md_

25 ms·

301.
by md_ 5y ago
My point re: fungibility was rather that BTC's value does not come from the specific block assignment, whereas art's generally does (though I guess limited-series prints and similar might be a case where "any one of the serie
302.
by md_ 5y ago
Or at least outlaw talking incessantly about it. It'd make online communities so much more pleasant. ;) Like, if you want to post about BTC more than five times an hour, you first have to take an undergraduate class in cryptography a
303.
by md_ 5y ago
Hmm, I don't fully buy the metaphor (since BTC are fungible), but I do think it exhibits collector economics. I'm in many ways an art fan, but art pricing is totally irrational: 1. Prints cost substantially less than paintings sin
304.
by md_ 5y ago
Agreed, chartalism as the only explanation for assigned value is clearly empirically false. But as one mechanism, or perhaps one of the stable or reliable mechanisms, is somewhat convincing to me.
305.
by md_ 5y ago
> Half of all Bitcoin hasn't been moved in 2+ years, despite multiple -50% moves. Presumably a big chunk of this is permanently lost due to lost keys, etc.
306.
by md_ 5y ago
Known as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chartalism , by the way. :) While these risks clearly _do_ apply to traditional currencies, I do think, as an investor, it's worth considering market cap (as a proxy for &quot
307.
by md_ 5y ago
There seem to be two popular approaches to avoiding the need to trust institutions. One is technical: e2ee, implementation transparency, and similar. The other is social: have fewer institutions. I have never understood people who think the
308.
by md_ 5y ago
Of course, even collateralized loans to buy real estate are not, despite what you said earlier, risk-free--see 2008 (and google the term "CDO", in case you've never heard of it) for a rather dramatic example of this. More to
309.
by md_ 5y ago
It's good to be cautious, but this is sort of a silly test. Protonmail doesn't have to "log" messages; they have them already . If I were Protonmail and I had to comply with lawful intercept requirements, I'd just:
310.
by md_ 5y ago
I'm aware of this. But again, your original claim was “If it were not for central bankers printing money into existence, a person could work their life, save a portion for retirement in a bank account or other fixed income product, whi
311.
by md_ 5y ago
I’ll happily lend you $1 if you deposit $2 in collateral first. :) However, I suspect the market for such loans is rather small.
312.
by md_ 5y ago
OK. And what if the borrower defaults? Per https://docs.anchorprotocol.com/protocol/money-market#borrow... , it seems like there'd be zero risk as long as the LTV is >= 1.0, but that sort of defeats the point
313.
by md_ 5y ago
Where do you think the zero-risk interest comes from?
314.
by md_ 5y ago
“If it were not for central bankers printing money into existence, a person could work their life, save a portion for retirement in a bank account or other fixed income product, while enjoying a positive return on their investment, without
315.
by md_ 5y ago
I’m always a bit surprised when people seem to imply that there’s a fundamental human right to perfectly stable stores of value (if you could even define such a quality), and that the absence of that—inflation, price fluctuation, etc—is som
316.
by md_ 5y ago
Right. I get what you're saying, and I think there's probably some validity to the idea that increasing demand drives innovation and (eventually) a reduced unit cost. Ultimately, though, the goal from a climate change perspective
317.
by md_ 5y ago
Hmm. By this logic, aren't power-efficient appliances a bad thing because they reduce demand for energy and thus reduce incentives to generate greener power? It's not clear to me that this is how supply and demand work. While incr
318.
by md_ 5y ago
One of us definitely doesn’t understand something here.
319.
by md_ 5y ago
“It is amazing to me that people don't get this. Government spending of something like 40-50% of GDP over the past few years” No, it wasn’t: https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/government-spendi...
320.
by md_ 5y ago
I think the parent is saying “post-vest gains don’t count as salary” (and per the IRS, they don’t), and you’re saying (if I read you right) that market value at vest counts as salary (which the IRS also agrees with), but that the market c
321.
by md_ 5y ago
Right. I can’t tell if you’re agreeing with me or not. :) Prior to Novalpina, it was Francisco Partners. Point being, NSO has received huge amounts of money from the kind of people who, well, YCombinator founders seek out.
322.
by md_ 5y ago
NSO's PE investors are big-time American and British funds. Just sayin'.
323.
by md_ 5y ago
As an obvious statement: I think this should be interpreted similarly to some ransomware not infecting devices with RU keyboards: it's just about avoiding difficult regulatory environments. The analogy, of course, goes further. Though
324.
by md_ 5y ago
That study is about the benefit of wearing surgical masks "in a setting where masks were uncommon and not among recommended public health measures"--thus answering the question "do surgical masks protect the wearer." Sur
325.
by md_ 5y ago
This comment begins with a call for larger sample sizes, segues to a single anecdote about a colleague, and ends with a sweeping conclusion that's contrary to most empirical research. I'm not trying to be a dick, but maybe this de
326.
by md_ 5y ago
This is the money quote: "NFTs need standard, legally enforceable licenses. In the same way open source and creative commons are underpinned by the law, NFT-based licences should be underpinned by a legal foundation. Developing and iss
327.
by md_ 5y ago
Nothing stops you from going to your manager (or, during your probably-annual comp discussion) and saying, "Based on {a conversation with my coworker, Levels.fyi, a competing offer}, I believe I'm being underpaid." Obviously
328.
by md_ 5y ago
Yes, there will be a time when this strategy does not work as well. Typically, big companies have salary bands per level which are set by HR (based on market analysis). While managers have some discretion on top (and may have more when it c
329.
by md_ 5y ago
> Proof of Work does not get you any votes at all. Hmm, maybe I’m ignorant, but in practice, don’t miners (socially, not technically) have substantial say in issues like the block size debate? If you want to create a hard fork of the cha
330.
by md_ 5y ago
I like this point, but (as I think you are saying as well) it’s true for POW as well, right? Fundamentally, if there are off-chain incentives to destroy the value of a given blockchain, much of our reasoning about the game theory doesn’t ho

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