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if you can't realistically use crypto as money (which you can't), then there is no reason to hold it unless it is rising crypto does not generate revenue cryp
by newaccount2021 4y ago
if you can't realistically use crypto as money (which you can't), then there is no reason to hold it unless it is rising
crypto does not generate revenue
crypto does not generate dividends
crypto is only something you try to sell to a bigger fool
if crypto even just goes sideways....then its just a cash-equivalent with no real-world utility
these pyramid schemes have a long way to fall still...crypto will be the greatest ponzi scheme of the last 100 years
if you like exotic cars, the crypto kids will be liquidating soon...keep your eyes open
- saurik 4y agoI mean, some cryptocurrency projects do generate revenue and pay dividends because they are selling a service to people, whether it be storing files, transferring data, or running computations (encoding video, training AI models, etc.).
- Saint_Genet 4y agoSelling shovels to prospectors is not the same as being a prospector yourself
- saurik 4y agoIn what way is selling video encoding or file storage to someone "selling shovels to prospectors"?
- spywaregorilla 4y agoAre people buying it because they think it's fundamentally a good idea? Or because they think it'll go up amid the manic gold rush? Humorously, if they're investing in your company that mines gold, that seems fairly equivalent to paying you to buy shovels and hire diggers.
- monkey_monkey 4y agoCan you name some of them? I'd be very interested to see what they're doing.
- saurik 4y agoI guess? I will note, though, that if you search for any of the things I said--such as "video encoding crypto"--you'd find them in less time than it took to ask me for a list. Here are a handful of ones I can think off of the top of my head. Storj, Filecoin, Sia; Golem, Akash, iExec; Livepeer, Helium, Orchid (the last one being mine) Like, some cryptocurrency projects are working on "big business". I keep hearing that Helium has been getting carrier partners for its LTE hotspot rollout, and its IoT hotspot product is not inherently any more stupid than Amazon Sidewalk ;P. https://twitter.com/MessariCrypto/status/1514694855070556170 https://twitter.com/MessariCrypto/status/1514694855070556170
- vesinisa 4y agoDo these coins somehow actually verify that the storage sellers are actually storing the files they claim to store? If not, the introduction of blockchain to the equation sounds like an unnecessary externality.
- capableweb 4y agoNot sure about others, but Filecoin uses cryptographic storage proofs to verify that data is stored correctly. Otherwise I'd agree with you, if there is no guarantee that data is stored correctly, there is no point, might as well use S3.
- vesinisa 4y agoIndeed, here is an explanation of the proof protocol used: https://spec.filecoin.io/algorithms/pos/post/ https://spec.filecoin.io/algorithms/pos/post/ I wonder if that has ever been tested by bad actors. For Bitcoin, the proof of how the network is resilient against sub-50% attacks is simple enough.
- puranjay 4y agomost of the dividends are in the native token (or the blockchain token) which, unless the price remains stable or up, constantly reduces in value A great example is OpenSea. Their trading volume crashed at the same time ETH prices crashed. A sale of 100 ETH in January earned them $7,500 (@$3k ETH). The same sale now will earn them $3,000 (@$1.2k ETH).
- tjansen 4y agoI think DeFi was an interesting idea with some potential. It seems like nobody was able to come up with a solution that found widespread use, but with the right application it might have worked. But for now, it looks like that window of opportunity is gone. Maybe with the next crypto generation...
- lottin 4y agoThe problem with DeFi is that can't be used for financing. Financing requires seizable assets whereas blockchain assets are intrinsically unseizable. It can still be used for things like swaps, but that market isn't very large.
- bidirectional 4y agoSwaps aren't very large? It's very easily a trillion-dollar market even without the misleading quoting of notional as market size.
- lottin 4y agoWhere does this number come from?
- bidirectional 4y agoHere's one source: https://www.bis.org/publ/otc_hy2111.htm https://www.bis.org/publ/otc_hy2111.htm Reports notional as in the hundreds of trillions and market value over ten trillion. Unless I'm misreading you and you're talking about defi swaps? Though surely the analagous tradfi market shows the potential there.
- lottin 4y agoThese are credit default swaps. I don't know if they are implementable as smart contracts (I don't think so, but I could be wrong). I was thinking about overcolateralised DeFi loans which can be seen as a kind of swap where two parties exchange the returns of two different assets.
- SkipperCat 4y agoI couldn't agree more. The only real value I saw with crypto was for anonymous transactions a la Silk Road. Turns out immutable ledgers aren't the privacy boon we thought they'd be.
- Pxtl 4y agoIt also provides a great way to pay ransoms, which allowed crypto locker ransomware to be monetized and scaled up to a new and exciting level. I hate crypto.
- capableweb 4y agoIf I were to receive a ransom payment, I'd much rather do it with cash rather than cryptocurrencies. Using a technology whose main point is to have a immutable ledger of all transactions, forever, seems to be against my interest of wanting to be able to hide the receive ransom transaction somehow.
- Verdex 4y agoI think the key is that if you have to pick up money it requires someone to be physically in some location. Where they can be arrested. The rest of the ransomware experience from the attacker side is hanging out in their living room in their non-extradition county. Why ruin a good thing by going somewhere were someone might have a gun. [Of course an immutable ledger might allow people to use a gun on you in the future, but it pushes the experience into an uncertain and hazy future. Safe to ignore in the present.]
- serf 4y ago> if you can't realistically use crypto as money (which you can't), then there is no reason to hold it unless it is rising i'm glad i've been able to convince those suckers over at Mullvad to continually sell me hours for this not-money btc. They're really going to have egg on their face once they realize how I pulled the wool over their eyes.
- ethanbond 4y agoThe old “Madoff’s staff can buy groceries, no way it’s a scam!”
- adam_arthur 4y ago"Look, they're paying me 20% guaranteed yield! How can this not be real?"
- orbit7 4y agoBitcoin is a quantum leap. In history we have moved from single entry accounting to double entry accounting (the current traditional financial system despite the interconnectedness based on an ancient accounting system) requiring a 3rd party to maintain integrity a system open to and actively abused. Bitcoin is triple entry accounting an immutable trust-less based system. That's a huge huge innovation. The bitcoin token has been valued by the open market and is the fastest appreciating asset in history. Fiats actually a flawed manipulated system, look over time at how much value the dollar loses in a generation and to countries that have been destroyed by inflation.
- throw457 4y agoWhat? :D
- viraptor 4y agoThis has a high "Jesse, What the Fuck Are You Talking About" energy. The reason Terra fell is because most of the transactions that were supposed to assure its value were kept in a secret double accounting system. And that brought BTC down ~50% which shouldn't happen if it's not held up by magical behind the scenes accounting. There's no 3rd party integrity here and it's not been appreciating for weeks now.
- orbit7 4y agoBitcoin's network has worked perfectly as designed so I'm not sure I understand where your coming from. The coin price will always fluctuate and be over speculated or over sold at times, its what markets do. Terra was described as an attack, I'd describe it as architectural failure and crap for anyone who had money in it.
- viraptor 4y agoI mean that it turns out the value of BTC is at least half backed by the original system, just skipping over the standard guarantees. And every other drop in stablecoins affects BTC further. That means for all the tech behind it, the value actually relies on good old fat funds that we hope are legit (but have no way to check) Most transfers still happen off-network, so it's back to the double entry. Not that BTC is triple entry in any way - there's still two parties on each spend entry.
- jslove 4y agoGold does not generate revenue... its still worth 11 trillion
- vsareto 4y agoCrypto offers very little in terms of intrinsic value (it's not zero though)
- dan1234 4y agoAt least you'd still have the physical gold (which has utility) if the price went to zero. With crypto, all you'd be left with is a wallet address.
- kanzure 4y agoIf the market price of gold goes to zero, then no, by definition it has no remaining utility.
- dan1234 4y agoThat's also why it'd probably never get close to zero - its utility means it'd always have some value to someone. Even if we were to come up with a way to produce a synthetic gold, the price of gold would only fall as far the cost of synthetic gold.
- politician 4y agoDoes this line of reasoning imply that if Bitcoin never goes to zero then it must have some utility even if the random person on HN cannot articulate it?
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- newaccount2021 4y ago
- ncallaway 4y agoCrypto’s problem is that it has the most actual utility when it goes sideways. Being a decentralizing cash equivalent has some value. But, it can’t be stable. If it goes sideways long enough to demonstrate utility as a currency, then more people would want it, which would drive up the price and hurt that underlying value.