If you believe in markets and capitalism, then it makes perfect sense to consider children investing into the returns of capitalism (By, say, buying an index fund) to be a good thing. You expect the economy to grow, you know that the economic system encourages wealth to flow to investors, you want everyone to be an investor, all is well in the world, let's have a drink and move on.
With cryptocurrencies, though, its all pump and dumps and spirit advice animals, and 'everyone decided that these baseball cards are worth a lot of money, so let's trade them around' while the Tether Printing press is going full swing.
Capitalism insists that we'll all be better off if money is invested into businesses. It, or its proxy effects has given us automobiles, iPhones, and has funded and built millions of profitable businesses that solve trillions of dollars of user needs.
What exactly has the crypto mania built? You believe that cryptocurrencies will build worthwhile businesses? Why did Bitcoin grow 10000% over the last 18 months, then? Why is IOTA worth 6 billion dollars? It's as if a bunch of people looked at Wall Street, and said: "Gee, wouldn't it be amazing to make as much money as they do, but without the side effect of financing the economy that gave us airplanes and automobiles and cellphones and the McRib.
What is the social ROI on the money and electricity wasted on the crypto-bubble? People argue that once all externalities are accounted for, it is negative for capitalism, but at least we can all point to a Prius, or a 767, or a grocery store, or a 300-unit condo in Seattle, and say: "Well, it played an important role in building that."
Blasted thing from the outset emulated gold, thus attracting "survivalists" and other goldbugs from across the world.
And that is perhaps why Wall Street is moving in, because those companies are at their core built around siphoning the arbitrage on shuffling commodities around.
And with cryptocurrencies they have an ample supply of such commodities, until the earth boils from waste computing heat.
Perverse incentives to the Nth. The paperclip maximizers are already upon us, and they didn't come from the AI lab, they came from the trading floor.
Go to the crypto subreddits and look at all the people who laugh at stocks, saying market returns are basically worthless.
Am I wrong in thinking this?
I lost you there. Isn’t it moving in all directions?
Selling such data may seem like a terrible idea, except they're also using a second layer network (Enigma.co) for the data processing which maintains the secrecy of the underlying data.
That's a counter-example. I don't think George Church got FOMO! I agree with you generally.
[0] https://www.technologyreview.com/s/610221/this-new-company-w...
Canada's recently begun to test implementation of tech on the Ethereum chain for a few different purposes.
The National Research Council is testing its use in a platform to aid in transparency of government funding:
https://www.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/eng/stories/2018/blockchains.html
Prototype: https://nrc-cnrc.explorecatena.com/en
At the WEF in Davos, Canada (w/ the UK and Netherlands) announced join work with Accenture (/Microsoft) to create a digital ID system for travellers as a pilot project:
https://www.newswire.ca/news-releases/canada-to-test-advance...
(Similar to this project, I imagine): http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-40341511
Edit: Link to the below-mentioned WEF report: http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_The_Known_Traveller_Digital...
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Excerpt from the press release:
The prototype and pilot result from two years of thorough cooperation between public and private sector partners in the World Economic Forum's Security in Travel Project. The Known Traveller: Unlocking the potential of digital identity for secure and seamless travel was published in consultation with Accenture, AccorHotels, Amadeus IT Group, AirAsia, Airports Council International (ACI), the Government of Canada, Google, Hilton Worldwide, International Air Transport Association (IATA), International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL), the Kingdom of the Netherlands, Marriott International, NEC Corporation, SAP SE, Sedicii, UK National Crime Agency, US Department of Commerce, US Department of Homeland Security, Visa and World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC).
> "A word about humorlessness, since it's bound to come up. People who complain about HN's humorlessness have a point, but not because we're against humor. We like laughing as much as anyone. It's because empirically, a culture of humor means a flood of lame humor, and HN's goal is to optimize for signal/noise ratio. As with any optimization, there are inevitably tradeoffs."
In a deflationary environment, one need only hold currency or inert commodities in order to have greater future purchasing power.
In an inflationary environment, it is everyone, holders-of-capital included, who must continuously work to preserve purchasing power.
Inflation encourages malinvestment. There's always a motivation to invest and earn money from selecting profitable ventures. Inflation forces people to be less selective.
> In a deflationary environment, one need only hold currency or inert commodities in order to have greater future purchasing power.
This is only true if you ignore taxation. The government is perfectly free to tax people's wealth if they feel hoarding has become problematic.
>In an inflationary environment, it is everyone, holders-of-capital included, who must continuously work to preserve purchasing power.
Nonsense. People with money always find a way to escape inflation. Take a look at real estate.
Carry this thought experiment a few steps further. What will people buy every day, despite this currency appreciation effect?
I think you meant to say significant deflation is bad. But so is significant inflation. Deflation is actual good in many ways -- worker's wages are worth more, their savings are worth more, and consumption is reduced (whereas inflation can encourage wasteful consumption).
The US is in desperate need of deflation today. Productivity has decoupled from wages -- deflation would make those wages worth more to narrow the gap. Houses have become unaffordable -- impossible to even save a down payment -- deflation will make young people's savings valuable enough to afford that down payment.
Inflation is the snake oil sold to us to benefit the elite at the expense of everyone else.
The fixed coin payouts per block, the halving every four years, and the eventual final and finite fixed supply, combined with arbitrary blocksize limits means bitcoin was always designed to hit its limits at 2014 transaction volume.
I traded btc back then for the novelty and bought stuff with it in physical and digital to say I did, but even then the architecture promoted hoarding over spending, and anyone using bitcoin as a currency then is likely lamenting the things they traded it for now which is just about rule 0 of how to make a dysfunctional money.
The crpytocurrency that is actually a currency is one that can use its design to promote its practicality as money - the goal should be no fees, instant signature ledgers that don't consume power on national scales, and an adaptive but predictable algorithm for money creation that can respond to the market to try to keep the currency stable - when transaction volume and coin turnover are high the currency is inflating so you want to reduce minting to try to curtail the effect. When money slows down and starts squatting in wallets you turn up printing to drive deflation.
Anything else in my mind at this point is just a cash grab using the proven mechanisms of bitcoin and an out of control hype train to rob people.
This in that the supposed "good" money is money that incentivize hoarding, while "bad" money supposedly incentivize spending.
The use of good and bad is loaded to put it mildly, and plant a bias in the reader.
Perhaps such complex, chaotic systems may be better off sans regulation. Especially something like cryptocurrency, which does not have the same properties as paper fiat, although it is being treated as such.
I personally have less faith in institutions run by humans and bogged down by dated regulations than I do in an instantaneously fluctuating near free market. If you can't trust people to invest in currency because of complexity, what makes you think you can trust them to regulate your money, and make decisions that affect the value of your assets for you?
So I ignored the stock market, and gravitated to poker. Same shit, different day. Chasing big returns because they're the only kind that would've moved the needle.
I don't think it's that bad or good, just natural, even in a more exuberant-feeling time. Everyone in parallel comments is talking about "it's because they don't think they can get a 9-to-5 and a house like their parents" as if having a steady job and being like your parents was ever an aspirational goal. Parents are boring! Nine to five is boring! Actors, athletes, rock stars, billionaires - that's the real goal. This wasn't created by social media, it wasn't created by 2008, it goes back decades at least.
Picture yourself being 15-20 years old. There are basically zero non-lottery-ticket opportunities available to you to make serious money. Your opportunities to exercise full-on adult agency are still fairly limited. * Your immediate employment opportunities are things like fast food and pizza delivery * You won't have a college degree for years even if you think you'd graduate into a middle-class type of job * Even if you doubled down on your schoolwork, you won't generally be separated that much from the rest of your class. And grades aren't directly translatable into money and popularity, anyway.
It takes money to make money, and you don't have money. Looking for moonshots is a somewhat rational action in that situation - it's the only one with any chance of producing the desired outcome.
It's a big act that needs constant reinforcement via social media.
Our narcissism has reached a fever pitch while the traditional methods of success no longer support the aspirational narrative.
It's no longer work hard, goto college, get a house and family..
Everyone needs to be a motivational / spiritual / business guru with a million followers, "passive income" and a schedule of traveling the world to exotic locales.
That lifestyle is also required now, not in 50 years, so fake it till you make it and bring on the debt / Airbnb / Lyft "sidehustle".
CryptoCurrency is the only lottery ticket left that provides any appearance of hope of covering people's bets and supports the current narratives of unbounded wealth with little to no work.
I'm not exactly sure how stocks have been exposed as bullshit given they've produced above average returns, especially for young people who have gotten in after 2008.