News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Crypto crash deepens, stocks slip by zpeti on Wednesday May 19, 2021 @09:53AM (#27208611)
My personal take:

There might well be ponzi schemes on top of the bitcoin infrastructure, but the technology behind bitcoin is not a ponzi scheme.

It might well be that a lot of people are crazed over it and want to buy bitcoin and push up the price, but that's because there is something here with cryptocurrency. It definitely is a new way of accounting, and it could potentially be a hedge against the fiat system.

There's a lot of IFs, but I still think it is revolutionary technology that may well revolutionise things in 5-10 or 50 years, who knows.

Re:Crypto crash deepens, stocks slip by Retric on Wednesday May 19, 2021 @10:00AM (#27208719)
At the purely technical level, Bitcoin’s current transactions per minute heavily limit it’s utility. The original goal was solving micro transactions which crypto coins could do, they just need to scale to ~100 Billion transactions a day +/- orders of magnitude.

Unfortunately, miners benefit from the current artificial limitations. Which demonstrates an inherent issue with crypto currency, miners and users have very different goals yet only miners get a vote.

Re:Crypto crash deepens, stocks slip by intotheabyss on Wednesday May 19, 2021 @10:10AM (#27208875)
This might be shocking to people, but there are people in crypto that own zero Bitcoin. You can dislike Bitcoin and still be bullish on crypto.
Re:Crypto crash deepens, stocks slip by UncleMeat on Wednesday May 19, 2021 @02:54PM (#27212817)
I'm not sure it is possible to be bullish of crypto in general. Surely at most a small number of tokens will win and the rest will drop to zero. Owning the entire ecosystem isn't diversification like investing in many companies.
Re:Crypto crash deepens, stocks slip by intotheabyss on Wednesday May 19, 2021 @03:43PM (#27213476)
Oh I absolutely agree. I think cryptos will be top heavy from a market perspective, where the top cryptos will have something like >80% of the total marketcap by the end of the decade.
Re:Crypto crash deepens, stocks slip by greg7mdp on Wednesday May 19, 2021 @10:05AM (#27208803)
Ethereum will solve both issues, removing miners and the energy use by moving to Proof of Stake at the end on this year, and increasing the transaction throughput by 100x factors with level 2 solutions.
Re:Crypto crash deepens, stocks slip by ulzeraj on Wednesday May 19, 2021 @10:50AM (#27209431)
How does PoS solves anything when people will just stake on exchanges so that it literally replicates the current financial system with central banks and permissioned cartels?

How new PoS coins will be generated and distributed? The stock has to be generated somehow right? How does this not resemble a central bank?

This is an honest question. It looks like PoS is a full circle towards the same centralized system we have today. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Re:Crypto crash deepens, stocks slip by AlexandrB on Wednesday May 19, 2021 @02:00PM (#27212126)
The history of cryptocurrency seems to be the re-discovery of why the global economy is structured the way it is from first principles.
Re:Crypto crash deepens, stocks slip by inter_netuser on Wednesday May 19, 2021 @03:26PM (#27213235)
You are exactly correct.

It is plutocracy, but with emojis.

Re:Crypto crash deepens, stocks slip by doomroot on Wednesday May 19, 2021 @10:09AM (#27208851)
I think the layer approach seems to make the most sense. Much like our current system now. The difference comes from building from a strong sound money base.
Re:Crypto crash deepens, stocks slip by inter_netuser on Wednesday May 19, 2021 @10:17AM (#27208961)
base layer tps is low because it is designed for survival in most adversarial of conditions. It is a heavy duty tank, not a sport bike.

Would you take M1 Abrams tank to race at Nurburgring? They have a different function.

Lightninig/Payment channels, backed by the same baselayer security guarantees, can operate at literally unlimited tps. The only ceiling is how fast you can send packets back and forth.

Miners do not vote, they are nothing but security guards paid by the network users. Miners do not get paid if they produce a block with rules not accepted by the rest network.

Counterintuitive, but that is the reality.

Re:Crypto crash deepens, stocks slip by deschutes on Wednesday May 19, 2021 @11:39AM (#27210192)
What's stopping your adversaries from seizing hardware? Nothing? So the system relies folks playing nice in the physical world? The whole thing is a ridiculous fantasy with an asinine threat model.
Re:Crypto crash deepens, stocks slip by inter_netuser on Wednesday May 19, 2021 @02:33PM (#27212561)
The same that stops people from invading your house, caging you, and confiscating everything you own. Violence.

Either monopoly on violence in the state under whose protection miners operate, or private security for smaller threats.

Miners in China, Russia and Iran are essentially absolutely immune to threats from the West. and vice versa.

It's not designed to gamble and make a quick buck, but to survive even a nuclear war. Just like TCP/IP wasn't designed for streaming porn.

Re:Crypto crash deepens, stocks slip by Retric on Wednesday May 19, 2021 @06:17PM (#27215248)
Compromising hardware doesn’t require compromising countries.

If you’re servers are worth X Billion Dollars that’s attractive to the same sorts of criminals that rob banks. Hell governments have a long history of running drugs and state sanctioned piracy etc. An attractive enough target needs serious security.

Re:Crypto crash deepens, stocks slip by gruez on Wednesday May 19, 2021 @12:22PM (#27210776)
Because there's threat models with less threat than "US sending a fleet of aircraft carriers to go after you".
Re:Crypto crash deepens, stocks slip by inter_netuser on Wednesday May 19, 2021 @02:34PM (#27212568)
Even that would not work very well against miners in China, Russia, Iran, Venezuela...
Re:Crypto crash deepens, stocks slip by mellavora on Wednesday May 19, 2021 @10:27AM (#27209109)
Well, to be snarky, if that M1 could take out the other cars, then it wouldn't have to be the fastest to win. Only the fastest which is still capable of motion...
Re:Crypto crash deepens, stocks slip by SavantIdiot on Wednesday May 19, 2021 @10:07AM (#27208823)
> I still think it is revolutionary technology that may well revolutionise things in 5-10 or 50 years, who knows.

If there's one thing I love most about the technology behind bitcoin, it is the permanent, public, unalterable ledger of every purchase I've ever made and every purchase I'll every make, and who I gave the money to. I'm super excited about the complete lack of personal financial privacy that Bitcoin's blockchain enables! /s

Re:Crypto crash deepens, stocks slip by icoder on Wednesday May 19, 2021 @10:20AM (#27208998)
It's a bit more nuanced isn't it (or am I mistaken)? All you see in the ledgers is the (hopefully single use) addresses the money is sent to, plus all addresses that come after it. There's not much in the system itself that links people / organisations to addresses, right? You'll have to get that information from outside the system: you know yourself, and maybe the receiver as a person, but where it then ends up requires you to obtain knowledge that's not readily available.

Sure there's a lot stored, which does bring privacy concerns that are quite different from our current financial system, I'm not debating that, but it's not as obvious as you put it, as far as I understood it.

Re:Crypto crash deepens, stocks slip by SavantIdiot on Wednesday May 19, 2021 @10:30AM (#27209160)
"We've killed people based on metadata" - Former USA CIA director. [1]

It really isn't that nuanced at all for Bitcoin. If I know your wallet I can see all of your transactions. Period. And if you want to trade money with me, you need to give me your wallet. Once I find it, thought, it is game over. [2]

There are "tumblers" that attempt to obfuscate the chain by turning one transaction into millions of little ones, but it is just a matter of tree search to reconstruct.

[1] https://www.rt.com/usa/158460-cia-director-metadata-kill-peo...

[2] https://www.blockchain.com/explorer

Re:Crypto crash deepens, stocks slip by acdha on Wednesday May 19, 2021 @10:33AM (#27209195)
The problem is that it's global and irrevocable: mistakes and intentional linkages act as a ratchet increasingly deanonymizing the network over time. If it started to have real usage, you'd quickly see the equivalent of the credit card / scoring companies, Google, etc. paying merchants for transaction details and building a web of user information.
Re:Crypto crash deepens, stocks slip by SavantIdiot on Wednesday May 19, 2021 @01:58PM (#27212093)
Ooof. That is a great second-order observation: agencies profiling you and making lifer harder or easier based on your blockchain history. Not like this is new, as you point out, just even more difficult to expunge: there's no "blockchain" to expunge your blockchain habits! (yet??? I think I have a new startup idea for blockchain ... /bangsheadagainstwall/)
Re:Crypto crash deepens, stocks slip by acdha on Wednesday May 19, 2021 @02:24PM (#27212433)
Sadly, these days my threat model for anything new is basically “how will Google/Facebook use this for ad targeting?” — it's good for both a realistic level of risk (most of us are not targeted by the CIA/Mossad/FSB) and a sober assessment of the level of resources available to the attacker.

For blockchains in particular I think we tend underestimate the amount of information which someone with that kind of analytic capacity could derive, especially if they also have other data sources — for example, I would be quite surprised if the various anonymity schemes are less effective when evaluated as part of a full system against someone who has a lot of visibility into web activity (Google Analytics, Facebook beacons), DNS, email, etc.

Re:Crypto crash deepens, stocks slip by serverholic on Wednesday May 19, 2021 @10:13AM (#27208914)
There are technologies people are working on to solve that. One is called ZK-SNARKS and ethereum is working to integrate the tech. Another is Monero, which is a privacy focused crypto.
Re:Crypto crash deepens, stocks slip by SavantIdiot on Wednesday May 19, 2021 @10:15AM (#27208935)
Right, I was talking about Bitcoin only. mimblewimble and zcash also both have shielded transactions. I believe they use an ECDH secret for each transaction so that only the two people involved in the transaction can decode it.
Re:Crypto crash deepens, stocks slip by fsflover on Wednesday May 19, 2021 @10:39AM (#27209279)
If you care about privacy, then consider Monero.
Re:Crypto crash deepens, stocks slip by paulpauper on Wednesday May 19, 2021 @10:48AM (#27209411)
i love when ppl say this. you realize that turning monero into usable cash will at some point req. revealing your identity?
Re:Crypto crash deepens, stocks slip by SavantIdiot on Wednesday May 19, 2021 @10:54AM (#27209513)
But then the argument is: why would I turn it into usable cash if everyone used it. And by the time you reach that point in the discussion, back slowly away...
Re:Crypto crash deepens, stocks slip by jiminymcmoogley on Wednesday May 19, 2021 @01:20PM (#27211608)
the only identifiers i can think of are my height, gait, voice and clothing. Though i get your point and it does seem to be getting harder and harder to find local dealers willing to transact without seeing photo ID. I still think it can be much more private than cash-only purchases, depending on how careful you are about it
Re:Crypto crash deepens, stocks slip by matheusmoreira on Wednesday May 19, 2021 @11:36AM (#27210142)
Monero does not have this problem. It's what bitcoin should have been.
Re:Crypto crash deepens, stocks slip by Ar-Curunir on Wednesday May 19, 2021 @10:54AM (#27209501)
That’s not an inherent feature of decentralized ledgers; you can have protocols like Zerocash which hide the sender, receiver, amount completely, via the use of zero knowledge proofs
Re:Crypto crash deepens, stocks slip by ArtWomb on Wednesday May 19, 2021 @10:10AM (#27208865)
It's unfortunate that the space has attracted "pump & dump" opportunists. But if one is a student of technology and networks and markets, Decentralized Finance (DeFi) is fascinating. Two recent innovations to check out: Uniswap, the decentralized exchange protocol, and Bitclout, a social blockchain that just went open source last nite

https://uniswap.org/docs/v2/protocol-overview/how-uniswap-wo...

https://github.com/bitclout/core

Re:Crypto crash deepens, stocks slip by ddeyar on Wednesday May 19, 2021 @10:34AM (#27209216)
If you're not aware of https://tezos.com/ then it is definitely worth to look into it. It's PoS since 2017, has smart contracts since 2018. It's a self amending protocol. A lot of improvements are already injected and a lot in the pipeline. For more information about the recent upgrade: http://doc.tzalpha.net/protocols/009_florence.html

Lots of defi products are already live on mainnet. https://better-call.dev/dapps/list

Re:Crypto crash deepens, stocks slip by lottin on Wednesday May 19, 2021 @10:03AM (#27208771)
The technology has no use outside the scope of crypto-currencies.
Re:Crypto crash deepens, stocks slip by greg7mdp on Wednesday May 19, 2021 @10:06AM (#27208810)
Have you heard of DEFI (decentralized finance)?
Re:Crypto crash deepens, stocks slip by lottin on Wednesday May 19, 2021 @10:17AM (#27208951)
Ah, yes, it's taking over traditional finance except they still haven't figured out how to make loans, but never mind that.
Re:Crypto crash deepens, stocks slip by intotheabyss on Wednesday May 19, 2021 @10:27AM (#27209117)
There are undercollaterized / no collateral loans on Ethereum. You can build a credit score using decentralized identities. But yeah, keep dismissing it. You'll eventually use Ethereum or something like it whether you want to or not.
Re:Crypto crash deepens, stocks slip by AnIdiotOnTheNet on Wednesday May 19, 2021 @10:56AM (#27209547)
Ok, if that's the case why should we start using it now? What's the advantage other than fomo-driven speculatory gambling?
Re:Crypto crash deepens, stocks slip by intotheabyss on Wednesday May 19, 2021 @12:08PM (#27210557)
The advantage eventually will be easier ways to get funding for startups or businesses of all kinds. You need highly liquid markets in order to facilitate global finance at scale so that's where it's starting today. Rebuilding all of the financial primitives onchain. Why? Because composability of contracts onchain results in higher velocities of money; higher than whats possible in traditional finance. Imagine a world where you can list ownership of a stock and have that be immediately accessible by millions of people around the world regardless of jurisdiction 24/7 in highly liquid markets, all from a browser app. That's where this is going in my opinion.
Re:Crypto crash deepens, stocks slip by lottin on Wednesday May 19, 2021 @05:09PM (#27214476)
None of this makes any sense at all. Composability of contracts leads to higher velocity of money? Where do you get this from? And why do we want higher velocity of money? The only people who care about velocity of money are macroeconomists. Velocity of money has literally zero impact on businesses and individuals.
Re:Crypto crash deepens, stocks slip by intotheabyss on Thursday May 20, 2021 @08:45AM (#27220399)
Velocity of money follows the equation V = P*T/M Where P = price level; T = aggregate value of transactions per delta t and M = total nominal amount of currency in circulation.

With DeFi, you can increase T because the aggregate value of transaction per delta time increases thanks to composability of money. In the traditional system, locking up money means buying an asset where that value then becomes illiquid (like buying shares of a stock, or a bond). However in DeFi, that same asset can be tokenized and used as liquidity as a tokenized collateral. For example, I can tokenize a TSLA share and then use that as collateral in a contract where I can get a yield. I could also pair TSLA with a stablecoin as a liquidity position (1:1 TSLA/USD) and tokenize the liquidity position which can then be used in other contracts.

The total aggerate value per unit time increases thanks to composability of contracts. You should download Metamask and use DeFi, it'll become clear what I'm talking about.

You want higher velocities of money because then that value is being put to work. When you have low velocities of money it means you have hoarding behavior which leads to deflation and a shrinking economy. With DeFi, the same value is more efficient than the traditional system because that value can be allocated more efficiently (i.e. higher yields thanks to tokenized positions and composable contracts), thus you get more bang for your buck so-to-speak.

Also, just having something like Uniswap with pooled liquidity means assets are more liquid, which also increases velocity of money. More liquidity = higher velocities of money. This is how you bank the unbanked, by giving everyone access to financial markets as long as they have an internet connection.

Re:Crypto crash deepens, stocks slip by lottin on Thursday May 20, 2021 @12:26PM (#27223260)
Okay, you're misusing a lot of financial terms, and then making some other terms up, such as "composability of money". Some things are composable but money isn't one of them.

What you describe as "tokenization" exists in traditional finance, and has existed for ages. For example, money market funds invest funds in money market instruments and then fractional ownership of the fund (and therefore of the underlying investments) in the form of shares can be bought and sold in the market. In short, this is not a DeFi innovation.

"Liquidity" refers to the easiness with which an asset can be converted into money. For example, a share is less liquid than money (because money is the most liquid asset, by definition) but more liquid than a house, because shares are sold easier than houses. Shares and bonds tend to be quite liquid. For example, some government bonds are so liquid that are considered a "money equivalent". And "tokenizing" an asset doesn't necessarily makes it more liquid. Finally, shares and bonds are used as collateral all the time. In fact, any financial and non-financial asset can be used as collateral. For example, a mortgage is a loan that is secured by real estate, even though real estate is relatively illiquid. It still used as collateral.

With regards to the velocity of money, you're misinterpreting something called the Quantity Theory of Money. The velocity of money is linked to the level of economic output but it doesn't really make sense to try to influence the velocity of money through economic policy in order to control the level of economic activity, it doesn't work like that. Also the velocity of money isn't being limited by some bottleneck in the financial sector, and specifically isn't being limited by money not being "composable" enough, whatever that means. Your whole argument about the velocity of money just doesn't make any sense.

I think you have good intentions but clearly you don't know much about finance, and if you're interested in DeFi you should definitely learn a little bit about finance, because right now you don't quite seem to grasp even the most elementary of financial concepts. I'm telling you that in good faith, don't take it badly.

Re:Crypto crash deepens, stocks slip by inter_netuser on Wednesday May 19, 2021 @03:29PM (#27213276)
Don't, might make money on accident.
Re:Crypto crash deepens, stocks slip by Faaak on Wednesday May 19, 2021 @10:53AM (#27209494)
undercollaterized loans are valid for one transaction only. You should research what you preach before dismissing others
Re:Crypto crash deepens, stocks slip by intotheabyss on Wednesday May 19, 2021 @11:02AM (#27209645)
Uh no, Aave has credit delegation for no collateral loans and it uses OpenLaw contracts to secure a credit line. And there's also TrueFi https://truefi.io/. And a bunch of others. You can get loans based on credit on Ethereum.
Re:Crypto crash deepens, stocks slip by lottin on Wednesday May 19, 2021 @11:22AM (#27209958)
I can buy a car on credit using DeFi right now, is that what you're saying?
Re:Crypto crash deepens, stocks slip by intotheabyss on Wednesday May 19, 2021 @12:03PM (#27210504)
No, what I'm saying is that right now if you have a product on Ethereum with consistent cashflows, you can borrow money on credit from DAOs with large treasuries willing to lend them out using OpenLaw contracts as arbitration. The goal for these protocols is to expand this using decentralized identities and onchain credit scores.
Re:Crypto crash deepens, stocks slip by lottin on Wednesday May 19, 2021 @05:17PM (#27214575)
If I can't buy a car on credit with DeFi it means DeFi can't do loans. And if it can't do loans it can't do finance. Maybe it can do a semblance of finance, maybe we can call it crippled finance, but it's not finance. Pretending that DeFi is going to turn everything upside down when it is unable to even make a simple loan is ridiculous. Nobody can take this seriously.
Re:Crypto crash deepens, stocks slip by intotheabyss on Thursday May 20, 2021 @09:01AM (#27220548)
I can take a no collateral loan from DeFi today https://truefi.io/. So you can buy a car on credit using DeFi.

Also, this is early days. A few years ago HN's stance was that smart contracts are completely useless. Oh so now their not useless, but you can't get no collateral loans so it's not real finance. Right....

So what happens when I can get a decentralized identity and mortgage sized loans on DeFi in the next few years? This IS coming as there are at least a dozen projects working on this problem and there are already systems today that work, so it's only a matter of time.

Clearly you and many others in HN have blinders on because you were wrong to say that smart contracts are useless during the last crypto bubble. And over the years, you'll continue to be wrong as long as you bury your head in the sand. I'm absolutely confident about that.

Re:Crypto crash deepens, stocks slip by lottin on Thursday May 20, 2021 @02:00PM (#27224689)
As I suspected, I can't take a DeFi loan from https://truefi.io/. It's only open to a small number of vetted borrowers comprised of OTC desks and exchanges. Interesting to see how it works though. They say "delinquent borrowers will face legal action pursuant to the loan agreement signed", which means they're relying on the "legacy" legal system to enforce the loan agreement. In other words, it's not DeFi (surprise, surprise).

Are DeFi loans coming in the future? I have no idea, but right now it's not clear whether it's even possible to make loans with DeFi. No one has done it, so far. And loans are the most elementary of financial instruments.

Another problem with DeFi has to do with the very concept of decentralisation. For instance, these TruFi loans are approved or rejected by the lenders themselves. Another example, in a Dao, the shareholders assume management roles. Therefore, at least in these instances, decentralisation means replacing highly specialised workers with unpaid, non-specialised, informal labour. I think anyone can see that this is a dumb idea. A decentralised entity that is organised in this way will never be able to compete against a corporation that exploits division of labour and is professionalised.

Re:Crypto crash deepens, stocks slip by inter_netuser on Wednesday May 19, 2021 @03:29PM (#27213295)
can you point to these OpenLaw contracts? Curious to read.

tia.

Re:Crypto crash deepens, stocks slip by intotheabyss on Wednesday May 19, 2021 @03:38PM (#27213412)
Here's a link to the OpenLaw documentation https://docs.openlaw.io/getting-started-overview/#javascript...
Re:Crypto crash deepens, stocks slip by Balantio on Wednesday May 19, 2021 @10:14AM (#27208928)
Technology can be revolutionising without investing in a very specific cryptocurrency like bitcoin.

I'm betting my ass of that cryptocurrency in a different way might be the future of fiat BUT from the countries themselfs.

I'm not sure why anyone in the long run would trust a system which is controlled by some totally unknown and new individuals who invested in some cryptocurrencies.

There is no need at all to assume that the crypto technology is limited to btc and other current cryptocurrencies.

Re:Crypto crash deepens, stocks slip by 8note on Wednesday May 19, 2021 @11:31AM (#27210084)
Countries can just use a database and do the same stuff as crypto incredibly efficiently by comparison
Re:Crypto crash deepens, stocks slip by Balantio on Wednesday May 19, 2021 @05:04PM (#27214440)
I just don't know how it works in detail on the bacnking side as i havenot worked with it.

My thought was that a crypto based system could replace perhaps a sea of different approaches and alignment efforts across banking systems and if a central bank/banks are just need to approve a block, instead of mining it, the basic idea of a transparent cryptosigned blockchain might be useful.

But yes i don't think they need something like this as the current system seems to be very trustworthy. I have never heard of a bank creating money out of thin air.

Re:Crypto crash deepens, stocks slip by enkid on Wednesday May 19, 2021 @10:00AM (#27208724)
How do you differentiate the infrastructure from the technology? The technology drives the infrastructure.
Re:Crypto crash deepens, stocks slip by paulpauper on Wednesday May 19, 2021 @10:27AM (#27209110)
there is no tech though. it is just math