Utopia Talk / Politics / Crypto/Nhill 2

Habebe Member	Tue May 04 22:57:17 I just read that $1000 st on Dogecoin Jan 1st 2021 would be worth $103,000 now....definitley better bet than my brother in-laws lotto tickets cause "he has to eventually win"
tumbleweed the wanderer	Tue May 04 23:03:42 the volatility can go both ways seems just like very high risk stocks to me
Habebe Member	Tue May 04 23:18:16 Pretty much still safer than the lottery and a similar gambling rush.
nhill Member	Wed May 05 00:03:10 http://uto...hread=88064&time=1620077290624 Link to previous thread. Still have yet to see anyone put up a reasonable argument.
Nimatzo iChihuaha	Wed May 05 03:09:53 Nhill A lot of people do not see the merit of non state owned currencies and decentralized settlement systems. People who still have a large degree of trust in the current systems. They think currency and settlement must be run by a central authority. They may be for de-centralization in other domains, but not finance and banking. I would like to hear your thoughts on PoW vs PoS.
Habebe Member	Wed May 05 03:18:24 Or the Digital Yuan. A super centralized crypto....strange cat.
Habebe Member	Wed May 05 03:22:59 I do have a visceral fear that many cryptos are bubbles. Partly because these huge spikes seem to come from 2 sources. 1. Chinese or other state mining corps. 2. Novice speculators following musk tweets who likely know little to nothing about the underlying tech. Kind of seems like a perfect storm for a bubble.
Habebe Member	Wed May 05 03:29:26 http://ethereum.org/en/ Ether in parricular seems interesting though.
Seb Member	Wed May 05 03:31:52 Nhill: In reply, firstly, congratulations you've managed to do well out of this. Certainly, I regret not buying a few bitcoin back when it kicked off. However, the whole crypto ecosystem looks very much like a speculative asset with no intrinsic value than a currency per-se. You also didn't really address my point - it's not *when* cryptocurrency 100% replaced fiat, it's whether in principle it ever can. The fact and shifting consensus on this point makes a huge impact on future trajectory. Hence my mortgage question. When you start looking at crypto coins as an actual currency as opposed to a fungible asset, they imply a fundamentally different approach to debt that I think would be economically disastrous (and indeed has been in the past when monetary systems with similar properties were adopted). Thus I think they will never replace fiat, and at some point it may become obvious that this is not the case - and if that happens it will likely hit uptake and cause a collapse in value. In terms of the natural value of a bitcoin (or any other crypto) - it's utility for money laundering and other forms of regulatory or other forms of arbitrage probably does give the network utility: there will always be some goods and services available in the cryptocoin economy (though there is a question of which network is preferred) which will mean there is always some demand for coins in circulation which will give it a value - the challenge will be to ensure that this meets the energy costs of running mining operations. For bitcoin, this seems like it could under certain conditions drive centralisation which makes it vulnerable to state intervention. It will also lead to continued volatility. So it is therefore difficult to work out when exactly to buy in, and when to sell out. So for me, I can't really commit the bulk of my savings in it - too risky. However you might have something in suggesting around "being proved right", I suspect I should have taken the animal spirits around bitcoin more seriously and not analysed it to death over the course of a lazy afternoon back when I was an academic. The biggest problem with being a bear on something is when you are too early. Oh, and yes, central banks are looking at issuing their own - but these are not distributed and are "blockchain" only in so far as they are a merkle tree operated by a central trusted authority - so publicly verifiable but with privileged write access. It just boils down to having an account with the central bank. "because it's a cool boomer thing." Jesus, how old do you think I am? You know millennials are defined as those who came of age around 2000 are in their 40's right? I'm either one of the first of the Millennials or last of Gen X.
Seb Member	Wed May 05 03:40:07 If I could figure out a proper way to value a cryptocoin I believed in, I would be more likely to invest. The problem is I suspect it is dominated by supply and demand dynamics of transactions, and thus open to manipulation. For example, if I am a largescale bitcoin miner, and sitting on a pile of coins, I could pay for a zero day exploit, launch a ransomware attack denominated in bitcoin. That whacks up the number of transactions per day and increases the number of bitcoin buyers in the market and thus push up the value - and I can front run the market and use that opportunity to cash out a chunk of my coins for "real" money that is more widely accepted.
Seb Member	Wed May 05 03:40:40 Daily transactions are something like 350k a day - not a lot.
Nimatzo iChihuaha	Wed May 05 04:09:15 "it's utility for money laundering" Is practically zero. Whatever analysis you did as an academic is not very useful because you are wrong on a lot of technically significant issues. Which you bring up as arguments against BTC. People with dirty BTC, use Monero to launder their BTC, because... well because of rather technical obvious reasons. But rather than explaining and tainting the information, I invite you to do some googling and study it yourself. Because the things you say are wrong on a level that doesn't reflect well on your "analysis as an academic". Things change also, facts emerge as we go, predictions do not come through etc.
nhill Member	Wed May 05 04:24:49 > I would like to hear your thoughts on PoW vs PoS. There's also proof-of-space, such as the Chia Blockchain backed by Bram Cohen & Jeff Atwood. Proof-of-space is more energy efficient as it's almost negligible energy costs to keep a hard drive ready to do a hash check every second or so. The downside is everyone buys up all the hard drives to mine the currency. PoW (proof-of-work) This previously was the only reliable way to bootstrap a successfully cryptocurrency. It requires an inane amount of computation power in a race to solve complex problems. That takes a lot of energy and causes video card shortages. PoS (proof-of-stake) is the natural evolution of PoW and proof-of-space. Once enough coins have been mined the ecosystem should be mature enough to transition peacefully. It's the best out of the three, but it's not great to start out with it. Because when you start out with it it's usually shady where the developers and investors have all the staked coins at the beginning. In Summation: Proof-of-stake is the best of both worlds. Doesn't cause hardware shortages and it doesn't use much electricity relative to PoW. Proof-of-storage is the best solution we have right now, but it has the side effect of causing hard drive shortages. Proof-of-work is the worst, but this is still early. The first proof-of-storage blockchain just came out this week (Chia). Seb: I'll get back to ya.
nhill Member	Wed May 05 04:27:16 Seb: > You also didn't really address my point - it's not *when* cryptocurrency 100% replaced fiat, it's whether in principle it ever can. The fact and shifting consensus on this point makes a huge impact on future trajectory. I did address this. Decentralized Finance doesn't need to replace anything to be a better alternative to our financial system. You are thinking too small.
nhill Member	Wed May 05 04:34:45 > they imply a fundamentally different approach to debt that I think would be economically disastrous (and indeed has been in the past when monetary systems with similar properties were adopted). There isn't a fundamentally different approach to debt in crypto. There are building blocks (Ether) that can be used to make ANY approach to debt, and package it up into a service. The people can make their own decisions. I only covered 4 of the 100s of financial services DeFi already provides. It's very likely that banks themselves with use DeFi in some iteration behind the scenes but leave the user-facing aspect of their business intact. The key is that it levels the playing field, so if I don't want to deal with the bank I can pick my individual services myself. The truth is, Seb, is that any argument you make against DeFi you have to apply it the same to traditional finance. All that's different is the transparency and ability for anyone to benefit from the system, but the underlying financial concepts and machinations are present.
nhill Member	Wed May 05 04:36:29 > In terms of the natural value of a bitcoin (or any other crypto) - it's utility for money laundering and other forms of regulatory or other forms of arbitrage probably does give the network utility: there will always be some goods and services available in the cryptocoin economy (though there is a question of which network is preferred) which will mean there is always some demand for coins in circulation which will give it a value - the challenge will be to ensure that this meets the energy costs of running mining operations. For bitcoin, this seems like it could under certain conditions drive centralisation which makes it vulnerable to state intervention. It will also lead to continued volatility. Bitcoin is boomer crypto. People think it's worth a lot so it's worth a lot. It's basically a digital commodity. Web 3.0 is what I'm talking about here. Bitcoin was merely a stepping stone.
nhill Member	Wed May 05 04:39:48 > So it is therefore difficult to work out when exactly to buy in, and when to sell out. So for me, I can't really commit the bulk of my savings in it - too risky. However you might have something in suggesting around "being proved right", I suspect I should have taken the animal spirits around bitcoin more seriously and not analysed it to death over the course of a lazy afternoon back when I was an academic. The biggest problem with being a bear on something is when you are too early. I'm not talking about trading or investing. I specifically recommended not doing that in the last thread. Trading is trading. Only difference is volatility in the crypto world. Boring. I'm talking about the future. You can invest/trade in it if you'd like through the various coins. I can even show you how to do it successfully. I don't trade/invest in crypto anymore. No need, made enough. I use DeFi services in Web 3.0 to compound my capital.
nhill Member	Wed May 05 04:43:05 > Oh, and yes, central banks are looking at issuing their own - but these are not distributed and are "blockchain" only in so far as they are a merkle tree operated by a central trusted authority - so publicly verifiable but with privileged write access. It just boils down to having an account with the central bank. Yes, I will concede that centralized cryptocurrency will, in all likelihood, be nothing more than an account in a system. There'll be some more accepting countries that will put their currency on an interoperable blockchain, but overall it'll be as said above. Forget I said anything about it.
nhill Member	Wed May 05 04:44:00 > Jesus, how old do you think I am? You know millennials are defined as those who came of age around 2000 are in their 40's right? I'm either one of the first of the Millennials or last of Gen X Boomer is an adjective now, keep up. Not a generation.
nhill Member	Wed May 05 04:46:01 > If I could figure out a proper way to value a cryptocoin I believed in, I would be more likely to invest. The best way is to read the whitepapers and find an elegant protocol. Bonus points if you can read code and see elegant, well-architected code that has unit tests, code coverage, CI, and integration tests. Clear documentation also helps, as it shows attention to detail. But the most important is understand the protocol fully. All major cryptocurrencies have whitepapers.
Seb Member	Wed May 05 04:48:51 Nim: Firstly, let me remind you of my full sentence "In terms of the natural value of a bitcoin (or any other crypto) it's utility for money laundering" Is Monero another form of crypto currency? Yes. Can this sentence be read as suggesting exclusivity to bitcoin? No. Ok, so is Bitcoin were not widely used for money laundering? Ransomware is a criminal activity is it not? Ransomware attackers often require payment in bitcoin (they use other cryptocoins too) in order to allow cross border flow without any impediment to the model (e.g. laws criminalising payment of ransoms) and avoid the financial system tracing them, and then shifting the coins into either other coins or cashing out. How is that not money laundering? Yes there are other coins. The argument is generalisable. But that was explicitly stated from the outset. You are on a desperate mission to find something to argue about. Please stop, it's boring.
nhill Member	Wed May 05 04:49:02 > The problem is I suspect it is dominated by supply and demand dynamics of transactions, and thus open to manipulation. In some cryptos, yes, in others, no. You are focused on specific creations within the cryptocurrency ecosystem. Many are flawed. That's why I don't recommend you invest with doing the due diligence. But again, that's not the point. The building blocks to build ANY financial service in a transparent, auditable, and fair way are now at our finger tips. How we put them together is going to be an absolute mess for a while, but it is the future.
nhill Member	Wed May 05 04:50:09 > For example, if I am a largescale bitcoin miner, and sitting on a pile of coins, I could pay for a zero day exploit, launch a ransomware attack denominated in bitcoin. That whacks up the number of transactions per day and increases the number of bitcoin buyers in the market and thus push up the value - and I can front run the market and use that opportunity to cash out a chunk of my coins for "real" money that is more widely accepted. Yes, that's called speculation. It happens a lot, including the forex market.
Nimatzo iChihuaha	Wed May 05 04:55:32 Nhill My dilemma is, which consesus method will ultimately be the stronger de-centralized system with best security. I view the energy requirements in that light, what are we getting for it and is it safe? And from what I have heard, PoS is more vulnerable. And the big benefit is that it require less energy. Well, perhaps security requires energy?
Seb Member	Wed May 05 05:00:21 Nhill: "There isn't a fundamentally different approach to debt in crypto." There certainly is from a macroeconomic perspective. What you are talking about in Etherium is smart contracts allowing clever ways of providing mortgage services, which is great but not relevant. I'm talking about how it is financed. Money supply is strictly limited, so you can't have a fractional reserve banking and that has big impacts on interest rates. So yes, if we accept that this is something that can only ever run alongside fiat currencies which remains the dominant form of economy; then to correctly price cryptos you need to look at supply and demand dynamics.
Nimatzo iChihuaha	Wed May 05 05:00:22 Seb I read you sentence correct, I understood you are talking broadly about crypto, but also specifically about BTC. let me put it in terms of "the CO2 emission of tesla model 3 (or any automobile)". I merely brought to your attention that all cars do not function the same way. It is a distinction that matters.
Nimatzo iChihuaha	Wed May 05 05:03:51 "Ok, so is Bitcoin were not widely used for money laundering?" Goal post shifting. BTC does not lend itself well to money laundering, far worse than cash. You leave a permanent trail on the BTC ledger, they have mapped this quire well, a couple of hundred BTC addresses are laundering more than 50% of the dirty money. Meanwhile no one can tell you how many dollars are in circulation.
nhill Member	Wed May 05 05:07:10 Nimatzo There are definitely flaws with PoS. It is less secure than PoW in one way: a party could stake enough coins to get a majority vote. Whereas in PoW, there's so many miners one would have to sustain more miners than there is than the rest of the world to guarantee a majority (in a simplified scenario where PoW and PoS are abstract). But, that said, the whole thing is overblown. Many blockchains have been "taken" over by nefarious entities. What happens is then the blockchain can fork and people can seamless use their same coins in the new blockchain whereas the bad actor is stuck back in the old one, which no longer has much value because it lost its purpose. I know it sounds a bit farfetched, but it's already happened many times and worked successfully. That's the beauty of the system. It is resistant to large actors, as they need the small actors to provide the volume, and the small actors can fork off and do their own thing if you push them around. Beautiful System.
nhill Member	Wed May 05 05:08:50 The other problem with PoS is economic in nature. PoW provides tangible work to gain a coin and the value is assigned based on that. But PoS doesn't actually do any work. Psychologically, what will that do to the price of the coins? I think the coins may decrease in value, but we don't have any examples outside of small projects so far.
nhill Member	Wed May 05 05:14:36 > "There certainly is from a macroeconomic perspective. What you are talking about in Etherium is smart contracts allowing clever ways of providing mortgage services, which is great but not relevant. I'm talking about how it is financed. Money supply is strictly limited, so you can't have a fractional reserve banking and that has big impacts on interest rates. So yes, if we accept that this is something that can only ever run alongside fiat currencies which remains the dominant form of economy; then to correctly price cryptos you need to look at supply and demand dynamics." Of course there is macroeconomic effects of shaking up the financial system. But again, you keep focusing on crypto like it's some type of currency. Only a few projects are intended to be a currency. BTW Ethereum smart contracts are one thing, but there's tons of other implementations on different chains like Polkadot. But, remember, Ethereum is a platform. It will certainly add more than just smart contracts over time. I'm telling you about the future.
Nimatzo iChihuaha	Wed May 05 05:15:38 Nhill I'm still learning :) Currently only invested in BTC and ETC, but I am looking to diversify >:) Right now I am going a bit on Buzz, how many difference sources are independently talking about a specific crypto, Chainlink for instance or Polkadot. Perhaps one should have some money in one of the big institutional ones, like Ripple. Then I try to read more into it. What would be your advice, provided, I take full responsibility for my own stupidity and mistakes.
Habebe Member	Wed May 05 05:19:29 Nhill explaining crypto to me http://youtu.be/H92Y-F-_eaw
Seb Member	Wed May 05 05:20:07 Nim: "I merely brought to your attention that all cars do not function the same way. It is a distinction that matters." Something I both understood, and not a distinction that matters for the purpose of the sentence, which was to show there will always be some activity that is uniquely suited to cryptocoins, given cyrptocoins in general some intrinsic value. "and other forms of regulatory or other forms of arbitrage probably does give the network utility: there will always be some goods and services available in the cryptocoin economy (though there is a question of which network is preferred) which will mean there is always some demand for coins in circulation which will give it a value" I the go on to talk about some of the implications of this generally and for bitcoin specifically: "the challenge will be to ensure that this meets the energy costs of running mining operations. For bitcoin, this seems like it could under certain conditions drive centralisation which makes it vulnerable to state intervention. It will also lead to continued volatility." "BTC does not lend itself well to money laundering, far worse than cash. You leave a permanent trail on the BTC ledger, they have mapped this quire well, a couple of hundred BTC addresses are laundering more than 50% of the dirty money." "Goal post shifting." No, not at all, it is an example of something you can do with Bitcoin, that is done with Bitcoin, and cannot be done so easily with conventional money and payments systems - thus giving it a set of products and services that will underpin demand for Bitcoins. I did not progress onto the issue of which coin might be preferentially adopted (there is a trade off - you need a certain amount of activity vs supply for it to work) - so I think there will always be centers of gravity and eventually the criminal market will converge onto a few coins - that is part of the reason for volatility. All your quote shows that Bitcoin *is* used for laundering dirty money (largely where the org doesn't care about the ability to trace the addresses - it serves as a mechanism to extract value across regulatory borders, still a money laundering function). The number of accounts is less important than the volume of transactions. Please, Nim, stop twatsplaining to me things it is obvious I already understand because I've literally written them in the paragraph you are quoting. Move it up a gear and twatsplain to me things I haven't already said.
Nimatzo iChihuaha	Wed May 05 05:20:09 ETH*
Habebe Member	Wed May 05 05:21:42 http://new...h-brothel-now-accepts-bitcoin/ Hookers now accept BTC ....now I get it.
nhill Member	Wed May 05 05:22:04 THIS IS NOT INVESTMENT ADVICE. The projects that have the most potential from an investing standpoint are: 1. $ETH 2. $LINK 3. $TRX 4. $ETC 5. $ZEC 6. $LTC These are not how I'd rank the best cryptocurrency projects...this is just in terms of investment-- balancing fundamentals with network effects to reduce risk. Ripple is a bit shady and often the target of lawsuits. Lot of tail-side risk with that one. As for actual advice: I'd recommend reading a few crypto whitepapers.
nhill Member	Wed May 05 05:25:05 > Hookers now accept BTC ....now I get it. Pretty sure they still take cash, too. ;)
Nimatzo iChihuaha	Wed May 05 05:34:19 "stop twatsplaining to me things it is obvious" You are being a bit cunty, but OK. Nhill, this is going to make more sense, the more you twatsplain stuff for seb. "it is thankless job, most of your coworkers are idiots with an inflated ego and a sense of worth that is discordant with reality."
Seb Member	Wed May 05 05:37:17 Nhill: RE macroeconomics - it's not a side effect it's an inherent property of money. But it sounds like we agree - it's not so clearly a currency as a transferable asset with an intrinsic value linked to a combination of network opex, supply and demand for goods and services specifically denominated in that unit. The question is how to price it and ultimate demand.
nhill Member	Wed May 05 06:02:03 Yes, and no. There's a lot of variety out there. The majority of coins aren't even intended to be used as a currency. They are often governance tokens. How that works is that you have a vote per coin (usually) on future changes, and people aggregate coins to be a part of the project's growth. Sometime it's more or less a funding system for the developers where the token is more of a sponsorship than anything practical. But yes, I think we agree in spirit, but I'm looking at it from a higher level. Most coins, especially Bitcoin, can be viewed as a commodity or a collectible. Basically a collectible with the volume and volatility of a commodity. Then some, such as Ether, have actual practical value. They power a whole ecosystem-- basically Ether is the 'electricity' of future & much of current cryto. Demand will always be high since it's so useful. Safest investment in the crypto space, in my opinion.
Seb Member	Wed May 05 07:03:02 I agree with the idea that Ethereum has the highest utility, but I'm skeptical of how widespread that utility will be for other reasons. That point about funding developers for example - essentially what you are describing is a form of security and that's regulated for good reasons. I suspect what will keep a lid on the level of complex activity and value that can be supported, particularly around the rights granted by the coin. Some of the early optimism about potential applications of e.g. smart contracts and non-repudiation turned out to run up against important edge cases in the real world - particularly that many jurisdictions do not buy the idea that a smart contracts interpretation by machine is definitive in contact law, particularly where it violated other laws. A lot of the libertarian utopianism that gave rise to the crypyocoin movement at times seems to fundamentally misunderstand why the systems and laws of the liberal democratic world are the way they are in the first place, and a fair few specific advocates whose argument boils down to "let's replace tricksy lawyers with clear and transparent code" which for most people actually boils down to "let's replace one set of professionals that act as gatekeepers to the economy, couched in impenetrable language, arcane rules and tacit knowledge and unfathomable complexity with another, even more expensive set" - and the likely reality is actually a convolution of the two. There's a big case of Chesterton's Fence going on in some proposed use cases. We shall see what happens, but it's not that I don't understand the properties of crypto here, it's that given what I understand of it's properties, but also what I understand of monetary theory, economics, governance and law and how these will interrelate. I don't think it's as smooth an upward trajectory as you suggest, but good luck.
nhill Member	Wed May 05 07:21:11 It'll be anything but a smooth upward trajectory. There'll be hacks, there'll be doubts, there'll be legislation, etc. It's a new technology that will revolutionize the financial system, you'd have to be a fool to not think it'll be a bumpy ride. The benefit of getting in early is that you don't have to worry about the bumps as long as you don't mind unrealized p/l. Or just set your stop losses. But again, I don't care about investing, I care about the system as a whole. > let's replace tricksy lawyers with clear and transparent code I doubt you can even read code, Seb, based on this statement. What's clear and transparent is the protocol (most have a clear and transparent specification). The code isn't even that complicated. You're fixated on the replacing, when that's not even the major point. The decentralization is the point, and it allows you and I to reap the same profits as anyone else. Profits are made transparently instead of under the table deals on the gold course. > A lot of the libertarian utopianism that gave rise to the crypyocoin movement at times seems to fundamentally misunderstand why the systems and laws of the liberal democratic world are the way they are in the first place. So much ideology. Who gives a shit about all that. This is an iteration on both the financial system and the internet itself. Web 3.0. Get a wallet and explore some projects, it's a whole new world. Then come back and let us know your experience...because your theory is starting to sound like a broken record, no offense. > There's a big case of Chesterton's Fence going on in some proposed use cases. Certainly. There's a bunch of shit projects. That's to be expected. > it's not that I don't understand the properties of crypto here You suggested it was a currency multiple times. That belied a lack of understanding. But maybe you've studied up since then? All good.
nhill Member	Wed May 05 07:22:59 > but also what I understand of monetary theory, economics, governance and law and how these will interrelate. Lol, you must be fun at parties. I not only understand these things, but I applied them in real life very successfully. I don't mean cryto, either. I started out in macroeconomics, and then when I realized DeFi is the next wave I grabbed my surfboard. There's always laggards that require a high burden of proof to get over their cognitive dissonance. Good luck with THAT.
Nimatzo iChihuaha	Wed May 05 07:52:10 This isn't even the first crypto thread this month where seb has revealed he doesn't understand even the fundamental stuff. I tried explaining some of these things, with the limited knowledge I have. "libertarian utopianism" and "tech bro utopianism" is what he told me, or that I was asking him to do "purity tests". That thread was mostly rooted in the philosophy and WHY of crypto, because (and I told him) to get into the technical stuff was completely futile, since he doesn't even understand the petty things. Arguably, I am not the best person to explain those things, but when they are such low hanging stuff (BTC isn't a VISA style payment system, but a Fedwire style settlement system), one can not resist. http://uto...hread=87979&time=1619169050078 So, this exchange is quite amusing and validating.
nhill Member	Wed May 05 07:59:32 Meanwhile, 2.2 Trillion Dollars are flowing through the cryto system. But I'm sure that's just all money from 'tech bros'.
Nimatzo iChihuaha	Wed May 05 08:20:40 And child porn, don't get forget child porn. "Buy some bitcoin to allow a seller of child pornography to cash out his earnings. Effectively at some point the price of Bitcoin is effectively set by the value of goods and services denominated in bitcoin. If that's predominantly guns,drugs,extortion,ransoms, stolen data and pornography, there's an element there where even buying into bitcoin has ethical implications." -seb Things need to be twatsplained for twats.
nhill Member	Wed May 05 08:28:28 Shit. I have some US Dollars in my wallet and I believe USD has been used for bad things like guns, drugs, extortion, ransoms, stolen data, and pornography. We're all going to hell!
Nimatzo iChihuaha	Wed May 05 08:46:57 I am really trying to parse what you are saying seb: "which was to show there will always be some activity that is uniquely suited to cryptocoins, given cyrptocoins in general some intrinsic value". There will always be some illicit activity(.) Do you agree that illicit activity isn't uniquely suited for (all) crypto coins? That in fact, some crypto coins, like BTC, are uniquely unsuitable for illicit activity since the ledger is _public_ and every coin has a unique hash? It only required me buying some illicit uhm... substances on the dark web, to learn this. I venture out there and learn about things and stuff in reality instead of pontificating while stroking my academic penis. Anyway, here is the top result on google for: BTC and illegal activity Illicit activity made up just 0.34% of all cryptocurrency transaction volume last year, according to blockchain data firm Chainalysis. That was down from roughly 2% a year earlier. https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/24/overall-bitcoin-related-crime-fell-last-year-but-one-type-of-crypto-hack-is-booming.html#:~:text=Last%20year%2C%20illicit%20activity%20made,from%20blockchain%20data%20firm%20Chainalysis.&text=That%20bounty%20is%20often%20paid,by%20311%25%20year%20over%20year. Twat.
Nimatzo iChihuaha	Wed May 05 08:48:20 *Please delete previous post* I am really trying to parse what you are saying seb: "which was to show there will always be some activity that is uniquely suited to cryptocoins, given cyrptocoins in general some intrinsic value". There will always be some illicit activity(.) Do you agree that illicit activity isn't uniquely suited for (all) crypto coins? That in fact, some crypto coins, like BTC, are uniquely unsuitable for illicit activity since the ledger is _public_ and every coin has a unique hash? It only required me buying some illicit uhm... substances on the dark web, to learn this. I venture out there and learn about things and stuff in reality instead of pontificating while stroking my academic penis. Anyway, here is the top result on google for: BTC and illegal activity Illicit activity made up just 0.34% of all cryptocurrency transaction volume last year, according to blockchain data firm Chainalysis. That was down from roughly 2% a year earlier. httpl://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/24/overall-bitcoin-related-crime-fell-last-year-but-one-type-of-crypto-hack-is-booming.html#:~:text=Last%20year%2C%20illicit%20activity%20made,from%20blockchain%20data%20firm%20Chainalysis.&text=That%20bounty%20is%20often%20paid,by%20311%25%20year%20over%20year. Twat.
Nimatzo iChihuaha	Wed May 05 08:48:49 omg.. *Please delete 2 previous post* I am really trying to parse what you are saying seb: "which was to show there will always be some activity that is uniquely suited to cryptocoins, given cyrptocoins in general some intrinsic value". There will always be some illicit activity(.) Do you agree that illicit activity isn't uniquely suited for (all) crypto coins? That in fact, some crypto coins, like BTC, are uniquely unsuitable for illicit activity since the ledger is _public_ and every coin has a unique hash? It only required me buying some illicit uhm... substances on the dark web, to learn this. I venture out there and learn about things and stuff in reality instead of pontificating while stroking my academic penis. Anyway, here is the top result on google for: BTC and illegal activity Illicit activity made up just 0.34% of all cryptocurrency transaction volume last year, according to blockchain data firm Chainalysis. That was down from roughly 2% a year earlier. http://www...20311%25%20year%20over%20year. Twat.
hood Member	Wed May 05 08:49:10 Is cryptocurrency the new vegan?
nhill Member	Wed May 05 08:53:14 Nope, just a new financial system people regret missing out on because they want to be right instead of rich.
Nimatzo iChihuaha	Wed May 05 08:58:06 Hood It is new and as with anything new and disruptive it will divide people and those divisions will have some retarded manifestations on both sides. We have bickered over many topics, it was never the new Vegan.
hood Member	Wed May 05 08:59:32 IDK, it seems like everyone who gets into crypto really wants to tell everyone else how great crypto is. Like, you can't not know that your crypto friend keeps crypto. Sounds pretty vegan to me.
nhill Member	Wed May 05 09:03:49 Well yeah, it's amateur hour right now with dumbass projects like $DOGE. Very few people actually understand the fundamentals of the ecosystem because it's not user friendly. And, again, if you can't read code then you're going to have difficulties figuring things out.
nhill Member	Wed May 05 09:07:14 This is not me telling everyone how great crypto is, though. Or at least that's not the intent. I don't even invest in crypto. Just sharing the future with y'all because I've seen it with my own eyes.
Nimatzo iChihuaha	Wed May 05 09:13:42 Hood I get your point, there are those people in literally anything, when crossfit came around, there was a bunch of Crossfit cultists. There are those people in bitcoin as well. But do you believe that is what is going on here, or is this the same dynamic you have seen on feminism, wokism, BLM, well practically every political/social/cultural issue to have passed through this place? I am not even trying to convince seb to buy crypto, I couldn't care less, he is just factually wrong on about everything he brings up as reasons for why he hasn't bought in. Even if I owned 0 crypto, but knew what I knew, him and I would have this conversation.
nhill Member	Wed May 05 09:25:07 Bitcoin maximalists and HODLers are some of the most annoying people in the world. A close second to the $DOGE army turds.
nhill Member	Wed May 05 09:26:21 That is to say, I also understand and feel the same vibes as Hood. But I enjoy making money more than I care about proving people wrong, so w/e...
Seb Member	Wed May 05 09:37:22 Nhil: "doubt you can even read code, Seb, based on this statement" Lol. I've a PhD in physics, I spent 5 years of my life doing pretty much nothing *but* writing code in various different languages from assembly code for hardware control, user interfaces, data processing, simulation modelling. "The code isn't even that complicated" For someone that can code, a smart contract us fairly straightforward. But look how many bugs any software contains; and then look at the DAO debacle that resulted I'm the requirement to hard fork the Ethereum Blockchain. The initial simplicity of the smart contract: automatic, decentralised arbitration because the code as executed is the contract quickly ran up against the reality that contract law is the actual interpreter here so as soon as you refer to rights that cannot be fully contained within the chain (so, e.g. property rights etc) in reality what you need as a business is both a lawyer, and a software developer - and as case law develops neither can be exactly certain of the performance of the contract. This is not the improvement software developers think it is. Yes, it will have niche applications. But it's a long way short of the kind of systemic alternative envisaged by the tech utopians. You keep saying "it lets you do X,Y,Z" bit I don't really see that at all. What *specific* barriers does it overcome that are present in traditional finance models. F.Ex one can easily raise capital if you want to. You just need to have a decent business plan etc. People do this all the time. There's nothing specific about cryptocoins that makes this intrinsically easier or harder. What may make it easier is the large increase in coin value has created paper millionaires that are willing to invest coins, and the current lack of robust processes and due diligence that might apply. Yes, it's easier to spin up a block chain and issue quasi securities than do an IPO, but that's largely because it allows you to dodge regulations which will no doubt catch up; but you could equally do a Kickstarter. By Chesterton's Fence* - I don't just mean bad projects. I mean that some of the supposed advantages of cryptocoins touted by the more libertarian type are addressing features that are not in fact bugs but serve important and valuable purposes. I'm not casting aspersions on why you think differently by the way. It sounds like we agree on a lot of the facts or properties of cryptocoins, but what we are differing on is what role they can usefully play. I'm bearish - I just don't see that many genuinely value products and services that cryptocoins enable and I think the market will eventually come to that conclusion. Which leads me to think that it is a high risk speculative asset. You seem more confident, but when we get down to the "what valuable thing can we do here that we couldn't do before", that's where I think the discussions are thin. Most of the applications seem fairly niche and thin - the biggest features look more like regulatory arbitrage - and then there are a bunch of utopians (I'm not accusing you of being one) who fundamentally oversell what it can do as a technology. *There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, “I don’t see the use of this; let us clear it away.” To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: “If you don’t see the use of it, I certainly won’t let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it.” Nim: "for illicit activity since the ledger is _public_ and every coin has a unique hash?" Each address has a unique identifier. Coins themselves don't. They are just a balance in the ledger and fully fungible. You can see recipients of payments, but not identify where the source is from iirc. The fact the ledger and addresses are public doesn't make it useless for criminal enterprise if your main concern is allowing an individual to make a payment across a regulatory border, and you know that you are in a place and have access to an exchange which is out of the jurisdictional reach of wherever the crime is committed. But for ransomware this isn't a major problem your ransom collection address is necessarily public anyway and must be distributed in the Trojan or whatever the vector is, as it's where you tell your victims to send the coins. There are other business models where this absolutely wouldn't work and you want full anonymity not pseudonymity. It is not so good for other types of scam or crime where you must necessarily deliver your "service" from within the regulatory jurisdiction. A public address can then be used to show you specifically took payment, particularly if you end up having to cash out into local currency using the local financial system. "Illicit activity made up just 0.34% of all cryptocurrency transaction" Across all currencies monitored, and this is by transaction volume. From the point of view of the above discussion though, we need to think in terms of transactions relating to actual sale and purchase of goods and services, rather than what is effectively trading in asset on the basis of the value or anticipated future value of the asset. Cf. South Sea Company stocks - yup lots of people were buying them - but what ultimately matters is the associated economic activity and what you expect will happen in the long term.
nhill Member	Wed May 05 09:48:23 Fair enough, it does sound like we agree on most things other than outlook. You are correct that smart contracts aren't put into contract law. You're incorrect that people need a lawyer for that. Everyone knows this. The point of the smart contract isn't to bind with contract law, it's to bind digital (sometimes physical) items to the blockchain. Once the inevitable happens-- smart contracts are put into contract law, you're going to see an explosion of fantastic use cases. For example, you could put up a smart contract on your assets (such as a house) up for collateral to gain leverage. The system could keep track of how responsible you manage your collateral and give you a "credit score" of sorts that would allow you certain advantages. This is just random stuff off the top of my head. There's a lot of finance to go around, my friend. The thing people miss in these discussions is that brick by brick we are creating building blocks for a whole new financial paradigm. Any finance activity can be replicated in a way that eliminates all bias, hidden fees, and exorbitant costs. And you also seem to be missing one key point. Before decentralized finance there was no way an individual could easily, on a % basis, make as much money as a bank for providing the same services. You mention how easy it is to raise capital but that simply isn't the case for many people. Whether they made bad credit decisions years ago or they are a certain skin color, there's a shitload of bias that's eliminated. Another net positive that wasn't possible before. We're barely touching the iceberg, too. There's decentralized insurance policies that work the same way except all the fees adjust programmatically to actual risk profiles instead of actuary tables. Again, a very small selection.
nhill Member	Wed May 05 09:51:25 > Lol. I've a PhD in physics, I spent 5 years of my life doing pretty much nothing *but* writing code in various different languages from assembly code for hardware control, user interfaces, data processing, simulation modelling. Must have been a while ago. Not that it matters but I started coding 24 years ago, and have had an extremely successful career coding 40+ hours a week for the past 10 years on systems that you (yes, you) depend on. Your life is in my hands. :)
nhill Member	Wed May 05 09:53:50 Lest some discrepancy be noted, at this point, I don't need my job- I'm retired (make enough off interest to live comfortably) and do it for fun. I also take on contracts for fun. Have a Master's in AI so it's pretty easy to pick up lucrative medical contracts when/should I get bored.
nhill Member	Wed May 05 10:00:37 Case-in-point, my girlfriend at the time (wife now) went to a credit union for a car loan and was denied. Her credit wasn't the best, it was about average. But her score was higher than mine at the time. After she was denied she talked to the loan officer of what she can do. The loan office said she'll have to wait 5-7 years before her credit is 'good' again. LMAO. I paid a credit consultant $700 and her credit was back >800 within a year. I applied for a car loan from the same credit union (with a worse credit score, mind you) and was accepted. Frictionless, almost no questions asked. What was the difference? Well, my wife's from the Caribbean.
nhill Member	Wed May 05 10:01:25 ^that wouldn't happen in DeFi :)
nhill Member	Wed May 05 10:03:43 A COMMON CRYPTO TIMELINE 2013: "Damn I'm too late." 2017: "Damn missed it again it's definitely a bubble this time." 2018: "Crypto's dead." 2019: "Oh sh-- that's still going?" 2020: "Wish I would have bought last year." 2021: "OMG I'M SUCH AN IDIOT." 2030: "Shit nhill was right all along."
Seb Member	Wed May 05 10:16:06 Nhill: Right, but the point is that whether intended or not, they are in many jurisdictions effectively a contract and such jurisdictions consider them justicable, but lacking certain features that would be written into a contract may result in legal defaults applying that the parties are not aware of. Hence why I said "as a business". Some of the original idea was that smart contracts essentially allowed automatic self enforcing contracts that were independently outside of contract law. You can already use a lien on your house as collateral in a debt. You already have credit scores based on your financial history. "make as much money as a bank for providing the same services." I've been using peer to peer lending platforms for a while that offer significant rates. I'm not sure specifically crypto coins offers a huge advantage here, nor does it truly allow access to the full returns a bank can access (ultra low borrowing costs and ability to create money).
nhill Member	Wed May 05 10:22:46 Yea, just a matter of time before the contract legality is ironed out. It'll take a decade or so to mature. > You can already use a lien on your house as collateral in a debt. Of course, through a bank. Duh. This isn't through a bank. > You already have credit scores based on your financial history. Everyone knows the credit system is massively flawed and opaque, get outta here with that lol. > I've been using peer to peer lending platforms for a while that offer significant rates. Haha, you don't want to tell me how much because you already know it's a paltry comparison. :) > I'm not sure specifically crypto coins offers a huge advantage here, nor does it truly allow access to the full returns a bank can access (ultra low borrowing costs and ability to create money). No, no, no...you're misunderstanding. Once DeFi is powering everything you can literally do the same thing as the bank. Banks will be using DeFi under the hood, obviously. Some people suck at spotting trend. smh
Seb Member	Wed May 05 10:25:43 Nhill: About ten years ago - not that I haven't written code since, just not as professional requirement. Basically, by not supporting fractional reserve banking, cryptos in steady state won't really beat banks in profitability. And banks existed under gold standard also - they performed useful and necessary functions, particularly as risk aggregators. In principle you might be able to do something with a smart contract here, but the legal framework doesn't seem to offer much benefit. E.g. you'd save the fund fees perhaps. But as you say, if we are in a growth phase that leads to a plateau, you should invest. But what we disagree on is if there is a plateau.
Seb Member	Wed May 05 10:27:29 Nhil: "Of course, through a bank" No. I just need to find someone with money who wants to lend it and will take my house as security, and register a charge on the property. Takes an hour or so. Just need a solicitor and that's only because of the land registry which I'd need anyway.
Seb Member	Wed May 05 10:29:00 It's identical. Might get easier if there was a crypto token for my house - but that doesn't (in fact shouldn't) be decentralised. I worked on the feasibility study for UKs digital land registry.
nhill Member	Wed May 05 10:30:18 To be perfectly clear, I don't invest in crypto anymore. As an asset class it's not super compelling w/ the income. It's an extra volatile asset class that's more resistant to news and fundamental analysis. Less resistant to technical analysis. It's relatively easy to trade. As I said earlier, I see it as a commodity. But I'm bullish on the system itself and use DeFi a lot. Time will tell, my friend.
nhill Member	Wed May 05 10:32:51 Seb You have one hour to find a lender for my house and to get the $300,000 (made up number) into my bank account. Go.
nhill Member	Wed May 05 10:34:44 By the time you read that post I could have already had a collaterized loan in DeFi and the money in my account. The fact that you don't see how amazing that is (and it's one small thing among many) is really a testament to how persistent your ego tries to combat your cognitive dissonance. As an aside, your personality type benefits a lot from meditation (no joke). Maybe take 5-15 minutes out of each day and try it.
Seb Member	Wed May 05 10:50:14 Nhil: And you think that's going to be any quicker on defi? I'll need to find a lender. That's easy, there are peer to peer lenders I can access right away. But they'll want a stack of details about your house before they accept it as collateral. As should your blockchain lender unless they are daft. That's the rate limiting step, and would be the same using cryptocoins You'll still need to register the charge on the property. That last stage is easy, is a quick digital transaction, but I think still requires a solicitor and would be the same on cryptocoins as the function the lawyer performs is taking liability for writing to the register (we could remove this constraint, a Blockchain wouldn't fill the gap). The money can move account to account. The rate limiting step here is finding a specific lender interested in my specific house as collateral. How does a cryptocoin help?
nhill Member	Wed May 05 11:05:50 Ok, you have 34 more minutes. > And you think that's going to be any quicker on defi? I'll need to find a lender. That's easy, there are peer to peer lenders I can access right away. They already do this in crypto if you put up collateral. Yes it's instant. And I've already covered this. People contribute their money to a liquidity pool and benefit from any interest rates or fees the loans incur. There's no need for trust outside of trusting the protocol and its blockchain. > And you think that's going to be any quicker on defi? If smart contracts are in contract law you can put it up as collateral automatically, just like anything else. That's the magic. It'll take a while to get there, and may need something like Chainlink to use as a price oracle. But there's other clever ways around that. Could have a cryptographically signed appraisal, for example. Just random shooting off the hip, there's tons of ideas. > But they'll want a stack of details about your house before they accept it as collateral. As should your blockchain lender unless they are daft. That's the rate limiting step, and would be the same using cryptocoins. Like I said, a lot of ways around this with the crypto building blocks. > he rate limiting step here is finding a specific lender interested in my specific house as collateral. How does a cryptocoin help? As mentioned, there will be a pool of money waiting for you to put up collateral. Instant Loan. It's already a thing. The collateral itself is an implementation detail. It'll be a long time before you can collateralize a house due to the aforementioned legal navigation that needs to be done. But the future is easy to see.
nhill Member	Wed May 05 12:03:08 Time's up, Seb. Didn't even make it past step 1 within an hour.
Nimatzo iChihuaha	Wed May 05 12:18:54 Praised be the prophet Satoshi, liberator of man and money. Nhill What more is there to know about Liquity.fi? Better yet, any reading material to get started? It’s funny, but I follow Lex Fridman’s podcast and in tandem with these threads he has a guy named Sergey Nazarov on, talking about chalink, oracle network and DeFi. Have only had time to listen to the very start of the 3 hours. So I will finish that.
nhill Member	Wed May 05 12:40:43 Nim http://docsend.com/view/bwiczmy http://docs.liquity.org/ These go into how it all works but I can paint the broad strokes. You deposit your Ether as collateral and get up to 90% back in LUSD (USD stablecoin). You shouldn't take more that 75% max though. Because if you fall under 110% collateral you lose 10% of your original collateral. Then you can take that LUSD and stake it for 25% APR in the LQTY token. The LQTY tokens you earn can be staked for another 59% APR. So, in a vacuum, here's what you get in a year for $10000 of Ether: $7500 LUSD $1875 of LQTY Another $1100 LUSD (which you can stake for 25% LQTY again) At the end of 1 year you will have turned your $10000 collateral into $20,475. But wait! There's $7500 worth of debt in that $20,475, right? Not a problem. It's a 0% interest rate loan. That's assuming all crypto prices remain static, but over a year's period it'll obviously go up a fair amount. When the price of $ETH goes up you can continue to feed it into your "Trove" (that's what they call the thing you stake your ETH in to borrow) and take out more LUSD, stake the LUSD, get the LQTY, reap the LUSD, stake the LUSD. It starts to compound pretty quickly if you invest a large amount. If you don't invest a large amount you'll have to pay some significant gas fees and that'll eat into your capital. My strategy is more complicated, more risky, and has higher rewards. It involves staking in a second platform. But I'd recommend just staying in Liquity. If you're curious about my strategy feel free to ask.
nhill Member	Wed May 05 12:44:28 Pretty sure I said it already, but your tail side risk is losing 10% of your Ether if the price crashes before you can balance your trove. But you can also repay enough to recollaterize the loan as it goes down or simply buy more Ether.
nhill Member	Wed May 05 12:46:22 Another thing you can do is convert some LUSD back to Ether, and feed that back into your trove to borrow more LUSD. This essentially increases your leverage on Ether and decreases your reliance on USD.
Nimatzo iChihuaha	Wed May 05 12:49:58 Absolutly, what is your own strategy you greedy bastard :) How much money into liquity to not get eaten up by fees?
nhill Member	Wed May 05 12:50:26 The other thing to be aware of is that a large amount of $LQTY token was pre-mined and is in the hands of the developers and investors. But they can't sell for 1 year (it was release about a month ago). As such, I would avoid holding $LQTY tokens long term and use something like Uniswap to convert to a more predictable crypto (e.g. Eth or Chainlink) before the yearly mark (preferably at least a month before). There might be a massive dip at the year mark. That's why I'm not a huge fan of $LQTY (I don't hold any of it). But the platform itself is Elegant.
nhill Member	Wed May 05 12:59:55 lol I use http://wasabix.finance/ It's a newer project forked from an older one called Alchemix. The nice thing about Wasabix is that it's 100% community ran. No pre-mine, no investors, no company involved (unlike Liquity). But it integrates with Liquity in a new flow: Eth -> 75% LUSD with 37% APR -> 50% of that in waLUSD -> Stake waLUSD for 50% APR & earn Wasabi -> Stake Wasabi for 164% APR. Continuing the example above, here's how this flow works: Start with $10,000 ETH. Get $7500 LUSD & stake for 37% APR in LUSD ($2,775). Take out $3,750 waLUSD and stake for 59% APR in $WASABI ($2,212). Stake the Wasabi to earn 164% APR on it & earn $WASABI ($3627 which you can also re-stake again). This will turn your $10,000 ETH into $29,864 of assets within one year (again assuming no capital appreciation). That's what I live off of right now, and it pays 5 figures in USD each month. The $29,864 is partly ignoring the compounding (I did a rough conservative estimate on the compounding), so chances are you're looking closer to $30-$31K assets by risking 10% of your ETH capital.
Habebe Member	Wed May 05 12:59:59 First off, fuck you, whowver stretched the page for those of us who just use phones (Nimatzo?) Chill, So what I'm still unsure about is what can someone benefit from for say this decentralized network for an avg. Joe. For example, my dad has had a hard time getting a loan against his land. He has like a 20 year old doublewide, so the house is worth nothing, But I would think the land has some value. Banks he has gone too will not lend against his equity in land, could this possibly help him? What other sources of collateral could be used? Also, with the threat of inflation creeping in could crypto be a hedge against inflation of the dollar? Could crypto help partly nullify say US sanctions against say Venezuela?
nhill Member	Wed May 05 13:02:09 At that point you can really do one of two things: 1. Just keep compounding. 2. Live off the yields (provided enough capital).
nhill Member	Wed May 05 13:38:17 > Chill, So what I'm still unsure about is what can someone benefit from for say this decentralized network for an avg. Joe. Probably nothing right now. It's not user friendly yet, and is nascent technology. We are still in the innovator stage: http://en....File:DiffusionOfInnovation.png Avg Joe won't be using until Early/Late majority which is still years off. > For example, my dad has had a hard time getting a loan against his land. He has like a 20 year old doublewide, so the house is worth nothing, But I would think the land has some value. Banks he has gone too will not lend against his equity in land, could this possibly help him? Not until smart contracts are accepted into contract law and someone builds a physical asset protocol to leverage that. > What other sources of collateral could be used? Only money right now. Putting up either Crypto or USD can get you a loan. I'd prefer to take a loan on crypto over USD, otherwise what's the point. :) The loan allows you to aggregate capital appreciation on your crypto while leveraging the loaned funds. > Also, with the threat of inflation creeping in could crypto be a hedge against inflation of the dollar? Yes, crypto is a hedge against the US Dollar. > Could crypto help partly nullify say US sanctions against say Venezuela? Sure, why not. Currently no, but if Venezuela ever decided to adopt cryto as its national currency the US would have a tougher time sanctioning it.
Seb Member	Wed May 05 13:40:59 Nhil: If you actually wanted me to get you a collateralised loan using your house, you need to actually give me the details of your house :-). "They already do this in crypto if you put up collateral." Yeah, and you can already do this using a peer to peer lending platform. So basically the crypto provides no new capability here. "There's no need for trust outside of trusting the protocol and its blockchain" So, they'll lend to you even though they don't know anything about your house or even prove that you have one? No, clearly not. "If smart contracts are in contract law you can put it up as collateral automatically," Yeah and if I'd lodged the property details or valuation with a peer to peer lending platform, that's easy too. Presumably you are assuming the same here - that it's somehow lodged into the contract so those accepting it reviewing it as they sign to satisfy themselves the collateral is actually sufficient value. So we are point for point exactly the same. The last bit here then is lodging the charge against the property itself. All I need to do is generate a charge with the land registry, which is also a digital transaction and could in principle be automated of land registry was going to dispense with solicitor being involvement*. I don't see how it helps here at all that the contract is embedded on a blockchain vs the standard t&C's of a peer to peer lending service. *They will not, as there's a requirement for liability to rest with an individual when making a write to the land registry, to counter fraud etc. and there's legitimate needs for repudiability - one reason you can't go for an untrusted land registry model and why they've gone for a Merkel Tree approach instead.
nhill Member	Wed May 05 13:52:11 > Yeah, and you can already do this using a peer to peer lending platform. So basically the crypto provides no new capability here. Huh? So the P2P platform you press a button and it instantly shows up in your account? Which one is this > So, they'll lend to you even though they don't know anything about your house or even prove that you have one? No, clearly not. No, you misunderstood. That could be taken care of at the protocol level. There's many different ways and I'm not a great brainstormer. But one way would be to use Chainlink as an Oracle that aggregates information from external sources (city/county records, Zillow, etc etc, the more the better) and comes up with a reasonable level of collateral. Everything would be built into the smart contract and would be seamless. You own an NFT representing which would essentially be your deed, the Chainlink oracle would provide a conservative quote, and the lending pools would take it as collateral. This is way down the road and I'm talking in terms of what we have available today (Chainlink). I'm sure there'll be dozens of possible strategies. That's DeFi magic. It can power a combinatoric set of tactics that work together in novel ways to create new financial strategies. > Yeah and if I'd lodged the property details or valuation with a peer to peer lending platform, that's easy too. Presumably you are assuming the same here - that it's somehow lodged into the contract so those accepting it reviewing it as they sign to satisfy themselves the collateral is actually sufficient value. Sounds like this p2p platform would really benefit from using DeFi under the scenes, as that opens up a whole new world of opportunities (see my above comment for an example of how services can wrap one another in DeFi). What happens if your p2p lending platform disappears one day? You're fucked. With DeFi it's code, not humans. Honestly, at this point you're either playing dumb with me or just flat out refuse to acknowledge the super obvious potential no matter what anyone says. I'm telling you the same thing over and over again, and you have yet to demonstrate that you understand the big picture. Always focusing on this use case or that, and ignoring the killer feature which is a new interoperable financial fabric that is 100% clear, transparent, auditable, completely owned and operated by the participants without them needing to trust one another. Don't get fixated on a tree, my man. It's a Beautiful Forest.
Seb Member	Wed May 05 13:55:21 "As mentioned, there will be a pool of money waiting for you to put up collateral" Same is true of a conventionally financed peer to peer lending system. These exist already and predate crypto. "Like I said, a lot of ways around this with the crypto building blocks" Such as? The value of your house depends on its current physical state, as well as market conditions. Let's assume that you've recently had it valued and the valuer has provided a digitally signed report (I can't see any particular solution here that is uniquely requires a blockchain based technology). If you can post that report to your liquidity pool, you can also post it to a peer to peer lending platform. The information conveyed is inherently based on trust and can't be made untrusted. But once you have a valuation I agree that your smart contract can automate allocation of capital from the liquidity report. But so can a conventional peer to peer lending platform. Nothing you've described so far it's something you cannot do conventionally today. As in there are live services that work this way without cryptocoins. So what actual new capacity does crypto coin being to the table here? And on a macro scale, a fractional reserve Bank doesn't actually need to have a pot of coins - it can make money at will. So you have less of a liquidity constraint and interest rates for various loans can have varying interest rates depending on the risk of the activity, rather than a finite amount of capital chasing the highest returns for the same risk.
Seb Member	Wed May 05 13:56:18 Nhill: You live in the US? I forgot your banking system doesn't do instant transfers does it.
Seb Member	Wed May 05 13:56:49 Basically, business and customer bank transfers in the EU are real time now.
nhill Member	Wed May 05 13:58:11 > Nothing you've described so far it's something you cannot do conventionally today. Lmao. You're going to quibble on this point? I told you upfront that it's the same financial system but decentralized. Your P2P platform isn't decentralized by default, as there's a platform being ran by someone. If they were smart they'd build the platform on crypto and save nearly all the work. See the magic now?
nhill Member	Wed May 05 13:58:54 My bank transfers take 3-5 days usually except for semi-rare cases. Yes, I live in the USA.
Seb Member	Wed May 05 13:59:10 When I raised cash on my mortgage recently, it was pretty much instant cash transfer. Got off the phone, checked my account, money was there. I haven't checked on a P2P service but I expect it will be the same from closing the contract. There's no reason for it to be otherwise.
nhill Member	Wed May 05 14:03:08 It's the composable open-source, fully audited, testable components to build ANY FINANCIAL SERVICE that makes it so compelling. THAT DOESN'T EXIST ANYWHERE TODAY. Mr. P2P would love it. That's the whole point. We have all these neat services that serve as financial infrastructure SO THE BIG BANKS DON'T HAVE DO IT. That doesn't render them obsolete, it just changes their role. A DeFi banker will connect the services together for you like I just did for Nim. Or wrap them in their own distinct layer. I think your issue is you really like traditional finance and big banks, but the reality is they are corrupt as fuck and could use a little transparency. So we're building it and your system will be made obsolete.
nhill Member	Wed May 05 14:04:59 > When I raised cash on my mortgage recently, it was pretty much instant cash transfer. Got off the phone, checked my account, money was there. I haven't checked on a P2P service but I expect it will be the same from closing the contract. There's no reason for it to be otherwise. Yeah, sounds harder than pressing a few buttons, but good for you. It never happens that quickly in the USA. Even companies like Rocket Mortgage that automate this shit still take forever.
Seb Member	Wed May 05 14:06:32 The paleolithic status of US banking system always supprises me. I can only assume it's simple refusal by banks to invest due to some sort of oligopoly. Is the P2P platform centralised? The contracts are bilateral on some platforms. Presumably somebody set up this liquidity pool, but it runs autonomously thereafter. I mean it's true, it's marginally more decentralized, but what actual value does that confer on the lender or borrower? At most the fees charged by the p2p (assuming here that the set up costs of the liquidity pool and any maintenance costs like e.g. onboarding/offboarding of new recognised valuers are a cost of doing business baked in somehow). The value add here is quite marginal.
nhill Member	Wed May 05 14:06:49 It's sad that your last leg to stand on is apparently "I can get things done as fast as DeFi with this or that." Despite being patently incorrect you've basically conceded every point to me.
nhill Member	Wed May 05 14:08:49 Please link to me this mythical P2P platform that has magically already solved all the issues cryptocurrency is going to solve.
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