these VCs have scams like Ethereum which they claim to be p2p networks but all the people making money of this don't even know where the peers are on this p2p network.
The validation nodes run on handful of hosted nodes on a software(ethereum) that changes it's source code and make it backward incompatible all the time, making it centralized at both who develop that code AND the handful of nodes that run it.
a16z has no shame perpetuating these total scams.
That said, from a knowledge representation perspective, I love the idea of knowledge graphs, and sometimes they do have real efficacy.
I realize that you may be joking but that doesn’t stop me from agreeing with you :-)
1) Decentralized apps (dapps) - Backend of websites/service that run as smart contracts on a particular blockchain instead of a centralized infrastructure. More resilient and inherently scalable.
2) Decentralized identity - Instead of creating user accounts for every site, identities are just wallet addresses. People maintain their own data and use their own keys to sign transactions.
3) Decentralized ownership (records) - NFTs are secure records of payment for ownership of a digital asset and can be traded easily.
The theme is that everything is available and keeps running without censorship, corruption, or other influence getting in the way, as long as the chain itself is still running. Whether there's serious utility in that is still unknown. I also think it's unlikely given how much we're tied to physical bodies and sovereign nations with their own laws and politics.
think of it like Shopify apps - the SaaS products that developers try to sell to merchants to make some part of the merchant's life easier. Those developers are just trying to make money.
web3 offers a similar kind of platform that isn't dependent on Shopify continuing to care. there are many things to make easier and it is incredibly lucrative to do so.
the "decentralized" part is just a distraction to derail conversations, but degrees of decentralization are optional.
Well I ask both of these maxis, can I use either of them to pay for my groceries quickly, efficiently and cheaply without overpaying for the fees and using a complicated contraptions?
If it still doesn't make sense to buy popcorn with bitcoin [0] then what hope is there to be better than Apple / Google Pay and everything else with payments?
[0] https://ambcrypto.com/is-it-really-ideal-to-buy-popcorn-with...
I don’t suppose Dorsey is responding directly to this video, tho at 4M views it is worth contradicting, but “Web3 is owned by the users” is the latest salesmenship for NFT-flippers.
[0] https://youtu.be/pSTNhBlfV_s
PS sure would be nice to link to congressional testimony without an ad pre-roll, but alas
The as people started joining Ads started then hackers joined, then came in scammers, then came in silicon valley unicorns who claim to make world a better place by showing more ads. Now web3 is just a dumb BS, they peddle to make money. If there is money to be made, govts and corporations wont let people have it.
It's like, how can a person working at a Web 2.0 nation destabilizing ad conglomerate really lob criticism at the people trying?
But there is no such thing as a killer feature that can't be done better with what we have. And they're left with peddling NFT's, cryptokitties or MLM scams a la Dr. Ruja's "OneCoin". It's been "wE aWe vEWy close to bweakthrough" from the Ethereum grifters Buterin & Woods since the first time their garbage polluted the air.
The people at IOTA have been selling homeopathic crypto since "Kerl" and "Curl-P" while insisting that collusion resistance isn't the main goal of a hash function. Until today no explanation what has happened to their deals with CISCO, Volkswagen and Microsoft which they one day announced were implementing IOTA in their products (there was no such thing and these companies didn't know anything about these claims).
Craig Wright super-grifter continues to claim he is Satoshi and hoping he can bend reality into believing that 2+2=5 instead of simply signing a message with the old key.
There are 2 types of people in crypto: the scammers and the suckers, and sometimes they overlap because once you start believing your own scam to be reality it's only a matter of time until you're somebody else's mark.
that said,
bitcoin is a great technology for drug markets so that addicts no longer have to risk their lives with products where there is no review. It's the next best thing to legalizing drugs in societies that are still far away from that.
there are very few applications where blockchains make sense (e-sports and games, the SWIFT banking "backend"). Yet even for those a central database is a better technological, and business fit than coins and blockchains while also not being as environmentally damaging.
If all the crypto ecosystem would disappear all at once today nobody would notice (other than some people with aggressive investing habits losing their value). The world would literally just shrug and move on.
Or, in the immortal words of Linus Torvalds, "Talk is cheap. Show me the code."
this is such an important razor[1]:
denouncing NFTs is good and honorable
here are some tips to help you on your scam-prevention journey: - 'power usage/environment' is a trap, people will goalpost move you on about proof of stake. - try to focus on what they do, which is nothing, but badly, while scamming
> there are very few applications where blockchains make sense (e-sports and games, the SWIFT banking "backend"). Yet even for those a central database is a better technological, and business fit than coins and blockchains while also not being as environmentally damaging.
The banks will just use Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) instead and will pick either XRP, Stellar, etc to use for that purpose.
Most startups fail too (90% in 2019 according to Investopedia[1]). Does that mean no one should invest in, work on, or give a chance to any startups?
[1]: https://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal-finance/04091...
A software engineer sits in a bar with a no-coiner and a socialist. A genie appears granting them a wish each.
The no-coiner wishes for all crypto & crypto-bros to be gone. His wish is granted. Nobody mentions crypto any more. The no-coiner drinks up and staggers home happy.
The socialist demands for all the billionaires to pay their taxes. His wish is granted and there are no more billionaires.
Finally the genie turns to the software engineer: "and what is your wish?"
The software engineer thinks for a while then says:
"So you're telling me all the billionaires are gone because everyone started paying taxes?", "Yepp" the genie replies.
You're also telling me that all #crypto bros are gone and nobody anymore talks about crypto, #NFT's or #blockchain? "Yepp" the genie goes again.
Software engineer turns to the barman and says:
"Well I guess I'll have a coke then".
[1] https://twitter.com/phishermensfoe/status/147322937195572019...
Literally every argument against image NFTs is also an argument against art. Art is not a yield producing asset. Just like NFTs can be right-clicked and saved, indistinguishable to the naked eye reproductions of expensive paintings can be ordered relatively cheaply. The idea of the 'original' is a social abstraction, just like the idea of who's the real owner of a NFT is a social abstraction.
Exactly like physical art, image NFTs are fueled by a desire to own status symbols and the eternal need to launder money, in unknown proportions. They are objectively better than physical art at both. They are better status symbols because it's easier to show other people that you own expensive NFTs than it is with real art. It's enough if your ethereum address is publicly known and it's there. There's no fraud possible. With real art, you have to go out of your way to show it - maybe by inviting others to your home, but then they may wonder whether it's real or a reproduction. For money laundering it's way easier to sell NFTs for big amounts anonymously than real art.
Those two fundamental properties also make it somewhat of an investment, if you can predict what people belonging to one, or both, of those groups are going to want in the future.
For those two reasons physical art is going to be less and less important.
>The "Web2" would be an empty space pretty soon. Yet it hasn't happened despite over a decade of hot-air
Considering your knowledge of such details as iota's hash functions, it's clear you're being intentionally misleading. Ethereum is 6 years old, and the technology to scale to global levels - zkrollups - only started to arrive in 2021.
It is not. It's an argument against capitalism. Don't conflate them, there's art outside of capitalism, too.
When someone figures out how to custody financial assets on the blockchain (e.g. stocks, bonds, etc), then you can create exchanges that aren't regulated and are open 24-7. You can also create contracts that mimic synthetic derivatives.
Sure you may not like the idea but you don't have to use those exchanges. And sure things could blow up for some people, but if done correctly you wouldn't have counterparty risk and no cascading series of failures. And there would be much less appetite for bailouts if things do explode due to the murky legality and pseudonymity.
The legal and regulatory framework prevents financial innovation. Could it be done better offchain? Sure, just completely rewrite the laws
> "wE aWe vEWy close to bweakthrough"
as described by parent.
