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Does programmatic money not sound exciting to you? I see way more skepticism than support on HN but it surprises me. Can you really not picture any uses for a f

Does programmatic money not sound exciting to you? I see way more skepticism than support on HN but it surprises me. Can you really not picture any uses for a financial system with Turing completeness?

anotha1 5y ago
I've been playing with programmatic money since selling runescape gold for PayPal dollars. I guess I just need more idk
- zionic 5y ago
  Huh? That's not what "programmatic money" means. You're confusing it with digital currency. Programmatic money means you can define code/program with the money itself. In a trivial case I could easily program the money (called a smart contract) to pay you $1 every day. I could put $1000 in that contract and you could have near-total confidence of that payout schedule. The code itself is a property of that money, and its execution is enforced by the same system that secures the overall ledger.
  - anotha1 5y ago
    Incorrect. You're confusing "enough trust to make the world go around" with "so trustworthy we're neglecting that it's bad for the world." And I mean the latter more in terms of the brain drain than ecologically, which ironically may not get solved because of that brain drain.
echelon 5y ago
The government needs to be in control of the money supply. Monetary and fiscal policy are important levers for maintaining the health of our economy. The government uses money to bolster trade, issue debt, maintain a high standard of living, etc. Crypto is a bunch of investors and engineers that think that they should be in charge rather than our elected governments. It's not even a geniocracy since it rewards only early investors. It's an oligarchy of the lucky few that think they should have more leverage than governments and the populace. It disenfranchises the government's ability to help the poor, underserved, and disadvantaged. Crypto not from the government is dangerous. I predict that as this plays out more governments will move to shut it down.
- voldacar 5y ago
  > The government needs to be in control of the money supply. Not interested in bureaucrats determining my purchasing power, sorry
  - echelon 5y ago
    Antarctica will be happy to have you. /s But seriously, functional governments are what hold society together. We can't have a system without levers.
    - voldacar 5y ago
      Functional societies existed long before central banking and costless money creation
      - anotha1 5y ago
        Straw man. Those societies also existed alongside slavery and tons of other bad shit. So how does that change the value of a functional government?
        voldacar 5y ago
        Central banking caused the end of slavery? now that's a hot take
        anotha1 5y ago
        Have you heard of blood diamonds? I bet ETH solves that problem with a ledger /s
        toby 5y ago
        It's interesting that the Kimberley Process intended to prevent conflict diamonds is a chain of warranties, one of the criticisms thereto was that there was little proof that the previous warranty ever existed. So even though you're being sarcastic, you might be on to something there :) (I'm not suggesting this is possible, just idle musings)

anotha1 5y ago

I've been playing with programmatic money since selling runescape gold for PayPal dollars. I guess I just need more idk

zionic 5y ago
Huh? That's not what "programmatic money" means. You're confusing it with digital currency. Programmatic money means you can define code/program with the money itself. In a trivial case I could easily program the money (called a smart contract) to pay you $1 every day. I could put $1000 in that contract and you could have near-total confidence of that payout schedule. The code itself is a property of that money, and its execution is enforced by the same system that secures the overall ledger.
- anotha1 5y ago
  Incorrect. You're confusing "enough trust to make the world go around" with "so trustworthy we're neglecting that it's bad for the world." And I mean the latter more in terms of the brain drain than ecologically, which ironically may not get solved because of that brain drain.

echelon 5y ago

The government needs to be in control of the money supply. Monetary and fiscal policy are important levers for maintaining the health of our economy. The government uses money to bolster trade, issue debt, maintain a high standard of living, etc. Crypto is a bunch of investors and engineers that think that they should be in charge rather than our elected governments. It's not even a geniocracy since it rewards only early investors. It's an oligarchy of the lucky few that think they should have more leverage than governments and the populace. It disenfranchises the government's ability to help the poor, underserved, and disadvantaged. Crypto not from the government is dangerous. I predict that as this plays out more governments will move to shut it down.

voldacar 5y ago
> The government needs to be in control of the money supply. Not interested in bureaucrats determining my purchasing power, sorry
- echelon 5y ago
  Antarctica will be happy to have you. /s But seriously, functional governments are what hold society together. We can't have a system without levers.
  - voldacar 5y ago
    Functional societies existed long before central banking and costless money creation
    - anotha1 5y ago
      Straw man. Those societies also existed alongside slavery and tons of other bad shit. So how does that change the value of a functional government?
      - voldacar 5y ago
        Central banking caused the end of slavery? now that's a hot take
        anotha1 5y ago
        Have you heard of blood diamonds? I bet ETH solves that problem with a ledger /s
        toby 5y ago
        It's interesting that the Kimberley Process intended to prevent conflict diamonds is a chain of warranties, one of the criticisms thereto was that there was little proof that the previous warranty ever existed. So even though you're being sarcastic, you might be on to something there :) (I'm not suggesting this is possible, just idle musings)