MusaTheRedGuard

Yep. Most smart people, even the most diehard fans, knew tether was at the very least, extremely shady.

Forking is not a problem. It's users voting with their feet.

The possibility of forking is a necessary deterrent in cryptonetwork governance.

If the maintainers of a network become compromised or get coopted by special interests, the collective owners of the network(the holders of the cryptocurrency) have the right to exit.

The right to exit is a necessary part of governance.

> you can only commit to a given supply curve, but you cannot adjust it according to the state of the economy.

Why do you think this? Ethereum has changed its inflation schedule a few times recently.

It seems you are basing this on the hard capped supply model of bitcoin which is not the same as every cryptocurrency.

What do you think decentralized finance even is?

Just gonna leave this here: https://app.veil.co/market/will-2020-presidential-candidate-...

Also interesting to mention the crossover between Yang supporters and the crypto community: https://breakermag.com/five-reasons-crypto-fans-are-joining-...

At this point, I find it hard to take mainstream journalist's criticism of bitcoin seriously unless the criticizers agree on what they're criticizing.

Bitcoin isn't exchanges or "crypto" or "blockchain" or ICOs or tokens.

Bitcoin is not an exchange. That's like saying the economy is screwed up because a company went bankrupt.

This entire thread: "Why don't you just use the post office why do you need email?"

Or a jurisdiction which has rules that you can't or choose not to comply with

And I'm saying illegality is not the only usecase, though it is definitely a valuable and useful one.

In case it wasn't clear, the usecases i mentioned above (gambling, getting around capital controls) exist and are live in crypto right now.

Anyone can call themselves a "blockchain enthusiast" that doesn't mean they're smart or know what they're doing.

Examples of good thinkers are the guys over at multicoin capital, a crypto focused hedge fund: https://multicoin.capital

I don't agree with everything they invest in, but they have clear, logical theses

First of all, no. Global, trustless coordination is a hard problem and is not necessarily illegal.

Second, legality is subjective around the world. It is currently illegal in the US to gamble online, for some reason, even though casinos and lotteries are a thing.

It is illegal in many countries to transfer a certain amount of money out of the country, for some reason.

Certain sexualities are illegal in quite a few countries.

Illegal != bad

Most people who are even a little bit serious about working/investing in crypto, are well aware of this and have been saying this for the past few years.

Inb4 "you're not investing, you're speculating/gambling". I'm aware.

Inb4 "blockchain is a slower database". Again, I'm aware.

It's been pretty telling to watch sentiment on HN towards crypto slowly shift from complete disgust to mild curiousity

Peer to peer censorship resistant electronic cash.

Moving value on the internet without a potentially compromised central party

Yeah definitely doesn't square with my experience. My first 3 years as a software engineer was filled with late nights at the office, horrendous office politics and an extreme amount of stress. Got so bad I started to get random heart palpitations.

Not that everyday was like this of course, but these conditions were happening more often than not.

Sure, some of it was due to impostor syndrome and competitiveness between team members but most of it was just the environment

This honestly makes me sad. I really did think google was different

Decentralization. Anyone can run their own node of the software making it resistant to censorship, malicious control by the devs themselves or a third party.

Augur.casino runs their own node of Augur but runs it on IPFS, allowing others to connect to it.

Provides convenience if a user doesn't care about decentralization.

Just btw, I'm not affiliated with augur or augur.casino or any of these projects. I just find them interesting

Multiple ways to short ETH, as mentioned by another user. Including on augur itself!

See: https://augur-cfd.com

You don't have to download an app to interact with augur: augur.casino

Built on top of IPFS

Total Money at Stake: $1,155,706.38

From predictions.global

Sigh.

Copying my comment from below:

Please note that an "active user" is an active address( i.e one that has made a bet on the platform) in the past day. This doesn't take into account users that made a bet in the past( most bets have long term horizons, >4 to 5 months) or users that have a current position but aren't betting anymore or users simply observing the markets( looking at a front end like predictions.global)

Also note that active users is probably not a great metric for this application, as it's not a consumer app/ time sink thing.

Money at stake is much a better metric

Please note that an "active user" is an active address( i.e one that has made a bet on the platform) in the past day.

This doesn't take into account users that made a bet in the past( most bets have long term horizons, >4 to 5 months) or users that have a current position but aren't betting anymore or users simply observing the markets( looking at a front end like predictions.global)

Also note that active users is probably not a great metric for this application, as it's not a consumer app/ time sink thing.

Money at stake is much a better metric

See this reddit thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/Augur/comments/97di7x/is_there_a_wa...

Lol gambling/speculation might be one of the few places blockchain has product market fit

The writing style is a stylistic choice. I like it