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Peloton sells bikes for cash. That's real honest-to-goodness GDP. I can assume Peloton will make more economic value than it retally will, but at least it creat

by RC_ITR 4y ago

Peloton sells bikes for cash. That's real honest-to-goodness GDP. I can assume Peloton will make more economic value than it retally will, but at least it creates economic value. What does Ethereum contribute to GDP? And that's why it's worse than MLMs, at least those pretend to be retailers.

spaceman_2020 4y ago
Now you're talking about value, which is entirely subjective. As far as GDP, Ethereum spawned an entire new industry with tons of companies paying actual salaries to people (in fiat, if I might add), all of whom bought lattes and cars and houses, and some, I'm sure, also bought Peloton bikes. Crypto currencies are like stock tickers. The price does not have to have any bearing on the actual value generated by the stock or the company it represents. There is a speculative element to all markets, including the stock market. And I think you know that as well.
- lmm 4y ago
  > As far as GDP, Ethereum spawned an entire new industry with tons of companies paying actual salaries to people (in fiat, if I might add), all of whom bought lattes and cars and houses, and some, I'm sure, also bought Peloton bikes. Paying developers goes in the cost column, not the benefit column. (If you hire a bunch of developers and pay them to sit around twiddling their thumbs all day, you're not growing the economy but rather damaging it - they could've done something more productive instead). The question is what value the ecosystem produces that people are paying in for. And there's certainly a subjective element to that, but the market price should be a sanity check. Peloton sells exercise bikes and delivers virtual spin classes etc.. And while you can certainly argue they're overvalued (and I'd agree with you, FWIW), it's easy to see how they're actually doing something valuable in the real world - something that, in a small marginal way, improves peoples lives. We can have a sensible conversation about whether a weekly Peleton class is worth $45/month, but people are paying that much for it, not as a speculative "investment" but as a simple exchange of money for goods and services. Real people are better off - in that they were able to take the class and get fitter or whatever. There's certainly a speculative element on top of that, but at the foundational level there's real value being produced. Where's the product or service for Ethereum? They've had long enough to come up with one. People used to talk about doing cross-border currency transfers (genuinely useful) or that cat breeding game (potentially genuinely fun), but nowadays fees are too high for either of those to be worthwhile and people don't really talk about them. It's not just excessive speculation on top of a fundamentally sound business; there's simply no there there.
- RC_ITR 4y ago
  >Now you're talking about value, which is entirely subjective. No it's not. When an asset prices in cash, that price is dependent on it's ability to generate future cash (Goods/Services price based on the utility from consuming that thing). If you think that model is wrong, then you are wrong. >As far as GDP, Ethereum spawned an entire new industry with tons of companies paying actual salaries to people (in fiat, if I might add), all of whom bought lattes and cars and houses, and some, I'm sure, also bought Peloton bikes. Oh no no no. You are not buying any of that when you buy Ethereum. We are not talking about whether or not Coinbase/Binance/etc. are Ponzi schemes. They offer services in exchange for fees. That is GDP full stop. Again, I can argue they are bad businesses because their fees are dependent on a Ponzi Scheme, but they are not the Ponzi Schemes. >Crypto currencies are like stock tickers. The price does not have to have any bearing on the actual value generated by the stock or the company it represents. This is a very weird argument. When an acquirer wants to buy a company, they need to pay the stock (usually plus a premium) price to own that company. Stock prices reflect the theoretical takeout price of a company (and this is put into practice every day). Cryptocurrencies are marketed to you as similar to stock tickers, but they are currencies (it's sort of in the name) and currencies are valued by the demand for goods/services/assets you can buy with them (i.e. this is why export economies, all else equal, have strong currencies). I would agree that cryptocurrencies would go up in value if you could buy an increasingly large amount of things with them (and only them), but heuristics imply the exact opposite is true. >There is a speculative element to all markets, including the stock market. And I think you know that as well. You're really not getting that there's 'overestimate future cashflow' speculation (bad but not so bad) and 'funamental misunderstanding of the asset' speculation. But, it's your pocketbook so good luck.
  - spaceman_2020 4y ago
    > No it's not. When an asset prices in cash, that price is dependent on it's ability to generate future cash But that's precisely why people were valuing Ethereum at x,xxx per token - the belief that Ethereum will one day have the network effect to generate future revenues. And honestly, a lot of projects built on Ethereum did generate an absurd amount of revenue in a very short span of time. OpenSea and Uniswap are probably the most prominent examples. Both generated a combined total of over $1B in revenue and used Ethereum as the fee token. The speculative price of Ethereum - or any other cryptocurrency, for that matter - relies on the belief that the number of apps like Uniswap and OpenSea will likely increase over the years. > I would agree that cryptocurrencies would go up in value if you could buy an increasingly large amount of things with them (and only them) That's precisely what's happening with Ethereum. There are more and more dApps that all use Ethereum to process transactions. There are even SaaS tools that you can pay for in Ethereum, with a single tap from your Ethereum wallet. I feel like you're attacking me without fully understanding how this ecosystem works, nor have you actually ever used a dApp.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- cecilpl2 4y ago
  > As far as GDP, Ethereum spawned an entire new industry with tons of companies paying actual salaries to people (in fiat, if I might add), all of whom bought lattes and cars and houses, and some, I'm sure, also bought Peloton bikes. This is like the Broken Window Fallacy. All that money that was spent building Ethereum could have been spent on activities that were far more useful to society.
  - spaceman_2020 4y ago
    > All that money that was spent building Ethereum could have been spent on activities that were far more useful to society. Like all the billions that went into building...Facebook? Again, I don't understand how you can get into the morality of it all when literally tens of billions of venture funding goes into everything from juicers (remember Juicero) to companies that literally help instigate ethnic cleansings [0] 0: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/09/myanmar-facebooks-systems-promoted-violence-against-rohingya-meta-owes-reparations-new-report/ https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/09/myanmar-faceb...
    - lmm 4y ago
      Facebook is hugely valuable. Making it easy to share photos, organise get-togethers, or message your friends, is directly making people's lives better. (And complaining that messaging systems allow people to send negative messages is throwing the baby out with the bathwater; do you blame the telegraph or the telephone for "literally helping instigate ethnic cleansings", which in a literal sense they undoubtably did?) Even Juicero, which is very much the exception rather than the rule, was a real product that helped make people happier and healthier (just, not by $400 worth - which is why it rapidly collapsed in the market, as it should).
jboy55 4y ago
I'm just going to take a second to recognize the fact we're talking about "investing" in a currency and expecting 10x returns is nuts. The best thing for crypto as a currency is for Etherium to be worth in 10-20 years exactly what it is now factoring in inflation. The fact that this is horrible for "Crypto" because this means eth won't be giving the 10-100x returns, is exactly what's wrong with the whole thing.
- spaceman_2020 4y ago
  Ethereum generated nearly $10B in fees last year. Judging by tech industry standards, its actually undervalued. Have you guys ever even used any dApps?
  - jboy55 4y ago
    Its not a company, you know. Just because it has "market cap" slapped onto it, it still doesn't mean anything. You should be saying, "A host of companies made $10 billion collecting fees for transacting in Etherium". Western union had $5.3 billion in revenue last year and is valued at $4.9 billion. No one bases the value of the US Dollar on how much fees you can collect in exchanging it.
    - spaceman_2020 4y ago
      > No one bases the value of the US Dollar on how much fees you can collect in exchanging it. But that's precisely what currencies are largely valued on - the value of transactions conducted in that currency, and the speculative direction of those transactions. Why do you think the US dollar is a stronger currency than, say, the Pakistani rupee? The US dollar is used to pay for more transactions AND speculators make a directional bet that the Pakistani economy won't be as robust as the US economy or that the US dollar's hegemony won't be threatened in the short-term. If you have a speculative belief that Ethereum will power the digital economy, it is reasonable to value it at XX price.
      - jboy55 4y ago

by RC_ITR 4y ago

spaceman_2020 4y ago

Now you're talking about value, which is entirely subjective. As far as GDP, Ethereum spawned an entire new industry with tons of companies paying actual salaries to people (in fiat, if I might add), all of whom bought lattes and cars and houses, and some, I'm sure, also bought Peloton bikes. Crypto currencies are like stock tickers. The price does not have to have any bearing on the actual value generated by the stock or the company it represents. There is a speculative element to all markets, including the stock market. And I think you know that as well.

lmm 4y ago
> As far as GDP, Ethereum spawned an entire new industry with tons of companies paying actual salaries to people (in fiat, if I might add), all of whom bought lattes and cars and houses, and some, I'm sure, also bought Peloton bikes. Paying developers goes in the cost column, not the benefit column. (If you hire a bunch of developers and pay them to sit around twiddling their thumbs all day, you're not growing the economy but rather damaging it - they could've done something more productive instead). The question is what value the ecosystem produces that people are paying in for. And there's certainly a subjective element to that, but the market price should be a sanity check. Peloton sells exercise bikes and delivers virtual spin classes etc.. And while you can certainly argue they're overvalued (and I'd agree with you, FWIW), it's easy to see how they're actually doing something valuable in the real world - something that, in a small marginal way, improves peoples lives. We can have a sensible conversation about whether a weekly Peleton class is worth $45/month, but people are paying that much for it, not as a speculative "investment" but as a simple exchange of money for goods and services. Real people are better off - in that they were able to take the class and get fitter or whatever. There's certainly a speculative element on top of that, but at the foundational level there's real value being produced. Where's the product or service for Ethereum? They've had long enough to come up with one. People used to talk about doing cross-border currency transfers (genuinely useful) or that cat breeding game (potentially genuinely fun), but nowadays fees are too high for either of those to be worthwhile and people don't really talk about them. It's not just excessive speculation on top of a fundamentally sound business; there's simply no there there.
RC_ITR 4y ago
>Now you're talking about value, which is entirely subjective. No it's not. When an asset prices in cash, that price is dependent on it's ability to generate future cash (Goods/Services price based on the utility from consuming that thing). If you think that model is wrong, then you are wrong. >As far as GDP, Ethereum spawned an entire new industry with tons of companies paying actual salaries to people (in fiat, if I might add), all of whom bought lattes and cars and houses, and some, I'm sure, also bought Peloton bikes. Oh no no no. You are not buying any of that when you buy Ethereum. We are not talking about whether or not Coinbase/Binance/etc. are Ponzi schemes. They offer services in exchange for fees. That is GDP full stop. Again, I can argue they are bad businesses because their fees are dependent on a Ponzi Scheme, but they are not the Ponzi Schemes. >Crypto currencies are like stock tickers. The price does not have to have any bearing on the actual value generated by the stock or the company it represents. This is a very weird argument. When an acquirer wants to buy a company, they need to pay the stock (usually plus a premium) price to own that company. Stock prices reflect the theoretical takeout price of a company (and this is put into practice every day). Cryptocurrencies are marketed to you as similar to stock tickers, but they are currencies (it's sort of in the name) and currencies are valued by the demand for goods/services/assets you can buy with them (i.e. this is why export economies, all else equal, have strong currencies). I would agree that cryptocurrencies would go up in value if you could buy an increasingly large amount of things with them (and only them), but heuristics imply the exact opposite is true. >There is a speculative element to all markets, including the stock market. And I think you know that as well. You're really not getting that there's 'overestimate future cashflow' speculation (bad but not so bad) and 'funamental misunderstanding of the asset' speculation. But, it's your pocketbook so good luck.
- spaceman_2020 4y ago
  > No it's not. When an asset prices in cash, that price is dependent on it's ability to generate future cash But that's precisely why people were valuing Ethereum at x,xxx per token - the belief that Ethereum will one day have the network effect to generate future revenues. And honestly, a lot of projects built on Ethereum did generate an absurd amount of revenue in a very short span of time. OpenSea and Uniswap are probably the most prominent examples. Both generated a combined total of over $1B in revenue and used Ethereum as the fee token. The speculative price of Ethereum - or any other cryptocurrency, for that matter - relies on the belief that the number of apps like Uniswap and OpenSea will likely increase over the years. > I would agree that cryptocurrencies would go up in value if you could buy an increasingly large amount of things with them (and only them) That's precisely what's happening with Ethereum. There are more and more dApps that all use Ethereum to process transactions. There are even SaaS tools that you can pay for in Ethereum, with a single tap from your Ethereum wallet. I feel like you're attacking me without fully understanding how this ecosystem works, nor have you actually ever used a dApp.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
cecilpl2 4y ago
> As far as GDP, Ethereum spawned an entire new industry with tons of companies paying actual salaries to people (in fiat, if I might add), all of whom bought lattes and cars and houses, and some, I'm sure, also bought Peloton bikes. This is like the Broken Window Fallacy. All that money that was spent building Ethereum could have been spent on activities that were far more useful to society.
- spaceman_2020 4y ago
  > All that money that was spent building Ethereum could have been spent on activities that were far more useful to society. Like all the billions that went into building...Facebook? Again, I don't understand how you can get into the morality of it all when literally tens of billions of venture funding goes into everything from juicers (remember Juicero) to companies that literally help instigate ethnic cleansings [0] 0: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/09/myanmar-facebooks-systems-promoted-violence-against-rohingya-meta-owes-reparations-new-report/ https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/09/myanmar-faceb...
  - lmm 4y ago
    Facebook is hugely valuable. Making it easy to share photos, organise get-togethers, or message your friends, is directly making people's lives better. (And complaining that messaging systems allow people to send negative messages is throwing the baby out with the bathwater; do you blame the telegraph or the telephone for "literally helping instigate ethnic cleansings", which in a literal sense they undoubtably did?) Even Juicero, which is very much the exception rather than the rule, was a real product that helped make people happier and healthier (just, not by $400 worth - which is why it rapidly collapsed in the market, as it should).

jboy55 4y ago

I'm just going to take a second to recognize the fact we're talking about "investing" in a currency and expecting 10x returns is nuts. The best thing for crypto as a currency is for Etherium to be worth in 10-20 years exactly what it is now factoring in inflation. The fact that this is horrible for "Crypto" because this means eth won't be giving the 10-100x returns, is exactly what's wrong with the whole thing.

spaceman_2020 4y ago
Ethereum generated nearly $10B in fees last year. Judging by tech industry standards, its actually undervalued. Have you guys ever even used any dApps?
- jboy55 4y ago
  Its not a company, you know. Just because it has "market cap" slapped onto it, it still doesn't mean anything. You should be saying, "A host of companies made $10 billion collecting fees for transacting in Etherium". Western union had $5.3 billion in revenue last year and is valued at $4.9 billion. No one bases the value of the US Dollar on how much fees you can collect in exchanging it.
  - spaceman_2020 4y ago
    > No one bases the value of the US Dollar on how much fees you can collect in exchanging it. But that's precisely what currencies are largely valued on - the value of transactions conducted in that currency, and the speculative direction of those transactions. Why do you think the US dollar is a stronger currency than, say, the Pakistani rupee? The US dollar is used to pay for more transactions AND speculators make a directional bet that the Pakistani economy won't be as robust as the US economy or that the US dollar's hegemony won't be threatened in the short-term. If you have a speculative belief that Ethereum will power the digital economy, it is reasonable to value it at XX price.
    - jboy55 4y ago