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The internet had existed in some iteration for 3 decades before the business world started using it, and was publicly accessible for one entire decade before th

The internet had existed in some iteration for 3 decades before the business world started using it, and was publicly accessible for one entire decade before that. The first businesses to really adopt it were pornographers. Why exactly do you think the valuation of cryptocurrencies are so high? Certainly it's not an indicator that the business case for it is nil. Maybe not revolutionary, but it is disingenuous or delusional to suggest that there's no business use for this thing while staring point blank at a world getting eaten by it in real time.

arcticbull 5y ago
The internet connected people on day one. That’s all it did. > Why exactly do you think the valuation of cryptocurrencies are so high? Certainly it's not an indicator that the business case for it is nil. Completely irrelevant. Prices are determined at the margin, its most recent price times supply. It’s got nothing to do with how much money is in the system or how useful any of it is. They’re all priced in USDT which has at numerous times been totally unbacked and issued on loans to institutions who use it to control the marginal price. As for shared delusions, the entire economy of Albania collapsed into a civil war because 66% of the GDP got locked into MLM schemes in 1997. [1] You must evaluate this from first principles not based on what the other lemmings are up to. 14 years in can you name a single business built on crypto that’s even remotely successful? [1] https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2000/03/jarvis.htm https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2000/03/jarvis.ht...
- hollerith 5y ago
  The internet connected mainly CS researchers for the first 5 to 10 years of its existence.
  - arcticbull 5y ago
    The internet however had to overcome and deploy worldwide physical infrastructure to succeed. Crypto does not. Roll-out isn’t even remotely comparable due to relative barriers to entry. Everyone who wants crypto can have it, now. And could have had it on day one.
- betwixthewires 5y ago
  It is very relevant, it wouldn't be if I was arguing that this will revolutionize everything, but you specifically said it has no real world business utility whatsoever, and the fact that people are using it, in business, right now, so much so that they pay outrageous prices to do so, that is very relevant. Built on crypto? By definition you can't name a single business that isn't an exchange built on it. That's like naming a business built on stock trading that isn't a stock exchange or investment fund. But ones that use crypto in some way? I can name a few, not counting black market businesses, overstock.com is one.
  - arcticbull 5y ago
    Please name one business that is successful thanks to the value created by cryptocurrency that is not a crypto exchange or related MSB. Overstock doesn’t use crypto, they use Coinbase who gives overstock good old American greenbacks. Like most of the world accepting crypto they don’t actually - it would be impossible due to the massive forex risk. They rely on third party MSBs like Coinbase and Bitpay to liquidate incoming crypto. I’m thinking of the crowd with a list as long as their arm of ideas including replacing Ticketmaster, supply chain management, voting, all the other broad ideas.
    - betwixthewires 5y ago
      "Nobody uses credit cards except for payment processors." If I accept British Pounds at my online store but only receive dollars to my business account by way of a processor, does that mean I did not use British Pounds in the transaction? I've never once claimed cryptocurrency would be useful for anything other than money, so I'd be the wrong person to argue with about that. I'm not a web3 evangelist.
      - arcticbull 5y ago
        Oh ok, well, there's tons of reasons its bad money. Hard money is no longer the law of the land because it was bad at being money. A fixed supply cannot respond to population changes, cannot respond to shocks, external stimuli. A low, predictable rate of inflation is broadly regarded as a good thing - it incentivizes investment and productive allocation of capital. All of the worst periods in history have been characterized as deflationary. Of course, the sheer inefficiency of the system makes it practically useless as money due to the transaction times, costs and volume capacity. It's bad at being money too. The philosophy behind it is a widely debunked model (Austrian economics) which isn't taken serious by ... anyone outside a fringe group of libertarians. Also it's critical to note: it's market cap is not the quantity of value 'stored.' It's simply most recent price times supply. You couldn't get a fraction of a fraction of that back out without zeroing out the entire thing. Proof of work relies on wasting as much of the world's limited resources as you can within the budget allotted, and proof of stake is simply a perpetual wealth machine for the already wealthy. Then of course the ability to reverse transactions is huge value-add for customers, the ability to block transactions to sanctioned countries is a huge value-add for the world.
cuteboy19 5y ago
No one uses cryptocurrency for non cryptocurrency purposes. It is like an ouroboros, consuming itself in real time.
- betwixthewires 5y ago
  "Nobody uses money for non money purposes."
  - arcticbull 5y ago
    I strongly suspect the parent to which you are replying was saying that there are no uses for blockchain outside of "money."
- kobieyc 5y ago
  check out helium.com
UncleMeat 5y ago
> The first businesses to really adopt it were pornographers. This is obviously not true, given that there was a wealth of text-based internet applications well before image-based options were widely available.

arcticbull 5y ago

The internet connected people on day one. That’s all it did. > Why exactly do you think the valuation of cryptocurrencies are so high? Certainly it's not an indicator that the business case for it is nil. Completely irrelevant. Prices are determined at the margin, its most recent price times supply. It’s got nothing to do with how much money is in the system or how useful any of it is. They’re all priced in USDT which has at numerous times been totally unbacked and issued on loans to institutions who use it to control the marginal price. As for shared delusions, the entire economy of Albania collapsed into a civil war because 66% of the GDP got locked into MLM schemes in 1997. [1] You must evaluate this from first principles not based on what the other lemmings are up to. 14 years in can you name a single business built on crypto that’s even remotely successful? [1] https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2000/03/jarvis.htm https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2000/03/jarvis.ht...

hollerith 5y ago
The internet connected mainly CS researchers for the first 5 to 10 years of its existence.
- arcticbull 5y ago
  The internet however had to overcome and deploy worldwide physical infrastructure to succeed. Crypto does not. Roll-out isn’t even remotely comparable due to relative barriers to entry. Everyone who wants crypto can have it, now. And could have had it on day one.
betwixthewires 5y ago
It is very relevant, it wouldn't be if I was arguing that this will revolutionize everything, but you specifically said it has no real world business utility whatsoever, and the fact that people are using it, in business, right now, so much so that they pay outrageous prices to do so, that is very relevant. Built on crypto? By definition you can't name a single business that isn't an exchange built on it. That's like naming a business built on stock trading that isn't a stock exchange or investment fund. But ones that use crypto in some way? I can name a few, not counting black market businesses, overstock.com is one.
- arcticbull 5y ago
  Please name one business that is successful thanks to the value created by cryptocurrency that is not a crypto exchange or related MSB. Overstock doesn’t use crypto, they use Coinbase who gives overstock good old American greenbacks. Like most of the world accepting crypto they don’t actually - it would be impossible due to the massive forex risk. They rely on third party MSBs like Coinbase and Bitpay to liquidate incoming crypto. I’m thinking of the crowd with a list as long as their arm of ideas including replacing Ticketmaster, supply chain management, voting, all the other broad ideas.
  - betwixthewires 5y ago
    "Nobody uses credit cards except for payment processors." If I accept British Pounds at my online store but only receive dollars to my business account by way of a processor, does that mean I did not use British Pounds in the transaction? I've never once claimed cryptocurrency would be useful for anything other than money, so I'd be the wrong person to argue with about that. I'm not a web3 evangelist.
    - arcticbull 5y ago
      Oh ok, well, there's tons of reasons its bad money. Hard money is no longer the law of the land because it was bad at being money. A fixed supply cannot respond to population changes, cannot respond to shocks, external stimuli. A low, predictable rate of inflation is broadly regarded as a good thing - it incentivizes investment and productive allocation of capital. All of the worst periods in history have been characterized as deflationary. Of course, the sheer inefficiency of the system makes it practically useless as money due to the transaction times, costs and volume capacity. It's bad at being money too. The philosophy behind it is a widely debunked model (Austrian economics) which isn't taken serious by ... anyone outside a fringe group of libertarians. Also it's critical to note: it's market cap is not the quantity of value 'stored.' It's simply most recent price times supply. You couldn't get a fraction of a fraction of that back out without zeroing out the entire thing. Proof of work relies on wasting as much of the world's limited resources as you can within the budget allotted, and proof of stake is simply a perpetual wealth machine for the already wealthy. Then of course the ability to reverse transactions is huge value-add for customers, the ability to block transactions to sanctioned countries is a huge value-add for the world.

cuteboy19 5y ago

No one uses cryptocurrency for non cryptocurrency purposes. It is like an ouroboros, consuming itself in real time.

betwixthewires 5y ago
"Nobody uses money for non money purposes."
- arcticbull 5y ago
  I strongly suspect the parent to which you are replying was saying that there are no uses for blockchain outside of "money."
kobieyc 5y ago
check out helium.com

UncleMeat 5y ago

> The first businesses to really adopt it were pornographers. This is obviously not true, given that there was a wealth of text-based internet applications well before image-based options were widely available.