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> everyone around you will chant in unison “PONZIS 100% SCAMS ZERO-LEGITIMATE-USE-CASES SPEEDRUNNING-THE-HISTORY-OF-FINANCIAL-FRAUD!” It’s really quite impressi

by tomxor 4y ago

> everyone around you will chant in unison “PONZIS 100% SCAMS ZERO-LEGITIMATE-USE-CASES SPEEDRUNNING-THE-HISTORY-OF-FINANCIAL-FRAUD!” It’s really quite impressive. I didn't realise it had finally gotten to this point, I guess FTX was the final wake up call? I hope it's true because once hype is out of the picture so are the millions of vultures and it is once again possible to discern new and interesting ideas from the noise that saps our attention in this area.

coffeebeqn 4y ago
The worst thing that happened to crypto is that the line went up too much before it was ready. I’m sure there are a few legitimate business ideas in there but it’s still 99.9% hyped up garbage that everyone treats as a get rich scheme
- ETH_start 4y ago
  A significant fraction of crypto applications cannot work at scale without privacy-protected transactions, and the first major privacy smart contract on Ethereum - Tornado Cash - was just made illegal to use for Americans by the OFAC. The criminalization of privacy-protected financial transactions is the biggest risk that crypto faces AFAICS. The need for law enforcement authorities to achieve Total Information Awareness over all private financial transactions stands opposed to a vision of ubiquitous electronic cash, with decentralized and peer-to-peer electronic transactions.
  - imtringued 4y ago
    There is GNU Taler but whenever you see it being talked about on hacker news you will find comments that border on conspiracy theory even though when you look at the technical design of GNU Taler it offers more privacy than Bitcoin or Ethereum. Apparently providing both privacy to buyers and following AML and income reporting laws at the same time is crossing some line because "the government is always wrong". It is kind of like following the law is frowned upon in the cryptocurrency space which is why any competitor that can actually follow the law must be nipped in the bud. I don't believe crypto users care about privacy except maybe when they use Montero.
    - ETH_start 4y ago
      You cannot comply with AML and income tax reporting, and protect privacy. If society is serious about privacy, it needs to abolish both the warrantless financial surveillance approach to crime fighting, i.e. AML, and the income tax that necessitates it. Otherwise, both cash, and its electronic corollaries, need to be banned to have the laws consistently and effectively enforced.
smackeyacky 4y ago
Those ideas should in theory be pretty easy to find: It's the intersection of the sets of uses that (1) benefit from no government oversight, (2) absolutely need to have their ledger distributed and (3) perform better than whatever solution is currently used. A lot smarter people than me have already concluded that the only use cases in that intersection are illegal. You might argue that "it smells like tyranny then" and cite the transfer of value in and out of oppressive or failing countries, but that seems to be the single and only (and still illegal) use of crypto currencies. The crypto defenders whose only argument is "JUST WAIT YA DIDN'T WAIT LONG ENOUGH FOR THE PROPER USES TO EMERGE WTFBBQ" - we've waited long enough I think.
- ETH_start 4y ago
  The smart money is in crypto because autonomous smart contracts, subject to automated validation by software run by thousands of different people, are more reliable than humans acting on their own discretion, subject to their own integrity. FTX, through its acquisitions, was technically "highly regulated", yet it collapsed. Several other centralized financial services, including Celsius and Genesis, collapsed. In contrast, in this latest cycle, no leading DeFi applications collapsed or lost any customer funds. They operated flawlessly through all of the market turmoil.
  - sagarm 4y ago
    > autonomous smart contracts, Are there some examples you can point to? This seems like an interesting space. > leading DeFi applications collapsed or lost any customer funds What DeFi applications do you consider leading?
    - pa7x1 4y ago
      Uniswap, Aave, RocketPool, MakerDAO, Curve... They are all built on top of Ethereum. They operate without human intervention, providing exchange facilities, lending, decentralized staking, stablecoins... The basic primitives of an automated financial system.

by tomxor 4y ago

coffeebeqn 4y ago

The worst thing that happened to crypto is that the line went up too much before it was ready. I’m sure there are a few legitimate business ideas in there but it’s still 99.9% hyped up garbage that everyone treats as a get rich scheme

ETH_start 4y ago
A significant fraction of crypto applications cannot work at scale without privacy-protected transactions, and the first major privacy smart contract on Ethereum - Tornado Cash - was just made illegal to use for Americans by the OFAC. The criminalization of privacy-protected financial transactions is the biggest risk that crypto faces AFAICS. The need for law enforcement authorities to achieve Total Information Awareness over all private financial transactions stands opposed to a vision of ubiquitous electronic cash, with decentralized and peer-to-peer electronic transactions.
- imtringued 4y ago
  There is GNU Taler but whenever you see it being talked about on hacker news you will find comments that border on conspiracy theory even though when you look at the technical design of GNU Taler it offers more privacy than Bitcoin or Ethereum. Apparently providing both privacy to buyers and following AML and income reporting laws at the same time is crossing some line because "the government is always wrong". It is kind of like following the law is frowned upon in the cryptocurrency space which is why any competitor that can actually follow the law must be nipped in the bud. I don't believe crypto users care about privacy except maybe when they use Montero.
  - ETH_start 4y ago
    You cannot comply with AML and income tax reporting, and protect privacy. If society is serious about privacy, it needs to abolish both the warrantless financial surveillance approach to crime fighting, i.e. AML, and the income tax that necessitates it. Otherwise, both cash, and its electronic corollaries, need to be banned to have the laws consistently and effectively enforced.

smackeyacky 4y ago

Those ideas should in theory be pretty easy to find: It's the intersection of the sets of uses that (1) benefit from no government oversight, (2) absolutely need to have their ledger distributed and (3) perform better than whatever solution is currently used. A lot smarter people than me have already concluded that the only use cases in that intersection are illegal. You might argue that "it smells like tyranny then" and cite the transfer of value in and out of oppressive or failing countries, but that seems to be the single and only (and still illegal) use of crypto currencies. The crypto defenders whose only argument is "JUST WAIT YA DIDN'T WAIT LONG ENOUGH FOR THE PROPER USES TO EMERGE WTFBBQ" - we've waited long enough I think.

ETH_start 4y ago
The smart money is in crypto because autonomous smart contracts, subject to automated validation by software run by thousands of different people, are more reliable than humans acting on their own discretion, subject to their own integrity. FTX, through its acquisitions, was technically "highly regulated", yet it collapsed. Several other centralized financial services, including Celsius and Genesis, collapsed. In contrast, in this latest cycle, no leading DeFi applications collapsed or lost any customer funds. They operated flawlessly through all of the market turmoil.
- sagarm 4y ago
  > autonomous smart contracts, Are there some examples you can point to? This seems like an interesting space. > leading DeFi applications collapsed or lost any customer funds What DeFi applications do you consider leading?
  - pa7x1 4y ago
    Uniswap, Aave, RocketPool, MakerDAO, Curve... They are all built on top of Ethereum. They operate without human intervention, providing exchange facilities, lending, decentralized staking, stablecoins... The basic primitives of an automated financial system.