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What I don't really understand about the ideological basis for crypto and NFTs is that the number of people who are interested in it for reasons other than enri

by Bakary 4y ago

What I don't really understand about the ideological basis for crypto and NFTs is that the number of people who are interested in it for reasons other than enrichment through speculation is vanishingly small. This of course circularily means that the value is almost entirely based on speculation. The other aspect is that adopting these systems just increases inequality since the early adopters are massively wealthy. It doesn't work as a liberating medium. At best it works as a useful temporary measure for poorly run inflationary countries. Instead of being at the mercy of a commercial or central bank, you are at the mercy of a small range of individuals who either hold almost all of the cards or develop and thus determine the monetary policy of the coin in question.

zeroclip 4y ago
> This of course circularily means that the value is almost entirely based on speculation. Most markets are primarily based on speculation: equities, real estate, art, VC. > you are at the mercy of a small range of individuals who either hold almost all of the cards or develop and thus determine the monetary policy of the coin in question. In crypto this policy is determined by users. The protocols are open source, development happens in public, and the tech is permissionless - anybody can develop new proposals and contribute changes. This is a far cry from most monetary policies in the world.
- UncleMeat 4y ago
  I'd wager that the number of people who look at art in a museum or other environment and don't think about the price of that piece in detail dwarfs the number of people who think about art for speculation purposes by about four orders of magnitude.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - zeroclip 4y ago
    The same happens with digital art and NFT. Hundreds, maybe thousands of people will 'like' or re-share a tweet or Instagram post without realizing the artist is selling it as a NFT. The audience just appreciates it, without thinking or caring about its dollar value. For a concrete example see[1] which is also a NFT[2]. Same with digital art in physical setting, such as Anadol's work which many audiences will not realize is NFT based[3]. There is "art" and there is "art market." If you look at NFT and only see a market, you will only find speculation. If you look at the "art" part, it turns out a lot of people just appreciate the work itself. [1] https://twitter.com/joepease/status/1542224719365017600 https://twitter.com/joepease/status/1542224719365017600 [2] https://superrare.com/artwork-v2/open-the-floodgates-35629 https://superrare.com/artwork-v2/open-the-floodgates-35629 [3] https://www.koeniggalerie.com/blogs/exhibitions/refik-anadol-machine-hallucinations-nature-dreams https://www.koeniggalerie.com/blogs/exhibitions/refik-anadol...
- Bakary 4y ago
  But for each of these markets there is something beneath it. With equities there are companies or at least some form of non-virtual economic activity. With real estate there are houses. With art, there are paintings and artists. With VCs there are startups. With crypto, there is only the speculation since very few people want to spend and use crypto as a currency. The bulk of the interest is predicated on the greater fool mindset. >In crypto this policy is determined by users. The protocols are open source, development happens in public, and the tech is permissionless - anybody can develop new proposals and contribute changes. This is a far cry from most monetary policies in the world. Maybe we would need to explore the differences in more detail, but the value of coins like Ethereum will still depend on the will of the devs who end up having the most influence or the users who have influence over those devs. And despite the openness of it only a minority of users have an active role in determining policy, just like in any large nominally-democratic structure.
  - zeroclip 4y ago
    What lies beneath the NFT market is not much different than what lies beneath the traditional high-end art market: scarce objects made by artists and creatives, and there are some who want to collect these objects. It’s short-sighted to think that only physical work can have artistic merit and be valued by an art market. > And despite the openness of it only a minority of users have an active role in determining policy, just like in any large nominally-democratic structure. To be expected - same with open source software like Blender and VLC, not all users of it are also developers, but we all benefit from its openness and can create new forks of the software over time, if necessary. It also spans borders - making governance far more accessible worldwide than the monetary policies of state-backed dollars.
endorphine 4y ago
What about Bitcoin as a permission-less way to transact, in the context of oppressive regimes?
- hansonkd13 4y ago
  That’s literally just another way of saying you are using Bitcoin to break the law. Also in the US, transferring Bitcoin to say Russia is sanctioned and illegal. Is it technically possible to push the button and the transaction go through? 100%. Does it mean it that you wont get in trouble for it? Absolutely not. Congress has an entire page about it. 1 year, 5 years down the line as soon as the govt gets a whiff, all your past dubious transactions that you used to evade sanctions are now Public and used as evidence against you at your trial.
  - endorphine 4y ago
    So by disagreeing are you implying that oppressive regimes, e.g confiscating people's hard earned money is fine? Think political or economic refugees. Think of someone wanting to move out of Russia or, say, North Korea. What about using Bitcoin to overcome such situations? Are you saying that such uses are breaking the law and therefore they should NOT be possible? And so Bitcoin enabling them is a negative thing?
- Bakary 4y ago
  In my view that is the strongest use case of bitcoin that exists at this time, but the usefulness of this practice is dependent on the value of the crypto resting on the speculative desire of most of its adherents.
  - endorphine 4y ago
    What do you mean by this? No matter how much Bitcoin costs _now_, I can use it to move 50USD to someone else.
silent_cal 4y ago
Right, nobody buys Bitcoin because of its sales pitch, which was that it's supposedly stable currency. It's supposed to behave like gold by mimicking gold (mining, limited supply, divisibility, etc.), but in reality its price behaves like a Beanie Baby. And before you say Bitcoin can be used as a currency - I would say the number of people doing that is vanishingly small compared to the amount of people buying it to speculate on the exchanges.

by Bakary 4y ago

zeroclip 4y ago

> This of course circularily means that the value is almost entirely based on speculation. Most markets are primarily based on speculation: equities, real estate, art, VC. > you are at the mercy of a small range of individuals who either hold almost all of the cards or develop and thus determine the monetary policy of the coin in question. In crypto this policy is determined by users. The protocols are open source, development happens in public, and the tech is permissionless - anybody can develop new proposals and contribute changes. This is a far cry from most monetary policies in the world.

UncleMeat 4y ago
I'd wager that the number of people who look at art in a museum or other environment and don't think about the price of that piece in detail dwarfs the number of people who think about art for speculation purposes by about four orders of magnitude.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- zeroclip 4y ago
  The same happens with digital art and NFT. Hundreds, maybe thousands of people will 'like' or re-share a tweet or Instagram post without realizing the artist is selling it as a NFT. The audience just appreciates it, without thinking or caring about its dollar value. For a concrete example see[1] which is also a NFT[2]. Same with digital art in physical setting, such as Anadol's work which many audiences will not realize is NFT based[3]. There is "art" and there is "art market." If you look at NFT and only see a market, you will only find speculation. If you look at the "art" part, it turns out a lot of people just appreciate the work itself. [1] https://twitter.com/joepease/status/1542224719365017600 https://twitter.com/joepease/status/1542224719365017600 [2] https://superrare.com/artwork-v2/open-the-floodgates-35629 https://superrare.com/artwork-v2/open-the-floodgates-35629 [3] https://www.koeniggalerie.com/blogs/exhibitions/refik-anadol-machine-hallucinations-nature-dreams https://www.koeniggalerie.com/blogs/exhibitions/refik-anadol...
Bakary 4y ago
But for each of these markets there is something beneath it. With equities there are companies or at least some form of non-virtual economic activity. With real estate there are houses. With art, there are paintings and artists. With VCs there are startups. With crypto, there is only the speculation since very few people want to spend and use crypto as a currency. The bulk of the interest is predicated on the greater fool mindset. >In crypto this policy is determined by users. The protocols are open source, development happens in public, and the tech is permissionless - anybody can develop new proposals and contribute changes. This is a far cry from most monetary policies in the world. Maybe we would need to explore the differences in more detail, but the value of coins like Ethereum will still depend on the will of the devs who end up having the most influence or the users who have influence over those devs. And despite the openness of it only a minority of users have an active role in determining policy, just like in any large nominally-democratic structure.
- zeroclip 4y ago
  What lies beneath the NFT market is not much different than what lies beneath the traditional high-end art market: scarce objects made by artists and creatives, and there are some who want to collect these objects. It’s short-sighted to think that only physical work can have artistic merit and be valued by an art market. > And despite the openness of it only a minority of users have an active role in determining policy, just like in any large nominally-democratic structure. To be expected - same with open source software like Blender and VLC, not all users of it are also developers, but we all benefit from its openness and can create new forks of the software over time, if necessary. It also spans borders - making governance far more accessible worldwide than the monetary policies of state-backed dollars.

endorphine 4y ago

What about Bitcoin as a permission-less way to transact, in the context of oppressive regimes?

hansonkd13 4y ago
That’s literally just another way of saying you are using Bitcoin to break the law. Also in the US, transferring Bitcoin to say Russia is sanctioned and illegal. Is it technically possible to push the button and the transaction go through? 100%. Does it mean it that you wont get in trouble for it? Absolutely not. Congress has an entire page about it. 1 year, 5 years down the line as soon as the govt gets a whiff, all your past dubious transactions that you used to evade sanctions are now Public and used as evidence against you at your trial.
- endorphine 4y ago
  So by disagreeing are you implying that oppressive regimes, e.g confiscating people's hard earned money is fine? Think political or economic refugees. Think of someone wanting to move out of Russia or, say, North Korea. What about using Bitcoin to overcome such situations? Are you saying that such uses are breaking the law and therefore they should NOT be possible? And so Bitcoin enabling them is a negative thing?
Bakary 4y ago
In my view that is the strongest use case of bitcoin that exists at this time, but the usefulness of this practice is dependent on the value of the crypto resting on the speculative desire of most of its adherents.
- endorphine 4y ago
  What do you mean by this? No matter how much Bitcoin costs _now_, I can use it to move 50USD to someone else.

silent_cal 4y ago

Right, nobody buys Bitcoin because of its sales pitch, which was that it's supposedly stable currency. It's supposed to behave like gold by mimicking gold (mining, limited supply, divisibility, etc.), but in reality its price behaves like a Beanie Baby. And before you say Bitcoin can be used as a currency - I would say the number of people doing that is vanishingly small compared to the amount of people buying it to speculate on the exchanges.