7 ms·

The claim is that some day innovations, and checks, and some other technologies will fix this and do all of this automatically, somehow. That's why it's still

The claim is that some day innovations, and checks, and some other technologies will fix this and do all of this automatically, somehow. That's why it's still early days.

ipython 3y ago
Early days… 15 years later. To quote spaceballs, When exactly will “then” be “now”?
- GauntletWizard 3y ago
  The history of finance is as long as recorded history, perhaps the reason for it[1]. That said, these kinds of crazes[2] are almost as old. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complaint_tablet_to_Ea-n%C4%81%E1%B9%A3ir https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complaint_tablet_to_Ea-n%C4%81... [2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip_mania https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip_mania
  - cypherpunks01 3y ago
    I don't recall ever reading about a tulip ETF, though, that could be kind of interesting
    - jakupovic 3y ago
      Lol. HN is stuck in "CRYPTO BAD BOOO, We don't need no reason. We know", in the voice of HN group think.
      - troupo 3y ago
        No, "crypto bad boo" is precisely because the HN crowd doesn't ignore the history of anything that crypto pretends it's disrupting. Instead all the clueless crypto bros in the crypto space end up slowly, and often painfully, re-discovering all this history and the reasons why things are the way they are.
        jakupovic 3y ago
        Let me call you clueless my friend and maybe even other names as you seem to like to. Things are the way they are because of interests, some people are making money on it. "Crypto bros" aren't rediscovering anything and you seem clueless as to what they want and are repeating old ass tropes you probably learned from others. I remember only a year or 2 ago when HN was very much against K8S, you probably don't, being of short memory and not learning from others. But, guess what, we are using k8s and crypto and you are stuck and soon will be making apologies for your lack of sense and will be tired of repeating others' lies here. Sorry but not sorry.
        troupo 3y ago
        > "Crypto bros" aren't rediscovering anything Yes, most don't discover anything, they just run scams. The tiny percentage who doesn't are busy re-discovering and te-inventing all the institutions and processes the world has. > I remember only a year or 2 ago when HN was very much against K8S Ah yes. Yet another comparison pulled out of thin air.
        jakupovic 3y ago
        Yoi are still clueless and didn't bring anything worthwhile to this conversation. Have fun supporting system built to enslave you. K, TX BYE
- legutierr 3y ago
  In 1980 packet switching had existed for 20 years already. The public Internet wouldn’t emerge for more than a decade after that—and it would take yet another 20 years for the true power of packet-switched networks to be realized, in the form of mobile Internet. In 2000 neural networks had existed for more than 50 years. More than 20 years later their full potential is finally being realized, and many would say it is still early days. It’s naive to think that you can predict the future course of a technology simply based on the fact that it has already existed for a certain amount of time.
  - mplewis 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - legutierr 3y ago
      It’s happening right now.
      - mtnGoat 3y ago
        Can you elaborate on this?
        TimeBearingDown 3y ago
        From a prior thread that didn’t get any constructive engagement: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39205762 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39205762 Essentially Ethereum can be used to codify financial contracts in order to provide a level of trust where one does not otherwise exist.
        crummy 3y ago
        > You could wire together a group of houses or neighborhoods with generators and batteries and make the electric company redundant by establishing contracts which buy and sell electricity between participants at rates which adjust in response to demand, forecast, and each battery’s reserves. how would you handle spoofing? e.g. whatever data source you use to figure out how much energy I'm generating, I just put fake data into it? I guess you don't need to worry about that if you trust your neighbours. but then you could just use a traditional database if you all trust each other.
kikokikokiko 3y ago
[flagged]
- kajumix 3y ago
  Banks are great, and they will exist in the bitcoin world. The central bank is the problem.
  - threeseed 3y ago
    Central banks are the government. And governments define the law we all operate in. And as the crypto industry experiences today they can be vindictive, inconsistent, spurious, aggressive etc. And are highly skilled at resisting efforts to limit their power.
    - chromatin 3y ago
      > Central banks are the government The Federal Reserve Bank of the United States is, despite the misleading name, a private corporation. [1] This is true I believe of many central banks. Nevertheless, and perhaps this is what you really meant, central banks can _act as an instrument of government_, or, more cynically, serve to enrich the political class and politically well-connected. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Reserve_Bank#Legal_status https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Reserve_Bank#Legal_sta...
      - sanderjd 3y ago
        That link does not at all describe "a private corporation" in the sense that people who don't click the link would assume your use of the phrase would imply. A better summary of that link would be "it is a legally murky thingamajig, which is symbolically private while being governmental in practice". The section concludes with this quote from a political science professor: > the "ownership" of the Reserve Banks by the commercial banks is symbolic; they do not exercise the proprietary control associated with the concept of ownership nor share, beyond the statutory dividend, in Reserve Bank "profits." ... Bank ownership and election at the base are therefore devoid of substantive significance, despite the superficial appearance of private bank control that the formal arrangement creates. Now, it's very possible that the Wikipedia article is itself misleading. I'm just saying it isn't a good citation to use if what you want to do is casually describe the Federal Reserve as "despite the misleading name, a private corporation". The section you linked is all about how that would be a more misleading description!
TimeBearingDown 3y ago
No, this is usually (apologies if not in your case) a straw man, and representative of the usual HN blind spot for cryptocurrency. Ledger and Trezor hardware wallets do protect against this class of attack. We are rapidly approaching a world in which those with significant assets or job responsibilities should be carrying physical 2FA tokens, which can allow use of private keys while protecting them (a hardware wallet). This is more of the same. The base rule in crypto has always been “not your keys, not your coins” and to keep your recovery seed offline and only enter it with the utmost of caution. The history of scams is long, requiring periods of societal learning and transition as e.g. credit card, identity fraud, and wire fraud have taken center stage. Private keys will be something that a certain amount of the population will eventually be required to understand in my estimation, even if simplified as much as can be. The alternative is more middle ground solutions putting ultimate trust in a separate party managing the keys. There isn’t much use for most first world citizens in maintaining direct control over their digital wealth, so they are best served by staying away or dollar cost averaging a small percentage of their portfolio into an offline wallet. Those who want to experiment with smart contracts can do so with much smaller amounts. The ability to memorize 12 words and have direct ownership of your wealth anywhere with an Internet connection, independent of any party save those facilitating the network and the one accepting your payment, and the ability to cross a border or transfer to the other side of the globe without seizure, is already tremendously powerful to hundreds of millions of people who lack trustworthy financial services.
- mschuster91 3y ago
  > The history of scams is long, requiring periods of societal learning and transition as e.g. credit card, identity fraud, and wire fraud have taken center stage. And governments have enacted laws to protect people. With cryptocurrencies, they - by definition - cannot. Once you got scammed, your money is all but gone (sans a very VERY few exceptions). > The ability to memorize 12 words and have direct ownership of your wealth anywhere with an Internet connection, independent of any party save those facilitating the network and the one accepting your payment, and the ability to cross a border or transfer to the other side of the globe without seizure, is already tremendously powerful to hundreds of millions of people who lack trustworthy financial services. That's a societal problem, it can only be solved by society, not by cryptocurrency peddlers and tech-bros. And in any case: at some point that "wealth" has to enter the real world, and it's there that governments can step in and seize said wealth.

The claim is that some day innovations, and checks, and some other technologies will fix this and do all of this automatically, somehow. That's why it's still early days.

ipython 3y ago

Early days… 15 years later. To quote spaceballs, When exactly will “then” be “now”?

GauntletWizard 3y ago
The history of finance is as long as recorded history, perhaps the reason for it[1]. That said, these kinds of crazes[2] are almost as old. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complaint_tablet_to_Ea-n%C4%81%E1%B9%A3ir https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complaint_tablet_to_Ea-n%C4%81... [2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip_mania https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip_mania
- cypherpunks01 3y ago
  I don't recall ever reading about a tulip ETF, though, that could be kind of interesting
  - jakupovic 3y ago
    Lol. HN is stuck in "CRYPTO BAD BOOO, We don't need no reason. We know", in the voice of HN group think.
    - troupo 3y ago
      No, "crypto bad boo" is precisely because the HN crowd doesn't ignore the history of anything that crypto pretends it's disrupting. Instead all the clueless crypto bros in the crypto space end up slowly, and often painfully, re-discovering all this history and the reasons why things are the way they are.
      - jakupovic 3y ago
        Let me call you clueless my friend and maybe even other names as you seem to like to. Things are the way they are because of interests, some people are making money on it. "Crypto bros" aren't rediscovering anything and you seem clueless as to what they want and are repeating old ass tropes you probably learned from others. I remember only a year or 2 ago when HN was very much against K8S, you probably don't, being of short memory and not learning from others. But, guess what, we are using k8s and crypto and you are stuck and soon will be making apologies for your lack of sense and will be tired of repeating others' lies here. Sorry but not sorry.
        troupo 3y ago
        > "Crypto bros" aren't rediscovering anything Yes, most don't discover anything, they just run scams. The tiny percentage who doesn't are busy re-discovering and te-inventing all the institutions and processes the world has. > I remember only a year or 2 ago when HN was very much against K8S Ah yes. Yet another comparison pulled out of thin air.
        jakupovic 3y ago
        Yoi are still clueless and didn't bring anything worthwhile to this conversation. Have fun supporting system built to enslave you. K, TX BYE
legutierr 3y ago
In 1980 packet switching had existed for 20 years already. The public Internet wouldn’t emerge for more than a decade after that—and it would take yet another 20 years for the true power of packet-switched networks to be realized, in the form of mobile Internet. In 2000 neural networks had existed for more than 50 years. More than 20 years later their full potential is finally being realized, and many would say it is still early days. It’s naive to think that you can predict the future course of a technology simply based on the fact that it has already existed for a certain amount of time.
- mplewis 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - legutierr 3y ago
    It’s happening right now.
    - mtnGoat 3y ago
      Can you elaborate on this?
      - TimeBearingDown 3y ago
        From a prior thread that didn’t get any constructive engagement: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39205762 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39205762 Essentially Ethereum can be used to codify financial contracts in order to provide a level of trust where one does not otherwise exist.
        crummy 3y ago
        > You could wire together a group of houses or neighborhoods with generators and batteries and make the electric company redundant by establishing contracts which buy and sell electricity between participants at rates which adjust in response to demand, forecast, and each battery’s reserves. how would you handle spoofing? e.g. whatever data source you use to figure out how much energy I'm generating, I just put fake data into it? I guess you don't need to worry about that if you trust your neighbours. but then you could just use a traditional database if you all trust each other.

kikokikokiko 3y ago

[flagged]

kajumix 3y ago
Banks are great, and they will exist in the bitcoin world. The central bank is the problem.
- threeseed 3y ago
  Central banks are the government. And governments define the law we all operate in. And as the crypto industry experiences today they can be vindictive, inconsistent, spurious, aggressive etc. And are highly skilled at resisting efforts to limit their power.
  - chromatin 3y ago
    > Central banks are the government The Federal Reserve Bank of the United States is, despite the misleading name, a private corporation. [1] This is true I believe of many central banks. Nevertheless, and perhaps this is what you really meant, central banks can _act as an instrument of government_, or, more cynically, serve to enrich the political class and politically well-connected. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Reserve_Bank#Legal_status https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Reserve_Bank#Legal_sta...
    - sanderjd 3y ago
      That link does not at all describe "a private corporation" in the sense that people who don't click the link would assume your use of the phrase would imply. A better summary of that link would be "it is a legally murky thingamajig, which is symbolically private while being governmental in practice". The section concludes with this quote from a political science professor: > the "ownership" of the Reserve Banks by the commercial banks is symbolic; they do not exercise the proprietary control associated with the concept of ownership nor share, beyond the statutory dividend, in Reserve Bank "profits." ... Bank ownership and election at the base are therefore devoid of substantive significance, despite the superficial appearance of private bank control that the formal arrangement creates. Now, it's very possible that the Wikipedia article is itself misleading. I'm just saying it isn't a good citation to use if what you want to do is casually describe the Federal Reserve as "despite the misleading name, a private corporation". The section you linked is all about how that would be a more misleading description!

TimeBearingDown 3y ago

No, this is usually (apologies if not in your case) a straw man, and representative of the usual HN blind spot for cryptocurrency. Ledger and Trezor hardware wallets do protect against this class of attack. We are rapidly approaching a world in which those with significant assets or job responsibilities should be carrying physical 2FA tokens, which can allow use of private keys while protecting them (a hardware wallet). This is more of the same. The base rule in crypto has always been “not your keys, not your coins” and to keep your recovery seed offline and only enter it with the utmost of caution. The history of scams is long, requiring periods of societal learning and transition as e.g. credit card, identity fraud, and wire fraud have taken center stage. Private keys will be something that a certain amount of the population will eventually be required to understand in my estimation, even if simplified as much as can be. The alternative is more middle ground solutions putting ultimate trust in a separate party managing the keys. There isn’t much use for most first world citizens in maintaining direct control over their digital wealth, so they are best served by staying away or dollar cost averaging a small percentage of their portfolio into an offline wallet. Those who want to experiment with smart contracts can do so with much smaller amounts. The ability to memorize 12 words and have direct ownership of your wealth anywhere with an Internet connection, independent of any party save those facilitating the network and the one accepting your payment, and the ability to cross a border or transfer to the other side of the globe without seizure, is already tremendously powerful to hundreds of millions of people who lack trustworthy financial services.

mschuster91 3y ago
> The history of scams is long, requiring periods of societal learning and transition as e.g. credit card, identity fraud, and wire fraud have taken center stage. And governments have enacted laws to protect people. With cryptocurrencies, they - by definition - cannot. Once you got scammed, your money is all but gone (sans a very VERY few exceptions). > The ability to memorize 12 words and have direct ownership of your wealth anywhere with an Internet connection, independent of any party save those facilitating the network and the one accepting your payment, and the ability to cross a border or transfer to the other side of the globe without seizure, is already tremendously powerful to hundreds of millions of people who lack trustworthy financial services. That's a societal problem, it can only be solved by society, not by cryptocurrency peddlers and tech-bros. And in any case: at some point that "wealth" has to enter the real world, and it's there that governments can step in and seize said wealth.