COINBASE for Crypto has come

[Slothrop]

The technology is great it's just in unimaginative hands

The technology is really clever, but too many people get far too involved in wanking over how clever it is and forget that for the majority of applications it's basically just a slow, planet-destroyingly inefficient database.

 

[luka]

Are you another computer programmer Slothrop? We've got quite a few now.

 

[IdleRich]

I find it really difficult to work up any enthusiasm or interest in this stuff, but frequently feel as though I'm hobbling myself by not doing so.

Same.

I liked this

Ms. Morgan and Mr. Lichtenstein, who also goes by the nickname Dutch, have promoted themselves as veteran tech and crypto entrepreneurs

What's a veteran crypto entrepreneur? How can you be a veteran in something that has only been around for ten minutes?

 

[Slothrop]

Are you another computer programmer Slothrop? We've got quite a few now.

Yeah, I lead a small team doing search-related stuff inside a big corporate. I knock up against a lot of machine learning and "AI" type tech quite a lot, so trying to see past the hype around how clever some bit of tech is and pay attention to what it actually does kind of goes with the territory. Which is why I spend a lot of time rolling my eyes at crypto-evangelists.

 

[toko]

I find it really difficult to work up any enthusiasm or interest in this stuff, but frequently feel as though I'm hobbling myself by not doing so.

The technology is really clever, but too many people get far too involved in wanking over how clever it is and forget that for the majority of applications it's basically just a slow, planet-destroyingly inefficient database.

Hopefully, I can offer my perspective. I think I've made my previous views on the NFTs space clear enough, but I think crypto's original techno-social vision of the future is exciting.

Here is Sergay Nazarov, founder of Chainlink offering his take on the entire point of it all:


Not saying I agree with this in its entirety, but it is more imaginative and ambitious than anything that's going on in tech right now. Specifically, the development of parallel legal infrastructure within developing countries is a fascinating idea that will have massive political and social consequences-- I genuinely think that national sovereign power will be diminished if this vision becomes reality.

For me, crypto is about building credibly neutral infrastructure, (or hyperstructures) so that the libertarian dream of global economic cooperation, regardless of ethnicity or nationality can be realized. It's extremely utopian -- but it's probably the most imaginative and non-dystopian vision for the future that I've seen in the last decade that might actually become a reality.

 

[luka]

Sounds boring

 

[toko]

Yeah, I lead a small team doing search-related stuff inside a big corporate. I knock up against a lot of machine learning and "AI" type tech quite a lot, so trying to see past the hype around how clever some bit of tech is and pay attention to what it actually does kind of goes with the territory. Which is why I spend a lot of time rolling my eyes at crypto-evangelists.

One of the best critiques of defi is that it is extremely self-circular -- by that I mean defi stuff is about trading defi tokens, DEX's are for trading one defi-token for another, insurance is for defi protocols which offer lending on defi tokens etc. but honestly, the critique misses the fact that self-circularity is useful because it demonstrates that defi can be used as a global infra. its a kind of proof-of-concept.

 

[toko]

Sounds boring

you too.

 

[toko]

i just realized how much an evangelist I sound like. oh well. it cant be helped

 

[Slothrop]

For me, crypto is about building credibly neutral infrastructure, (or hyperstructures) so that the libertarian dream of global economic cooperation, regardless of ethnicity or nationality can be realized. It's extremely utopian -- but it's probably the most imaginative and non-dystopian vision for the future that I've seen in the last decade that might actually become a reality.

Yeah, as far as I can tell libertarians (and small government fundamentalists in general) (and organized crime) are the people for whom crypto really has a point beyond being a pyramid scheme. The benefit that you get in exchange for your ledgers being slow and inefficient is that you don't need to nominate a trusted authority to run them, and therefore you can't get any sort of central authority having control over them. Kind of.

I don't buy this myself though - firstly because I think it's actually quite useful to have some sort of centralized control over stuff like economy and infrastructure, and secondly because the climate cost of the technology as it stands still seems to be bad enough that I can't see how you'd ever think that the problems that it would solve are bad enough to justify the impact of scaling it out far enough to solve them.

 

[Clinamenic]

If you're gonna call it a scam, it more closely resembles ponzi than pyramid. Although I suppose for most people the terms are effectively synonymous.

 

[Clinamenic]

Also I'd like to find a (relatively) comprehensive audit of the energy consumption of this tech. I gather that PoW blockchains are the big offenders, at some ostensible trade-off of being more secure and uncensorable than PoS, but I personally don't have a deep enough understanding of them to tell why.

I also gather its very difficult to gauge the energy consumption, and what percentage of that energy is from non-renewable sources, because of how sprawling the miner diaspora is.

 

[Clinamenic]

But yeah as far as I'm aware Bitcoin and Ethereum are using more energy than they need to, but then again the blockchains that claim to to be significantly more efficient also aren't operating on those scales in terms of market cap. Not sure if that should be interpreted as a lack of proof or not.

 

[Clinamenic]

One of the best critiques of defi is that it is extremely self-circular -- by that I mean defi stuff is about trading defi tokens, DEX's are for trading one defi-token for another, insurance is for defi protocols which offer lending on defi tokens etc. but honestly, the critique misses the fact that self-circularity is useful because it demonstrates that defi can be used as a global infra. its a kind of proof-of-concept.

Yeah this is what I mean about these ecosystems of protocols just predicating their value on each other, rather than trying to directly connect with more problems that laypeople would recognize as important.

 

[Clinamenic]

But I also agree that the circularity isn't just a bad thing, nor is it a primarily bad thing. To me, it just seems a bit too circular/self-predicated.

But then again, it could be part of a larger process of integrating an ecosystem, as a higher-order technology than an individual protocol, in order to thoroughly adopt more and more economic traffic.

I still think this tech is gonna radically change a lot of industries, I'm just less optimistic about how. Still optimistic, just less so.

 

[Clinamenic]

@toko have you heard of CityCoins? I'm not a neutral source because I'm financially and ideologically invested, but I do think its a clearly interesting project. Its already generated over $20,000,000 for the city of Miami, as a source of revenue that isn't tax-based. They just cashed out $5,000,000 and a team of developers dedicated to building upon MiamiCoin.

 

[Clinamenic]

Anyway its an example of blockchain moving into government, and in this case it seems to be a first mover advantage.

 

[toko]

@toko have you heard of CityCoins? I'm not a neutral source because I'm financially and ideologically invested, but I do think its a clearly interesting project. Its already generated over $20,000,000 for the city of Miami, as a source of revenue that isn't tax-based. They just cashed out $5,000,000 and a team of developers dedicated to building upon MiamiCoin.

I've heard about it, read some stuff but if you can send me some reading stuff I can check it out. My only concern with city-related stuff is the design space is so new I feel like anything used by a government now will become obsolete within two years,

 

[Clinamenic]

Totally rational concern, especially if the project is open source, which CityCoins is.

Here is the official documentation

What are CityCoins? | CityCoins

A quick intro to the CityCoins protocol.

docs.citycoins.co

And here is a recent talk between one of the creators of the CityCoins protocol, and Miami's mayor who is the biggest promoter of it now. I haven't seen it yet, but I'd imagine they'd touch on the big points.

 

[Clinamenic]

There is a big push lately, via the Stacks blockchain, to make Bitcoin a settlement layer for apps and smart contracts. There was just a $150,000,000 grant program called Trust Machines announced a few days ago, to this effect.