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The same things that normal financial systems enable you, but without a central authority. It's trustless, permissionless, completely transparent, uncensorable,

The same things that normal financial systems enable you, but without a central authority. It's trustless, permissionless, completely transparent, uncensorable, borderless open financial system. If you think that all of that is just pure speculation, I don't know what to say. Just go through github, whitepapers and technical discussions to see the serious side of the industry, rather than being stuck to the surface level of fraudsters/speculators promising 100x money returns on social media.

lottin 5y ago
DeFi is crippled by design. It can't really do anything useful, because it doesn't support property rights. Any serious discussion about DeFi should start by acknowledging this basic fact.
plywoodtrees 5y ago
"uncensorable" is a euphemism for "enables fraud, black markets, money laundering, and extortion". Although there are some cases under oppressive regimes where black markets may be a moral good, on the whole enabling financial crimes is, in my value system, bad. Furthermore I think regulatory systems will eventually move against this - in fact you see it starting. See https://doomberg.substack.com/p/a-stablecoin-applies-to-become-a https://doomberg.substack.com/p/a-stablecoin-applies-to-beco...
- miracle2k 5y ago
  Child pornographers everyday use encrypted messaging and Tor to get away with their crimes. Meanwhile, normal users have no practical benefit from either. Why is this different?
  - plywoodtrees 5y ago
    That's a really question that I have considered before, and that deserves a long answer. One part of it is: As both a matter of norms and law, we expect and desire more public scrutiny of financial transactions than of speech. In particular, various taxes mean that a large fraction of financial transactions cannot and should not be private. Conversely the great majority of 1 on 1 conversations raise no legal or regulatory issues.

lottin 5y ago

DeFi is crippled by design. It can't really do anything useful, because it doesn't support property rights. Any serious discussion about DeFi should start by acknowledging this basic fact.

plywoodtrees 5y ago

"uncensorable" is a euphemism for "enables fraud, black markets, money laundering, and extortion". Although there are some cases under oppressive regimes where black markets may be a moral good, on the whole enabling financial crimes is, in my value system, bad. Furthermore I think regulatory systems will eventually move against this - in fact you see it starting. See https://doomberg.substack.com/p/a-stablecoin-applies-to-become-a https://doomberg.substack.com/p/a-stablecoin-applies-to-beco...

miracle2k 5y ago
Child pornographers everyday use encrypted messaging and Tor to get away with their crimes. Meanwhile, normal users have no practical benefit from either. Why is this different?
- plywoodtrees 5y ago
  That's a really question that I have considered before, and that deserves a long answer. One part of it is: As both a matter of norms and law, we expect and desire more public scrutiny of financial transactions than of speech. In particular, various taxes mean that a large fraction of financial transactions cannot and should not be private. Conversely the great majority of 1 on 1 conversations raise no legal or regulatory issues.