10 ms·

I couldn't agree more. I'm so tired of the hype around cryptocurrencies and NFTs. Everywhere I go to get some news, there's a story about someone like Elon push

I couldn't agree more. I'm so tired of the hype around cryptocurrencies and NFTs. Everywhere I go to get some news, there's a story about someone like Elon pushing the benefits of crypto coins. If all these rich guys and crypto-evangelists really want cryptocurrencies to succeed, they need to make it easy to acquire and pay with a cryptocurrency. Unfortunately, this will never happen.

misiti3780 5y ago
eh. i agree that it probably wont replace USD, but i can see a world where a lot of lawyers do not need to exist because transactions go on chain. if you buy a place in NYC, the transfer of the title costs thousands of dollars. there is absolutely no reason that should be the case, it should be done on chain for a fraction of the price.
- Ekaros 5y ago
  Why shouldn't the government provide these services for the taxes people pay? If they spend a few hours checking everything is order on both sides for a few hundred I think that is reasonable. After that the court system again paid by taxes should resolve thing according to these. I don't see any reason why a chain would help here too much, fixing the government should be much more effective in long run.
  - long_time_gone 5y ago
    > Why shouldn't the government provide these services for the taxes people pay? It is very common for government's to tax exchanges of money/property/goods. We see this in the sales tax, estate tax, transfer tax, cash app transfers, monetary gifts above $15k, income taxes, etc.
- FabHK 5y ago
  Maybe a permissioned blockchain, but that has nothing to do with BTC and its preposterous environmental pollution, and will most definitely not get rid of lawyers. Do you think that it is a technical challenge at the moment, unsolved save for Bitcoin, to keep reliable records??
  - misiti3780 5y ago
    BTC doesnt handle smart contracts.
- unityByFreedom 5y ago
  It is hard to imagine any government giving such control to unknown digital identities. Communist-leaning countries don't count. They never wanted to empower people to trade with money anyway. It's all a scam and only good for money laundering or theft.
  - justaman 5y ago
    North Korea and China have a ton of bitcoin. China has been farming for nearly a decade, and NK has been a major player in crypto-ransom. Imagine if bitcoin became the most common currency....
    - unityByFreedom 5y ago
      It won't, for the reason that those governments will not insure crypto and therefore people will never trust it. Aside from the recurring hacks, your life savings can be emptied at gunpoint.
- depaya 5y ago
  I think this is one of the most compelling use cases I've seen, but even this doesn't seem like a good idea to me. The benefit of paying money, having to use companies and government agencies, and having lawyers involved in the process is it allows for flexibility (and accommodating the human element...). If someone hacks your account and initiates the transfer, or you get scammed by someone, or you accidently transfer your title to the wrong account, or someone forces you at gunpoint to make the transfer... the courts can deal with and reverse these things. What your options are with a blockchain?
  - nieve 5y ago
    As far as I can tell the coiner standard position is that the person who you transferred it to is the rightful owner and you shouldn't have options. They've latched onto a huge flaw and declared it a common good.
- NovemberWhiskey 5y ago
  Is it your understanding that the act of formally recording the title (which is the part of the activity which a blockchain would help with) is the expensive part? Because I think that's not at all the case.
- TimPC 5y ago
  This is a poorly informed comment. The main reason title transfer requires a lawyer is that the lawyer checks the legal requirements of the title itself. Not having a title search you may find out that the property was once owned by two people not one, and that the deceased has descendants who can make a claim for ownership in addition to the wife who's selling the property. You'd be very foolish to eliminate legal checks from the process as you may end up with property you don't entirely own because of unresolved claims against it.
  - the_snooze 5y ago
    Blockchain maximalists make the same mistake over and over again, to the point that I think they're doing so intentionally: the main problem isn't that we have malicious actors manipulating records, it's that records are incorrect, incomplete, or become stale. Blockchain technology does absolutely nothing to address the real problem.
    - tablespoon 5y ago
      > the main problem isn't that we have malicious actors manipulating records, it's that records are incorrect, incomplete, or become stale. Blockchain technology does absolutely nothing to address the real problem. Or they address it in a blindingly stupid way: How do we deal with records that are incorrect, incomplete, or stale? Blockchain maximalists: treat it as authoritative forever without a mechanism for correction!
      - the_snooze 5y ago
        >treat it as authoritative forever without a mechanism for correction! You write to the blockchain that there are 2 ice cubes on your desk. The ice cubes melt and evaporate, as ice cubes do. The blockchain says there are 2 ice cubes on your desk, so that must be truth forever and ever!
        kuramitropolis 5y ago
        >The blockchain says there are 2 ice cubes on your desk, so someone must've written that to the blockchain at some point in the past. FTFY Or, in other words: you're confusing the map for the territory, therefore everyone else must also be confusing the map for the territory.
- atty 5y ago
  That sounds like a dystopian nightmare. What happens when someone gets your private key and transfers the title to themselves? Do you need to move out of your home/apartment because the blockchain says they own it? Or does the blockchain get forked every time there is a fraud case?
  - rjmunro 5y ago
    What happens if you die and haven't told anyone the password to your keys? Does the property just sit empty forever?
    - x86_64Ubuntu 5y ago
      Wow, I've never thought of that. At some point, an entity that's the government or empowered by the government would have to say "Bob, the descendant of Jim owns this property" and then somehow modify the chain. But then we are back at square one whereby the government can regulate on-chain ownership of coins or records.
      - shagie 5y ago
        Two years later a cousin shows up and says "Jim sent me this hard drive with this piece of paper, I've realized it holds the private key and by extension, I own that property." This really gets to the "there is no advantage to having this data on the blockchain since it doesn't solve any of the problems that currently come up with titles, creates new problems, and complicates existing solutions."
  - shagie 5y ago
    My "nothing malicious or dystopian" question is: * What happens when someone dies without a will passing the title? The process for handling this in today's legal framework exists... but when trying to put this in a blockchain framework either gives additional permissions to someone or results in reinventing more problems than the existing system has.
- rangersanger 5y ago
  The part you’re talking about, actually registering the title, is usually between $20-50 usd. A smart contract would do nothing to protect you from open liens, property line misrepresentation, multiple registrants, etc etc. But I hear you saying, “well it would if the plumber used the chain to place the lien.” okay fine, but nothing above is solved more efficiently with the chain than it would be by adding to the existing system.
  - eropple 5y ago
    > The part you’re talking about, actually registering the title, is usually between $20-50 usd. And, for context, the average Ethereum gas fee right now is $48. So you're nearing the upper bound of the usual range for every transaction (right now--it's been higher, and probably will be again!) unless now we're going to play "well actually, this happens on the TitleCoin chain, which boy howdy I hope anyone actually pays attention to and not the TitleCoin Cash chain and not the TitleCoin Classic chain".
- beaconstudios 5y ago
  the reversibility and legal structures are the point. Signing a piece of paper is nothing compared to if you find a structural fault in your new house or it turns out the seller didn't own the deed. In which case, you want to have followed a regulated process and not just sent off some BTC to a temporary wallet. I feel like blockchain promotion is primarily based in an anti-regulation belief system, one that doesn't actually work very well for people in real life.
pmoriarty 5y ago
"I'm so tired of the hype around cryptocurrencies" I was tired of the hype around crypto virtually from day one. Long before a coin was worth even a penny there was a huge amount of hype around them from the true believers. I thought it sounded like a joke and super sketchy and didn't mine any. I thought of actually mining some when a coin was finally worth a dollar, just in case.. but never got around to it. When I heard a coin was worth $300 I thought it was ridiculous... but the hype kept going. Then they were worth $3,000 and ordinary people started talking to me about them, there were a ton of articles about bitcoin and other coins in the mainstream news. I thought surely now peak hype had finally been achieved. Then banks started to notice and make their own coins. Then it went to $30,000 per coin... WTF? Yeah, I missed out... big time. I don't know how much higher the price of bitcoin can go, but I do know that each time I thought it couldn't go much higher it did... a lot. I'm still sick of the hype around crypto, and avoid any articles about it like the plague... but bitcoin doesn't even need hype at this point, as its meteoric rise in value sells itself.

misiti3780 5y ago

eh. i agree that it probably wont replace USD, but i can see a world where a lot of lawyers do not need to exist because transactions go on chain. if you buy a place in NYC, the transfer of the title costs thousands of dollars. there is absolutely no reason that should be the case, it should be done on chain for a fraction of the price.

Ekaros 5y ago
Why shouldn't the government provide these services for the taxes people pay? If they spend a few hours checking everything is order on both sides for a few hundred I think that is reasonable. After that the court system again paid by taxes should resolve thing according to these. I don't see any reason why a chain would help here too much, fixing the government should be much more effective in long run.
- long_time_gone 5y ago
  > Why shouldn't the government provide these services for the taxes people pay? It is very common for government's to tax exchanges of money/property/goods. We see this in the sales tax, estate tax, transfer tax, cash app transfers, monetary gifts above $15k, income taxes, etc.
FabHK 5y ago
Maybe a permissioned blockchain, but that has nothing to do with BTC and its preposterous environmental pollution, and will most definitely not get rid of lawyers. Do you think that it is a technical challenge at the moment, unsolved save for Bitcoin, to keep reliable records??
- misiti3780 5y ago
  BTC doesnt handle smart contracts.
unityByFreedom 5y ago
It is hard to imagine any government giving such control to unknown digital identities. Communist-leaning countries don't count. They never wanted to empower people to trade with money anyway. It's all a scam and only good for money laundering or theft.
- justaman 5y ago
  North Korea and China have a ton of bitcoin. China has been farming for nearly a decade, and NK has been a major player in crypto-ransom. Imagine if bitcoin became the most common currency....
  - unityByFreedom 5y ago
    It won't, for the reason that those governments will not insure crypto and therefore people will never trust it. Aside from the recurring hacks, your life savings can be emptied at gunpoint.
depaya 5y ago
I think this is one of the most compelling use cases I've seen, but even this doesn't seem like a good idea to me. The benefit of paying money, having to use companies and government agencies, and having lawyers involved in the process is it allows for flexibility (and accommodating the human element...). If someone hacks your account and initiates the transfer, or you get scammed by someone, or you accidently transfer your title to the wrong account, or someone forces you at gunpoint to make the transfer... the courts can deal with and reverse these things. What your options are with a blockchain?
- nieve 5y ago
  As far as I can tell the coiner standard position is that the person who you transferred it to is the rightful owner and you shouldn't have options. They've latched onto a huge flaw and declared it a common good.
NovemberWhiskey 5y ago
Is it your understanding that the act of formally recording the title (which is the part of the activity which a blockchain would help with) is the expensive part? Because I think that's not at all the case.
TimPC 5y ago
This is a poorly informed comment. The main reason title transfer requires a lawyer is that the lawyer checks the legal requirements of the title itself. Not having a title search you may find out that the property was once owned by two people not one, and that the deceased has descendants who can make a claim for ownership in addition to the wife who's selling the property. You'd be very foolish to eliminate legal checks from the process as you may end up with property you don't entirely own because of unresolved claims against it.
- the_snooze 5y ago
  Blockchain maximalists make the same mistake over and over again, to the point that I think they're doing so intentionally: the main problem isn't that we have malicious actors manipulating records, it's that records are incorrect, incomplete, or become stale. Blockchain technology does absolutely nothing to address the real problem.
  - tablespoon 5y ago
    > the main problem isn't that we have malicious actors manipulating records, it's that records are incorrect, incomplete, or become stale. Blockchain technology does absolutely nothing to address the real problem. Or they address it in a blindingly stupid way: How do we deal with records that are incorrect, incomplete, or stale? Blockchain maximalists: treat it as authoritative forever without a mechanism for correction!
    - the_snooze 5y ago
      >treat it as authoritative forever without a mechanism for correction! You write to the blockchain that there are 2 ice cubes on your desk. The ice cubes melt and evaporate, as ice cubes do. The blockchain says there are 2 ice cubes on your desk, so that must be truth forever and ever!
      - kuramitropolis 5y ago
        >The blockchain says there are 2 ice cubes on your desk, so someone must've written that to the blockchain at some point in the past. FTFY Or, in other words: you're confusing the map for the territory, therefore everyone else must also be confusing the map for the territory.
atty 5y ago
That sounds like a dystopian nightmare. What happens when someone gets your private key and transfers the title to themselves? Do you need to move out of your home/apartment because the blockchain says they own it? Or does the blockchain get forked every time there is a fraud case?
- rjmunro 5y ago
  What happens if you die and haven't told anyone the password to your keys? Does the property just sit empty forever?
  - x86_64Ubuntu 5y ago
    Wow, I've never thought of that. At some point, an entity that's the government or empowered by the government would have to say "Bob, the descendant of Jim owns this property" and then somehow modify the chain. But then we are back at square one whereby the government can regulate on-chain ownership of coins or records.
    - shagie 5y ago
      Two years later a cousin shows up and says "Jim sent me this hard drive with this piece of paper, I've realized it holds the private key and by extension, I own that property." This really gets to the "there is no advantage to having this data on the blockchain since it doesn't solve any of the problems that currently come up with titles, creates new problems, and complicates existing solutions."
- shagie 5y ago
  My "nothing malicious or dystopian" question is: * What happens when someone dies without a will passing the title? The process for handling this in today's legal framework exists... but when trying to put this in a blockchain framework either gives additional permissions to someone or results in reinventing more problems than the existing system has.
rangersanger 5y ago
The part you’re talking about, actually registering the title, is usually between $20-50 usd. A smart contract would do nothing to protect you from open liens, property line misrepresentation, multiple registrants, etc etc. But I hear you saying, “well it would if the plumber used the chain to place the lien.” okay fine, but nothing above is solved more efficiently with the chain than it would be by adding to the existing system.
- eropple 5y ago
  > The part you’re talking about, actually registering the title, is usually between $20-50 usd. And, for context, the average Ethereum gas fee right now is $48. So you're nearing the upper bound of the usual range for every transaction (right now--it's been higher, and probably will be again!) unless now we're going to play "well actually, this happens on the TitleCoin chain, which boy howdy I hope anyone actually pays attention to and not the TitleCoin Cash chain and not the TitleCoin Classic chain".
beaconstudios 5y ago
the reversibility and legal structures are the point. Signing a piece of paper is nothing compared to if you find a structural fault in your new house or it turns out the seller didn't own the deed. In which case, you want to have followed a regulated process and not just sent off some BTC to a temporary wallet. I feel like blockchain promotion is primarily based in an anti-regulation belief system, one that doesn't actually work very well for people in real life.

pmoriarty 5y ago

"I'm so tired of the hype around cryptocurrencies" I was tired of the hype around crypto virtually from day one. Long before a coin was worth even a penny there was a huge amount of hype around them from the true believers. I thought it sounded like a joke and super sketchy and didn't mine any. I thought of actually mining some when a coin was finally worth a dollar, just in case.. but never got around to it. When I heard a coin was worth $300 I thought it was ridiculous... but the hype kept going. Then they were worth $3,000 and ordinary people started talking to me about them, there were a ton of articles about bitcoin and other coins in the mainstream news. I thought surely now peak hype had finally been achieved. Then banks started to notice and make their own coins. Then it went to $30,000 per coin... WTF? Yeah, I missed out... big time. I don't know how much higher the price of bitcoin can go, but I do know that each time I thought it couldn't go much higher it did... a lot. I'm still sick of the hype around crypto, and avoid any articles about it like the plague... but bitcoin doesn't even need hype at this point, as its meteoric rise in value sells itself.