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> There is nothing that a Stripe controlled blockchain could offer that a database could not. There absolutely is. Its called having access to the ecosystem.

by stale2002 1y ago

> There is nothing that a Stripe controlled blockchain could offer that a database could not. There absolutely is. Its called having access to the ecosystem. The money features that exist in the current blockchain landscape are simply a better developer ecosystem, with many more features, than the non existent "Database driven", uhh money tools. Blockchains are no longer about the singular feature of having a trustless ledger that bitcoin tried to provide. No, instead it is about a whole variety of money related features and developer ecosystems that simply do not exist outside of the crypto space. Recreating all that exists in the crypto space, but using a database instead, sounds like a lot of wasted work when you can just use the tools that are already available.

dmbche 1y ago
> No, instead it is about a whole variety of money related features and developer ecosystems that simply do not exist outside of the crypto space. Like what? Speculation?
vanviegen 1y ago
> the non existent "Database driven", uhh money tools. Are you claiming here that things like banks and stock markets don't exist? Genuinely curious though; what kind of 'money related features', that have no non-crypto counterparts, are you referring to?
- stale2002 1y ago
  > Are you claiming here that things like banks and stock markets don't exist? No, I am claiming that I couldn't spin up a bank or a stock market on my laptop, that is compatible with all the other stock markets, by forking a git repo. > that have no non-crypto counterparts, are you referring to? The git repo fork button, that slots right into a whole ecosystem that has 10s of thousands of contributors to it. Ease of use, and developer experience and existing markets and existing integrations with all of these businesses is a big deal. It doesn't matter if someone could hypothetically spend 1 billion dollars recreating all of that, using a database. Because that would require 1 billion dollars.
  - kiitos 1y ago
    > No, I am claiming that I couldn't spin up a bank or a stock market on my laptop, that is compatible with all the other stock markets, by forking a git repo. yeah, and that's kind of very much by design -- regulations that prevent this kind of yolo nonsense are a feature and not a bug
    - stale2002 1y ago
      > and that's kind of very much by design Ok, so then Yes I have brought up a valid and in demand usecase, you just don't like it. Yes the point of all of this stuff is to make this usecase easy. Thats a real usecase. You just don't like that its easy.
      - kiitos 1y ago
        it's in demand by malicious actors, is the point we used to have markets that worked exactly like what you're describing, it immediately led to disastrous consequences for the broad base of society, and when we figured that problem out, we solved it with rules and regulations specifically designed to prevent abuses you can suggest reifications of those rules and regulations to make them better, but what you can't do is suggest throwing them out altogether, that's pure regression
        stale2002 1y ago
        So then yes, it is in demand, there is a usecase, you just don't like the usecase. > but what you can't do is suggest throwing them out altogether Actually, that seems to be exactly whats happening. Bitcoin has been around for 17 years, and it and other blockchain technologies have only become better, more prevalent, more mainstream, and most importantly, more legal. The freaking president/vice president seem to be pretty pro crypto as well. I've been following bitcoin since 2010, and never in my wildest dreams back then would I have thought that the president would launch his own "Trump coin", for example. Crypto won. Beyond everyone's most extreme expectations. The "regulators" lost. Its over. You can cry about it, but that doesn't change the fact that it won.
procaryote 1y ago
Could you give an example of such a "money related feature"?
jrm4 1y ago
All pointless. None of those things require a blockchain and are all made less efficient by doing them that way. Again, truly decentralized cryptocurrency ADDS slow clunky overhead; that's the price of decentralization. Everything you're imagining is ALL done much easier with good ol' databases et al.
- stale2002 1y ago
  > ADDS slow clunky overhead; that's the price of decentralization. Actually, you can just use a federated blockchain. > Everything you're imagining is ALL done much easier with good ol' databases There is an ecosystem of 10s of thousands of developers that can run specifically ethereum contracts on a database, while being compatible with all existing stable coin onramps? You have to show me the 10s of thousands of developers is the point. Thats an ecosystem. It means that you can connect to all of these existing apps and on ramps, and smart contracts and more. There isn't a database version of that.
  - jrm4 1y ago
    Yeah, as grumpy op, I should slow down and give your ideas more credit. Very optimistically -- what you're saying is correct. There is a best case scenario in which Stripe et al observe all of these already working and perhaps popular financial use-case things (perhaps to compete with bigger banks or just because they see/believe it as the future) and encourage adoption. I'd bet this won't much happen, but I really do hope I'm wrong.
  - dmbche 1y ago
    What are the tens of thousands (?) of devs doings that is more efficient by doing it on a blockchain is the question Hint: the point of "proof of work" is to do more work than necessary
    - stale2002 1y ago
      > that is more efficient by doing it on a blockchain Well one major thing is what I just brought up that is more efficient thing is the developer experience. Being able to fork an open source integration that has all of these money and smart contract features built in is much easier than trying to figure out how to design a smart contract system from scratch that doesn't use a blockchain.
paperpunk 1y ago
I think this may be an insightful comment. It's not for lack of trying that traditional, "database driven" cross-border payments are costly and unreliable. SWIFT have thrown technology at this problem: GPI, Swift Go, ISO20022, etc. Unfortunately the ecosystem has an extremely weak technical culture. Banks rarely follow the standards as written – your perfectly crafted API payment may be re-keyed by a low-paid human operator on a slow, buggy UI written a decade ago. I could believe that the developer experience and technical standards of the participants is where the value lies right now. The one thing I'm not sure on is to what extent those ecosystems depend on reduced regulatory scrutiny compared to banks.

dmbche 1y ago

> No, instead it is about a whole variety of money related features and developer ecosystems that simply do not exist outside of the crypto space. Like what? Speculation?

vanviegen 1y ago

> the non existent "Database driven", uhh money tools. Are you claiming here that things like banks and stock markets don't exist? Genuinely curious though; what kind of 'money related features', that have no non-crypto counterparts, are you referring to?

stale2002 1y ago
> Are you claiming here that things like banks and stock markets don't exist? No, I am claiming that I couldn't spin up a bank or a stock market on my laptop, that is compatible with all the other stock markets, by forking a git repo. > that have no non-crypto counterparts, are you referring to? The git repo fork button, that slots right into a whole ecosystem that has 10s of thousands of contributors to it. Ease of use, and developer experience and existing markets and existing integrations with all of these businesses is a big deal. It doesn't matter if someone could hypothetically spend 1 billion dollars recreating all of that, using a database. Because that would require 1 billion dollars.
- kiitos 1y ago
  > No, I am claiming that I couldn't spin up a bank or a stock market on my laptop, that is compatible with all the other stock markets, by forking a git repo. yeah, and that's kind of very much by design -- regulations that prevent this kind of yolo nonsense are a feature and not a bug
  - stale2002 1y ago
    > and that's kind of very much by design Ok, so then Yes I have brought up a valid and in demand usecase, you just don't like it. Yes the point of all of this stuff is to make this usecase easy. Thats a real usecase. You just don't like that its easy.
    - kiitos 1y ago
      it's in demand by malicious actors, is the point we used to have markets that worked exactly like what you're describing, it immediately led to disastrous consequences for the broad base of society, and when we figured that problem out, we solved it with rules and regulations specifically designed to prevent abuses you can suggest reifications of those rules and regulations to make them better, but what you can't do is suggest throwing them out altogether, that's pure regression
      - stale2002 1y ago
        So then yes, it is in demand, there is a usecase, you just don't like the usecase. > but what you can't do is suggest throwing them out altogether Actually, that seems to be exactly whats happening. Bitcoin has been around for 17 years, and it and other blockchain technologies have only become better, more prevalent, more mainstream, and most importantly, more legal. The freaking president/vice president seem to be pretty pro crypto as well. I've been following bitcoin since 2010, and never in my wildest dreams back then would I have thought that the president would launch his own "Trump coin", for example. Crypto won. Beyond everyone's most extreme expectations. The "regulators" lost. Its over. You can cry about it, but that doesn't change the fact that it won.

procaryote 1y ago

Could you give an example of such a "money related feature"?

jrm4 1y ago

All pointless. None of those things require a blockchain and are all made less efficient by doing them that way. Again, truly decentralized cryptocurrency ADDS slow clunky overhead; that's the price of decentralization. Everything you're imagining is ALL done much easier with good ol' databases et al.

stale2002 1y ago
> ADDS slow clunky overhead; that's the price of decentralization. Actually, you can just use a federated blockchain. > Everything you're imagining is ALL done much easier with good ol' databases There is an ecosystem of 10s of thousands of developers that can run specifically ethereum contracts on a database, while being compatible with all existing stable coin onramps? You have to show me the 10s of thousands of developers is the point. Thats an ecosystem. It means that you can connect to all of these existing apps and on ramps, and smart contracts and more. There isn't a database version of that.
- jrm4 1y ago
  Yeah, as grumpy op, I should slow down and give your ideas more credit. Very optimistically -- what you're saying is correct. There is a best case scenario in which Stripe et al observe all of these already working and perhaps popular financial use-case things (perhaps to compete with bigger banks or just because they see/believe it as the future) and encourage adoption. I'd bet this won't much happen, but I really do hope I'm wrong.
- dmbche 1y ago
  What are the tens of thousands (?) of devs doings that is more efficient by doing it on a blockchain is the question Hint: the point of "proof of work" is to do more work than necessary
  - stale2002 1y ago
    > that is more efficient by doing it on a blockchain Well one major thing is what I just brought up that is more efficient thing is the developer experience. Being able to fork an open source integration that has all of these money and smart contract features built in is much easier than trying to figure out how to design a smart contract system from scratch that doesn't use a blockchain.

paperpunk 1y ago

I think this may be an insightful comment. It's not for lack of trying that traditional, "database driven" cross-border payments are costly and unreliable. SWIFT have thrown technology at this problem: GPI, Swift Go, ISO20022, etc. Unfortunately the ecosystem has an extremely weak technical culture. Banks rarely follow the standards as written – your perfectly crafted API payment may be re-keyed by a low-paid human operator on a slow, buggy UI written a decade ago. I could believe that the developer experience and technical standards of the participants is where the value lies right now. The one thing I'm not sure on is to what extent those ecosystems depend on reduced regulatory scrutiny compared to banks.