4 ms·

It's kind of like trying to outwit other traders in the stock market, isn't it? Just a bunch of people building elaborate systems to gamble.

toomuchtodo 4y ago
Stock market trading is actually super efficient energy wise, comparatively, due to its centralized nature in a trusted environment. No need for proof of work or proof of stake, so no need to spin cycles for crypto trust theater (because you can still be prosecuted and sued if you steal crypto and it’s worth someone’s time to obtain justice; code as law until the cuffs are on or wallets are blacklisted at exchanges). In this example, Ethereum is this enormous, slow distributed runtime moving image receipts and tokens around.
- fartcannon 4y ago
  You can expand and contract the 'stock market' to whatever shape and energy density your argument requires. Does it include all the energy required to keep alive the people who work to sustain it? Does it include investors, the wealth it generates and all the super yachts bought with it? Or on the othet side, is it just the near energy free idea of what the stock market is?
  - bduerst 4y ago
    If ethereum ever achieved adoption even close to a fraction of what stock trading has, then you'd have the same problems and overhead. As it stands, the apples to apples comparison has any centralized, trusted network being more efficient than [attempted] trustless, proof of work like ethereum.
  - cuteboy19 4y ago
    There are already a hundred different crypto exchanges (more than regular ones, possibly) We do not count the people working on these exchanges as a part of crypto energy cost. So your argument is wrong, actually.
    - fartcannon 4y ago
      That's because you don't need the same scale of people to run a cryptocoin. It does it itself, more or less, with some maintainers. You can trade value with anyone anywhere in the world without all those banks and people. So in this case, it's an extremely important point.
  - micromacrofoot 4y ago
    etherium solves 0 of those problems so it’s a moot point
- phkahler 4y ago
  >> No need for proof of work or proof of stake Yeah, I mean naked shorts and all.
  - vkou 4y ago
    1. Naked shorts are illegal except in very special circumstances for a market maker. 2. You don't need naked shorts for a stock to be >100% shorted. We'd all have been better off if people took the GME frenzy as an opportunity to better understand how stock trades work, as opposed to an opportunity to reinforce their pre-existing misunderstanding.
    - phkahler 4y ago
      Naked shorts are not possible with crypto unless I'm very mistaken. You could do it in some secondary market, but the blockchain AFAICT only works on "real" assets.
      - cuteboy19 4y ago
        Which is irrelevant, we should judge things as they are and not as they "should be". Exchanges are part and parcel of the crypto ecosystem. We cannot ignore them in this discussion. Naked shorts do exist in the crypto market and they do affect the prices of those currencies. But of course why would anyone do that when there are a hundred easier ways to manipulate the crypto market? Buy a few influencers and UFC athletes to shill your crypto and you get a much better return on investment.
  - cuteboy19 4y ago
    Naked shorts can and do exist on crypto exchanges
    - phkahler 4y ago
      On an exchange, but not on a blockchain. Exchanges are a convenience, and go against the entire concept of a distributed ledger. That part of what makes the whole thing a joke.
- m00dy 4y ago
  >.. a trusted environment .. There is a term called circuit-breaker. How would it possible to trust a system if it has a "feature" called circuit-breaker ?
  - toomuchtodo 4y ago
    Crypto proponents and libertarians taking issue with the rules of the capital markets is different than the system having no trust. The US capital markets are some of the most regulated, trusted markets in the world; it’s why capital flows into it (versus say, Russia, China, LATAM, etc). Some poorly written smart contract isn’t going to nuke their (potentially hundreds of millions of dollars) capital on a whim, and if there is an issue, there is a resolution path through industry, government, and the courts. That is “revealed trust” if you will. Importantly, the belief of an individual can be drastically different than the consensus of market participants. Based on the capital allocation in US capital markets (tens of trillions of dollars), what does that signal regarding trust? https://www.sifma.org/resources/research/fact-book/ https://www.sifma.org/resources/research/fact-book/
  - thorncorona 4y ago
    You could instead lose $625M to poorly written code [0]. Crypto is just rediscovering the reason we have financial regulations, at a higher speed. https://crypto.news/axie-infinity-ronin-network-hack-625m-usd-eth/ https://crypto.news/axie-infinity-ronin-network-hack-625m-us...
    - lupire 4y ago
      Knight lost $400m due to a code bug in traffic.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
  - adoxyz 4y ago
    what's wrong with having a circuit-breaker? My house has many and they come in handy. Same with the stock market, it helps slow down emotional trading and limit certain attacks.

toomuchtodo 4y ago

Stock market trading is actually super efficient energy wise, comparatively, due to its centralized nature in a trusted environment. No need for proof of work or proof of stake, so no need to spin cycles for crypto trust theater (because you can still be prosecuted and sued if you steal crypto and it’s worth someone’s time to obtain justice; code as law until the cuffs are on or wallets are blacklisted at exchanges). In this example, Ethereum is this enormous, slow distributed runtime moving image receipts and tokens around.

fartcannon 4y ago
You can expand and contract the 'stock market' to whatever shape and energy density your argument requires. Does it include all the energy required to keep alive the people who work to sustain it? Does it include investors, the wealth it generates and all the super yachts bought with it? Or on the othet side, is it just the near energy free idea of what the stock market is?
- bduerst 4y ago
  If ethereum ever achieved adoption even close to a fraction of what stock trading has, then you'd have the same problems and overhead. As it stands, the apples to apples comparison has any centralized, trusted network being more efficient than [attempted] trustless, proof of work like ethereum.
- cuteboy19 4y ago
  There are already a hundred different crypto exchanges (more than regular ones, possibly) We do not count the people working on these exchanges as a part of crypto energy cost. So your argument is wrong, actually.
  - fartcannon 4y ago
    That's because you don't need the same scale of people to run a cryptocoin. It does it itself, more or less, with some maintainers. You can trade value with anyone anywhere in the world without all those banks and people. So in this case, it's an extremely important point.
- micromacrofoot 4y ago
  etherium solves 0 of those problems so it’s a moot point
phkahler 4y ago
>> No need for proof of work or proof of stake Yeah, I mean naked shorts and all.
- vkou 4y ago
  1. Naked shorts are illegal except in very special circumstances for a market maker. 2. You don't need naked shorts for a stock to be >100% shorted. We'd all have been better off if people took the GME frenzy as an opportunity to better understand how stock trades work, as opposed to an opportunity to reinforce their pre-existing misunderstanding.
  - phkahler 4y ago
    Naked shorts are not possible with crypto unless I'm very mistaken. You could do it in some secondary market, but the blockchain AFAICT only works on "real" assets.
    - cuteboy19 4y ago
      Which is irrelevant, we should judge things as they are and not as they "should be". Exchanges are part and parcel of the crypto ecosystem. We cannot ignore them in this discussion. Naked shorts do exist in the crypto market and they do affect the prices of those currencies. But of course why would anyone do that when there are a hundred easier ways to manipulate the crypto market? Buy a few influencers and UFC athletes to shill your crypto and you get a much better return on investment.
- cuteboy19 4y ago
  Naked shorts can and do exist on crypto exchanges
  - phkahler 4y ago
    On an exchange, but not on a blockchain. Exchanges are a convenience, and go against the entire concept of a distributed ledger. That part of what makes the whole thing a joke.
m00dy 4y ago
>.. a trusted environment .. There is a term called circuit-breaker. How would it possible to trust a system if it has a "feature" called circuit-breaker ?
- toomuchtodo 4y ago
  Crypto proponents and libertarians taking issue with the rules of the capital markets is different than the system having no trust. The US capital markets are some of the most regulated, trusted markets in the world; it’s why capital flows into it (versus say, Russia, China, LATAM, etc). Some poorly written smart contract isn’t going to nuke their (potentially hundreds of millions of dollars) capital on a whim, and if there is an issue, there is a resolution path through industry, government, and the courts. That is “revealed trust” if you will. Importantly, the belief of an individual can be drastically different than the consensus of market participants. Based on the capital allocation in US capital markets (tens of trillions of dollars), what does that signal regarding trust? https://www.sifma.org/resources/research/fact-book/ https://www.sifma.org/resources/research/fact-book/
- thorncorona 4y ago
  You could instead lose $625M to poorly written code [0]. Crypto is just rediscovering the reason we have financial regulations, at a higher speed. https://crypto.news/axie-infinity-ronin-network-hack-625m-usd-eth/ https://crypto.news/axie-infinity-ronin-network-hack-625m-us...
  - lupire 4y ago
    Knight lost $400m due to a code bug in traffic.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
- adoxyz 4y ago
  what's wrong with having a circuit-breaker? My house has many and they come in handy. Same with the stock market, it helps slow down emotional trading and limit certain attacks.