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The world needs decentralised assets. It’s the internet of money. Some are shitty, some are not. Monero and Algorand are two good examples. The latter carbon

The world needs decentralised assets. It’s the internet of money. Some are shitty, some are not. Monero and Algorand are two good examples. The latter carbon negative.

aww_dang 4y ago
The core premise of these cryptocurrency haters is that they feel that their subjective value preferences are more valid than those of the market. This is a core tenet of central planning. It is plainly paternalistic. Ironically, it is the central planning of interest rates which created an environment ripe for speculative bubbles. It is the heavy regulation of all things financial which has burdened online transactions. If not for onerous regulatory requirements perhaps cryptocurrencies would not have been popularized. Then there are the obvious falsehoods and sloppy generalizations used to advance their argument. Not all cryptocurrencies are the same. Even if we accept their characterization of BTC as "wasteful" there are other options which are more efficient. Their solution, predictably enough is to create more regulations and prohibitions. It is a tone deaf lack of self awareness. All the worse when they celebrate themselves as authorities on the topic. Perhaps the interviewee is an expert on CS, but does that qualify him to centrally plan financial transactions? This is technocracy at its worst. A self appointed expert steps outside of his bounds to make wide sweeping proclamations. Then there are the obvious cultural factors. An institutional academic favors institutional and bureaucratic control over markets, disregards the value of market consensus and individual preferences? Cultural bias and group-think or not?
- ddjsn111 4y ago
  I completely agree.
- shkkmo 4y ago
  > The core premise of these cryptocurrency haters is that they feel that their subjective value preferences are more valid than those of the market. That is simply not true. As an early bitcoin supporter, my sentiment shifted against cryptocurrency as I worked with more and more companies that have been targeted by ransomware. I kept waiting to be able to pay for real things and instead I saw wave after wave of fraud, grift and extortion but no progress on being a usable currency. > It is the heavy regulation of all things financial which has burdened online transactions. Really? Online "non-cryptocurrency" transactions have outpaced cryptocurrency transactions by a massive amount. Cryptocurrency was a neat idea that failed to realize it's potential due to the complexity of operations in the real world. Instead it has become a cesspit of fraud, theft and self-deluding grifters that lie repeatedly to try to bring in more and more greater fools. There are still se cryptocurrency idealists out there, but it gets harder and harder to tell them from the grifters.
  - aww_dang 4y ago
    >Really? Online "non-cryptocurrency" transactions have outpaced cryptocurrency transactions by a massive amount. Yes, really. Those transactions are heavily regulated. You cannot send a 0.000001 USD Paypal transaction for example. The overhead is too high. There are cryptocurrencies which allow these microtransactions. Observing that there is a high amount of regulated transactions doesn't account for the demand for unregulated transactions. Perhaps if regulations were lower, services could provide functionality which would make cryptocurrency irrelevant. From the interview: >WEAVER: I am holding up a Raspberry Pi computer module. This entire computer is like 50 bucks. So for 500 bucks worth of [computing power], I could do the same functionality as Bitcoin, with just 10 named entities. Why don’t I do this? Because those 10 named entities would have to follow money laundering laws. And apart from getting a structure where the named entities don’t follow money laundering laws, there’s no advantage for the cryptocurrencies, despite burning nine orders of magnitude more power. Even the die-hard cryptocurrency hater featured in the interview admits that is the heavy cost of regulation which created the market demand for cryptocurrency. The question is if he understands the implications of his own statement and the premises from which they derive from. >I kept waiting to be able to pay for real things... Perhaps most people don't want to go through the hassle of doing KYC on an exchange just to buy a pizza. Also, Gresham's law and legal tender laws. >...and instead I saw wave after wave of fraud, grift and extortion but no progress on being a usable currency. So the remaining users of cryptocurrency are those who use it out of necessity. That could be innovation in microtransactions, online gaming, speculation or the criminal uses you narrowly focus on. However you want to value it is up to you. Either within the existing framework of regulation or independently. If you don't like it, don't use it. Calling for what other people value to be destroyed, because Weaver doesn't like it is authoritarian. He's a bully. Live and let live.
    - shkkmo 4y ago
      > Yes, really. Those transactions are heavily regulated. You cannot send a 0.000001 USD Paypal transaction for example. How is that due to regulations? There simply isn't much demand for those types of transactions. > Observing that there is a high amount of regulated transactions doesn't account for the demand for unregulated transactions. The growth of demand for regulated online transactions has far out stripped the demand for unregulated online transactions. People LIKE fraud protection and having recourse if something goes wrong. There is no evidence that bitcoin allows me types of online businesses to flourish (that don't depend on breaking the law. > Even the die-hard cryptocurrency hater featured in the interview admits that is the heavy cost of regulation which created the market demand for cryptocurrency. Yes, cryptocurrencies primary use is as a way of breaking laws. We can debate which laws should exist, but the effect of cryptocurrency isn't to avoid only bad laws, but all laws. So unless you are the type of hypothetical libertarian who thinks all government is bad while enjoying a standard of living that is only possible in a regulated economy, supporting cryptocurrency as a way of opposing bad laws is nonsensical. How things scale matters, cash makes a good anti-authority hedge because it is harder to scale sketchy shit with it despite the anonymity it provides. Cryptocurrency scales too well, it allows massive flouting of laws at scale while providing little additional benefit. > If you don't like it, don't use it. Calling for what other people value to be destroyed, because Weaver doesn't like it is authoritarian What about all the damage it has caused through incentiving ransomware? What right do you have help destroy other people's hard built value?
- polygamous_bat 4y ago
  > Perhaps the interviewee is an expert on CS, but does that qualify him to centrally plan financial transactions? Reminds me of the old adage, "crypto is the thing where those who know tech are in it for the economics, and those who know economics are in it for the tech"
asdadsdad 4y ago
The Internet is by no means decentralized, and the most compelling argument for the inefficiencies of crypto, in my opinion, is that everything we've built on the Internet tends to centralization. "No one wants to run their own mail server". So eventually, we'll have spent all this energy and time in designing convoluted protocols that solve the exact same problem we had already solved, only less efficiently and with more hoops. (edit: fix typo)
- ddjsn111 4y ago
  Yes but people CAN run their own mail server and some do. That’s the point.
PretzelPirate 4y ago
> Monero and Algorand are two good examples I have to disagree with you here. Algorand requires relay nodes for consensus (and high throughput), and those relay nodes are permissioned and largely centralized. It’s not accurate to call Algorand a “decentralized blockchain” or assets on it “decentralized assets”. This is a big issue in the blockchain world - the details of the implementation matter so little to the participants trying to profit, that we have multiple chains in existence with centralized controls and people still think those are better than using an obviously-centralized platform. These platforms tend to have the disadvantages of centralized platforms without the protections they provide, it just isn’t obvious until that centralized control is eventually exercised.
- ddjsn111 4y ago
  Anyone can run a relay. Though most are currently with the foundation. The architecture isn’t flawed.

The world needs decentralised assets. It’s the internet of money. Some are shitty, some are not. Monero and Algorand are two good examples. The latter carbon negative.

aww_dang 4y ago

The core premise of these cryptocurrency haters is that they feel that their subjective value preferences are more valid than those of the market. This is a core tenet of central planning. It is plainly paternalistic. Ironically, it is the central planning of interest rates which created an environment ripe for speculative bubbles. It is the heavy regulation of all things financial which has burdened online transactions. If not for onerous regulatory requirements perhaps cryptocurrencies would not have been popularized. Then there are the obvious falsehoods and sloppy generalizations used to advance their argument. Not all cryptocurrencies are the same. Even if we accept their characterization of BTC as "wasteful" there are other options which are more efficient. Their solution, predictably enough is to create more regulations and prohibitions. It is a tone deaf lack of self awareness. All the worse when they celebrate themselves as authorities on the topic. Perhaps the interviewee is an expert on CS, but does that qualify him to centrally plan financial transactions? This is technocracy at its worst. A self appointed expert steps outside of his bounds to make wide sweeping proclamations. Then there are the obvious cultural factors. An institutional academic favors institutional and bureaucratic control over markets, disregards the value of market consensus and individual preferences? Cultural bias and group-think or not?

ddjsn111 4y ago
I completely agree.
shkkmo 4y ago
> The core premise of these cryptocurrency haters is that they feel that their subjective value preferences are more valid than those of the market. That is simply not true. As an early bitcoin supporter, my sentiment shifted against cryptocurrency as I worked with more and more companies that have been targeted by ransomware. I kept waiting to be able to pay for real things and instead I saw wave after wave of fraud, grift and extortion but no progress on being a usable currency. > It is the heavy regulation of all things financial which has burdened online transactions. Really? Online "non-cryptocurrency" transactions have outpaced cryptocurrency transactions by a massive amount. Cryptocurrency was a neat idea that failed to realize it's potential due to the complexity of operations in the real world. Instead it has become a cesspit of fraud, theft and self-deluding grifters that lie repeatedly to try to bring in more and more greater fools. There are still se cryptocurrency idealists out there, but it gets harder and harder to tell them from the grifters.
- aww_dang 4y ago
  >Really? Online "non-cryptocurrency" transactions have outpaced cryptocurrency transactions by a massive amount. Yes, really. Those transactions are heavily regulated. You cannot send a 0.000001 USD Paypal transaction for example. The overhead is too high. There are cryptocurrencies which allow these microtransactions. Observing that there is a high amount of regulated transactions doesn't account for the demand for unregulated transactions. Perhaps if regulations were lower, services could provide functionality which would make cryptocurrency irrelevant. From the interview: >WEAVER: I am holding up a Raspberry Pi computer module. This entire computer is like 50 bucks. So for 500 bucks worth of [computing power], I could do the same functionality as Bitcoin, with just 10 named entities. Why don’t I do this? Because those 10 named entities would have to follow money laundering laws. And apart from getting a structure where the named entities don’t follow money laundering laws, there’s no advantage for the cryptocurrencies, despite burning nine orders of magnitude more power. Even the die-hard cryptocurrency hater featured in the interview admits that is the heavy cost of regulation which created the market demand for cryptocurrency. The question is if he understands the implications of his own statement and the premises from which they derive from. >I kept waiting to be able to pay for real things... Perhaps most people don't want to go through the hassle of doing KYC on an exchange just to buy a pizza. Also, Gresham's law and legal tender laws. >...and instead I saw wave after wave of fraud, grift and extortion but no progress on being a usable currency. So the remaining users of cryptocurrency are those who use it out of necessity. That could be innovation in microtransactions, online gaming, speculation or the criminal uses you narrowly focus on. However you want to value it is up to you. Either within the existing framework of regulation or independently. If you don't like it, don't use it. Calling for what other people value to be destroyed, because Weaver doesn't like it is authoritarian. He's a bully. Live and let live.
  - shkkmo 4y ago
    > Yes, really. Those transactions are heavily regulated. You cannot send a 0.000001 USD Paypal transaction for example. How is that due to regulations? There simply isn't much demand for those types of transactions. > Observing that there is a high amount of regulated transactions doesn't account for the demand for unregulated transactions. The growth of demand for regulated online transactions has far out stripped the demand for unregulated online transactions. People LIKE fraud protection and having recourse if something goes wrong. There is no evidence that bitcoin allows me types of online businesses to flourish (that don't depend on breaking the law. > Even the die-hard cryptocurrency hater featured in the interview admits that is the heavy cost of regulation which created the market demand for cryptocurrency. Yes, cryptocurrencies primary use is as a way of breaking laws. We can debate which laws should exist, but the effect of cryptocurrency isn't to avoid only bad laws, but all laws. So unless you are the type of hypothetical libertarian who thinks all government is bad while enjoying a standard of living that is only possible in a regulated economy, supporting cryptocurrency as a way of opposing bad laws is nonsensical. How things scale matters, cash makes a good anti-authority hedge because it is harder to scale sketchy shit with it despite the anonymity it provides. Cryptocurrency scales too well, it allows massive flouting of laws at scale while providing little additional benefit. > If you don't like it, don't use it. Calling for what other people value to be destroyed, because Weaver doesn't like it is authoritarian What about all the damage it has caused through incentiving ransomware? What right do you have help destroy other people's hard built value?
polygamous_bat 4y ago
> Perhaps the interviewee is an expert on CS, but does that qualify him to centrally plan financial transactions? Reminds me of the old adage, "crypto is the thing where those who know tech are in it for the economics, and those who know economics are in it for the tech"

asdadsdad 4y ago

The Internet is by no means decentralized, and the most compelling argument for the inefficiencies of crypto, in my opinion, is that everything we've built on the Internet tends to centralization. "No one wants to run their own mail server". So eventually, we'll have spent all this energy and time in designing convoluted protocols that solve the exact same problem we had already solved, only less efficiently and with more hoops. (edit: fix typo)

ddjsn111 4y ago
Yes but people CAN run their own mail server and some do. That’s the point.

PretzelPirate 4y ago

> Monero and Algorand are two good examples I have to disagree with you here. Algorand requires relay nodes for consensus (and high throughput), and those relay nodes are permissioned and largely centralized. It’s not accurate to call Algorand a “decentralized blockchain” or assets on it “decentralized assets”. This is a big issue in the blockchain world - the details of the implementation matter so little to the participants trying to profit, that we have multiple chains in existence with centralized controls and people still think those are better than using an obviously-centralized platform. These platforms tend to have the disadvantages of centralized platforms without the protections they provide, it just isn’t obvious until that centralized control is eventually exercised.

ddjsn111 4y ago
Anyone can run a relay. Though most are currently with the foundation. The architecture isn’t flawed.