[HN Gopher] An Economic Analysis of Ethereum
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       An Economic Analysis of Ethereum
        
       Author : jger15
       Score  : 92 points
       Date   : 2021-01-17 15:20 UTC (7 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.lynalden.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.lynalden.com)
        
       | bo1024 wrote:
       | Enjoyed the article. I think one can boil it down pretty simply:
       | decisionmakers at Ethereum don't care about investors. They're
       | going to make decisions that support and enable interesting
       | decentralized applications, and "defi" is incidental to that, but
       | in they end they wouldn't care if Eth gets massively devalued or
       | something as long as the ecosystem is healthy and growing.
       | 
       | Disclaimer: this is just my own perspective and speculation based
       | on a bit of reading and brief convos with Ethereum foundation
       | people.
        
         | grubles wrote:
         | That's not true at all. The decision makers in Ethereum care
         | overwhelmingly about maximizing the value of their massive
         | premine holdings. The latest EIP-1559 proposal (tl;dr ETH gets
         | burned in every transaction) makes their stash an even larger
         | percentage of the overall ETH distribution. Which is even more
         | egregious when you learn that proof-of-stake rewards those with
         | the most money (read: the decision makers).
        
         | chrisco255 wrote:
         | That's not true. If ETH gets devalued through inflation by too
         | much the security of the network would be compromised. They are
         | explicitly moving to a 100% proof of stake model for securing
         | the network (already partially deployed). This directly
         | incentivizes stakeholders to protect the valuation of ETH.
         | Finally, if EIP-1559 is implemented, the network will begin
         | burning transaction fees. That is to say, it's possible in the
         | future more ETH will be burned via transaction fees than
         | produced from staking, in which case ETH issuance will go
         | negative.
        
       | tubbyjr wrote:
       | Some good points, but for as many good points, there is a similar
       | amount of misinformation, whether purposefully or due to lack of
       | understanding.
       | 
       | - The claim that BTC chose a non-scalable solution for ease of
       | running a node isn't true. The claim at the time was that Segwit
       | and LN were sufficient to solve all the scaling issues, the
       | hardforks were going to solve anyways with their block size
       | increase. It also falsely states that the hard forks take up more
       | hard disk space, when in fact BTC still takes more...
       | 
       | - The hashrate comparison, the way it is charted is completely
       | nonsensical, between BTC & ETH... it is quite literally comparing
       | apples to oranges, their POW algorithms are completely different
       | from one another and cannot be compared in hash/s terms. They are
       | each respectively at the top of their hash domains. I'm doubtful
       | this is due to ignorance, but moreso malice. Would love to see
       | BTC miners do a 50% attack on ETH, which the author is
       | essentially trying to instill into the minds of readers.
        
         | dylkil wrote:
         | >The claim that BTC chose a non-scalable solution for ease of
         | running a node isn't true.
         | 
         | Except that it is true. There were few reasons for not
         | increasing the block size limit, one of those was the cost of
         | running a node. If the costs became too much for normal people
         | to afford, it would centralize the system in a small number of
         | big miners.
        
           | tubbyjr wrote:
           | The only huge pushers of that were the like of core dev
           | LukeJr... who wants to decrease the block size down to 100k
           | or by 10x.
           | 
           | The article states that claim, as though it was the sole one,
           | when it was just one small reason pushed by Raspberry Pi
           | hobbyists... while the average person doesn't even know wtf a
           | Pi or ARM SBC is.
        
             | dylkil wrote:
             | Why not increase the block size limit then?
        
               | xorcist wrote:
               | This is also what happened. Larger blocks was implemented
               | with segwit. This played out during an infected debate
               | that provided the perfect cover to launch an altcoin
               | without it, that changed the name and some constants in
               | the code. The free PR gave them more economic activity
               | from the start compared to similar coins, and was likely
               | quite lucrative.
        
           | elif wrote:
           | non-mining nodes have zero bearing on chain consensus
        
             | dylkil wrote:
             | Yes id agree with you there, many dont though.
        
             | jude- wrote:
             | That's not really true. If the vast majority of user- and
             | exchange-operated nodes decided a miner's well-formed block
             | is invalid, then other miners would be dissuaded from
             | building on it, and would instead orphan it.
        
               | dylkil wrote:
               | if a non mining node decides a block is invalid it will
               | fork onto its own chain. If no mining nodes start mining
               | on this forked chain then the original node is left on a
               | chain where no transactions can be processed.
               | 
               | Non-mining nodes have no power or influence over the
               | networks state. It is the mining nodes who decide which
               | chain lives and which chain dies.
        
               | jude- wrote:
               | Non-mining nodes are still responsible for storing and
               | relaying blocks. If no one stores and relays your block,
               | was it ever mined?
        
           | Blockbuster wrote:
           | I never understood this argument. The cost of mining already
           | centralizes nodes to the point where block size is not a
           | factor. People that are able to run cost effective mining
           | setups are also able to support blockchains of any size.
           | Given the current state of mining, how would switching to
           | 10mb blocks increase centralization?
        
             | grubles wrote:
             | Block propagation speed.
        
             | xorcist wrote:
             | Miner centralization is not without risks, but is
             | fundamentally very different from centralizing economic
             | activity, with different security outcomes.
             | 
             | A dominating miner runs the risk of a 51% attack, which can
             | cause denial of service or censorship, but game theory
             | dictates that the missed opportunity cost is huge. A
             | dominating economic actor makes the whole blockchain an
             | obsolete backend to something like Paypal.
        
         | grubles wrote:
         | >They are each respectively at the top of their hash domains
         | 
         | This doesn't matter much for ETH because its mining algorithm
         | dissuades ASIC production. So there are some (large) number of
         | GPUs out in the world not mining ETH that can in theory be used
         | to attack Ethereum. The same can't really be said for Bitcoin
         | because ASICs serve no other purpose besides mining.
        
         | reissbaker wrote:
         | It felt a bit like doublespeak when the author claimed ETH was
         | more vulnerable to a 51% attack because it (intentionally) aims
         | to make ASIC mining difficult -- the whole point of making ASIC
         | mining difficult is that Bitcoin is centralized and vulnerable
         | to 51% attacks because there are very few miners (because
         | capital expenditure to become a miner is high). If the few
         | miners collaborate to cheat you, they can get away with it.
         | 
         | That being said, it's not even true anymore that ETH is GPU-
         | only; despite attempting ASIC-resistance, there are now ASIC
         | miners for ETH too, although unlike with Bitcoin, Ethereum is
         | still able to be mined with GPUs.
         | 
         | The complaints that ETH has little real-world utility and is
         | mostly speculation-driven felt similarly nonsensical compared
         | to Bitcoin. What real-world utility does Bitcoin have? The
         | whole thing is HODL-driven speculation on an inherently-useless
         | deflationary asset.
         | 
         | (Unlike the author, who claims to have no stake in the debate a
         | breath before admitting he's long BTC and doesn't own ETH -- by
         | definition, a stake -- I truly have no stake in this debate,
         | and currently own neither BTC nor ETH.)
        
         | spurdoman77 wrote:
         | I havent heard of any claims that segwit and LN would be
         | sufficient. It is very clear mathematics that they cant scale
         | far. However they provide safe way to scale for short-term.
         | Long-term solutions have to be found. If they are not found
         | there is thousands of shitcoins claiming to solve the
         | scalability issues better.
        
           | tubbyjr wrote:
           | I agree that mathematically, they are not the scaling
           | solutions they were touted to be, as they both have a direct
           | dependence on the base layer size, among many other issues
           | respectively.
           | 
           | You did mention yourself, under however, that it can help
           | scale in the short-term. Many of the 'tech gurus' were
           | essentially saying that Segwit was the short-term fix, and LN
           | wich would take 18 months(seemingly a perpetual timeframe),
           | would be the medium-term fix. The BTC maxi thought leader
           | morons, like Tone Vays, who are technically ignorant, were
           | selling noobs that both were a complete fix. I didn't choose
           | the thought leaders for BTC.
        
         | tubbyjr wrote:
         | I really feel the article's quality would greatly improve,
         | focusing on just Ethereum 2.0, where fair points regarding its
         | issues are brought up.
         | 
         | Showing the node count for BTC and making it seem huge, while
         | trying to sell the fact of how terrible it is to run a ETH node
         | instead, and not mentioning the fact that there are actually
         | more active ETH nodes online than BTC, is highly disengenious,
         | and unfortunately just makes this seem like a bagholder trying
         | to discredit competition.
        
       | tchalla wrote:
       | TL;DR from the Author Lyn Alden
       | 
       | > TLDR; Ethereum could indeed do very well over the next year in
       | terms of price, but as long as it's transforming its base layer,
       | it remains a speculation in alpha development, rather than a
       | finished/stable product.
       | 
       | https://twitter.com/lynaldencontact/status/13508211296367370...
        
         | brightball wrote:
         | Thank you
        
       | ogogmad wrote:
       | Is it at the moment possible (or even advisable) to use
       | stablecoins like DAI to buy things directly on the Dark Web?
       | Because if not, then that forces you to use exchanges to convert
       | the stablecoins to fiat, which themselves are still subject to
       | KYC regulations. So in that case you haven't really got around
       | KYC.
        
       | RyanShook wrote:
       | Thankful for the in-depth analysis. I'm still bullish on ETH
       | because the entire blockchain economy is very speculative. Trying
       | to fault Ethereum because it's not as stable or secure as BTC
       | doesn't seem very fair.
        
       | agumonkey wrote:
       | I wonder if this is not part of a ramp up of subtle marketing
       | toward ETH. The google trends is already growing up
       | https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=e...
        
         | jondwillis wrote:
         | Anecdotally, Google Trends correlates with the market price of
         | cryptocurrencies. Ether has gone up in value substantially this
         | year.
        
         | satellite2 wrote:
         | I had a similar feeling. The net effect of reading that article
         | was to make me want to invest in ETH.
        
           | agumonkey wrote:
           | And if the usual saying is true, be prepared to sell soon.
        
       | EGreg wrote:
       | I think the same analysis applies to Bitcoin in fact.
       | 
       | Funny that this upvoted article says much of what I said
       | yesterday in a comment that was originally heavily downvoted,
       | then went back:
       | 
       |  _The Ethereum solution to serve this demand, however, ironically
       | has semi-centralized clusters. While it's more decentralized than
       | purely-centralized systems, it's not really the level of
       | decentralization that some were hoping for, and Buterin has
       | admitted as such. These clusters of centralization serve as
       | potential attack surfaces for governments to crack down on these
       | methods of going around regulated and fully centralized and KYC-
       | regulated firms.
       | 
       | One could almost say it's a veneer of decentralization over a
       | system that is actually quite centralized. There's a step here
       | towards decentralization, but it's not actual decentralization in
       | its current form._
       | 
       | I went further. Let me reproduce it here: No, blockchains are not
       | the future, they are really the reason why one transaction can
       | happen at a time in the whole world. Even Ethereum 2.0 will have
       | shards which will do away with this anomaly. The only reason
       | flash loans even work with no collateral is because you can be
       | sure nothing else is running on the "world computer" while your
       | transaction runs, so you can roll it back with no risk except gas
       | fees. Vitalik himself acknowledges this, the guy is quite honest
       | and straightforward about its limitations:
       | 
       |  _Vitalik Buterin: Using Ethereum is expensive, and its
       | blockchain is 'almost full' He also said blockchain 's 'problem'
       | is that every computer verifies every transaction_
       | 
       | Actually blockchains are a first-generation technology that do
       | global consensus for every block, which literally means all
       | transactions in the world must go through one computer in the
       | world (the miner) although it's a different one each time. And
       | the situation is actually worse, since you don't know who would
       | mine the next block in advance, every transaction must be sent to
       | every potential miner! Imagine if BitTorrent had every computer
       | store and seed every movie instead of using DHT.
       | 
       | The ability to send or loan arbitrarily large amounts for a fixed
       | fee is a symptom of centralization. In a fully distributed
       | network, transaction fees would have to be proportional to
       | transaction size!
       | 
       | Almost every other protocol on the Internet does not have such
       | bottlenecks in its design. No one asks how many emails or
       | websites can be served per second. Blockchain is trying to secure
       | every transaction using the entire network! That is why so much
       | electricity is wasted just to do 7 transactions per second. The
       | next generation of crypto will actually be able to power payments
       | using embarrasingly parallel architecture. Until then, we have
       | blockchain. Ethereum is nicknamed the "world computer" for a
       | reason. Gas fees are super high for small transactions like
       | paying for coffee or voting in a secure election. Just one app
       | KryptoKitties can clog up the entire network.
       | 
       | As one example, we built Intercoin apps on top of Ethereum
       | (https://intercoin.org/applications) but we are not going to wait
       | around for Ethereum 2.0 - which is blockchain also. Kik Messenger
       | and others have long gotten off. Ripple, MaidSAFE and Solana use
       | different technologies.
        
         | 1996 wrote:
         | You were downvoted because you are tooting your coin, your
         | argument is weak, and your examples meaningless.
         | 
         | Your argument boils down to: not enough TPS, because bad
         | technology. It's good enough for now and can always be changed
         | later. Changing the distribution of the mempool to miners is
         | trivial. But the game theory consequences (MEV for flash
         | lending) are not. So no one wants to change what is not yet
         | broken until the implications become clear.
         | 
         | > The ability to send or loan arbitrarily large amounts for a
         | fixed fee is a symptom of centralization. In a fully
         | distributed network, transaction fees would have to be
         | proportional to transaction size
         | 
         | With UTXO, there is no correlation between amount and
         | transaction size (cf "dust")
        
           | EGreg wrote:
           | I think you are wrong on all counts.
           | 
           | My "argument" is just stating facts.
           | 
           | How is it good enough for now, when none of the tokens are
           | actually usable for their intended purpose onchain - and no
           | one uses decentralized crypto systems for everyday payments?
           | Our society relies on centralized server farms run by huge
           | states and corporations and we see the result. Suddenly
           | people care about Big Tech because of Parler and WhatsApp but
           | these are just two blips in a long line of consequences of
           | living in a Feudal society.
           | 
           | WeChat for example is used every day in China and has
           | replaced cash for millions of businesses, and now you have a
           | centralized social credit system, controlled by the Party,
           | and anyone can be blocked at any time, as can those who
           | associate with them. And the digital dollar is coming soon to
           | your neighborhood, which means one account at the central
           | bank, and yes most people will sign up. Meanwhile you're
           | sitting around saying 10 transactions a second is good
           | enough... this is how the centralized state and corporation
           | wins. When cypherpunks do nothing.
           | 
           | Enjoy living in a world where Facebook and Amazon and your
           | Federal government OWN your identity, data, transactions and
           | let you live as a digital serf under strict supervision.
           | 
           | But yeah, it's all about "shilling my coin" LOL
        
           | EGreg wrote:
           | And as a separate thread:
           | 
           | UTXO is just "unspent transaction outputs". The reason
           | Bitcoin and Ethereum can send transactions of any size for
           | the same fee is because ALL transactions are secured by the
           | entire network, regardless of their size. So they just charge
           | the cost of what a consensus process would take (proof of
           | work, nakamoto consensus in this case) for the entire network
           | to agree on the linear order of that transaction in the
           | sequence. It's a brute force inefficient approach. Like
           | transporting $1 in the same armored vehicle with a convoy as
           | $1,000,000
        
       | TTPrograms wrote:
       | I feel like I disagree with the bottom-line a bit - a 100/0 split
       | seems to ignore the possibility that a future stable state of the
       | Ethereum network will be capable of supporting stablecoins or
       | other coins with arbitrary monetary policy that are capable of
       | matching or surpassing Bitcoin in all metrics of technical merit.
       | I would not want to be a Bitcoin maximalist in that situation.
        
         | The_rationalist wrote:
         | Stablecoin is an untractable problem by design, isn't it being
         | solvable in the future by crypto a myth?
        
           | rglullis wrote:
           | Is it? I have been using MakerDAO and it has been holding up
           | without any problem. Even the crash last March didn't cause a
           | major lack of liquidity or lost backing value.
        
             | ogogmad wrote:
             | Can you explain what you use it for exactly?
        
               | rglullis wrote:
               | Three cases for now, mostly:
               | 
               | - It's an excellent way to make payments and transfer
               | value without giving up on your position on more volatile
               | assets that you'd like to hold. E.g, I am long BAT. I can
               | deposit my BAT stash on a MakerDAO vault to make an
               | overcollaterized loan of DAI. I go on then to use DAI to
               | pay people and services and other investments (see next
               | point). If BAT's value falls between a certain threshold
               | and the loan is no longer collaterized, then the loan is
               | liquidated.
               | 
               | - Provide liquidity in a volatile-stable pair (e.g,
               | ETH/DAI) on a decentralized exchange like Uniswap and
               | reduce what is commonly called _impermanent loss_ or
               | _impairment loss_.
               | 
               | - Provide liquidity on Curve Finance on the DAI/USDC
               | pool. The fees I get to collect from that so far more
               | than offset the interest rate from the original loan, and
               | if you put on top of that that Curve gives their own
               | tokens as an incentive to liquidity providers, I am
               | getting around 2% ROI _per month_ by holding fairly
               | stable and low-risk crypto assets.
        
         | wmf wrote:
         | Bitcoin's adoption isn't based on technical merit though. It's
         | a Schelling point for digital gold.
        
           | lacker wrote:
           | It does have the technical merit of not collapsing so far. A
           | lot of the previous attempts at digital currency collapsed
           | because they had more of a dependency on some quasi trusted
           | intermediate party.
        
       | ogogmad wrote:
       | I'm wondering whether Bitcoin has a chance of being anything
       | other than a store of value, or a means to settle accounts (if
       | even that). Given the long list of problems with Lightning (e.g.
       | [1]), and the many years it's been in development for, I'm
       | growing increasingly skeptical. I'm wondering how that fits into
       | people's economic analysis of Bitcoin.
       | 
       | P.S. I'm long Bitcoin, so I hope I'm wrong!
       | 
       | [1] - https://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-lightning-network-
       | vulnerabi...
        
         | mlthoughts2018 wrote:
         | I think alternatives like Litecoin and Bitcoin Cash are more
         | likely to be adopted as a transactional tool in that case.
         | 
         | Bitcoin - speculation on digital store of value and solutions
         | to hedge against fiat currency risks. The valuation model is to
         | try to determine what X% of the global demand for store of
         | value assets might shift towards Bitcoin in the long run.
         | Probably nowhere close to the level of a fiat currency market
         | or the gold market, but perhaps much higher % than it is today.
         | 
         | Litecoin, Bitcoin Cash - attempting to make crypto transactions
         | common. Higher capacity, faster transaction processing. The
         | valuation model is X% of casual transactions. X is probably
         | never going to be an appreciable percentage compared to big
         | transaction platforms like Visa or Mastercard, but it may grow
         | steadily and find niche areas where the ability to quickly
         | transact in a cryptocurrency is highly valued. This is likely
         | to remain correlated to cryptocurrencies that act as a store of
         | value because one main area for demand of casual cryptocurrency
         | transactions will be hedging risk of fiat currencies. Eg if I
         | live in a region with government currency instability, I'll
         | want to decouple my cash asset values from that government
         | risk, and look to a platform where I can still buy toilet paper
         | or bread without hyperinflation.
         | 
         | Ethereum, Polkadot, Cosmos - network effects and ecosystems of
         | smart contracts. The valuation model is like an app store mixed
         | with a cloud vendor. Much harder to state a clear valuation
         | model, likely very volatile due to perceptions of "killer apps"
         | and how much staying power they would really have, as well as
         | the interplay with regulators.
        
         | xorcist wrote:
         | Even if Bitcoin only gets to be the reserve currency of all
         | digital currencies in the future, the petrodollar that oils the
         | defi machinery, that's enough of a use case to drive valuation.
         | 
         | People like to ask Bitcoin investors if they really think it
         | will be the last and optimal digital currency. And no, that's
         | not likely. But that reasoning must be applied to each and
         | every other coin as well, including Ethereum, and that is
         | doubly likely for them. One could easily imagine a future coin
         | that does what they do, only better.
        
         | UShouldBWorking wrote:
         | The Bitcoin core project died years ago as soon as the GitHub
         | repo was hijacked by corporate interests like Adam Back's
         | Blockstream.
         | 
         | Bitcoin cash is much closer to what is described in satoshi's
         | white paper and infinitely more useful than Bitcoin core at
         | this point.
        
         | porknubbins wrote:
         | I'm starting to see Bitcoin and ETH/ other alt coins a kind of
         | mutually dependent relationship. Bitcoin succeeding as a store
         | of value allows that narrative to continue, drawing in
         | institutional investment while other faster projects allow the
         | narrative about changing all monetary transactions to continue.
         | I don't think maximalists on either side would like the price
         | if the other side failed.
        
           | grubles wrote:
           | I predict more and more blockchains in the future won't have
           | extraneous speculative tokens (like ETH) since BTC has
           | remained dominant for more than a decade. There are simply
           | less and less reasons to buy or hold ETH when sidechains like
           | Rootstock replicate the technology used on Ethereum...but
           | without needing to use another less dominant less liquid
           | asset.
        
           | dustymcp wrote:
           | I completely agree with this
        
         | chrisco255 wrote:
         | Sure it is, on Ethereum: https://defipulse.com/btc
         | 
         | More tokenized Bitcoin is transacted on the Ethereum network
         | every day than on the Lightning network, by orders of
         | magnitude.
        
           | grubles wrote:
           | Most of the "tokenized Bitcoin" you're referring to is just
           | an ERC20 promise of redemption from Bitgo's coffers. It's not
           | at all comparable to Bitcoin's Lightning Network.
        
       | skybrian wrote:
       | There is still a big question of whether a panic that breaks
       | Tether's peg might cause enough chaos to discredit the entire
       | market for a while. It's odd that Alden doesn't address that.
       | 
       | Some other cryptocurrencies could go up when that happens, but it
       | seems like it would be bad for demand in the slightly longer run.
        
         | seibelj wrote:
         | I keep reading people post this on HN but I promise you it
         | won't matter. The shock of Tether not being fully backed
         | already happened back in 2018 and the $1 peg briefly broke
         | before recovering. What's the next shock? It's still not
         | backed? The market already knows this and doesn't care. Retail
         | currently can't cash out USDT and still won't later.
         | 
         | IMO the only way USDT dies is if the US government makes using
         | it illegal. Nothing else will make a dent in it.
        
       | flignats wrote:
       | ETH past 3k in 2021
        
       | bhaak wrote:
       | Overall, a very good and thorough analysis with a completely
       | comprehensible explanation why she's preferring a 100% BTC, 0%
       | ETH strategy.
       | 
       | I have only some minor quibbles.
       | 
       | GPUs are very much not abundant. Gamers were complaining a lot
       | during the last bull run that those crypto nuts were buying up
       | all available high-end GPUs.
       | 
       | Also comparing the hashrates doesn't make sense. Those are
       | different algorithms that run on completely different hardware.
       | Bitcoin ASICs can only be used for Bitcoin (or Bitcoin forks that
       | haven't changed the POW algorithm) where GPUs as general
       | programmable device can be repurposed for mining other
       | cryptocoins which might be more profitably to mine at any given
       | time. Together with the fact (as stated in the article) that
       | Ethereum has reduced the block rewards over time, it's not
       | surprising that the hashrate isn't bigger than during the
       | previous bull run.
       | 
       | This leads to the criticised monetary policy of Ethereum. This
       | wasn't explicitly mentioned in the article but Ethereum's
       | monetary policy can best be summarized as "don't overpay the
       | miners for securing the network".
       | 
       | Many see it as a necessary evil that Ethereum is still running on
       | POW and they are eagerly awaiting the jump to POS. It is seen as
       | a design flaw of Bitcoin that it has a rigid coin issuance that
       | isn't dynamically adjusting to the actual demand.
        
         | sjtindell wrote:
         | To your point, some farms will swap the coin they are mining in
         | real time on the fly (given some baking period to see a real
         | price difference) based on profitability and are continually
         | selling on exchanges to capture current rate.
        
       | hehehaha wrote:
       | I was hoping for a real economic analysis. You know one written
       | by someone who studied monetary theories and policies.
        
         | u678u wrote:
         | In this day an age a previously unknown writer who rights long
         | blog posts with lots of words counts as an expert. Especially
         | if they recommend BTC.
        
           | llampx wrote:
           | Lyn is previously unknown?
        
         | reducesuffering wrote:
         | She definitely studies monetary theory and policy. Read a few
         | more articles that are unrelated to crypto.
        
         | sova wrote:
         | "as an oil-like enabler of dapps, rather than as a gold-like
         | scarce collateral" is an economic statement (!)
        
         | bo1024 wrote:
         | I've read a few of her articles recently and been very
         | impressed. I understand a default stance of skepticism but the
         | writing speaks for itself. I would be curious for your
         | criticisms on this "petrodollar" article, for instance:
         | https://www.lynalden.com/fraying-petrodollar-system/
        
         | worik wrote:
         | They are a investor in Bitcoin.
         | 
         | So they clearly do not get it
        
           | dustymcp wrote:
           | No reason why both cant coexist and compliment each other
           | like they do today.
        
       | porknubbins wrote:
       | I hadn't really sat down and thought how much more complicated
       | ETH 2.0 is than Bitcoin so that was interesting. I don't think
       | that the Concord metaphor is very meaningful though. Isn't
       | supersonic flight hard and inconvenient for real world physics
       | and engineering reasons while cryptocurrency relies on CS/ math
       | developments but if those problems are solved there is no reason
       | to think the solution will remain impractical. Crypto won't burn
       | excess fuel or make sonic booms.
        
       | seibelj wrote:
       | The majority of the serious innovation and development in the
       | crypto space currently happens on Ethereum, which keeps the money
       | people interested and sniffing around. The existence of Ethereum
       | IMO helps the price of bitcoin increase, especially as ever more
       | bitcoin is "wrapped" and ported to the ETH network.[0]
       | 
       | I think this article is really solid, as are all of her articles.
       | Part of what I love about Ethereum and altcoins is exactly
       | because of the speculative, fast-money, insanely risky and exotic
       | assets and protocols it creates. Where she sees that as a
       | negative, I see it as a positive. ETH and its tokens have helped
       | my crypto friends amass more wealth than we would have made
       | working at FAANG companies, and without slogging through all of
       | the bullshit and pain of working at huge corporations. Plus we
       | get to work on super interesting tech rather than middleware that
       | powers the middleware that powers the data mining pipeline that
       | extracts money out privacy violations.
       | 
       | If you want the "safe" crypto play, I tell people to do 60/40
       | BTC/ETH on Coinbase so they can hold it safely and never look at
       | it again. If you want to make the 10x fast money gains
       | speculating like a crypto degen trader, then the only game in
       | town is ETH and the alts running on its ecosystem.
       | 
       | [0] https://wbtc.network/
        
         | grubles wrote:
         | "Wrapped Bitcoin" is not "porting" BTC to Ethereum. It's merely
         | a token that represents some sort of claim on actual BTC held
         | with a single custodian (Bitgo).
        
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