4 ms·

I agree with you but it does feel so disappointing that there’s all this work going into something that’s just regularity arbitrage. The USD does all the same

by RC_ITR 3y ago

I agree with you but it does feel so disappointing that there’s all this work going into something that’s just regularity arbitrage. The USD does all the same things that you describe crypto as doing for Argentinians, so now they just have a more accessible version of that? That’s what all the billions of VC funding is leading to? I’m just really waiting for a use case where both the cryptography and the decentralized consensus actually matter, and I just haven’t seen one. It’s sad from a technologists standpoint, since right now we are kind of just making complicated systems for the sake of being complicated.

pjc50 3y ago
> The USD does all the same things that you describe crypto as doing for Argentinians, so now they just have a more accessible version of that? > That’s what all the billions of VC funding is leading to? Yes. Also evasion of Chinese capital controls, although they've cracked down on that a lot. Not clear to what extent it's being used for Russian sanctions evasion. It's funny, isn't it? The system was built by someone radicalized by the 2008 financial crisis, which was a bank bailout that was for many countries revenue-neutral, and decided to build their own. But the 2008 crisis didn't have an inflation problem, meaning all the people complaining about money supply were wrong. No, the people with inflation problems were countries with forex issues, and everyone there is clamouring to get into the security of the dollar. Even if it's a pseudo-bond pegged to the dollar. There's no appetite for a flight from the dollar. (big exceptions in 2008: Ireland, Iceland, Cyprus .. but again, none of those were money-printing related! You can still have a bad loans crisis in cryptocurrency, and indeed there have been several!)

4 ms·

I agree with you but it does feel so disappointing that there’s all this work going into something that’s just regularity arbitrage. The USD does all the same

by RC_ITR 3y ago

pjc50 3y ago
> The USD does all the same things that you describe crypto as doing for Argentinians, so now they just have a more accessible version of that? > That’s what all the billions of VC funding is leading to? Yes. Also evasion of Chinese capital controls, although they've cracked down on that a lot. Not clear to what extent it's being used for Russian sanctions evasion. It's funny, isn't it? The system was built by someone radicalized by the 2008 financial crisis, which was a bank bailout that was for many countries revenue-neutral, and decided to build their own. But the 2008 crisis didn't have an inflation problem, meaning all the people complaining about money supply were wrong. No, the people with inflation problems were countries with forex issues, and everyone there is clamouring to get into the security of the dollar. Even if it's a pseudo-bond pegged to the dollar. There's no appetite for a flight from the dollar. (big exceptions in 2008: Ireland, Iceland, Cyprus .. but again, none of those were money-printing related! You can still have a bad loans crisis in cryptocurrency, and indeed there have been several!)