5 ms·

Yah. I think distributed ledgers are here to stay, as are some tokens of stored value. But I don't think the insane bidding up of many tokens will ever happen

by mlyle 4y ago

Yah. I think distributed ledgers are here to stay, as are some tokens of stored value. But I don't think the insane bidding up of many tokens will ever happen again.

la_fayette 4y ago
Haha, I lived through so many of these cycles im crypto, e.g., the ICO scams of 2017 and yet everybody said, now crypto is dead...
- geerlingguy 4y ago
  How many of those cycles were decades-long?
paraph1n 4y ago
> I think distributed ledgers are here to stay What exactly makes you think that? As far as I can tell, it's still unclear if distributed ledgers are really effective tools for much of anything. What real problems have they solved?
- st34m 4y ago
  It's quite useful for buying drugs.
  - AviationAtom 4y ago
    Don't hear of as many murder for hire plots involving it these days though
- mlyle 4y ago
  Non-repudiation is an important problem. Some things we can rely upon trusted third parties, but all kinds of things we rely on imperfect systems with notaries and trusted third parties can be more effectively solved with ledgers. A whole lot of the interesting applications are non-monetary-- proving that a record was produced and made available before a certain time and has not been tampered with since. As a world economy, we spend like $100B/year on notarizing things and related kinds of non-repudiation record keeping. If it was really cheap, we'd do much more. And a big fraction of this could be done cheaper and with a higher agree of assurance by distributed ledgers than notaries.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - hiq 4y ago
    > big fraction of this could be done cheaper and with a higher agree of assurance by distributed ledgers than notaries These theoretical benefits have been around for 10+ years with little to show for it. Ledger-based solutions tend to focus on a tiny technical step of a big process without considering whether that's a bottleneck or even a non-negligible part and whether improving it actually results in a better solution. I used to sympathize and engage with the theoretical arguments; but at this point a more productive approach is: if the advantages are such and such, where are the companies benefiting from this competitive advantage? Maybe this competitive advantage doesn't exist at all?
    - mlyle 4y ago
      > I used to sympathize and engage with the theoretical arguments; but at this point a more productive approach is: if the advantages are such and such, Distributed ledgers are being used for real business cases in banking. Realizing these full benefits will take a very slow process of societal adoption and legal/evidentiary recognition. I said "not going away". These use cases are going to slowly grow and become ubiquitous, but it will be a very slow process. It isn't some overnight disruption where notaries vanish and banking is dis-intermediated in the next 5 years. > where are the companies benefiting from this competitive advantage E.g. JP Morgan and Liink are quietly connecting hundreds of banks and using it to more robustly and quickly move payment-related information between banks.
      - maccard 4y ago
        > JP Morgan and Liink are quietly connecting hundreds of banks and using it to more robustly and quickly move payment-related information between banks. At this point you're trusting JP Morgan and link to run the ledger. What if I disagree with a transaction and fork the ledger? How is this any different to JP Morgan running a SQL database and speaking a common protocol?
- rvz 4y ago
  I don't know, maybe Stripe, Moneygram, TransferGo, Namecheap, Porkbun, etc seem to think otherwise? These distributed ledgers are here to stay in fact. Unless in less than 5 years or so, they are all going to go away 100% totally guaranteed?
AviationAtom 4y ago
It'll happen again. It will just be a new set of coins/tokens, with new promises of new utility, and a new set of gullible people being takem advantage of. The sad part is schemes of the sort damage the image of actual future usefulness of blockchain technology. For now the crypto winter sets in, until the next thaw.
DonHopkins 4y ago
Paperclips are here to stay, but would you invest in a company that only makes paperclip maximizers? https://www.lesswrong.com/tag/paperclip-maximizer https://www.lesswrong.com/tag/paperclip-maximizer
- mlyle 4y ago
  Nowhere did I suggest investing in crypto (indeed, I have a track record of the opposite, and I was mostly agreeing with someone who was suggesting the opposite), so your comment is unhelpful.
- burnished 4y ago
  Be the paperclip maximizer, instead https://www.decisionproblem.com/paperclips/ https://www.decisionproblem.com/paperclips/

by mlyle 4y ago

Yah. I think distributed ledgers are here to stay, as are some tokens of stored value. But I don't think the insane bidding up of many tokens will ever happen again.

la_fayette 4y ago

Haha, I lived through so many of these cycles im crypto, e.g., the ICO scams of 2017 and yet everybody said, now crypto is dead...

geerlingguy 4y ago
How many of those cycles were decades-long?

paraph1n 4y ago

> I think distributed ledgers are here to stay What exactly makes you think that? As far as I can tell, it's still unclear if distributed ledgers are really effective tools for much of anything. What real problems have they solved?

st34m 4y ago
It's quite useful for buying drugs.
- AviationAtom 4y ago
  Don't hear of as many murder for hire plots involving it these days though
mlyle 4y ago
Non-repudiation is an important problem. Some things we can rely upon trusted third parties, but all kinds of things we rely on imperfect systems with notaries and trusted third parties can be more effectively solved with ledgers. A whole lot of the interesting applications are non-monetary-- proving that a record was produced and made available before a certain time and has not been tampered with since. As a world economy, we spend like $100B/year on notarizing things and related kinds of non-repudiation record keeping. If it was really cheap, we'd do much more. And a big fraction of this could be done cheaper and with a higher agree of assurance by distributed ledgers than notaries.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- hiq 4y ago
  > big fraction of this could be done cheaper and with a higher agree of assurance by distributed ledgers than notaries These theoretical benefits have been around for 10+ years with little to show for it. Ledger-based solutions tend to focus on a tiny technical step of a big process without considering whether that's a bottleneck or even a non-negligible part and whether improving it actually results in a better solution. I used to sympathize and engage with the theoretical arguments; but at this point a more productive approach is: if the advantages are such and such, where are the companies benefiting from this competitive advantage? Maybe this competitive advantage doesn't exist at all?
  - mlyle 4y ago
    > I used to sympathize and engage with the theoretical arguments; but at this point a more productive approach is: if the advantages are such and such, Distributed ledgers are being used for real business cases in banking. Realizing these full benefits will take a very slow process of societal adoption and legal/evidentiary recognition. I said "not going away". These use cases are going to slowly grow and become ubiquitous, but it will be a very slow process. It isn't some overnight disruption where notaries vanish and banking is dis-intermediated in the next 5 years. > where are the companies benefiting from this competitive advantage E.g. JP Morgan and Liink are quietly connecting hundreds of banks and using it to more robustly and quickly move payment-related information between banks.
    - maccard 4y ago
      > JP Morgan and Liink are quietly connecting hundreds of banks and using it to more robustly and quickly move payment-related information between banks. At this point you're trusting JP Morgan and link to run the ledger. What if I disagree with a transaction and fork the ledger? How is this any different to JP Morgan running a SQL database and speaking a common protocol?
rvz 4y ago
I don't know, maybe Stripe, Moneygram, TransferGo, Namecheap, Porkbun, etc seem to think otherwise? These distributed ledgers are here to stay in fact. Unless in less than 5 years or so, they are all going to go away 100% totally guaranteed?

AviationAtom 4y ago

It'll happen again. It will just be a new set of coins/tokens, with new promises of new utility, and a new set of gullible people being takem advantage of. The sad part is schemes of the sort damage the image of actual future usefulness of blockchain technology. For now the crypto winter sets in, until the next thaw.

DonHopkins 4y ago

Paperclips are here to stay, but would you invest in a company that only makes paperclip maximizers? https://www.lesswrong.com/tag/paperclip-maximizer https://www.lesswrong.com/tag/paperclip-maximizer

mlyle 4y ago
Nowhere did I suggest investing in crypto (indeed, I have a track record of the opposite, and I was mostly agreeing with someone who was suggesting the opposite), so your comment is unhelpful.
burnished 4y ago
Be the paperclip maximizer, instead https://www.decisionproblem.com/paperclips/ https://www.decisionproblem.com/paperclips/