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My issue with these kind of questions is that they're hardly ever done in good faith, and they show over and over again whenever crypto is brought up on HN. Cr

My issue with these kind of questions is that they're hardly ever done in good faith, and they show over and over again whenever crypto is brought up on HN. Crypto has its good uses, and I've relied on it for my livelihood before (and even wished it wasn't just used as a speculation vehicle) when traditional banking couldn't meet my needs, so it's a very Americentric/Eurocentric thing to assume it's only ever good to speculate on and buy drugs on the Dark Web. That's it- that's its killer app, it's an alternative to existing money transfer and store of value mechanisms, anything else like "smart contracts" or reduced carbon footprints from better Proof-of-Stake implementations are a nice bonus and worth developing, of course.

shortstuffsushi 6y ago
Could you expand on a scenario where "traditional banking couldn't meet your needs," but crypto was able to?
- fsewe20 6y ago
  https://twitter.com/arbingsam/status/1333669126125068289 https://twitter.com/arbingsam/status/1333669126125068289 Heres one novel idea I have just seen in my twitter feed for a yearn strategy[1]. You deposit tokens to the yearn contract which employs different strategies to lend/spend those tokens in ways that generate profit for everyone participating in the contract. This strategy is taking up the rest of the bets that trump wont be re-elected on a decentralised prediction market (blah blah see crypto is all gambling). This ability to be able to program collectively program money is fascinating (and is scary with bugs, but with time hopefully becomes more robust). [1]https://yearn.finance/vaults https://yearn.finance/vaults
  - shortstuffsushi 6y ago
    I don't entirely understand this, but am I gathering that it's holding money for a "bet," similar to paying into a horsetrack and then going back to collect if your horse wins? Or is it an escrow where, during the time the money is held, it "generates profit" (invested elsewhere?) and then pays a return to those who contributed later? fwiw - I don't have a yearn account, and am consequently unable to view your yearn link.
    - fsewe20 6y ago
      So yeah, it places a bet on augur, buying as many shares as it can for "no trump wont be elected" which are currently around 90c and will resolve to $1 in January when biden is sworn in. The reason it isnt $1 yet is because some people are buying the other side of the market for whatever reason. It seems like an obvious bet really, so the strategy is to pool everyones money, take the bet, and then after the market resolves pay back the winnings to the pool. This particular strategy is just a bet. but other strategies would involve borrowing assets and lending them out to gain interest like you mention. You could say "i can do that myself, what is gained by pooling" and there are two things: 1 you dont have to manage this, the strategy keeper manages their strategy and takes a small fee to do so, and 2 you would be in competition with the pool, less lenders means higher rates so it makes sense to pool the lending. They get increasingly complex involving taking insurance, lending, borrowing, producing tokens, burning tokens, etc. all from other decentralised protocols, it all gets stitched together across platforms. Money lego is a phrase often used, but really its more like `npm install insurance` Ah sorry about the link, didnt realise (btw you dont need a yearn account, there is no accounts on these platforms, but you probably do need a web3 wallet like metamask. you have a wallet and that is your account across all platforms, so you hold your user data with you, and can have as many identities as you like for each platform). Another link to read more on yearn specifically is Andre's blog (creator and one of the lead devs) https://andrecronje.medium.com/ https://andrecronje.medium.com/ it is one of the interesting projects as it is growing organically, with a mix of public and anon devs, with no specific management, and no VC investment behind it (like some other defi projects), just people coming together an building interlinking code as public goods.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- kemonocode 6y ago
  I've talked about it in length before here in HN comments (feel free to look into my comment history) but paraphrasing: I live in Venezuela, so many things people take for granted are unfeasible/outright impossible for me to get access to. I have a PayPal account but no useful international bank account, and as I refuse to keep any significant amounts of money there, that money needs to go somewhere, and physical cash comes with its own issues too.
- everfree 6y ago
  I know someone who needed to do a small task for someone overseas, for $50 or so. An international wire transfer would have taken $35 out, and both parties would have had to go to their banks and fill out paperwork. With PayPal, the other party could have just claimed fraud after the task was done and reversed the transaction. With cryptocurrency, the transaction was sent instantly with a fee of less than a dollar, and settled within 20 minutes.

shortstuffsushi 6y ago

Could you expand on a scenario where "traditional banking couldn't meet your needs," but crypto was able to?

fsewe20 6y ago
https://twitter.com/arbingsam/status/1333669126125068289 https://twitter.com/arbingsam/status/1333669126125068289 Heres one novel idea I have just seen in my twitter feed for a yearn strategy[1]. You deposit tokens to the yearn contract which employs different strategies to lend/spend those tokens in ways that generate profit for everyone participating in the contract. This strategy is taking up the rest of the bets that trump wont be re-elected on a decentralised prediction market (blah blah see crypto is all gambling). This ability to be able to program collectively program money is fascinating (and is scary with bugs, but with time hopefully becomes more robust). [1]https://yearn.finance/vaults https://yearn.finance/vaults
- shortstuffsushi 6y ago
  I don't entirely understand this, but am I gathering that it's holding money for a "bet," similar to paying into a horsetrack and then going back to collect if your horse wins? Or is it an escrow where, during the time the money is held, it "generates profit" (invested elsewhere?) and then pays a return to those who contributed later? fwiw - I don't have a yearn account, and am consequently unable to view your yearn link.
  - fsewe20 6y ago
    So yeah, it places a bet on augur, buying as many shares as it can for "no trump wont be elected" which are currently around 90c and will resolve to $1 in January when biden is sworn in. The reason it isnt $1 yet is because some people are buying the other side of the market for whatever reason. It seems like an obvious bet really, so the strategy is to pool everyones money, take the bet, and then after the market resolves pay back the winnings to the pool. This particular strategy is just a bet. but other strategies would involve borrowing assets and lending them out to gain interest like you mention. You could say "i can do that myself, what is gained by pooling" and there are two things: 1 you dont have to manage this, the strategy keeper manages their strategy and takes a small fee to do so, and 2 you would be in competition with the pool, less lenders means higher rates so it makes sense to pool the lending. They get increasingly complex involving taking insurance, lending, borrowing, producing tokens, burning tokens, etc. all from other decentralised protocols, it all gets stitched together across platforms. Money lego is a phrase often used, but really its more like `npm install insurance` Ah sorry about the link, didnt realise (btw you dont need a yearn account, there is no accounts on these platforms, but you probably do need a web3 wallet like metamask. you have a wallet and that is your account across all platforms, so you hold your user data with you, and can have as many identities as you like for each platform). Another link to read more on yearn specifically is Andre's blog (creator and one of the lead devs) https://andrecronje.medium.com/ https://andrecronje.medium.com/ it is one of the interesting projects as it is growing organically, with a mix of public and anon devs, with no specific management, and no VC investment behind it (like some other defi projects), just people coming together an building interlinking code as public goods.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
kemonocode 6y ago
I've talked about it in length before here in HN comments (feel free to look into my comment history) but paraphrasing: I live in Venezuela, so many things people take for granted are unfeasible/outright impossible for me to get access to. I have a PayPal account but no useful international bank account, and as I refuse to keep any significant amounts of money there, that money needs to go somewhere, and physical cash comes with its own issues too.
everfree 6y ago
I know someone who needed to do a small task for someone overseas, for $50 or so. An international wire transfer would have taken $35 out, and both parties would have had to go to their banks and fill out paperwork. With PayPal, the other party could have just claimed fraud after the task was done and reversed the transaction. With cryptocurrency, the transaction was sent instantly with a fee of less than a dollar, and settled within 20 minutes.