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> It's similar to AWS where it got exponentially more valuable as each new service was added But... I have yet to see a service which really adds value. All I'

> It's similar to AWS where it got exponentially more valuable as each new service was added But... I have yet to see a service which really adds value. All I've seen so far are: A) collection games, which are not different from collecting Pokémon for real money. B) liquidity PvP, where users open leveraged bets to hunt other market participants' stops/liquidations, so the hunter can reduce their position for cheap, which the hunted takes a loss (this is not different from tradfi). I am looking at Aave right now, and all I see is a speculation platform with tokens instead of currencies. So basically, you guys are re-inventing what tradfi had years ago, just with worthless(?) tokens instead of debt backed assets. I am assuming they are worthless because every project you have mentioned is optimized for USD cash inflow, as you have "buy crypto with fiat"-buttons on almost every project[1][2][3], but no way to cash out to fiat. Furthermore, the staking feature from AAVE seems to only artificially decrease supply, so prices rise. What's the value proposition here? Anyway, I don't really think that this stuff is even remotely comparable to AWS. [1] https://app.aave.com/ https://app.aave.com/ (press "more" on the nav bar) [2] https://zerion.io/ https://zerion.io/ (FAQ > "just tap the blue button in the center of your screen, select ‘Buy’, and you will be taken to the dialogue window where you can buy crypto with a credit or debit card.") [3] https://blog.1inch.io/transak-fiat-on-ramp-provider-is-integrated-into-the-1inch-wallet-19934e710506 https://blog.1inch.io/transak-fiat-on-ramp-provider-is-integ...

themihai 4y ago
I think there would be value but we neeed a real currency(i.e usd) on the blockchain. It's obvious that all those pegged currencies are prone to "bank run" scenarios. Not to mention the fiat conversion ruines the whole experience. With a real currency we could have at least real open and standards based p2p payments which would be great! Just like with cash offline we would no longer need visa, paypal or banks to transact online.
- throwoutway 4y ago
  > I think there would be value but we neeed a real currency(i.e usd) on the blockchain. So making sure I understand, there’s no value today?
  - themihai 4y ago
    I fail to see any value other than fliping "worthless" coins. The coins fliping is not working great either which is the reason we have binance and ftx. The real value seems to be for money launderying and scam payments though so there is indeed some value. Crypto payments for real businesses is not feasible. I've tried that and the volatility and transaction fees makes them unusuable.
- TimJRobinson 4y ago
  There is already USDC, USDT, DAI that are all US dollars. I use Argent wallet for payments between friends using them and it is a nice experience (especially because Venmo and Cash both aren't available outside the USA), the friction is sending them to and from a traditional bank account, you currently have to use an exchange - but this will change soon.
  - jgalt212 4y ago
    And there will be a huge amount of friction there: - ACH is reversible - wires are expensive
    - cguess 4y ago
      Reversable transactions are a feature, not a bug.
  - eropple 4y ago
    > There is already USDC, USDT, DAI that are all US dollars. They would dearly like you to believe that they are dollars. To date the dollar-backing of USDT at least has not been substantiated and I don't think I know anyone in the cryptocurrency space who thinks any of those are actually real and responsible--they're just trying not to be the ones caught with the bag when the music stops and actual money is called in.
- markdestouches 4y ago
  It's not the type of currency you have that prevents bank runs. There were plenty of bank runs with very real dollars in the beginning of the century. What stopped it was proper regulation. EDIT: I mean the beginning the 20th century, of course.
  - eftychis 4y ago
    Bank runs still happen. And I will keep it strictly to banks. Abacus being one case, when the DoJ went after it just to punish someone. A lot of banks in Europe during the 2008+ crisis -- which is why "capital controls" were enforced. People attempted runs on Chinese banks a few months ago at the beginning of the real estate collapse there. What keeps bank runs from happening is trust. Trust that the central bank will print as much money as necessary to ensure people have them. Trust that the government will deploy people with guns to protect or stop people from doing a bank run. Trust that regulation works: even if it doesn't and causes systemic issues that lead to issues years later like the 2008 crisis. It is good that we "believe" bank runs don't or are not going to happen and that is the whole idea.
    - markdestouches 4y ago
      > Bank runs still happen. I do agree with that. But it has become an extremely rare occurrence that usually indicates some deeper problems. > A lot of banks in Europe during the 2008+ crisis -- which is why "capital controls" were enforced. Well, one of the root causes of the whole crisis was deregulation, poor enforcement of regulations and "new" financial instruments that allowed for circumventing regulations. > People attempted runs on Chinese banks a few months ago at the beginning of the real estate collapse there. China is a bad example for many reasons. It is not really a market economy. There are extreme levels of corruption at all levels of the government. The real estate bubble has been growing for a long time at this point and the whole industry was marred with bad practices that eventually lead to the present state. I am no expert in the Chinese banking system, but I have heard about deep problems in there as well, which, I'd assume, would be at least partially tied to the corruption, poor regulation and poor enforcement of regulation. In such a situation when the whole real estate industry is collapsing due to the issues that have been ignored for more than a decade it would be odd not to expect it to negatively affect the banking sector also in the form of bank runs. > It is good that we "believe" bank runs don't or are not going to happen and that is the whole idea. It is indeed good that we have this belief. But it's also the result of the banking system's stability (even with all these crises). These two things reinforce each other.
TimJRobinson 4y ago
You're still missing the forest for the trees. All of this was created in the last 2-3 years and already it's replicated most of what's in traditional finance. It's the rate of innovation that is important, not the current y-intercept. Furthermore this is a global system that anyone can contribute to. How hard do you think it is for I as an Australian to build a financial firm that interfaces with Bank of America or the NYSE? It's almost impossible. In DeFi I can spin up my own app in days. Aave is used for being able to borrow against your crypto assets, so if you need a loan you don't have to sell, this isn't a service any bank offers. You can also just deposit your assets and earn interest on them. In 2009 most of my colleagues similarly dismissed AWS "Oh it's just some easy storage with a way to spin up servers, big deal. Bare metal is cheaper and easier". It wasn't until most business components were automated that it became an obvious choice. Now imagine you're starting a new financial firm and want to offer an exchange, options, perpetuals, savings accounts, loans etc. You could build all these pieces yourself for a few million dollars and a few years work. Or you could use DeFi protocols, build a nice easy to use front-end and be up and running in a few months.
- RandomLensman 4y ago
  How do you see current regulations change to make this all fit, i.e., what's your roadmap there?
  - TimJRobinson 4y ago
    That's unclear. From a game theory perspective you don't want to be the government that stifles your country by restricting access to a financial system everyone else adopts, so I think many are waiting to see how that plays out.
    - RandomLensman 4y ago
      I fear, if the DeFi community doesn't engage with policy makers and regulators it will not magically fall into place.
    - Nursie 4y ago
hailwren 4y ago
> So basically, you guys are re-inventing what tradfi had years ago, just with worthless(?) tokens instead of debt backed assets. Crypto has debt backed primitives as well. You’ve linked one. AAVE is a lending protocol. If you don’t like AAVE, maybe you’re looking for DAI. > but no way to cash out to fiat. This is just a result of US KYC regulation. Like it or not, this isn’t a choice made by crypto. > What's the value proposition here? The value prop is, as the gp said, trustless composability. Crypto (post eth) is to money as the internet is to a mainframe. A kid in a garage can build a financial primitive on top of a “blue chip” and the “blue chip” builder doesn’t have to worry (vis a vis bugs, which have been a big problem but a lot of progress has been made in that area). I’m not claiming crypto(I wish there was a word for crypto minus btc) has achieved its end state, but the goal and road map seem very clear. Composable, trust-less finance is a strong use case. Aside — you really have to decide whether the price is important in crypto or not. Opponents often use phrases like “worthless tokens” and then claim they don’t care ab the price.
- chao- 4y ago
  I do not know much about sophisticated finance. Can you explain the meaning of this phrase, or sketch out an example, or provide links to assist my understanding? >A kid in a garage can build a financial primitive on top of a “blue chip” and the “blue chip” builder doesn’t have to worry (vis a vis bugs). I get that a "blue chip" is supposed to be a big brand (at least that's how I hear the term often used?) but what does it mean to "build a financial primitive" and how does it relate to this (presumably third-party) blue chip brand?
  - hailwren 4y ago
    Right, so it turns out that there are a fair amount of operations you can perform on financial objects to change their properties. You can buy, sell, combine, or split their risk profiles in different manners to get properties that are useful in different scenarios. Mortgage tranches played a big role in 2008, Black-Scholes helps us describe the behavior of options contracts, and maybe the most accessible for someone not familiar w/ finance is the Ray Dalio McNugget story - https://www.cnbc.com/2018/05/03/how-ray-dalio-helped-launch-mcdonalds-chicken-mcnugget.html https://www.cnbc.com/2018/05/03/how-ray-dalio-helped-launch-... The EVM specifically gives you a Turing complete financial system and, hence, probably a complete expression of operations on financial structures.

themihai 4y ago

I think there would be value but we neeed a real currency(i.e usd) on the blockchain. It's obvious that all those pegged currencies are prone to "bank run" scenarios. Not to mention the fiat conversion ruines the whole experience. With a real currency we could have at least real open and standards based p2p payments which would be great! Just like with cash offline we would no longer need visa, paypal or banks to transact online.

throwoutway 4y ago
> I think there would be value but we neeed a real currency(i.e usd) on the blockchain. So making sure I understand, there’s no value today?
- themihai 4y ago
  I fail to see any value other than fliping "worthless" coins. The coins fliping is not working great either which is the reason we have binance and ftx. The real value seems to be for money launderying and scam payments though so there is indeed some value. Crypto payments for real businesses is not feasible. I've tried that and the volatility and transaction fees makes them unusuable.
TimJRobinson 4y ago
There is already USDC, USDT, DAI that are all US dollars. I use Argent wallet for payments between friends using them and it is a nice experience (especially because Venmo and Cash both aren't available outside the USA), the friction is sending them to and from a traditional bank account, you currently have to use an exchange - but this will change soon.
- jgalt212 4y ago
  And there will be a huge amount of friction there: - ACH is reversible - wires are expensive
  - cguess 4y ago
    Reversable transactions are a feature, not a bug.
- eropple 4y ago
  > There is already USDC, USDT, DAI that are all US dollars. They would dearly like you to believe that they are dollars. To date the dollar-backing of USDT at least has not been substantiated and I don't think I know anyone in the cryptocurrency space who thinks any of those are actually real and responsible--they're just trying not to be the ones caught with the bag when the music stops and actual money is called in.
markdestouches 4y ago
It's not the type of currency you have that prevents bank runs. There were plenty of bank runs with very real dollars in the beginning of the century. What stopped it was proper regulation. EDIT: I mean the beginning the 20th century, of course.
- eftychis 4y ago
  Bank runs still happen. And I will keep it strictly to banks. Abacus being one case, when the DoJ went after it just to punish someone. A lot of banks in Europe during the 2008+ crisis -- which is why "capital controls" were enforced. People attempted runs on Chinese banks a few months ago at the beginning of the real estate collapse there. What keeps bank runs from happening is trust. Trust that the central bank will print as much money as necessary to ensure people have them. Trust that the government will deploy people with guns to protect or stop people from doing a bank run. Trust that regulation works: even if it doesn't and causes systemic issues that lead to issues years later like the 2008 crisis. It is good that we "believe" bank runs don't or are not going to happen and that is the whole idea.
  - markdestouches 4y ago
    > Bank runs still happen. I do agree with that. But it has become an extremely rare occurrence that usually indicates some deeper problems. > A lot of banks in Europe during the 2008+ crisis -- which is why "capital controls" were enforced. Well, one of the root causes of the whole crisis was deregulation, poor enforcement of regulations and "new" financial instruments that allowed for circumventing regulations. > People attempted runs on Chinese banks a few months ago at the beginning of the real estate collapse there. China is a bad example for many reasons. It is not really a market economy. There are extreme levels of corruption at all levels of the government. The real estate bubble has been growing for a long time at this point and the whole industry was marred with bad practices that eventually lead to the present state. I am no expert in the Chinese banking system, but I have heard about deep problems in there as well, which, I'd assume, would be at least partially tied to the corruption, poor regulation and poor enforcement of regulation. In such a situation when the whole real estate industry is collapsing due to the issues that have been ignored for more than a decade it would be odd not to expect it to negatively affect the banking sector also in the form of bank runs. > It is good that we "believe" bank runs don't or are not going to happen and that is the whole idea. It is indeed good that we have this belief. But it's also the result of the banking system's stability (even with all these crises). These two things reinforce each other.

TimJRobinson 4y ago

You're still missing the forest for the trees. All of this was created in the last 2-3 years and already it's replicated most of what's in traditional finance. It's the rate of innovation that is important, not the current y-intercept. Furthermore this is a global system that anyone can contribute to. How hard do you think it is for I as an Australian to build a financial firm that interfaces with Bank of America or the NYSE? It's almost impossible. In DeFi I can spin up my own app in days. Aave is used for being able to borrow against your crypto assets, so if you need a loan you don't have to sell, this isn't a service any bank offers. You can also just deposit your assets and earn interest on them. In 2009 most of my colleagues similarly dismissed AWS "Oh it's just some easy storage with a way to spin up servers, big deal. Bare metal is cheaper and easier". It wasn't until most business components were automated that it became an obvious choice. Now imagine you're starting a new financial firm and want to offer an exchange, options, perpetuals, savings accounts, loans etc. You could build all these pieces yourself for a few million dollars and a few years work. Or you could use DeFi protocols, build a nice easy to use front-end and be up and running in a few months.

RandomLensman 4y ago
How do you see current regulations change to make this all fit, i.e., what's your roadmap there?
- TimJRobinson 4y ago
  That's unclear. From a game theory perspective you don't want to be the government that stifles your country by restricting access to a financial system everyone else adopts, so I think many are waiting to see how that plays out.
  - RandomLensman 4y ago
    I fear, if the DeFi community doesn't engage with policy makers and regulators it will not magically fall into place.
  - Nursie 4y ago

hailwren 4y ago

> So basically, you guys are re-inventing what tradfi had years ago, just with worthless(?) tokens instead of debt backed assets. Crypto has debt backed primitives as well. You’ve linked one. AAVE is a lending protocol. If you don’t like AAVE, maybe you’re looking for DAI. > but no way to cash out to fiat. This is just a result of US KYC regulation. Like it or not, this isn’t a choice made by crypto. > What's the value proposition here? The value prop is, as the gp said, trustless composability. Crypto (post eth) is to money as the internet is to a mainframe. A kid in a garage can build a financial primitive on top of a “blue chip” and the “blue chip” builder doesn’t have to worry (vis a vis bugs, which have been a big problem but a lot of progress has been made in that area). I’m not claiming crypto(I wish there was a word for crypto minus btc) has achieved its end state, but the goal and road map seem very clear. Composable, trust-less finance is a strong use case. Aside — you really have to decide whether the price is important in crypto or not. Opponents often use phrases like “worthless tokens” and then claim they don’t care ab the price.

chao- 4y ago
I do not know much about sophisticated finance. Can you explain the meaning of this phrase, or sketch out an example, or provide links to assist my understanding? >A kid in a garage can build a financial primitive on top of a “blue chip” and the “blue chip” builder doesn’t have to worry (vis a vis bugs). I get that a "blue chip" is supposed to be a big brand (at least that's how I hear the term often used?) but what does it mean to "build a financial primitive" and how does it relate to this (presumably third-party) blue chip brand?
- hailwren 4y ago
  Right, so it turns out that there are a fair amount of operations you can perform on financial objects to change their properties. You can buy, sell, combine, or split their risk profiles in different manners to get properties that are useful in different scenarios. Mortgage tranches played a big role in 2008, Black-Scholes helps us describe the behavior of options contracts, and maybe the most accessible for someone not familiar w/ finance is the Ray Dalio McNugget story - https://www.cnbc.com/2018/05/03/how-ray-dalio-helped-launch-mcdonalds-chicken-mcnugget.html https://www.cnbc.com/2018/05/03/how-ray-dalio-helped-launch-... The EVM specifically gives you a Turing complete financial system and, hence, probably a complete expression of operations on financial structures.