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There's some really cool stuff going on in the distributed storage space thanks to this - blockchains have provided a way to pay for, prove you've stored data a

by arsome 6y ago

There's some really cool stuff going on in the distributed storage space thanks to this - blockchains have provided a way to pay for, prove you've stored data and provide collateral should you fail to store it, establishing the whole contract without the need for a centralized party, allowing anyone to sell excess storage. Sia is probably the most mature implementation at the moment, but there's a number of competitors in the space. But as you can see even this is pretty cryptocurrency adjacent. For anything that doesn't rely on distributed trust you're much better off making a database, perhaps with a hash chain glued to it if you need to prevent reversion.

phil21 6y ago
I really want this concept to work, but I still cannot ever get someone involved in these projects to really give me a realistic (paying) customer base that scales. I'm ready and willing to stand up a rack full of spinning rust for such a concept to be a provider, I just have yet to make the model work or trust there is a customer base willing to store their data in such a manner.
- redis_mlc 6y ago
  > I'm ready and willing to stand up a rack full of spinning rust for such a concept to be a provider, So ... you're really not that committed financially.
PragmaticPulp 6y ago
Ironically, tying a cryptocurrency to a real-world use case like paying for storage is the fastest way to throw cold water on price speculation. Once people can price a coin in terms of real-world assets like storage, it becomes easy to see when the coin is overvalued. IMO, this is why Bitcoiners aren’t actually interested in making Bitcoin easy to use for payments. They only want two use cases: Buying and holding. Selling or spending will only drive the price down.
- JumpCrisscross 6y ago
  > this is why Bitcoiners aren’t actually interested in making Bitcoin easy to use for payments. They only want two use cases: Buying and holding. TL; DR The political history of deflationary currencies, which until modern times meant any metal-based currency that wasn't being mined at a rate similar to or faster than economic growth.
  - PragmaticPulp 6y ago
    The cryptosphere is trying to push a populist narrative for cryptocurrencies. Calling it the people’s money or democratized banking. This seems doomed to backfire when people realize that the vast majority of crypto is held by lucky early adopters. A hypothetical Bitcoin dominated economy would be nearly the polar opposite of fair or democratized. I expect the populist angle to fail as people catch on to the incentives of early adopters, both private and institutional.
    - MockObject 6y ago
      I don't quite see why the existence of very rich people make a currency unfair, or non-democratized. I don't think the selling points for populists included "...and everyone will have roughly the same amount of money, too!" The best I can think of are the possible governance challenges if the major holders have interests that run counter to those of small spenders, say, when arguing over block size or other structural changes.
      - PragmaticPulp 6y ago
        It's not about the existence of very rich people, it's that wealth is (was) allocated based on luck and being in the right place at the right time to speculate on cryptocurrency. > I don't think the selling points for populists included "...and everyone will have roughly the same amount of money, too!" That wasn't the point at all. It would be one thing if we introduced a cryptocurrency alternative to existing wealth in a 1:1 ratio. However, that's not possible with Bitcoin. The only way to get some Bitcoin is to trade your existing wealth for whatever amount of Bitcoin can be purchased on the open market. That value has changed by literally 30,000X over the course of a few years. Migrating to a Bitcoin economy would be a massive wealth transfer from late adopters to early adopters. We're obviously not going to replace current money with Bitcoin, but if we did it would mint billionaires out of people who invested trivial amounts of money in 2010. However, no new value is created in the process. So where does the billionaire-level wealth of early adopters come from? It comes from late adopters. Moving bit by bit to a Bitcoin economy is a great way to transfer wealth to early adopters and make everyone else pay for it. Bitcoin people won't admit it, but that's a huge part of the draw of Bitcoin speculation and the reason why so many Bitcoin holders are pushing for a Bitcoin economy.

by arsome 6y ago

phil21 6y ago

I really want this concept to work, but I still cannot ever get someone involved in these projects to really give me a realistic (paying) customer base that scales. I'm ready and willing to stand up a rack full of spinning rust for such a concept to be a provider, I just have yet to make the model work or trust there is a customer base willing to store their data in such a manner.

redis_mlc 6y ago
> I'm ready and willing to stand up a rack full of spinning rust for such a concept to be a provider, So ... you're really not that committed financially.

PragmaticPulp 6y ago

Ironically, tying a cryptocurrency to a real-world use case like paying for storage is the fastest way to throw cold water on price speculation. Once people can price a coin in terms of real-world assets like storage, it becomes easy to see when the coin is overvalued. IMO, this is why Bitcoiners aren’t actually interested in making Bitcoin easy to use for payments. They only want two use cases: Buying and holding. Selling or spending will only drive the price down.

JumpCrisscross 6y ago
> this is why Bitcoiners aren’t actually interested in making Bitcoin easy to use for payments. They only want two use cases: Buying and holding. TL; DR The political history of deflationary currencies, which until modern times meant any metal-based currency that wasn't being mined at a rate similar to or faster than economic growth.
- PragmaticPulp 6y ago
  The cryptosphere is trying to push a populist narrative for cryptocurrencies. Calling it the people’s money or democratized banking. This seems doomed to backfire when people realize that the vast majority of crypto is held by lucky early adopters. A hypothetical Bitcoin dominated economy would be nearly the polar opposite of fair or democratized. I expect the populist angle to fail as people catch on to the incentives of early adopters, both private and institutional.
  - MockObject 6y ago
    I don't quite see why the existence of very rich people make a currency unfair, or non-democratized. I don't think the selling points for populists included "...and everyone will have roughly the same amount of money, too!" The best I can think of are the possible governance challenges if the major holders have interests that run counter to those of small spenders, say, when arguing over block size or other structural changes.
    - PragmaticPulp 6y ago
      It's not about the existence of very rich people, it's that wealth is (was) allocated based on luck and being in the right place at the right time to speculate on cryptocurrency. > I don't think the selling points for populists included "...and everyone will have roughly the same amount of money, too!" That wasn't the point at all. It would be one thing if we introduced a cryptocurrency alternative to existing wealth in a 1:1 ratio. However, that's not possible with Bitcoin. The only way to get some Bitcoin is to trade your existing wealth for whatever amount of Bitcoin can be purchased on the open market. That value has changed by literally 30,000X over the course of a few years. Migrating to a Bitcoin economy would be a massive wealth transfer from late adopters to early adopters. We're obviously not going to replace current money with Bitcoin, but if we did it would mint billionaires out of people who invested trivial amounts of money in 2010. However, no new value is created in the process. So where does the billionaire-level wealth of early adopters come from? It comes from late adopters. Moving bit by bit to a Bitcoin economy is a great way to transfer wealth to early adopters and make everyone else pay for it. Bitcoin people won't admit it, but that's a huge part of the draw of Bitcoin speculation and the reason why so many Bitcoin holders are pushing for a Bitcoin economy.