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“The developing world will keep the crypto revolution going” means “we haven’t been driven out of the developing world for scamming too many people yet so we ca
by api 3y ago
“The developing world will keep the crypto revolution going” means “we haven’t been driven out of the developing world for scamming too many people yet so we can keep recruiting fresh marks to make number go up.”
You know what will save the crypto revolution? Actual uses that are not gambling, speculation on crypto itself, or scams.
- madsbuch 3y agoluckily there are a few projects, Ethereum being one of them.
- dale_glass 3y agoWhich uses of Ethereum are positive? And I don't mean abstract ideas like "smart contracts", but specific things being done that aren't scams, illegal activity, gambling, or speculation.
- madsbuch 3y agoit provides blockchain and smart contract infrastructure for other projects.
- polygamous_bat 3y ago[flagged]
- madsbuch 3y agoyou should take a look at hacker news community guidelines. your tone does not promote curious and enlightening discussion.
- hanniabu 3y agoHere's a passive list: https://gist.github.com/hanniabu/32b0f933618a3229efe3fbc01cbb03df https://gist.github.com/hanniabu/32b0f933618a3229efe3fbc01cb...
- Chabsff 3y agoI challenge you to pick a single example from this list that at the same time can't be done without blockchain, warrants the monstrous overhead, and provides utility other than "make money".
- b112 3y agoOverhead? Ethereum uses almost no power, if that's what you mean.
- Chabsff 3y agoIf the overhead was negligible, then so would gas costs.
- b112 3y agoGas costs have no relation to processing power. It wouldn't fluctuate wildly, otherwise. Eth is now POS, a laptop in a corner can now "mine" eth.
- pa7x1 3y agoAbsolutely not. The gas fee is not moved up or down based on the cost to settle a transaction. It's an independent market based on supply and demand for blockspace. Supply is constrained because for the network to remain decentralized you need to be able to run a node inexpensively, demand is just a result of value added.
- Chabsff 3y agoIf I want to operate a service on top of the eth blockchain, I have to factor in gas fees as part of the operation costs. That's overhead.
- pa7x1 3y agoSaw this comment too late, sorry. Yes, that's overhead for the operator of the service. But this is not what I was referring to, nor the OP to which I answered. He made the false assumption that the gas fee moves up or down because node operators in the network reflect the costs to settle a transaction in the price, if the costs to them goes up then, he assumed, gas fees go up. This is not how it works. Node operators don't have a mechanism to reflect the costs to settle a transaction in the gas fee. Those two prices are allowed to float independently, then there are some mechanisms coded into the protocol that tend to produce equilibriums so that there is never too much disparity and the network remains profitable.
- polygamous_bat 3y agoMaybe if we tolerate the scams and fraud for 10 more years, it will be useful? Or maybe that's fundamentally an unrealistic viewpoint [0] [0] https://blog.dshr.org/2022/03/vitalik-buterin-vs-reality.html https://blog.dshr.org/2022/03/vitalik-buterin-vs-reality.htm...
- everfree 3y agoWhat do you think we should do, other than "tolerate" it? Should we go back to the era of illegal numbers?
- hanniabu 3y agoHere's a list of usecases for you: https://gist.github.com/hanniabu/32b0f933618a3229efe3fbc01cbb03df https://gist.github.com/hanniabu/32b0f933618a3229efe3fbc01cb...
- throwbadubadu 3y agoSeriously? Most of them barely make sense and are just "oh let's try this with crypto", what's your favorite one (besides the apparent one)?
- hanniabu 3y ago>Most internet usecases don't make sense and are just "oh let's try this online"
- throwbadubadu 3y agoNo, without sense don't call them use case at all?
- skulk 3y agoPutting out a laundry list of projects (that are inferior to those that operate within the fiat ecosystem) isn't going to change the fact that 95% of people in crypto are looking to enrich themselves on speculation or to part said fools with their money.
- hanniabu 3y agoNot mutually exclusive, this is the case with all industries
- JuanPosadas 3y agoNone of those are usecases, they're just random products that use "crypto" for no discernable reason.
- xnx 3y ago> Actual uses that are not gambling, speculation on crypto itself, or scams. You forgot buying drugs and money laundering
- b112 3y agoHey! How dare you! Crypto is legit! I use my crypto to buy extra credits on my private tracker!
- yyyk 3y ago>> Actual uses that are not gambling, speculation on crypto itself, or scams. > You forgot buying drugs and money laundering Let's not neglect ransomware and spam.
- Scoundreller 3y agoAnd the list of what you can/cannot buy with a Mastercard or Visa varies from country to country. And doesn’t necessarily follow the law. Still a lot of US banks that block card usage in Cuba, but they don’t need to from what I can see: https://ofac.treasury.gov/faqs/738 https://ofac.treasury.gov/faqs/738
- 5350-uiop-1130 3y ago> Actual uses that are not gambling, speculation on crypto itself, or scams. Flatcoins seem interesting to me. A stablecoin that moves in line with inflation. https://decrypt.co/155775/flatcoins-new-thing-on-the-horizon-coinbase-ceo-brian-armstrong https://decrypt.co/155775/flatcoins-new-thing-on-the-horizon... IMO we need financial alternatives. If you see what happened in Argentina, Turkey, Lebanon...people's life savings being stolen overnight. There is a problem that needs solving. Whether thats a problem that can be solved with technology or not, IDK. I doubt it.
- toomuchtodo 3y agoIssue them digital wallets to enable holding global reserve currencies. It is an AML/KYC problem. Imagine if, just for the sake of argument, any of these unbanked folks in countries you mentioned could install something like TransferWise (which app doesn’t matter, but the ability to tie your identity to your account holding various value stores) and hold whichever currency they wanted digitally. No stablecoin, CBDC, or blockchain required.
- hanniabu 3y agoMaybe they'd rather have censorship resistant funds, rather than a wallet that a government can freeze at any time.
- toomuchtodo 3y agoGood point, crypto never gets stolen or lost, very secure. https://web3isgoinggreat.com/charts/top https://web3isgoinggreat.com/charts/top (“$68,004,906,103 has been lost to hacks, scams, fraud, and other disasters since January 1, 2021.”)
- LeeroyWasHere 3y agoWe only know this because we can track it. Would love to see how much money PayPal and stripe freeze on a yearly basis.
- JoshuaRogers 3y agoAgreed. To make any real inroads, there needs to be a generally accepted use case that the existing systems don’t handle sufficiently well that crypto excels at. That isn’t to say that the existing systems do things well, but the networking effect they have and the friction, risk, and learning curve of dealing with crypto tend to make it less fluid of the options. Frankly, I’ve not heard of a use case that fits that description. It isn’t to say that it doesn’t exist, but I don’t expect to see crypto regain its hyped status until that generally accepted case comes up.
- IAmGraydon 3y agoWhat may save the crypto revolution is future bank failures. I think that’s where the public will discover its true utility.
- networkchad 3y ago[dead]
- GrumpyNl 3y agoWith crypto comes ransomware, how would they pull that off without crypto?
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- CPLX 3y agoIt’s worth noting that gambling and crime (of the evading money transfer restrictions variety not the stealing kind) are perfectly useful applications for a technology. That’s all crypto has ever been and all it will be. But that’s pretty big. Gambling is one of the most enduring and appealing activities humans engage in. Lock people in a prison with only walls and cigarettes and they’ll figure out how to do it. People will populate an empty desert to do it. So there’s that.
- kmeisthax 3y ago>of the evading money transfer restrictions variety not the stealing kind At least in the western world these are synonyms, and everywhere else it's still more often that the tech is used for theft than for authorized-but-illegal transactions. Irreversible, censorship-resistant transactions are like rocket fuel for cybercriminals.
- CPLX 3y agoNot really. The original killer app for crypto was sending people money in exchange for drugs, which fits my description quite neatly.
- rainsford 3y ago> You know what will save the crypto revolution? Actual uses that are not gambling, speculation on crypto itself, or scams. I think the problem is actually deeper than that. It's not just a lack of good use cases, cryptocurrency's fundamental design goals are things that most people not only don't care about but would actively try to avoid. An immutable financial ledger where you manage your own keys is actually a terrible solution for the average person, so you need a super compelling use case to make up for the downsides. It can't just be an alternative to traditional finance. That's fine for people who are ideologically sold on the concept, but people who just want to go shopping or save money aren't going to find that super compelling. It has to do something way better that normal people actually care about. Really the best use case that's developed is cryptocurrency investing as a get rich quick scheme, but it's hard to see that as a sustainable model for any "revolution".
- imacomputertoo 3y agoThis seems like a very hostile and unreasonable take. People in developing countries have far greater need for access to financial services, banking and loans. rich countries have that already because they have stable governments. Poor countries don't. While crypto has its risks, the risks of unstable national currencies can be greater. So it's a reasonable decision to consider crypto in that context. People in rich countries have less need. For rich stable nations, crypto will have to offer more than simple services and better-than-Venezuela security.