Talking stocks, trading, and investing in general

[the shah]

The amount of strawmen in this article is unbelievable.

I don't find it particularly compelling or well written but I'd be curious to hear of a viable business case that can be implemented exclusively or at least significantly better using this technology. I've read a fair share of technical documents , gone through podcasts (Blockchain Insider, for example, among others), and I must be blind because I can't see it. Last year a partner at a Big 4 consultancy said the words "we are just waiting for business cases to reveal themselves." I found that quite telling. Maybe this question belongs in a different thread though. Because there's still money to be made and cryptoarbitrage is automated
https://github.com/butor/blackbird/blob/master/README.md

 

[venividivicibj]

I don't find it particularly compelling or well written but I'd be curious to hear of a viable business case that can be implemented exclusively or at least significantly better using this technology. I've read a fair share of technical documents , gone through podcasts (Blockchain Insider, for example, among others), and I must be blind because I can't see it. Last year a partner at a Big 4 consultancy said the words "we are just waiting for business cases to reveal themselves." I found that quite telling. Maybe this question belongs in a different thread though. Because there's still money to be made and cryptoarbitrage is automated
https://github.com/butor/blackbird/blob/master/README.md

The issue I have is that many of his 'problems' with the blockchain have nothing to do with it.

He whines about the speed of bitcoin transactions (which is just one example of the blockchain, some newer currencies can do 1000x the transaction/second that bitcoin does).

Then he brings up Mt. Gox, which is an exchange, and not a blockchain at all. If my bank account gets stolen, I don't blame the US government and say it's the fault of the US Dollar.


I understand the 'blockchain' (as the technology currently stands) has failings, I understand it doesn't have widespread adoption, and I understand that many of the current 'projects' shouldn't even be using blockchain, but this is a ****** article.

 

[venividivicibj]

If you're looking at the blockchain purely as an investment possibility, you're missing the point

Also addresses some of the critiques of bitcoin from Sha's link (re-why is it better than payal/visa etc)

 

[the shah]

I just listened to this, it's quite high level and non- technical which is fine but I didn't hear anything that addressed the question, what real world use case is there for distributed ledgers that are exclusively or at least better solved using this now decade-old technology than other existing ones?

He went on this idealistic vision for some time where people and communities transcend their governments and financial institutions but there wasn't any discussion of overcoming technical barriers nor any solid examples of what this can achieve.

There is a blockchain-based emergency service app that allows for 9-11 services in countries that don't have this. The blockchain part is only used to reward crowd-sourcrd respondents (police or paramedics in their off time, for example) so there is actually no need for a blockchain. There are countless examples like this. I keep seeing talks about how this revolution is coming but it seems nobody knows what will be uniquely solved ?

This isn't theoretical physics where , say, nobody understood in the first decade of the 20th century how relativity or quantum physics would revolutionise the world. This is an existing technology that is quite well understood.

I don't mean to disparage your video or whatever financial gains people have made. I'm really just very curious

 

[bings]

aren't there already many dozens of financial institutions running on the blockchains represented by XRP and ETH?

the use-cases have already been determined and implemented.

Blythe Master's wiki should give an indication of where this is going: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blythe_Masters

 

[venividivicibj]

I just listened to this, it's quite high level and non- technical which is fine but I didn't hear anything that addressed the question, what real world use case is there for distributed ledgers that are exclusively or at least better solved using this now decade-old technology than other existing ones?

He went on this idealistic vision for some time where people and communities transcend their governments and financial institutions but there wasn't any discussion of overcoming technical barriers nor any solid examples of what this can achieve.

There is a blockchain-based emergency service app that allows for 9-11 services in countries that don't have this. The blockchain part is only used to reward crowd-sourcrd respondents (police or paramedics in their off time, for example) so there is actually no need for a blockchain. There are countless examples like this. I keep seeing talks about how this revolution is coming but it seems nobody knows what will be uniquely solved ?

This isn't theoretical physics where , say, nobody understood in the first decade of the 20th century how relativity or quantum physics would revolutionise the world. This is an existing technology that is quite well understood.

I don't mean to disparage your video or whatever financial gains people have made. I'm really just very curious

Other than the exact example of venezuela and countries with hyper inflation or those who do not have access to paypal/a non-governmental banking system?

 

[jcman311]

I’m going to change my name to Block Chain and run for president.

 

[the shah]

I guess the answer is, we won't know until we try a bunch of things.

aren't there already many dozens of financial institutions running on the blockchains represented by XRP and ETH?

the use-cases have already been determined and implemented.

Blythe Master's wiki should give an indication of where this is going: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blythe_Masters

Supposedly Ripple will allow instantaneous transfer across the Atlantic: https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/16/ame...am-up-with-ripple-on-blockchain-platform.html

But citing high costs and 4-day transfers international isn't fair when there are services like TransferWise which has a flat-rate charge of £4 for any transaction and it takes a day or so to settle.

VISA has partnered with Chain, a startup now worth $43M, but I'm not sure I understand what they do.
http://investorfieldguide.com/ludwin/

Other than the exact example of venezuela and countries with hyper inflation or those who do not have access to paypal/a non-governmental banking system?

Like i said, he went on this idealistic rant about revolutionising the world and bringing freedom to the masses. Maybe I should have added "practical" as a qualifier because as it stands there is nothing near a viable currency for transactional purposes, as nice as that may sound, but rather only instruments of speculation (and now with the options trading, speculation on speculative assets). The rate of processing is 3 orders of magnitude slower than visa, for example, and the fluctuations mean you bought your hamburger for $3 and by the time you had dessert it could have been a $60 meal.

And then there was this
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/1999/nov/04/onlinesupplement

Some other sources:

If bitcoin is like early e-mail, is blockchain decades from reaching its full potential? In our view the answer is a qualified yes. We can’t predict exactly how many years the transformation will take, but we can guess which kinds of applications will gain traction first and how blockchain’s broad acceptance will eventually come about.

In our analysis, history suggests that two dimensions affect how a foundational technology and its business use cases evolve. The first is novelty—the degree to which an application is new to the world. The more novel it is, the more effort will be required to ensure that users understand what problems it solves. The second dimension is complexity, represented by the level of ecosystem coordination involved—the number and diversity of parties that need to work together to produce value with the technology. For example, a social network with just one member is of little use; a social network is worthwhile only when many of your own connections have signed on to it. Other users of the application must be brought on board to generate value for all participants. The same will be true for many blockchain applications. And, as the scale and impact of those applications increase, their adoption will require significant institutional change.

https://www.researchgate.net/public...ain_in_Business_and_Management_a_Delphi_study

Blockchain may be conceptualised as a DI, however, its practical application is, as yet, rather limited and the actual impact of the approach remains to be seen.
...
Consequently, this study aims to address the gap in current knowledge by making a substantiated examination of the potential applications of blockchain. It makes a further contribution by adding to the extremely limited body of literature that examines its application from a business management perspective.

https://hbr.org/2017/01/the-truth-about-blockchain

* * *

Graph theory is cool so I was reading about some alternatives. IOTA uses a block-DAG rather than chain and this nullifies miners and their processing overhead for verification. Also hashgraph is another distributed ledger technology that as of right now cannot be implemented as a public ledger (scalability) but private ledgers can process 250K transactions/second, that's quite fast.

 

[venividivicibj]

MIT comments on IOTA

 

[bings]

Shah those are great links. I'll be digging into them further

 

[otc]

If you guys have your coins in Coinbase, please take them out and move them to wallets.

I finally actually did this...moved it all to my shiny ledger nano s.

Although it now bothers me that I don't own an even number (since I paid a transaction fee)...

 

[ThinkDerm]

Nothing yet. Just some thoughts-

1. Good sense in general to rely on a person wallet rather than a public exchange
2. Coinbase is having some issues right now (sporadic periods where buy/sells are not allowed/transfers are not allowed) due to a weird flaw in their transfer system that has been exposed
3. Being investigated for insider trading (internally and possibly by gov)

isn't the coin safe on CB??

 

[venividivicibj]

isn't the coin safe on CB??

Safe is a relative term. I would prefer to hold the private keys locally on my computer or in a hardware/cold wallet.

When you hold in an exchange, they are holding the keys (thus- if they are hacked/become insolvent/involved in legal matters, you can lose out).

If you hold the keys locally or in a hardware wallet, you will out only lose out in you personally get hacked.

 

[ThinkDerm]

how do you obtain/generate and hold the keys?

 

[lawyerdad]

I’m going to change my name to Block Chain and run for president.

Deez Block Chainz