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I don't know - in their current forms BTC/ETH offer a stupendously wasteful, environmentally disastrous way to add / subtract numbers or execute bits of code fo

I don't know - in their current forms BTC/ETH offer a stupendously wasteful, environmentally disastrous way to add / subtract numbers or execute bits of code for $10-20 a transaction, for bits of digital data that, based on the mania of the masses may be worth $100 this week and $5000 next week. I've read the white paper and the Ethereum yellow paper - the technology is undeniably fascinating and cool, and I have some hope for proof-of-stake systems curbing the current waste, but in their present form they're almost useless as a monetary / payment system, and the only thing I really see happening in the crypto space is various get-rich-quick schemes based around issuing probably-worthless tokens of data, and a million and one ways to convert them amongst each other.

deleted 6y ago
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thebean11 6y ago
Ethereum is actively moving away from POW, does that change your opinion of it at all?
- QuadrupleA 6y ago
  If they can pull off merging mainnet into ETH2 it'll be a big improvement environmentally & scalability-wise, so yes. Supporting ETH/BTC now is pretty harmful to the world. Not sure if the volatility thing will be solved, it's still people bidding at the value of intrinsically meaningless bits of data. But maybe more genuine utility, i.e. a payment solution better/cheaper than cash / credit / brokerages, would help justify the valuation. Ethereum's decentralized computation model might find more actually-beneficial-to-the-world applications if the tx costs weren't so painful. Private keys are dangerously powerful for the average person, i.e. lose or have them stolen and you've lost your money forever. But that's a feature too, you can "open an account" in the few milliseconds it takes for your computer to generate a keypair.
  - thebean11 6y ago
    Agree about private keys, but I see the problem a little differently. Combustion engines are dangerous and frankly beyond the comprehension of the average person, but cars put such a heavy layer of abstraction on top of them that anyone can get a ton of utility from the combustion engine. Software and smart contracts like key escrow services will solve this problem I bet. Volatility, I don't agree with. Look at DAI, it's completely decentralized and has done a great job pegging to the dollar. With DAI you can participate in DeFi / smart contracts without ETH volatility.

deleted 6y ago

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thebean11 6y ago

Ethereum is actively moving away from POW, does that change your opinion of it at all?

QuadrupleA 6y ago
If they can pull off merging mainnet into ETH2 it'll be a big improvement environmentally & scalability-wise, so yes. Supporting ETH/BTC now is pretty harmful to the world. Not sure if the volatility thing will be solved, it's still people bidding at the value of intrinsically meaningless bits of data. But maybe more genuine utility, i.e. a payment solution better/cheaper than cash / credit / brokerages, would help justify the valuation. Ethereum's decentralized computation model might find more actually-beneficial-to-the-world applications if the tx costs weren't so painful. Private keys are dangerously powerful for the average person, i.e. lose or have them stolen and you've lost your money forever. But that's a feature too, you can "open an account" in the few milliseconds it takes for your computer to generate a keypair.
- thebean11 6y ago
  Agree about private keys, but I see the problem a little differently. Combustion engines are dangerous and frankly beyond the comprehension of the average person, but cars put such a heavy layer of abstraction on top of them that anyone can get a ton of utility from the combustion engine. Software and smart contracts like key escrow services will solve this problem I bet. Volatility, I don't agree with. Look at DAI, it's completely decentralized and has done a great job pegging to the dollar. With DAI you can participate in DeFi / smart contracts without ETH volatility.