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A question I've asked before: are there any applications which don't involve speculation?

by dash2 6y ago

inter_netuser 6y ago
timestamping? Don't even need to pay any fees: https://opentimestamps.org/ https://opentimestamps.org/
tim333 6y ago
Well - money laundering, drug dealing, ICO scams... On the positive side I think there's something like creating wealth through the power of imagination. I mean 20 years ago there were no crypto currencies. Now on paper they are worth $2trn ($260 a head for the world's population). And lots of people can feel wealthy because they have $100k in bitcoin of whatever. And it can retain actual value in the sense that you can swap it for US$ as long as everyone doesn't sell at the same time. And where has the value come from - basically human imagination thinking the 0s and 1s are worth something. Which may be more sustainable than it sounds. Where does the value of fiat currency come from or the value of a painting in excess of the cost of making a copy of it? I foresee a future where everyone is a crypto millionaire through the power of imagination. (Which would imply a 10000x form here?!)
- jdmoreira 6y ago
  > Where does the value of fiat currency come from From the taxman knocking at your door. They have prisons you know and some really well armed goons. They also control the education system and pretty much everything else and are capable of stealing your children from you and send them to die in some far away shore. They create all kinds of myths and bullshit and we take them for granted... like national identities and currencies. Pretty powerful system.
  - jdmoreira 6y ago
    I would even argue the only reason crypto has any value is because people think they are sticking it to the man or hiding away from them. But that’s just a fantasy of course.
  - CryptoPunk 6y ago
    Governments get all of their power from the people that constitute them. When people find a way to organize themselves that is a million times more efficient, then they will be superseded.
- mratsim 6y ago
  > I mean 20 years ago there were no crypto currencies. Actually wrong. - David Chaum, 1982, eCash - Adam Back, 1997, HashCash - Wei Dai, 1998, b-money - Nick Szabo, 1998, BitGold
  - tim333 6y ago
    Ah, yeah. Right you are. I was thinking distirbuted ones.
dmihal 6y ago
Do you consider earning interest to be speculation? I can put stablecoins (crypto dollars) in a lending protocol like Aave and earn ~10% APY. Compare that to my savings account, which pays out 0.25% APY. Or how about the stablecoins themselves? MakerDAO creates the Dai stablecoin, backed by crypto-native assets like ETH & BTC. I have a number of friends in Argentina who are surviving hyper-inflation by keeping their wealth in stablecoins.
- dash2 6y ago
  Earning 10% "riskfree" isn't speculation, it's a Ponzi. What serious borrower needs to pay 10% to access credit? So then, who are the borrowers who are paying this interest? As they say on Reddit: !remindme 1 year.
  - mratsim 6y ago
    Arbitragers gladly pay 10% of their risk-free income to lenders to execute an arbitrage opportunity.
  - dmihal 6y ago
    > What serious borrower needs to pay 10% to access credit? People who can make more than 10% trading? Lending protocols aren't doing anything different than what banks do: allocating inactive capital to those who can make use of that capital and are willing to pay for it. Interest rates are high because of A: market volatility, professional traders can easily make more than 10%, and B: information asymmetry, large capital pools haven't allocated to these pools.
    - dash2 6y ago
      If you can reliably make more than 10% trading, you can borrow from a bank. Or Goldman Sachs. Or whoever. The current interest rate is practically 0. Anyone who is borrowing at 10% is either (a) not very bright or (b) more likely, doing something risky with their money that reputable moneymakers won't touch... probably involving the blockchain. So yeah, Ponzi.
    - 6y ago
Paradigma11 6y ago
https://xtz.news/adoption/gravity-a-decentralized-solution-to-create-trusted-digital-identities-for-real-life-use/ https://xtz.news/adoption/gravity-a-decentralized-solution-t... https://xtz.news/nft-news/tezos-based-nft-music-streaming-and-licensing-platform-radion-fm-is-open-for-registrations-and-enables-basic-features/ https://xtz.news/nft-news/tezos-based-nft-music-streaming-an...
- dash2 6y ago
  Well, it's something I guess. I dunno. I mean: * artificial intelligence -> genuine image search and speech recognition * self-driving -> Waymo, Tesla These other hyped technologies have produced real results that I interact with. I'm not really convinced the blockchain has... except decentralized finance. Maybe that's fine.

A question I've asked before: are there any applications which don't involve speculation?

by dash2 6y ago

A question I've asked before: are there any applications which don't involve speculation?

inter_netuser 6y ago

timestamping? Don't even need to pay any fees: https://opentimestamps.org/ https://opentimestamps.org/

tim333 6y ago

Well - money laundering, drug dealing, ICO scams... On the positive side I think there's something like creating wealth through the power of imagination. I mean 20 years ago there were no crypto currencies. Now on paper they are worth $2trn ($260 a head for the world's population). And lots of people can feel wealthy because they have $100k in bitcoin of whatever. And it can retain actual value in the sense that you can swap it for US$ as long as everyone doesn't sell at the same time. And where has the value come from - basically human imagination thinking the 0s and 1s are worth something. Which may be more sustainable than it sounds. Where does the value of fiat currency come from or the value of a painting in excess of the cost of making a copy of it? I foresee a future where everyone is a crypto millionaire through the power of imagination. (Which would imply a 10000x form here?!)

jdmoreira 6y ago
> Where does the value of fiat currency come from From the taxman knocking at your door. They have prisons you know and some really well armed goons. They also control the education system and pretty much everything else and are capable of stealing your children from you and send them to die in some far away shore. They create all kinds of myths and bullshit and we take them for granted... like national identities and currencies. Pretty powerful system.
- jdmoreira 6y ago
  I would even argue the only reason crypto has any value is because people think they are sticking it to the man or hiding away from them. But that’s just a fantasy of course.
- CryptoPunk 6y ago
  Governments get all of their power from the people that constitute them. When people find a way to organize themselves that is a million times more efficient, then they will be superseded.
mratsim 6y ago
> I mean 20 years ago there were no crypto currencies. Actually wrong. - David Chaum, 1982, eCash - Adam Back, 1997, HashCash - Wei Dai, 1998, b-money - Nick Szabo, 1998, BitGold
- tim333 6y ago
  Ah, yeah. Right you are. I was thinking distirbuted ones.

dmihal 6y ago

Do you consider earning interest to be speculation? I can put stablecoins (crypto dollars) in a lending protocol like Aave and earn ~10% APY. Compare that to my savings account, which pays out 0.25% APY. Or how about the stablecoins themselves? MakerDAO creates the Dai stablecoin, backed by crypto-native assets like ETH & BTC. I have a number of friends in Argentina who are surviving hyper-inflation by keeping their wealth in stablecoins.

dash2 6y ago
Earning 10% "riskfree" isn't speculation, it's a Ponzi. What serious borrower needs to pay 10% to access credit? So then, who are the borrowers who are paying this interest? As they say on Reddit: !remindme 1 year.
- mratsim 6y ago
  Arbitragers gladly pay 10% of their risk-free income to lenders to execute an arbitrage opportunity.
- dmihal 6y ago
  > What serious borrower needs to pay 10% to access credit? People who can make more than 10% trading? Lending protocols aren't doing anything different than what banks do: allocating inactive capital to those who can make use of that capital and are willing to pay for it. Interest rates are high because of A: market volatility, professional traders can easily make more than 10%, and B: information asymmetry, large capital pools haven't allocated to these pools.
  - dash2 6y ago
    If you can reliably make more than 10% trading, you can borrow from a bank. Or Goldman Sachs. Or whoever. The current interest rate is practically 0. Anyone who is borrowing at 10% is either (a) not very bright or (b) more likely, doing something risky with their money that reputable moneymakers won't touch... probably involving the blockchain. So yeah, Ponzi.
  - 6y ago

Paradigma11 6y ago

https://xtz.news/adoption/gravity-a-decentralized-solution-to-create-trusted-digital-identities-for-real-life-use/ https://xtz.news/adoption/gravity-a-decentralized-solution-t... https://xtz.news/nft-news/tezos-based-nft-music-streaming-and-licensing-platform-radion-fm-is-open-for-registrations-and-enables-basic-features/ https://xtz.news/nft-news/tezos-based-nft-music-streaming-an...

dash2 6y ago
Well, it's something I guess. I dunno. I mean: * artificial intelligence -> genuine image search and speech recognition * self-driving -> Waymo, Tesla These other hyped technologies have produced real results that I interact with. I'm not really convinced the blockchain has... except decentralized finance. Maybe that's fine.