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Just because something exists does not negate the existence of the tradeoff. For example, not a single nation dropped their paper fiat money for cryptocurrencie

Just because something exists does not negate the existence of the tradeoff. For example, not a single nation dropped their paper fiat money for cryptocurrencies as their primary exchange medium. That's because the advantage is ideological. Cryptocurrencies are superior to fiat money only if you accept the ideological basis for them. The advantage of fiat money now massively outweighs the advantages offered by crypto by orders of magnitude. For now, having actual cash in my hand trumps having tokens in a wallet in at least 99% of cases. You can't buy airline tickets with bitcoins, but with USD, or EUR, or any other fiat, you can. Even if you could buy one or two, with fiat you can buy any.

sjtindell 5y ago
Ethereum is a totally open source, globally decentralized compute infrastructure that executes programs. To say that it gets its value purely from ideology doesn't seem right at all. That is a tangible, valuable development in computer science that is being leveraged more and more.
- trutannus 5y ago
  That's all fine and dandy until you have to spend $40 per transaction, whereas a $40 old computer can run billions of transaction-like operations for free. Eth is a bad example since seeing value in it requires you to focus on the abstract and ignore the real problems it has.
  - TimJRobinson 5y ago
    You can already use services like DyDx, Axie Infinity, ImmutableX for free, and they all run on Ethereum. They are Layer 2's that use Ethereum for security. There's a ton of amazing technical innovation going on here, dismissing it is like dismissing the internet because "You have to pay $50 to buy 50 internet hours on a CD and dialup is soo slow".
- pcwalton 5y ago
  Ethereum has one ten-thousandth of the power of a Raspberry Pi 4 compute module. We had efficient distributed computing long before Ethereum. Ethereum absolutely is something that appeals only to those on the economic right, for those willing to sacrifice all but the tiniest amount of computing power in service of libertarian ideology.
- yumraj 5y ago
  > that is being leveraged more and more. That is what I’m asking, being leveraged to do what exactly. Abstract doesn’t work for me, I’m asking for real world use case. > globally decentralized compute infrastructure that executes programs What is the benefit of this? Who needs this, and where does this add value over not-this? Where does this provide a superior solution over a solution based on not-this? That is my question above, that is yet to be answered. Think a pitch deck: What is it, What is the Problem, What is the solution, How is the technology solving the problem, Why now, Competition and so on ... I'd love to see the pitch deck of Etherium, or any blockchain technology really..
  - sjtindell 5y ago
    You can think of these programs like event-based lambdas that are immutable, publicly visible, and you don’t have to pay for the compute or storage (the user pays via fees per usage). For money, they are solving the problem of user accounts being integrated top to bottom. For example, on a blockchain I can perform a Flash Loan. I can instantly take out and pay back a loan of a sum I would usually never have access to with zero collateral down. I can have zero dollars in my bank account but instantly borrow $1,000,000 (literally), spend that $1,000,000, and pay it back with interest, keeping any profit. The transaction does not get executed unless it is automatically verified that the lender has the funds, and the resulting sum after the transaction is complete will be enough to pay back the interest on the loan. Then the virtual machine executes it. It is instant, and requires no collateral because it is paid back as part of the transaction. They are also solving problems for financial exchanges. Most exchanges are centralized and opaque. A small group makes the rules, and they make rules that favor some firms over others (special order types, data feeds). A decentralized exchange like Uniswapv2 is completely visible and has no requirement for maintenance by a single group. And in the end, the entire exchange is just another smart-contract. The potential for integration with the other programs running on the chain is huge. These are two of the strongest use cases I've seen come out of cryptocurrencies. Consensus without centralized authority, immutable lambda execution paid for directly by the user, transparency, deep integration (wallets, other contracts). These things combine to produce value. This is less something you have a pitch deck for and more like an open standard. Rather than a chain of firms each with their own APIs, managing their own infrastructure, the function served by a whole company is replaced by a series of lambdas anyone can see in their entirety. This is so fundamentally different to how we think about tech companies today that I think our culture is still processing it.
coralreef 5y ago
> Cryptocurrencies are superior to fiat money only if you accept the ideological basis for them. Hmm, ask the people who depend on the Turkish Lira, Argentine Peso, Venezuelan Bolivar, Lebanese pound, etc. if the ideological basis of cryptocurrencies delivers enough utility for them.
- trutannus 5y ago
  Can you buy food in Venezuela with Ethereum or crypto? Somewhat difficult in a nation which has sporadic problems with blackouts. In situations like this people generally start using a more stable fiat like the USD in place of their local one.
- kalleboo 5y ago
  My experience with countries that have poor trust in the local currency is that they use US dollars instead, not cryptocurrency. I'm not sure what that says about ideology.
  - coralreef 5y ago
    It says that an asset was trustworthy until it failed to be trustworthy.
    - trutannus 5y ago
      The issue with local currencies isn't trust, it's if you can use them to buy your food or not.
      - coralreef 5y ago
        Yeah, I would call that trusting the notes to retain their value by lunch time. It’s confidence in the currency and ultimately the central bank/government. If you don’t have confidence in it, you don’t want it.
        trutannus 5y ago
hythythyt 5y ago
you can buy airplane tickets at travala.com

sjtindell 5y ago

Ethereum is a totally open source, globally decentralized compute infrastructure that executes programs. To say that it gets its value purely from ideology doesn't seem right at all. That is a tangible, valuable development in computer science that is being leveraged more and more.

trutannus 5y ago
That's all fine and dandy until you have to spend $40 per transaction, whereas a $40 old computer can run billions of transaction-like operations for free. Eth is a bad example since seeing value in it requires you to focus on the abstract and ignore the real problems it has.
- TimJRobinson 5y ago
  You can already use services like DyDx, Axie Infinity, ImmutableX for free, and they all run on Ethereum. They are Layer 2's that use Ethereum for security. There's a ton of amazing technical innovation going on here, dismissing it is like dismissing the internet because "You have to pay $50 to buy 50 internet hours on a CD and dialup is soo slow".
pcwalton 5y ago
Ethereum has one ten-thousandth of the power of a Raspberry Pi 4 compute module. We had efficient distributed computing long before Ethereum. Ethereum absolutely is something that appeals only to those on the economic right, for those willing to sacrifice all but the tiniest amount of computing power in service of libertarian ideology.
yumraj 5y ago
> that is being leveraged more and more. That is what I’m asking, being leveraged to do what exactly. Abstract doesn’t work for me, I’m asking for real world use case. > globally decentralized compute infrastructure that executes programs What is the benefit of this? Who needs this, and where does this add value over not-this? Where does this provide a superior solution over a solution based on not-this? That is my question above, that is yet to be answered. Think a pitch deck: What is it, What is the Problem, What is the solution, How is the technology solving the problem, Why now, Competition and so on ... I'd love to see the pitch deck of Etherium, or any blockchain technology really..
- sjtindell 5y ago
  You can think of these programs like event-based lambdas that are immutable, publicly visible, and you don’t have to pay for the compute or storage (the user pays via fees per usage). For money, they are solving the problem of user accounts being integrated top to bottom. For example, on a blockchain I can perform a Flash Loan. I can instantly take out and pay back a loan of a sum I would usually never have access to with zero collateral down. I can have zero dollars in my bank account but instantly borrow $1,000,000 (literally), spend that $1,000,000, and pay it back with interest, keeping any profit. The transaction does not get executed unless it is automatically verified that the lender has the funds, and the resulting sum after the transaction is complete will be enough to pay back the interest on the loan. Then the virtual machine executes it. It is instant, and requires no collateral because it is paid back as part of the transaction. They are also solving problems for financial exchanges. Most exchanges are centralized and opaque. A small group makes the rules, and they make rules that favor some firms over others (special order types, data feeds). A decentralized exchange like Uniswapv2 is completely visible and has no requirement for maintenance by a single group. And in the end, the entire exchange is just another smart-contract. The potential for integration with the other programs running on the chain is huge. These are two of the strongest use cases I've seen come out of cryptocurrencies. Consensus without centralized authority, immutable lambda execution paid for directly by the user, transparency, deep integration (wallets, other contracts). These things combine to produce value. This is less something you have a pitch deck for and more like an open standard. Rather than a chain of firms each with their own APIs, managing their own infrastructure, the function served by a whole company is replaced by a series of lambdas anyone can see in their entirety. This is so fundamentally different to how we think about tech companies today that I think our culture is still processing it.

coralreef 5y ago

> Cryptocurrencies are superior to fiat money only if you accept the ideological basis for them. Hmm, ask the people who depend on the Turkish Lira, Argentine Peso, Venezuelan Bolivar, Lebanese pound, etc. if the ideological basis of cryptocurrencies delivers enough utility for them.

trutannus 5y ago
Can you buy food in Venezuela with Ethereum or crypto? Somewhat difficult in a nation which has sporadic problems with blackouts. In situations like this people generally start using a more stable fiat like the USD in place of their local one.
kalleboo 5y ago
My experience with countries that have poor trust in the local currency is that they use US dollars instead, not cryptocurrency. I'm not sure what that says about ideology.
- coralreef 5y ago
  It says that an asset was trustworthy until it failed to be trustworthy.
  - trutannus 5y ago
    The issue with local currencies isn't trust, it's if you can use them to buy your food or not.
    - coralreef 5y ago
      Yeah, I would call that trusting the notes to retain their value by lunch time. It’s confidence in the currency and ultimately the central bank/government. If you don’t have confidence in it, you don’t want it.
      - trutannus 5y ago

hythythyt 5y ago

you can buy airplane tickets at travala.com