spir

5 ms·

1.
by spir 7mo ago
If micropayments have a future, it's on blockchains. https://www.x402.org/ https://www.8004scan.io/networks https://www.x402scan.com/
2.
by spir 8mo ago
> 1. People who have insider information, or at least more sophisticated predictive capability than your average person. This bucket as you've defined it is too broad. There are a few different kinds of non-gambler participants in p
3.
by spir 9mo ago
> we live under a system that is arranged for the sole benefit of the owners of capital This is totally false. The vast majority of consumers enjoy huge benefits from the system while owning almost no capital. For example, Walmart custom
4.
by spir 9mo ago
This is good analysis. The main longitudinal aspect omitted is that the profitability of the attack goes up as long as the price of BTC doesn't double or more each halving. In ~6 more years, Bitcoin will undergo two more halvings, so i
5.
by spir 9mo ago
> It's a centralized system with a facade of decentralization. Same applies to stablecoins. Centralized assets in an on-chain wallet are much more useful than in the traditional financial system, for many reasons, but it comes down
6.
by spir 9mo ago
Crypto is a casino (often fraudulent) and a scam factory. It's also the source of at least one great new global public institution (Ethereum) and is likely to run much of the global economy in the coming decades. If you hate or are ske
7.
by spir 9mo ago
> which defeats the whole point of a decentralized, trust-less blockchain, and you could let that trusted party just run a centralized database A centralized token (like USDC) being held in a trustless wallet is much much better and more
8.
by spir 10mo ago
It's true that perp platforms are zero-sum games mostly catering to extremely high risk traders that overwhelmingly rely on luck more than skill. I don't use perp platforms myself. It's also true that perp platforms can provi
9.
by spir 10mo ago
Here's a list of some transformative benefits of decentralized public chains https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46175312
10.
by spir 10mo ago
1. Stablecoins 2. Tokenizing all assets (equities, commodities, real estate, etc.) 3. Being able to use those stablecoins/tokenized assets in DeFi protocols that are more automated, more impartial, and less extractive than correspondin
11.
by spir 10mo ago
I don't think many people on HN realize how globally systemically important public blockchains are on track to become, especially Ethereum. The understandable hatred of the casino and many scams has blinded most of HN as to the true po
12.
by spir 10mo ago
We should be increasingly skeptical of the claim that crypto can't do better than the existing system. I myself use defi all the time. At this moment, I could go borrow money on the blockchain and send it to anybody in the world with 5
13.
by spir 10mo ago
What do you think of the growing evidence that blockchain will soon provide much more utility to the world beyond gambling and crime? https://www.economist.com/by-invitation/2025/12/01/larry-fin...
14.
by spir 10mo ago
Coincidentally, there is a renaissance in micropayments happening in crypto right now. It is only a few months old and growing fast. It's called x402. https://www.x402.org/ https://www.x402scan.com/ Re
15.
by spir 10mo ago
One example is the potential for tokenization on public blockchains to provide a more globalized, automated, and efficient foundation, with stronger property rights, for global financial asset operations. https://www.economist.co
16.
Ask HN: Do you still think public blockchains/stablecoins are useless/a scam?
7 points by spir 10mo ago|17 comments
17.
by spir 10mo ago
After Fusaka went live today, Vitalik explained the significance of data availability sampling https://x.com/VitalikButerin/status/1996342458234605895
18.
Ethereum's Fusaka upgrade today added sharding via data availability sampling(twitter.com)
2 points by spir 10mo ago|1 comments
19.
by spir 10mo ago
Good to see more recognition that the housing shortage in the West is actually caused pretty much entirely by policies that made it illegal for the market to provide sufficient housing, and not landlord greed as a popular belief.
20.
by spir 10mo ago
If you like zero knowledge proofs, check out https://ethproofs.org/blocks
21.
by spir 1y ago
lol, this thread has 1 comment and 19 points as of my writing this comment. Historians will look back with amazement at how little HN seems to care about the future of money and economic systems. 95%+ of HN has been blinded with rage at the
22.
by spir 1y ago
Pretty huge. It's the future of much of internet monetization and anti slop.
23.
by spir 1y ago
Pixel 9 is so extremely slippery that one can't help but think they designed it to need a case. I never bought a case prior to Pixel 9 but the thing is like a wet bar of soap.
24.
by spir 1y ago
Earlier this year, a crypto app web UI attack stole $1.5 billion. A couple hundred grand is not what these attackers are after.
25.
by spir 1y ago
You are missing what many are missing, which is that a centralized stablecoin like USDC on a public blockchain is already much more useful and powerful than a dollar in a bank account, and that will only 100x from here. The reasons why are
26.
by spir 3y ago
thanks, i hadn't fully realized that 'safety' means 'safe to offer' and not 'safe for users'. i won't forget it
27.
by spir 3y ago
One problem is that an unknowable subset of the people who claim to be anti-harm-to-children are actually pro-tyranny. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bootleggers_and_Baptists
28.
by spir 3y ago
The tyranny caused by a ban on private communication is not worth the net reduction in harm to children.
29.
by spir 3y ago
I can't believe these folks can say "we need to prevent everyone in society from communicating privately to protect children" with a straight face. What must their employees think to themselves? Seems Stalinist.
30.
by spir 3y ago
The "open" in OpenAI stands for "openly purchasable"

More ›