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Interesting take. I mostly agree, but I do think there is legitimate value in the foundation. Every time the ponzi collapses, the next jenga tower has a slightl

Interesting take. I mostly agree, but I do think there is legitimate value in the foundation. Every time the ponzi collapses, the next jenga tower has a slightly higher foundation

Balgair 4y ago
I've gotten confused in the metaphors here. Do you think that with the collapse of every ponzi scheme that the next ponzi scheme is somehow less ... scheme-y? I'm not even sure what that really means, but it seems to me that ponzi schemes, by definition, always go to 0 in the long run. There are no foundations, just greed and misery. Can you clarify?
- pcthrowaway 4y ago
  The ponzis are being built by people on top of slowly evolving layers of useful technology. Of course the actual building isn't tied to the hype cycles, but from the perspective of most people it's just ponzis swelling and bursting. There is real innovation happening though, fuelling the FOMO every time another bubble forms.
deebosong 4y ago
Curious, but what's your take on what this foundation is, functionally speaking? Is it indeed a decentralized financial alternative that will address the current woes of tradfi? Or is it something else? Or is it, again in your opinion, sort of a blank canvas, and just SOME foundation that's being emerging, and eventually people will be building on top of it?
- pcthrowaway 4y ago
  The foundation is a decentralized way to transfer value, without intermediaries. The actual value-additive innovation right now is happening around financial primitives being rebuilt in a decentralized manner, using smart contracts. Everything from the virtual machine to the language capabilities (and restrictions) to the "legos" used to build decentralized applications are constantly evolving. The constant hacks are also a form of hardening that's happening. New kinds of attacks are regularly discovered, and then exploited or responsibly disclosed, and then protocols start to guard against them, and the entities building the "legos" (I'm mainly talking about OpenZeppelin) upgrade any pieces that need to be upgraded.

Interesting take. I mostly agree, but I do think there is legitimate value in the foundation. Every time the ponzi collapses, the next jenga tower has a slightly higher foundation

Balgair 4y ago

I've gotten confused in the metaphors here. Do you think that with the collapse of every ponzi scheme that the next ponzi scheme is somehow less ... scheme-y? I'm not even sure what that really means, but it seems to me that ponzi schemes, by definition, always go to 0 in the long run. There are no foundations, just greed and misery. Can you clarify?

pcthrowaway 4y ago
The ponzis are being built by people on top of slowly evolving layers of useful technology. Of course the actual building isn't tied to the hype cycles, but from the perspective of most people it's just ponzis swelling and bursting. There is real innovation happening though, fuelling the FOMO every time another bubble forms.

deebosong 4y ago

Curious, but what's your take on what this foundation is, functionally speaking? Is it indeed a decentralized financial alternative that will address the current woes of tradfi? Or is it something else? Or is it, again in your opinion, sort of a blank canvas, and just SOME foundation that's being emerging, and eventually people will be building on top of it?

pcthrowaway 4y ago
The foundation is a decentralized way to transfer value, without intermediaries. The actual value-additive innovation right now is happening around financial primitives being rebuilt in a decentralized manner, using smart contracts. Everything from the virtual machine to the language capabilities (and restrictions) to the "legos" used to build decentralized applications are constantly evolving. The constant hacks are also a form of hardening that's happening. New kinds of attacks are regularly discovered, and then exploited or responsibly disclosed, and then protocols start to guard against them, and the entities building the "legos" (I'm mainly talking about OpenZeppelin) upgrade any pieces that need to be upgraded.