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> Sure, safety's difficult -- but precisely because its the exact same issue as cryptography. Your point about bug bounties is a perfect example of antifragilit

> Sure, safety's difficult -- but precisely because its the exact same issue as cryptography. Your point about bug bounties is a perfect example of antifragility -- and cryptos success in this regard is far more interesting than its failures (none of which have been fundamental to the concept) I don't where's the antifragility -- it's exactly the reverse, crypto systems are "superfragile". An online wallet is a juicy target for an attack every second it exists, and the moment defenses fail the result is catastrophic. It's even worse with modern crypto features like NFTs -- which require online wallets and have you actively advertise to everyone how much money there is. > Increased value. Again, no different from any other financial instrument in any fundamental way. Every criticism you can make of crypto, you can make of bonds, etc. The zero-sum argument is especially bad in this regard. For pretty much every crypto concept there exists a non-crypto analog that's far more user friendly and safer to work with. The question is why would crypto see increased adoption when to most people crypto doesn't have good tradeoffs. So if I wanted to make money from bonds, I'd just buy bonds. I'd need to be nuts to opt into the crypto equivalent.

jrm4 4y ago
But, to absolutely steal the originators example -- the "superfragility" of crypto systems is the same as the superfragility of individual NYC restaurants; aka the precise reason NYC restaurants GENERALLY are so good. I agree, a ton of them will die. And also - the thing(s) that's left will be unstoppable. As for the second one, I mean, risk/return. Yes, other things will be more user-friendly and safer, which likely means lower return. I agree, you'd be nuts to throw a lot in. I just also think you'd be nuts to not throw a little in as well.
- dale_glass 4y ago
  > But, to absolutely steal the originators example -- the "superfragility" of crypto systems is the same as the superfragility of individual NYC restaurants What? That's not at all what I was talking about. I was talking about fragility for the user. When I buy something online even at a new and kinda dubiously run place, I'm only risking the $50 or whatnot I put in, and even then I can do a chargeback. And all the site knows is that John Smith spent $50 on their stuff. When I interact with crypto, I need an online wallet, which means everything and everyone knows what's the balance in it, and how much cash they'll get if they succeed in finding a bug, or an exploit, or to trick me into revealing my key, or they trick me into allowing more access to my wallet than I should. And then I'm not out of $50, I'm out of everything, and there's no recovery possible. That's what I mean by "superfragile". Crypto needs you to do everything right, consistently, forever, or the results of a lapse in security that somebody succeeds in taking advantage of are catastrophic. > I agree, you'd be nuts to throw a lot in. I just also think you'd be nuts to not throw a little in as well. The era of crazy gains when somebody spent $5 on a lark and ended up with $500K is long over. Look at the stats. In modern times if you're really, really lucky you can double your money. But doubling $5 is insignificant. You need to risk a lot for the gain to actually be significant.
  - jrm4 4y ago
    Sure -- but again, your superfragile here doesn't mean never, it just means "not now for most people," not unlike e.g. manned flight.
    - dale_glass 4y ago
      I think "never" is the most likely answer. Crypto's raison d'etre is being a decentralized system without any central authority. That requires you to be your own bank. For most people that's just not a good tradeoff. There's no good reason why buying a coffee should expose me to a risk of losing all my money with zero recourse. That's a tradeoff that only makes sense for a small segment of people, eg, drug dealers who can't get any help from the normal system anyway. But if you fix those issues by delegating that work you're just using Coinbase or whoever as an alternative to Paypal. Yeah, technically that works but you get none of the perks crypto is supposed to provide and at that point even Paypal is a more stable place with less drama. This is because even if your interface resembles traditional systems a crypto exchange is still linked to all the instability, drama and chaos of the crypto space. Bitcoin is 14 years old and unlike aviation isn't getting any safer because the difficulty of dealing with it is inherent to the space. The whole point of it is that there's no central party in control who can force your hand, which equally means the lack of a central party in control to rescue you from your mistakes.

jrm4 4y ago

But, to absolutely steal the originators example -- the "superfragility" of crypto systems is the same as the superfragility of individual NYC restaurants; aka the precise reason NYC restaurants GENERALLY are so good. I agree, a ton of them will die. And also - the thing(s) that's left will be unstoppable. As for the second one, I mean, risk/return. Yes, other things will be more user-friendly and safer, which likely means lower return. I agree, you'd be nuts to throw a lot in. I just also think you'd be nuts to not throw a little in as well.

dale_glass 4y ago
> But, to absolutely steal the originators example -- the "superfragility" of crypto systems is the same as the superfragility of individual NYC restaurants What? That's not at all what I was talking about. I was talking about fragility for the user. When I buy something online even at a new and kinda dubiously run place, I'm only risking the $50 or whatnot I put in, and even then I can do a chargeback. And all the site knows is that John Smith spent $50 on their stuff. When I interact with crypto, I need an online wallet, which means everything and everyone knows what's the balance in it, and how much cash they'll get if they succeed in finding a bug, or an exploit, or to trick me into revealing my key, or they trick me into allowing more access to my wallet than I should. And then I'm not out of $50, I'm out of everything, and there's no recovery possible. That's what I mean by "superfragile". Crypto needs you to do everything right, consistently, forever, or the results of a lapse in security that somebody succeeds in taking advantage of are catastrophic. > I agree, you'd be nuts to throw a lot in. I just also think you'd be nuts to not throw a little in as well. The era of crazy gains when somebody spent $5 on a lark and ended up with $500K is long over. Look at the stats. In modern times if you're really, really lucky you can double your money. But doubling $5 is insignificant. You need to risk a lot for the gain to actually be significant.
- jrm4 4y ago
  Sure -- but again, your superfragile here doesn't mean never, it just means "not now for most people," not unlike e.g. manned flight.
  - dale_glass 4y ago
    I think "never" is the most likely answer. Crypto's raison d'etre is being a decentralized system without any central authority. That requires you to be your own bank. For most people that's just not a good tradeoff. There's no good reason why buying a coffee should expose me to a risk of losing all my money with zero recourse. That's a tradeoff that only makes sense for a small segment of people, eg, drug dealers who can't get any help from the normal system anyway. But if you fix those issues by delegating that work you're just using Coinbase or whoever as an alternative to Paypal. Yeah, technically that works but you get none of the perks crypto is supposed to provide and at that point even Paypal is a more stable place with less drama. This is because even if your interface resembles traditional systems a crypto exchange is still linked to all the instability, drama and chaos of the crypto space. Bitcoin is 14 years old and unlike aviation isn't getting any safer because the difficulty of dealing with it is inherent to the space. The whole point of it is that there's no central party in control who can force your hand, which equally means the lack of a central party in control to rescue you from your mistakes.