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Okay please share what made it click to you as a "fundamental global revolution"

dntrkv 5y ago
For me it was when I finally understood that Ethereum is a decentralized, globally accessible API, that anyone can extend, nobody can take down, and it's all driven by its builtin currency that incentivizes good behavior. Honestly, with all of the complaints on HN about companies revoking API access, and any other of the multitude of complaints about centralized solutions, you would think the HN crowd would be onboard.
- Vespasian 5y ago
  How decentralised and democratic is the steering and decision making in reality? Nobody elects the mining pool operators, nobody elects the people owning the mining hardware and not enough people elect the people who are steering the various crypto foundation. If a crypto blows up and becomes essential to a countrys economy the vast ordinary citizens will only participate in it by earning money and spending it for their needs. For those people you just replaced a somewhat accountable government, with somewhat predictable financial policies and transparency processes with one nobody knows anything about which is perhaps operating far away and in a different culture/country. For many people in the world that'll mean less influence on the decision making process. In other words: There is no fundamental reason to trust the Ethereum Foundation more than the ECB or the Fed.
throwagrayson 5y ago
Have you SEEN the bitcoin price? I'm making so much money!
ignoramous 5y ago
> Okay please share what made it click to you as a "fundamental global revolution" There's a lot going on right now in the decentralised finance space. A couple of things that interest me: 1. Payments. Stable coins (backed by collaterals) like DAI (by MakerDAO), USDC (by CENTRE aka Coinbase, CirclePay et al), Libra (by Facebook, Shopify, Uber et al) have a potential to replace the current payments system and those rent-seeking middle-men. In DAI's case, the currency is truly autonomous and decentralised, so there's a good chance it ends up uncensorable and unregulatable. USDC and Libra offer a great way for folks not in high inflation countries with weak currencies to lock up cash-in-hand in USD. Libra is poised to see a broad adoption once Facebook makes it common place on Instagram and WhatsApp, where most of the commerce is moving to. It remains to be seen how Stellar ends up doing in response to Libra. 2. Banking. Banks, like eco, dharma, and onjuno, built on top of Ethereum altcoins can offer higher interest rates than traditional banks. Other things I'm excited about and looking forward to: 1. Anonymous assets. Monero enables truly anonymous transactions. It isn't a stable coin, so that's a bummer. MobileCoin, which I believe is built on Stellar, is private but I don't think its anonymous or stable. 2. Web3. Storage (FileCoin, Sia), Compute (Golem, ElastOS), Network (Orchid, Mysterium), Content (IPFS)... may yet emerge as a credible distributed alternative to the current centralised cloud computing model. 3. Inter-chains. Today, a lot of innovation is concentrated on Ethereum, because of its versatility. Upcoming entrants like Polygon, Polkadot, and Cosmos would make inter-chain interactions much smoother. This has potential to upend the current status-quo and probably give rise to many more applications previously not possible. Read also: https://blog.coinbase.com/what-will-happen-to-cryptocurrency-in-the-2020s-d93746744a8f https://blog.coinbase.com/what-will-happen-to-cryptocurrency...

For me it was when I finally understood that Ethereum is a decentralized, globally accessible API, that anyone can extend, nobody can take down, and it's all driven by its builtin currency that incentivizes good behavior. Honestly, with all of the complaints on HN about companies revoking API access, and any other of the multitude of complaints about centralized solutions, you would think the HN crowd would be onboard.

Vespasian 5y ago
How decentralised and democratic is the steering and decision making in reality? Nobody elects the mining pool operators, nobody elects the people owning the mining hardware and not enough people elect the people who are steering the various crypto foundation. If a crypto blows up and becomes essential to a countrys economy the vast ordinary citizens will only participate in it by earning money and spending it for their needs. For those people you just replaced a somewhat accountable government, with somewhat predictable financial policies and transparency processes with one nobody knows anything about which is perhaps operating far away and in a different culture/country. For many people in the world that'll mean less influence on the decision making process. In other words: There is no fundamental reason to trust the Ethereum Foundation more than the ECB or the Fed.

throwagrayson 5y ago

Have you SEEN the bitcoin price? I'm making so much money!

ignoramous 5y ago

> Okay please share what made it click to you as a "fundamental global revolution" There's a lot going on right now in the decentralised finance space. A couple of things that interest me: 1. Payments. Stable coins (backed by collaterals) like DAI (by MakerDAO), USDC (by CENTRE aka Coinbase, CirclePay et al), Libra (by Facebook, Shopify, Uber et al) have a potential to replace the current payments system and those rent-seeking middle-men. In DAI's case, the currency is truly autonomous and decentralised, so there's a good chance it ends up uncensorable and unregulatable. USDC and Libra offer a great way for folks not in high inflation countries with weak currencies to lock up cash-in-hand in USD. Libra is poised to see a broad adoption once Facebook makes it common place on Instagram and WhatsApp, where most of the commerce is moving to. It remains to be seen how Stellar ends up doing in response to Libra. 2. Banking. Banks, like eco, dharma, and onjuno, built on top of Ethereum altcoins can offer higher interest rates than traditional banks. Other things I'm excited about and looking forward to: 1. Anonymous assets. Monero enables truly anonymous transactions. It isn't a stable coin, so that's a bummer. MobileCoin, which I believe is built on Stellar, is private but I don't think its anonymous or stable. 2. Web3. Storage (FileCoin, Sia), Compute (Golem, ElastOS), Network (Orchid, Mysterium), Content (IPFS)... may yet emerge as a credible distributed alternative to the current centralised cloud computing model. 3. Inter-chains. Today, a lot of innovation is concentrated on Ethereum, because of its versatility. Upcoming entrants like Polygon, Polkadot, and Cosmos would make inter-chain interactions much smoother. This has potential to upend the current status-quo and probably give rise to many more applications previously not possible. Read also: https://blog.coinbase.com/what-will-happen-to-cryptocurrency-in-the-2020s-d93746744a8f https://blog.coinbase.com/what-will-happen-to-cryptocurrency...