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I have a lot of misgivings about crypto, but its also true that we’re moving towards a world where the digital economy is massive, global, and deeply embedded i

by spaceman_2020 3y ago

I have a lot of misgivings about crypto, but its also true that we’re moving towards a world where the digital economy is massive, global, and deeply embedded in livelihoods. That world does require new tools to ascertain ownership of digital assets (since a lot of people will make their living through creating/selling these assets) and paying for digital assets (global commerce requires global and open payment systems). At least crypto is trying to fix this problem

greiskul 3y ago
> At least crypto is trying to fix this problem It is not. It is pretending to do that. But every single person still in crypto is there mostly for speculation, get rich quick schemes. Or they are holding bags that they hope will go back to a previous value. The oracle problem has not been solved. Without it, crypto is just an interesting distributed algorithm. But it is not a revolution.
- Tokumei-no-hito 3y ago
  What is the oracle problem? Connecting to off-chain data?
  - jazzyjackson 3y ago
    yea, representing anything in the real world. You're only trustless and validated inside the global computer. As soon as you want to write a conditional statement relying on real-world circumstance, or want a token that represents physical collateral or commodity you're back to trusting people. IMO trusting people is fine, good even. The higher trust you have between people the fewer contracts you need, the lower friction you have to cooperate. Blockchain exists only to transact in a zero trust environment, when you don't want to know the people you're transacting with, and you don't want them to know you. This is why it empowers scammers and traffickers more than the average person who isn't trying to participate in an economy without a name or address or liability.
- kybernetikos 3y ago
  > The oracle problem has not been solved. The oracle problem has had an obvious solution all along (for most relevant usecases): the legal system. Just because you need the governments where the real assets are located to play along doesn't diminish the value of open, programmable, transactional transfers of ownership. Indeed, a lot of the process around buying something like a house is to try to emulate software in human institutions. Canonical registers of ownership recognised by legal systems are typically digital anyway these days, just not publicly digital. If the legal system recognises the blockchain as the canonical record of ownership for a class of asset, then there is no oracle problem (I think democracies should be getting their politicians to look at this, but in the meantime, depending on your jurisdiction there are often things that you can do with trusts that amount to the same thing). On top of that, intellectual assets and digital native assets are increasingly important, and there is no oracle problem for such assets. > But every single person still in crypto is there mostly for speculation, get rich quick schemes This is such a weak argument, and thoroughly untrue. Of course, there are many people with those motivations, just as many people engage with the fiat currency world with those motivations, but it doesn't take long to ascertain that that is not the primary motivation of people like myself or the author of this blog.
ToucanLoucan 3y ago
> we’re moving towards a world where the digital economy is massive, global, and deeply embedded in livelihoods. True. > That world does require new tools to ascertain ownership of digital assets (since a lot of people will make their living through creating/selling these assets) and paying for digital assets (global commerce requires global and open payment systems). ... Why? The only things crypto has been truly innovative in paying for is illicit pornography and drugs. And like, the second one I don't have issue with, but the solution there is not to create an entire secondary financial system that burns down rain forests to execute transactions. The solution is to decriminalize drugs and use the existing financial system to pay for them. And even the owning/selling of digital assets point rests upon a single chain ending up the "winner" of this strange competition they've been holding for decades. Okay, so you "own" this piece of art on the Ethereum network. What if someone contends they own it on the Tezos chain, or any one of the hundreds if not thousands of other ones? Or more fun still, what if someone just mints another of the thing you own on the same chain? Nobody is stopping them. > At least crypto is trying to fix this problem No it's not. It's a casino pretending to be a bank and telling you poker chips are money. Step outside said casino and try to buy a hot dog, and you'll realize the problems quite quickly.
- johanneskanybal 3y ago
  You have a point that incentives makes people mostly obsessed with speculation and money machine scams. At the same time, even if it’s clunky buying a crypto hotdog compared to a paypal checkout or a international money transfer it’s been ahead for a while.
- miracle2k 3y ago
  > The solution is to decriminalize drugs and use the existing financial system to pay for them. When can we expect this utopia to be ushered in? What about paying for abortions? Sex work? Hosting of Kiwi Farms? There is no future where all these contentious decisions will align with your preferences. You can either throw your support behind the prohibitions that the collective enforces, or you can support an escape valve for individuals to defy it. > What if someone contends they own it on the Tezos chain, or any one of the hundreds if not thousands of other ones? Or more fun still, what if someone just mints another of the thing you own on the same chain? Nobody is stopping them. NFTs don't work this way; the goal is not for the chain to tell you which token is "real", whatever that means. That's up to you to decide. The chain just ensures that you get to own a token until you decide you no longer want it. No one cares that you print your own versions of valuable pokemon cards at home.

greiskul 3y ago

> At least crypto is trying to fix this problem It is not. It is pretending to do that. But every single person still in crypto is there mostly for speculation, get rich quick schemes. Or they are holding bags that they hope will go back to a previous value. The oracle problem has not been solved. Without it, crypto is just an interesting distributed algorithm. But it is not a revolution.

Tokumei-no-hito 3y ago
What is the oracle problem? Connecting to off-chain data?
- jazzyjackson 3y ago
  yea, representing anything in the real world. You're only trustless and validated inside the global computer. As soon as you want to write a conditional statement relying on real-world circumstance, or want a token that represents physical collateral or commodity you're back to trusting people. IMO trusting people is fine, good even. The higher trust you have between people the fewer contracts you need, the lower friction you have to cooperate. Blockchain exists only to transact in a zero trust environment, when you don't want to know the people you're transacting with, and you don't want them to know you. This is why it empowers scammers and traffickers more than the average person who isn't trying to participate in an economy without a name or address or liability.
kybernetikos 3y ago
> The oracle problem has not been solved. The oracle problem has had an obvious solution all along (for most relevant usecases): the legal system. Just because you need the governments where the real assets are located to play along doesn't diminish the value of open, programmable, transactional transfers of ownership. Indeed, a lot of the process around buying something like a house is to try to emulate software in human institutions. Canonical registers of ownership recognised by legal systems are typically digital anyway these days, just not publicly digital. If the legal system recognises the blockchain as the canonical record of ownership for a class of asset, then there is no oracle problem (I think democracies should be getting their politicians to look at this, but in the meantime, depending on your jurisdiction there are often things that you can do with trusts that amount to the same thing). On top of that, intellectual assets and digital native assets are increasingly important, and there is no oracle problem for such assets. > But every single person still in crypto is there mostly for speculation, get rich quick schemes This is such a weak argument, and thoroughly untrue. Of course, there are many people with those motivations, just as many people engage with the fiat currency world with those motivations, but it doesn't take long to ascertain that that is not the primary motivation of people like myself or the author of this blog.

ToucanLoucan 3y ago

> we’re moving towards a world where the digital economy is massive, global, and deeply embedded in livelihoods. True. > That world does require new tools to ascertain ownership of digital assets (since a lot of people will make their living through creating/selling these assets) and paying for digital assets (global commerce requires global and open payment systems). ... Why? The only things crypto has been truly innovative in paying for is illicit pornography and drugs. And like, the second one I don't have issue with, but the solution there is not to create an entire secondary financial system that burns down rain forests to execute transactions. The solution is to decriminalize drugs and use the existing financial system to pay for them. And even the owning/selling of digital assets point rests upon a single chain ending up the "winner" of this strange competition they've been holding for decades. Okay, so you "own" this piece of art on the Ethereum network. What if someone contends they own it on the Tezos chain, or any one of the hundreds if not thousands of other ones? Or more fun still, what if someone just mints another of the thing you own on the same chain? Nobody is stopping them. > At least crypto is trying to fix this problem No it's not. It's a casino pretending to be a bank and telling you poker chips are money. Step outside said casino and try to buy a hot dog, and you'll realize the problems quite quickly.

johanneskanybal 3y ago
You have a point that incentives makes people mostly obsessed with speculation and money machine scams. At the same time, even if it’s clunky buying a crypto hotdog compared to a paypal checkout or a international money transfer it’s been ahead for a while.
miracle2k 3y ago
> The solution is to decriminalize drugs and use the existing financial system to pay for them. When can we expect this utopia to be ushered in? What about paying for abortions? Sex work? Hosting of Kiwi Farms? There is no future where all these contentious decisions will align with your preferences. You can either throw your support behind the prohibitions that the collective enforces, or you can support an escape valve for individuals to defy it. > What if someone contends they own it on the Tezos chain, or any one of the hundreds if not thousands of other ones? Or more fun still, what if someone just mints another of the thing you own on the same chain? Nobody is stopping them. NFTs don't work this way; the goal is not for the chain to tell you which token is "real", whatever that means. That's up to you to decide. The chain just ensures that you get to own a token until you decide you no longer want it. No one cares that you print your own versions of valuable pokemon cards at home.