - arcticbull 6y ago
      It's not a brand new technology, it's 12 years old. Back in 2008, the iPhone was new technology -- look at it now. Bitcoin remains unchanged, as does the fundamental technology underlying substantially any relevant cryptocurrency. Proponents need to get over this whole "it's new" business. It's not new. It's old. Can you think of any other piece of software or hardware you continue to use from 2008 that you consider "new technology?" Do you consider the original iPhone (2G) to be "new technology?" I don't think anyone was disappointed with where the Internet was in the early 80s and 90s, and that's because it fundamentally opened up new avenues for people to express themselves, new ways to interact. It wasn't perfect, but it created something new nobody had before. Many things! The ability to move money online has been with us for decades. It's not new, either. Crypto doesn't open up any new capabilities except harder-to-track ransomware payments.
      - companyhen 6y ago
        Ethereum was introduced in 2014, so I'd say blockchain based smart contracts are only 6 years old max. Try looking past bitcoin and see what's happening in DeFi. https://defipulse.com https://defipulse.com - any of the top projects are worth looking into. Don't be so quick to judge. A lot of progress has been made the past year and DeFi is much more sustainable. Imagine if Facebook did something like this with $FB stock to reward it's early users: https://www.theblockcrypto.com/linked/78255/140k-addresses-uni-claims https://www.theblockcrypto.com/linked/78255/140k-addresses-u...
        arcticbull 6y ago
        Smart contracts are the worst idea in history of bad ideas, maybe even ever. As a software engineer you know bugs exist. Software as immutable monetary contract law which cannot be appealed to anyone is a doubly bad idea as any bug is a vector for literally everyone losing literally everything, forever. Plenty of examples exist. Remember the DAO? Nothing's changed since then except people decided to "be more careful next time." > Imagine if Facebook did something like this with $FB stock to reward it's early users. Why would a company do that? It doesn't make sense. If a service is valuable you don't need to pay people to use it, they pay you to use it. You know, business, where money is exchanged for goods and services?
- arcticbull 6y ago
  > Those ICO issuers have a great business model, haven’t cracked recurring revenue yet, but alot of revenue! Yes, fraud can be a good business if you don't get caught. So can lots of crime.
companyhen 6y ago
The narrative has moved on to Decentralized Finance. Over $9 billion is now locked in DeFi apps - https://defipulse.com https://defipulse.com - Instead of being like the ICO bubble, in DeFi you lock your money up (not exchange it for a worthless token built on vaporware).
Kiro 6y ago
You really haven't been paying attention if you think Star Citizen is nothing. It's an amazing game I've spent thousands of hours on.

10+ years on, billions of dollars poured into various coins and ICOs and still nothing to show for it. It's like an even nerdier Star Citizen.

by simias 6y ago

10+ years on, billions of dollars poured into various coins and ICOs and still nothing to show for it. It's like an even nerdier Star Citizen.

vmception 6y ago

Its the strange higher standard put on crypto that’s oddest to me. Those ICO issuers have a great business model, haven’t cracked recurring revenue yet, but alot of revenue! There is also a large services sector, no different than the adtech sector or any other sector with questionable utility. I worked on many mobile apps that weren’t worth it for the company, and was praised for it. But crypto is the one that has to convince you of...... what? “There are alot of customers, go where the customers are - Except if it’s crypto, then I’ll just spend all my energy talking about unrelated crypto issues in a incoherent tirade.“

wmf 6y ago
Crypto people have been talking about "revolution" and "the future of money" for almost ten years and by that standard they aren't delivering.
- vmception 6y ago
  The "future of money revolution" is one user story. It offers a place to express angst in monetary policy, no different than startup founders talking about disrupting whatever, it's the same wave. It offers some utility in that regard and is still growing at a noteworthy pace. (capital is bypassing bitcoin and going straight into stablecoins which settle on bitcoin and ether. bitcoin and ether are becoming primarily used as fuel. check the marketcap growth of stablecoins over the last 6 months, it is new capital.) I completely understand how to hold seizure-free assets, some of that involves the discretion of a judge with cash and physical property held in trust's name, some of that involves the permissionless nature of crypto, stored properly. Its just a tool and it's actually pretty okay at what it does. In other areas, 10 years ago I couldn't convert an international wire transfer into a domestic wire transfer, now I can and it avoids greater compliance scrutiny and speed, while retaining unlimited amounts, and inherits same day settlement. (corporate transaction another country paid in crypto, converted to fiat in local bank, transferred to local brokerage account, 6-7 figures or higher.) Without crypto, I as of recently have transferwise and now Revolut to do the same thing, which both have an extremely long list of unsupported businesses and transfer limits that are pretty decent but not as good. There is a slower regulatory process of making any of this practical, which is still happening, such as the processes that allowed Kraken to get that bank charter. Wyoming's laws were passed in 2018, went into force 2019, and Kraken was in regulatory approval since then. On the federal level, of OCC just gave its gracings to national banks to custody digital assets, this year! This will be challenged, primarily by Wyoming lobbyists, who wants Congress to make that order or not. Only Bitcoin has risk management financial products, not even Ethereum yet, in 2020. There is also a large market of customers in the crypto arena, and high margin business models that don't require that many customers in order to book 7 figures of revenue.
  - anon9001 6y ago
    Another thing that's exciting about crypto is that it lets users participate in more fair borrowing/lending. As it stands today, you can lend at your coins at a yield rate close to the borrow's lending rate. That effectively makes all lenders, collectively, "the bank". It also means that borrowers will get a competitive rate for borrowing against their collateral. This will end the days of getting 0% in your savings accounts while the bank is getting 10% lending out your money once people realize they can lend out their dollars themselves for a much higher yield. It also lets you lend out your speculative crypto investments. Imagine if you could buy AMZN or NFLX and also lend it out to other people on margin. That's exactly how a margin account works, but of course your brokerage isn't going to let you do it. Crypto lets you play the role of issuing the margin rather than borrowing it, if you so choose. People that are dismissing crypto have no idea what a revolution in finance this is going to cause.
    - notahacker 6y ago
      People have been able to lend actual coins since before the banking system existed and there's a vast ecosystem of financial products and intermediaries that will allow you to get higher yields than bank accounts from lending directly to specific companies or people (or buying their debt) without touching crypto. And you can't buy and hold but also lend AMZN or NFLX with crypto. Sure, you can buy assets that don't have real profit streams attached and lend them to short sellers, but I have no idea why anyone would think that revolution would be a net benefit to them....
      - anon9001 6y ago
        How many people are involved in processing that vast ecosystem of intermediaries? It's a wild amount of inefficiency. Every major city has giant buildings filled with people pushing numbers on spreadsheets to make those products work. They're extremely inefficient. And to interact with those systems, you need to go through a middleman like a brokerage. I think the analogue is Ally bank, which is known to give the largest returns on savings accounts, currently yielding a whopping 2%. Compare that with a crypto-ecosystem lender like Nexo which is yielding 8-10% on the same asset (USD). > Sure, you can buy assets that don't have real profit streams attached and lend them to short sellers, but I have no idea why anyone would think that revolution would be a net benefit to them... That's one of the profit streams my stock broker uses. Why shouldn't it be available to me? The reason why you don't have access to any of these money-making "institutional" products (like lending stocks, underwriting insurance, or serving as a market-maker) is because they require a lot of administrative overhead. When you replace them with smart contracts, you democratize all of these services. In a few years, it will be common for people to buy/sell/lend/insure all kinds of assets (physical, virtual, derivatives) from their phone without a middleman. You can do it today if you're an advanced user with enough money to overcome the currently high transaction costs.
- companyhen 6y ago
  It's a brand new technology. That's like being disappointed by where the Internet was at in the late 80s or early 90s.
  - arcticbull 6y ago
    It's not a brand new technology, it's 12 years old. Back in 2008, the iPhone was new technology -- look at it now. Bitcoin remains unchanged, as does the fundamental technology underlying substantially any relevant cryptocurrency. Proponents need to get over this whole "it's new" business. It's not new. It's old. Can you think of any other piece of software or hardware you continue to use from 2008 that you consider "new technology?" Do you consider the original iPhone (2G) to be "new technology?" I don't think anyone was disappointed with where the Internet was in the early 80s and 90s, and that's because it fundamentally opened up new avenues for people to express themselves, new ways to interact. It wasn't perfect, but it created something new nobody had before. Many things! The ability to move money online has been with us for decades. It's not new, either. Crypto doesn't open up any new capabilities except harder-to-track ransomware payments.
    - companyhen 6y ago
      Ethereum was introduced in 2014, so I'd say blockchain based smart contracts are only 6 years old max. Try looking past bitcoin and see what's happening in DeFi. https://defipulse.com https://defipulse.com - any of the top projects are worth looking into. Don't be so quick to judge. A lot of progress has been made the past year and DeFi is much more sustainable. Imagine if Facebook did something like this with $FB stock to reward it's early users: https://www.theblockcrypto.com/linked/78255/140k-addresses-uni-claims https://www.theblockcrypto.com/linked/78255/140k-addresses-u...
      - arcticbull 6y ago
        Smart contracts are the worst idea in history of bad ideas, maybe even ever. As a software engineer you know bugs exist. Software as immutable monetary contract law which cannot be appealed to anyone is a doubly bad idea as any bug is a vector for literally everyone losing literally everything, forever. Plenty of examples exist. Remember the DAO? Nothing's changed since then except people decided to "be more careful next time." > Imagine if Facebook did something like this with $FB stock to reward it's early users. Why would a company do that? It doesn't make sense. If a service is valuable you don't need to pay people to use it, they pay you to use it. You know, business, where money is exchanged for goods and services?
arcticbull 6y ago
> Those ICO issuers have a great business model, haven’t cracked recurring revenue yet, but alot of revenue! Yes, fraud can be a good business if you don't get caught. So can lots of crime.

companyhen 6y ago

The narrative has moved on to Decentralized Finance. Over $9 billion is now locked in DeFi apps - https://defipulse.com https://defipulse.com - Instead of being like the ICO bubble, in DeFi you lock your money up (not exchange it for a worthless token built on vaporware).

Kiro 6y ago

You really haven't been paying attention if you think Star Citizen is nothing. It's an amazing game I've spent thousands of hours on.