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I think you're correct about the legislation to an extent, but you're being facetious about that destroying the crypto industry. Face it, even in the sea of sc

I think you're correct about the legislation to an extent, but you're being facetious about that destroying the crypto industry. Face it, even in the sea of scams, there are a wealth of crypto projects that have delivered and do exactly as they say. It's an industry that is here to stay. There will be large shakeouts every few years, but that's relatively normal in a burgeoning new industry.

mjburgess 4y ago
This isnt my view. I dont think any crypto project delivers -- and this is an extremely strong claim requiring only a single counter-example. I'd love to hear the counter-example. I dont think a distributed immutable ledger whose state changes one when everyone recomputes it is a good technology for almost anything. Think of this from a devops/data-eng perspective... what, in your infrastructure, do you want to work that way? In practice, we are always able to assume a non-trivial amount of trust which would eliminate almost all of that excessive computation. OR, if not, coordinate in such a way that we can acquire non-trivial amounts (eg., first exchanging keys). This technology is an engineering revolution in the minute "data-engineering cyptographic problem space". That might be a business somewhere. I dont think it has almost anything to do with any marketable proposition. I cannot think of any single business case thus far offered where removing the blockchain doesnt produce a better product.
- jsutton 4y ago
  A single counter-example is Uniswap. I can swap one currency or token into any other currency or token, in seconds, with a very modest fee of 30 basis points. And I can do this anytime, 24/7. Fiat-denominated, bitcoin, altcoin, whatever. I don't have to pick up the phone and talk to anyone, don't have to worry about my money being locked up for days while it gets cleared by the ACH process. Another example is Aave, or Compound. I can take fiat-denominated crypto or bitcoin/ethereum/etc and Lend it in return for a modest interest rate. I can also borrow up to 80% of my collateral in fiat-denominated or other cryptocurrency and leverage that in a trading market. Again, I don't have to talk to anyone or get permission to do so. And I can borrow/lend indefinitely, and withdraw whenever I'd like. It's alright if this is not valuable to you or your clients. But to say this is not a valuable and novel application is demonstrably false, as > $50 Billion in value is currently held in these applications.
  - mjburgess 4y ago
    > The protocol facilitates automated transactions between cryptocurrency tokens on the Ethereum blockchain through the use of smart contracts. ETH, BTC, etc. -- it's all a pyramidal ponzi scheme. Inside the pyramid scheme, "products" have a value. Outside, they dont. This is all going to zero. It's just beanie babies for tech bros. It's kinda amazing your use case is to simplify problems people inside the system have. Do your research into MLMs. Hopefully this collapses inside of 6mo, it'll be a disaster if it survives long enough to impoverish large numbers of people.
    - jsutton 4y ago
      It seems you don't realize that ETH products like USDC are redeemed 1:1 with their fiat counterpart USD through regulated banks. Again, your view is demonstrably wrong, as products "inside" the system have value outside the system. Unfortunately your view seems to be the majority in HN. Quite disappointing from a supposedly forward thinking community. I'll be hearing the lazy beanie babies or tulips comparison for the next decade.
      - mjburgess 4y ago
        If you think the stablecoins are actually 1:1 backed, I've a bridge to sell you. They are leveraged like crazy, and rabid market manipulators.
        deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]

mjburgess 4y ago

This isnt my view. I dont think any crypto project delivers -- and this is an extremely strong claim requiring only a single counter-example. I'd love to hear the counter-example. I dont think a distributed immutable ledger whose state changes one when everyone recomputes it is a good technology for almost anything. Think of this from a devops/data-eng perspective... what, in your infrastructure, do you want to work that way? In practice, we are always able to assume a non-trivial amount of trust which would eliminate almost all of that excessive computation. OR, if not, coordinate in such a way that we can acquire non-trivial amounts (eg., first exchanging keys). This technology is an engineering revolution in the minute "data-engineering cyptographic problem space". That might be a business somewhere. I dont think it has almost anything to do with any marketable proposition. I cannot think of any single business case thus far offered where removing the blockchain doesnt produce a better product.

jsutton 4y ago
A single counter-example is Uniswap. I can swap one currency or token into any other currency or token, in seconds, with a very modest fee of 30 basis points. And I can do this anytime, 24/7. Fiat-denominated, bitcoin, altcoin, whatever. I don't have to pick up the phone and talk to anyone, don't have to worry about my money being locked up for days while it gets cleared by the ACH process. Another example is Aave, or Compound. I can take fiat-denominated crypto or bitcoin/ethereum/etc and Lend it in return for a modest interest rate. I can also borrow up to 80% of my collateral in fiat-denominated or other cryptocurrency and leverage that in a trading market. Again, I don't have to talk to anyone or get permission to do so. And I can borrow/lend indefinitely, and withdraw whenever I'd like. It's alright if this is not valuable to you or your clients. But to say this is not a valuable and novel application is demonstrably false, as > $50 Billion in value is currently held in these applications.
- mjburgess 4y ago
  > The protocol facilitates automated transactions between cryptocurrency tokens on the Ethereum blockchain through the use of smart contracts. ETH, BTC, etc. -- it's all a pyramidal ponzi scheme. Inside the pyramid scheme, "products" have a value. Outside, they dont. This is all going to zero. It's just beanie babies for tech bros. It's kinda amazing your use case is to simplify problems people inside the system have. Do your research into MLMs. Hopefully this collapses inside of 6mo, it'll be a disaster if it survives long enough to impoverish large numbers of people.
  - jsutton 4y ago
    It seems you don't realize that ETH products like USDC are redeemed 1:1 with their fiat counterpart USD through regulated banks. Again, your view is demonstrably wrong, as products "inside" the system have value outside the system. Unfortunately your view seems to be the majority in HN. Quite disappointing from a supposedly forward thinking community. I'll be hearing the lazy beanie babies or tulips comparison for the next decade.
    - mjburgess 4y ago
      If you think the stablecoins are actually 1:1 backed, I've a bridge to sell you. They are leveraged like crazy, and rabid market manipulators.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]