4 ms·

> So far no-one has been able to point me at a single thing that public public blockchains do that either is worth doing and is only possible using blockchain t

> So far no-one has been able to point me at a single thing that public public blockchains do that either is worth doing and is only possible using blockchain tech, or is better (more power efficient, faster) than using pre-existing technology. Using privacy coins I can donate money to causes I believe in (eg WikiLeaks) without fear of reprisal and with the knowledge that the funds will reach their recipient. If you have a better way, please let me know.

prepend 4y ago
This is a good use case for crypto, but it’s ruined by all the speculation and boom/bust. I don’t need $30,000k Bitcoin to support Wikileaks and my blogger. $10 Bitcoin works perfectly for this. But people hype and fraud coins to heights they shouldn’t be and make it useless for actual use. I think Eth is a good idea. I like smart contracts. But Etherium doesn’t need to be $3k and transactions shouldn’t be $10. $1 Eth and $.01 transactions is still perfectly fine for a sustainable system. But that doesn’t make people millions and billions by milking idiots. I think if we had regulators preventing wash and pump and dump then we can just pick dogecoin or whatever and move on to digital cash. Until then, it’s not going to be possible with dogecoin going up 10x and down .1x along with everything else.
- tromp 4y ago
  > I don’t need $30,000k Bitcoin > Etherium doesn’t need to be $3k The reason they're priced so high is because most of the supply has gone to early adopters (and its creators in case of the 70% premined Ethereum) leaving late adopters in fear of missing out and fighting over crumbs. > we can just pick dogecoin Dogecoin admittedly has higher inflation, but still had early miners getting 50x more reward than current ones. If you want to deter speculation, it makes more sense to just have a fixed reward, i.e. a pure linear emission, that maintains a high inflation for the first few decades.
  - prepend 4y ago
    I understand why the price has gone up but it is completely counterproductive to have such a high and variable price. Currently should be stable and predictable. There’s no need for early adopters to get rich. I just need to buy a pizza without cash.
    - andirk 4y ago
      I understand and agree with you, but it's pretty difficult to avoid early adopters holding large swaths of value when something goes from not popular to extremely popular.
- splix 4y ago
  Then look at the Ethereum Classic. Which is the original Ethereum, and it's just $20 per coin and less than $.01 per transaction.
wlll 4y ago
You mean like monero (https://ciphertrace.com/enhanced-monero-tracing/ https://ciphertrace.com/enhanced-monero-tracing/) or something else perhaps? Are you sure it's private? Private or not, which country are you in that would penalise you if you donated to Wikileaks? Ultimately though, there's a decent argument for /not/ allowing completely anonymous money transfers as the list of organisations that you'd be penalised for donating to probably has a pretty strong overlap with the list of organisations that society as a whole, through it's government, has decided we don't want to receive money. Crypto /might/ allow you to make an end-run around this system, but do we want it to, and even if we do, is it worth an entire country's electricity usage?
- sumedh 4y ago
  > Private or not, which country are you in that would penalise you if you donated to Wikileaks? Didnt US companies stop payments to Wikileaks because they exposed the US govt, atleast with crypto Wikileaks and others can bypass US payments systems.
  - wlll 4y ago
    Wasn't this because the US government blacklisted it? Being a tool for evading laws that we don't find convenient doesn't seem like a great reason for existing.
    - sumedh 4y ago
      Which law did Wikileaks break?
thawaya3113 4y ago
Every other way is better. 1) Crypto is easily traceable. Far more than any other means of funds transfer if you exercise even modest efforts to hide the source of funds. And to the extent crypto provides a modicum of privacy it’s because it’s too small for governments to have put any restrictions on it. 2) There is absolutely no guarantee the money will reach Wikileaks. At best, the money will reach the holder of Wikileaks’s private key holder. As we found out with Coinbase, for the vast majority of crypto wallets, that’s not gonna be your intended recipient. 3) Even “The money” it’s a term Is debatable. If you sent them that crypto 1 month ago and they tried to withdraw it today, at best they would have got half the value you sent them. There is nothing unique about crypto in terms of privacy other than the fact that most governments haven’t bothered with it. In fact, crypto is so easily traceable I’ve always harbored half a theory that it was created by the CIA specifically to chart out and bust drug and terrorist rings. I wouldn’t be surprised if the only reason the government isn’t taking down/regulating crypto is because the intelligence agencies are just so thrilled with the awesome network information they’re getting about criminals through their crypto transfers.
- stepanhruda 4y ago
  You are answering like it’s 2015 and all you know about is how Bitcoin works. All 3 problems that you mention are solved with 1. zero knowledge proofs 2. multisigs 3. stablecoins.
  - polygamous_bat 4y ago
    Ah yes, stablecoins that are very well known to keep their values stable over a long period. It's not like one of the top five stablecoins is just going to evaporate into thin air over a week, right?
    - stepanhruda 4y ago
      You are saying dollars are so stable, how come the Zimbabwe dollar crashed! That’s just wordplay, algorithmic stablecoins have been problematic and crashing since the beginning and a big one just crashed. Call me when USDC or DAI crashes - specifically not Tether because it’s arguably also undercollateralized.

prepend 4y ago

This is a good use case for crypto, but it’s ruined by all the speculation and boom/bust. I don’t need $30,000k Bitcoin to support Wikileaks and my blogger. $10 Bitcoin works perfectly for this. But people hype and fraud coins to heights they shouldn’t be and make it useless for actual use. I think Eth is a good idea. I like smart contracts. But Etherium doesn’t need to be $3k and transactions shouldn’t be $10. $1 Eth and $.01 transactions is still perfectly fine for a sustainable system. But that doesn’t make people millions and billions by milking idiots. I think if we had regulators preventing wash and pump and dump then we can just pick dogecoin or whatever and move on to digital cash. Until then, it’s not going to be possible with dogecoin going up 10x and down .1x along with everything else.

tromp 4y ago
> I don’t need $30,000k Bitcoin > Etherium doesn’t need to be $3k The reason they're priced so high is because most of the supply has gone to early adopters (and its creators in case of the 70% premined Ethereum) leaving late adopters in fear of missing out and fighting over crumbs. > we can just pick dogecoin Dogecoin admittedly has higher inflation, but still had early miners getting 50x more reward than current ones. If you want to deter speculation, it makes more sense to just have a fixed reward, i.e. a pure linear emission, that maintains a high inflation for the first few decades.
- prepend 4y ago
  I understand why the price has gone up but it is completely counterproductive to have such a high and variable price. Currently should be stable and predictable. There’s no need for early adopters to get rich. I just need to buy a pizza without cash.
  - andirk 4y ago
    I understand and agree with you, but it's pretty difficult to avoid early adopters holding large swaths of value when something goes from not popular to extremely popular.
splix 4y ago
Then look at the Ethereum Classic. Which is the original Ethereum, and it's just $20 per coin and less than $.01 per transaction.

wlll 4y ago

You mean like monero (https://ciphertrace.com/enhanced-monero-tracing/ https://ciphertrace.com/enhanced-monero-tracing/) or something else perhaps? Are you sure it's private? Private or not, which country are you in that would penalise you if you donated to Wikileaks? Ultimately though, there's a decent argument for /not/ allowing completely anonymous money transfers as the list of organisations that you'd be penalised for donating to probably has a pretty strong overlap with the list of organisations that society as a whole, through it's government, has decided we don't want to receive money. Crypto /might/ allow you to make an end-run around this system, but do we want it to, and even if we do, is it worth an entire country's electricity usage?

sumedh 4y ago
> Private or not, which country are you in that would penalise you if you donated to Wikileaks? Didnt US companies stop payments to Wikileaks because they exposed the US govt, atleast with crypto Wikileaks and others can bypass US payments systems.
- wlll 4y ago
  Wasn't this because the US government blacklisted it? Being a tool for evading laws that we don't find convenient doesn't seem like a great reason for existing.
  - sumedh 4y ago
    Which law did Wikileaks break?

thawaya3113 4y ago

Every other way is better. 1) Crypto is easily traceable. Far more than any other means of funds transfer if you exercise even modest efforts to hide the source of funds. And to the extent crypto provides a modicum of privacy it’s because it’s too small for governments to have put any restrictions on it. 2) There is absolutely no guarantee the money will reach Wikileaks. At best, the money will reach the holder of Wikileaks’s private key holder. As we found out with Coinbase, for the vast majority of crypto wallets, that’s not gonna be your intended recipient. 3) Even “The money” it’s a term Is debatable. If you sent them that crypto 1 month ago and they tried to withdraw it today, at best they would have got half the value you sent them. There is nothing unique about crypto in terms of privacy other than the fact that most governments haven’t bothered with it. In fact, crypto is so easily traceable I’ve always harbored half a theory that it was created by the CIA specifically to chart out and bust drug and terrorist rings. I wouldn’t be surprised if the only reason the government isn’t taking down/regulating crypto is because the intelligence agencies are just so thrilled with the awesome network information they’re getting about criminals through their crypto transfers.

stepanhruda 4y ago
You are answering like it’s 2015 and all you know about is how Bitcoin works. All 3 problems that you mention are solved with 1. zero knowledge proofs 2. multisigs 3. stablecoins.
- polygamous_bat 4y ago
  Ah yes, stablecoins that are very well known to keep their values stable over a long period. It's not like one of the top five stablecoins is just going to evaporate into thin air over a week, right?
  - stepanhruda 4y ago
    You are saying dollars are so stable, how come the Zimbabwe dollar crashed! That’s just wordplay, algorithmic stablecoins have been problematic and crashing since the beginning and a big one just crashed. Call me when USDC or DAI crashes - specifically not Tether because it’s arguably also undercollateralized.