4 ms·

I came here to say this exact same thing. There is seriously interesting and useful real work being done under the umbrella term "decentralized finance" or DeFi

by jtolds 6y ago

I came here to say this exact same thing. There is seriously interesting and useful real work being done under the umbrella term "decentralized finance" or DeFi. It is hard to cut through the noise of get rich quick schemes, but at the core, the DeFi stuff, built on top of green cryptocurrency (proof of stake), along with quickly improving zero-knowledge proof tech, is actually useful and groundbreaking. Bitcoin and proof of work should totally be banned.

christiansakai 6y ago
Indeed, the world of cyptocurrency/blockchain research has many ground breaking papers and news are often real time, even crypto news aggregator can't keep up with it. HN crowd refuses to care about it because of bad taste of crypto in general.
- jtolds 6y ago
  It's a bummer because zkRollups and their ilk in particular are flat out amazing new cryptographic constructions, but because they weren't developed by Schneier or Rivest or DJB, the wider programming industry is ignoring them.
- samvher 6y ago
  Do you have recommendations on where to find this stuff? I agree that there seems to be a lot of interesting work going on and the ideas of decentralized finance have a lot of potential. At the moment it really is hard to cut through the noise though and from what I can find just searching for an afternoon it looks like a minefield. I'm hoping that the bad stuff will all fade away and something useful will remain.
  - christiansakai 6y ago
    You can join each crypto's subreddits/youtube/twitter to find more. This is basically what crypto news aggregator do. They just read articles/watch youtube videos all day.
- DennisP 6y ago
  Could you link "crypto news aggregator" for us?
einpoklum 6y ago
I'm not sure. Do these DeFi schemes involve currencies which cannot be cancelled or created in large amounts by political decision (e.g. democratic)? If the answer is "yes", then these may be just another form of pyramid scheme, perhaps less taxing on the environment.
- jtolds 6y ago
  The answer is not yes, and there is clear evidence that cryptocurrencies are cancelled and created democratically. https://vitalik.ca/general/2021/03/23/legitimacy.html https://vitalik.ca/general/2021/03/23/legitimacy.html (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26560626 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26560626) talks about the Steem/Hive split, and explains how the community democratically overrode the network owner's undemocratic decisions.
  - einpoklum 6y ago
    That Steem example is interesting. I wonder what the basis for the voting system they have there, though. Anyway, when you have a democratic (or otherwise subject to popular influence) institution which can do things like "print more money", forfeit some part of existing money, levy taxes etc. - then indeed it's an interesting and potentially positive-in-my-opinion cooperative pooling of resources. Of course then you have the opposite problem, which is the tyranny of the majority, but "you can't grab the rope at both ends".
salawat 6y ago
Proof of Stake is not inherently decentralized, you realize that, right? It'll trend toward centalization over time as coins end up getting delegated to the asset class equivalents of banks and brokers. They will pop up. Once they do, They will be regulated. Then you're back to square one.
- nbardy 6y ago
  And then you have a monetary system that runs a blockchain instead of this paper system the US has. Not everyone wants to take down banks or destroy fiat.
atweiden 6y ago
> I came here to say this exact same thing. There is seriously interesting and useful real work being done under the umbrella term "decentralized finance" or DeFi. It is hard to cut through the noise of get rich quick schemes, but at the core, the DeFi stuff, built on top of green cryptocurrency (proof of stake), along with quickly improving zero-knowledge proof tech, is actually useful and groundbreaking. The truth is that no one uses cryptocurrency for anything. Ethereum is just as much a speculative store of value as Bitcoin is, if not moreso given the numerous competitors it has to contend with — Bitcoin arguably has none. In a way, “speculative store of value” has merely been whitelabeled under the terms “digital gold” and “defi”. The people who claim increduously they’re buying ETH to do transactions are misrepresenting the situation to an extreme degree. > Bitcoin and proof of work should totally be banned. Where is your disclosure statement?

by jtolds 6y ago

christiansakai 6y ago

Indeed, the world of cyptocurrency/blockchain research has many ground breaking papers and news are often real time, even crypto news aggregator can't keep up with it. HN crowd refuses to care about it because of bad taste of crypto in general.

jtolds 6y ago
It's a bummer because zkRollups and their ilk in particular are flat out amazing new cryptographic constructions, but because they weren't developed by Schneier or Rivest or DJB, the wider programming industry is ignoring them.
samvher 6y ago
Do you have recommendations on where to find this stuff? I agree that there seems to be a lot of interesting work going on and the ideas of decentralized finance have a lot of potential. At the moment it really is hard to cut through the noise though and from what I can find just searching for an afternoon it looks like a minefield. I'm hoping that the bad stuff will all fade away and something useful will remain.
- christiansakai 6y ago
  You can join each crypto's subreddits/youtube/twitter to find more. This is basically what crypto news aggregator do. They just read articles/watch youtube videos all day.
DennisP 6y ago
Could you link "crypto news aggregator" for us?

einpoklum 6y ago

I'm not sure. Do these DeFi schemes involve currencies which cannot be cancelled or created in large amounts by political decision (e.g. democratic)? If the answer is "yes", then these may be just another form of pyramid scheme, perhaps less taxing on the environment.

jtolds 6y ago
The answer is not yes, and there is clear evidence that cryptocurrencies are cancelled and created democratically. https://vitalik.ca/general/2021/03/23/legitimacy.html https://vitalik.ca/general/2021/03/23/legitimacy.html (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26560626 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26560626) talks about the Steem/Hive split, and explains how the community democratically overrode the network owner's undemocratic decisions.
- einpoklum 6y ago
  That Steem example is interesting. I wonder what the basis for the voting system they have there, though. Anyway, when you have a democratic (or otherwise subject to popular influence) institution which can do things like "print more money", forfeit some part of existing money, levy taxes etc. - then indeed it's an interesting and potentially positive-in-my-opinion cooperative pooling of resources. Of course then you have the opposite problem, which is the tyranny of the majority, but "you can't grab the rope at both ends".

salawat 6y ago

Proof of Stake is not inherently decentralized, you realize that, right? It'll trend toward centalization over time as coins end up getting delegated to the asset class equivalents of banks and brokers. They will pop up. Once they do, They will be regulated. Then you're back to square one.

nbardy 6y ago
And then you have a monetary system that runs a blockchain instead of this paper system the US has. Not everyone wants to take down banks or destroy fiat.

atweiden 6y ago

> I came here to say this exact same thing. There is seriously interesting and useful real work being done under the umbrella term "decentralized finance" or DeFi. It is hard to cut through the noise of get rich quick schemes, but at the core, the DeFi stuff, built on top of green cryptocurrency (proof of stake), along with quickly improving zero-knowledge proof tech, is actually useful and groundbreaking. The truth is that no one uses cryptocurrency for anything. Ethereum is just as much a speculative store of value as Bitcoin is, if not moreso given the numerous competitors it has to contend with — Bitcoin arguably has none. In a way, “speculative store of value” has merely been whitelabeled under the terms “digital gold” and “defi”. The people who claim increduously they’re buying ETH to do transactions are misrepresenting the situation to an extreme degree. > Bitcoin and proof of work should totally be banned. Where is your disclosure statement?