mjnaus

And of course Bank of America is just as clueless as everyone else who thinks the industry is here to stay: https://decrypt.co/82573/bank-of-america-bullish-bitcoin-ethereum-defi-nfts

No, they’re not stupid. They’re just slow to catch on. As many of them were spouting the same rhetoric as the likes of @GrandPapillon and @lkn for quite a few years. However, to date the majority have come around, knowing this industry is here to stay and are now working internally on crypto projects. Like those banks, people will come around eventually. Some sooner than others. As I and others have mentioned before, the world is moving on. And a hand full of oldtimers having trouble coming to terms with the new reality isn’t going to make a difference.

Spot on. However, thick heads are tough to crack. These same people have been peddling the idea of how the music is going to stop any time now. And they have been beating this drum for a decade now. Yet, here we are…

Or, numerous of solid examples have been giving which are dismissed out of the gate without being judged on merit. But by all means; stick to your narrative. It’s pretty obvious that no matter what gets brought to the table, mental gymnastics are being pulled to dismiss it all. Who knows, maybe you simply just don’t get it and others do. I am perfect happy with that. The world is moving on, with or without that handful of oldtimers on TV. I am tapping out. Be well.

Excellent point! And since we can also make copies of famous paintings, it's good thing that whole art thing was proven to be a scam. Oh wait... was it though?

You were SPECIFICALLY referring to Bitcoin AND altcoins, hence my reply regarding ETH. I have no interest in telling you what value YOU can derive from transacting on the Ethereum blockchain since a person such as yourself probably wouldn't derive any value from transacting on Ethereum and/or holding NFT's. It's pretty obvious though, by just looking at Ethereum's transaction data and chain revenue, that there's a large number of people transacting on the network that DO derive value from doing so. If they wouldn't, they wouldn't be paying those high transaction fees. If you genuinely want to gain more insight into what value people derive from using the Ethereum network, DYOR (then again, we all know you won't because you obviously do not want to run into anything that doesn't jive with your chosen narrative, hence general dismissal is the more convenient choice).

No, we do not agree with that statement. Looking at ETH for example, every transaction on the network requires ETH to pay for gas, hence increase transaction volume brings increase in demand and therefor puts upward pressure on the price of ETH. Furthermore, a large number of NFT's traded on Ethereum are priced in ETH (pretty much everything sold on OpenSea at the moment), ie buyers of those NFT's will need to acquire ETH before they can purchase their NFT's. You're sure you want to continue proclaiming you know this space so well and follow it all closely?

Well, that's fantastic for you. My experiences were vastly different. When doing large volume processing in certain industries, everything involving getting merchant accounts, settlement is a complete and utter <deleted>show. The hoops some of my businesses have had to jump through to be able to take payments were bizar and nearly put my last company out of business. And this was a legit business, turning over north of $20mil per year. And when we were able to hold on to a merchant account for a longer period of time, settlement took days (best case scenario) or weeks (more typical). So while it's great for you that did not experience any of that nonsense, that certain does not apply to everyone else. Having to literally beg some clerk on a powertrip at the bank to release some of our funds so we can make payroll is a reality for some businesses.

Yep, gotta side with those give you the blank stares after your explanation. It does indeed sound rather dumb and not quite accurate. But hey, don't beat yourself up over it. It's complicated. And you should choose your audience (hint: discussing the merits of blockchain/crypto at the Sunday bridge club probably won't work ???? ). Next time you struggle with your audience, find some folks half your age and tell 'em they can ditch their <deleted>ty legacy savings account earning them 0.2% and instead they can earn 10%+ on stable coin yields through DeFi. Pretty simple to wrap your head around and an rather easy sell.

Lol. And you never considered the possibility that you don't know this stuff as well you think you do?

This is a slightly simplified flow of transacting through Chai: 1. Consumer connects his/her bank account to Chai 2. He/she makes a purchase using the Chai app 3. Chai creates and manages a wallet for the consumer 4. Chai converts KRW into KRT (Terra's KRW stable coin) 5. Chai sends the KRT to the merchant Once the KRT lands in the merchants wallet, they can then choose to convert it into KRW (using one of the many offramp partners) or hold onto the KRT. As I mentioned before, the upside for the merchant is instant settlement (again, something legacy payment networks can not provide) at a fraction of the cost (with legacy networks, 2% is considered a "good" fee rate, Chai charges around .5%). Instant settlement and fees that approach 0% do not exist on legacy rails.

Alright bud. I am sure you're exhausted from all the mental gymnastics needed to make the world fit with your chosen narrative. You'll come around sooner or later. Night night!

If you're so skeptical, maybe shoot an email to BlockFi? They offer a similar product (although rates are a bit lower) and are fully regulated as a financial service provider (check here for all the licenses etc they have).

The TechCrunch article you're quoting is old (early last year if memory serve me right?) and Chai has since moved to settle ALL payments using Terra's blockchain. The fact that Chai is a venture backed company is completely irrelevant. You asked for a real life use case, for regular consumers, that uses blockchain/crypto tech. This is exactly what Chai does; the (venture backed or not) company uses crypto rails to settle e-commerce transactions. IMO, this is how crypto/blockchain tech will make its way into the "real" world. Onramps tend to be centralized, simply because it makes sense (like centralized exchanges).

Ok, I'll bite. The Chai payment system, is used by roughly 2 million South Koreans at around 2.200 merchants (including Nike and Phillip Morris) to pay for stuff. As of August the platform processes over 100.000 transactions daily by around 50.000 daily active users. Most of these users have no idea they're using crypto rails to pay for stuff. For subscribing merchants, Chai facilitates instant settlement (which compared to days, or weeks on conventional rails matters a lot) at a fraction of the costs of legacy payment networks.

Failed to convince the world or just you and a hand full of other senior citizens? From where I am standing, it appears the world is catching on pretty rapidly right now.

Well, I’d argue there are definitely new fundamentals. However, the ones I value all revolve around the Ethereum chain and their ecosystem of protocols. Since DeFi summer last year, there are quite a few Ethereum based protocols with solid fundamentals (all verifiable, on-chain metrics). Things like protocol revenues were not a thing say 2 years back, but they definitely are today. I guess a lot of it comes down to what one would consider to be valuable fundamentals.

Perhaps you should have read through my recent posts before making such silly statements. I am nothing but extremely bullish when it comes to the crypto market. And although I stay away from hyped up, useless assets and focus more on those with actual fundamentals, my crypto holdings have done extremely well the past weeks, months, years... So no, zero envy on my part. The pie is large enough for everyone to make a buck, even those riding on hype and meme coins. But let's not pretend that picking two assets and predicting their prices to go up while the entire market is in an obvious upswing makes us some sort of financial wizard ???? I'd say that's the salient point here.

As is pretty much every other crypto asset in the top 50.

Lol, the same is true for pretty much every major crypto asset. The entire crypto market still pretty much moves as a whole (with a few exceptions). So anybody could have picked any random asset from the top 50 a few months back and be up about a 100% right now.

Yeah, I remember that Tweet. Unfortunately, the Tweet in question has frequently been taking way out of context. It took place during "The DAO" smart contract hack where hackers were exploiting a flaw in the DOA's smart contract and siphoning off large amounts funds while unsuspecting traders were buying into to the DAO. The aim of the Tweet was to get people to stop making additional funds available for the hackers. We should also keep in mind that this took place years ago when the Ethereum community was a fraction of what it is today and a similar Tweet today might not have the same impact today as it did then.

Lol, sure. One big difference though: those who were saying "crypto is going to see increased adoption, use cases and value over the coming years" ten years ago have so far been correct. The doom and gloomers have not. I am not drinking the Kool aid. I work in the industry and have a pretty solid grasp on what's taking place. Till date, in the main blockchains, the underlying ledger technology has not been compromised once. Let that sink in for bit... There have not been succesfull 51% percentage attacks (not in the major chains like Bitcoimn and Ethereum), no double spending attacks, nothing. All hacks, thefts you're referring either take place on the wallet level, ie unsafe handling of private keys (like storing funds at shady exchanges without access to your private keys) or smart contracts hacks where a coder simply built an unsafe contract that ended up being exploited. Blaming the later on the underlying blockchain tech is like using the password "1234" for your Gmail account and then stating that Internet is unsafe because your email got hacked. As for Ethereum having bugs, well yeah...it's a platform that's under development so there going to be bugs. However, these are always handled and sorted out in a timely manner and user's funds have never been at risk. This is way software moves forward unfortunately... things do break from time to time and will need to get sorted out.

With the implementation of IEP1559, Ethereum has drastically decreased issuance. Better yet, once "The Merge" happens early next and Ethereum switches to PoS, issuance will be negative. ETH will become a deflationary asset. Have a look at this site: https://ultrasound.money/ and flip the "simulate merge" switch in the SUPPLY GROWTH meter on the dashboard to see what this will look like. Disclaimer: I am part of the team working on the ultrasound.money site.

Yawn..... this is the same rhetoric that has been making the rounds since Bitcoin first arrived on the scene. Yet, here we are. I guess there will still be people making similar statements ten years from now. Not arguing that regulating isn't a hurdle the industry needs to overcome, however the doom and gloom rhetoric does not sit well with me. I like to think regulation is a good thing, or at least it has the potential to be. First off, regulators taking notice and working on regulatory frameworks validates the industry as a whole; it's like saying "Ok, we admit this crypto thing is here to stay, let's figure out how we can build regulation around it". For crypto to make it to the next level, it needs regulation, period. Another upside I see is that it will increase the adoption rate. Some institutions are already buying, however I'd argue that the majority is still waiting on the sidelines and regulation could be the little push in the back they need. "The less then open nature of crypto..." really? A fully open and transparant ledger? Literally every transaction can tracked back till the beginning of time! This is a regulators wet dream come true for crying out loud. Combine this with KYC and AML on the exchange side of things and hiding anything on the major blockhains becomes nearly impossible.

KYC and AML can be a major pain the behind, however I have not been able to get it. Even for exchanges like Coinbase and Gemini. It may take a few days and require a few glasses of Scotch to calm those nerves but I always get there in the end. As for Thai exchanges; terrible exchanges rates, virtually non-existing liquidity for anything beyond BTC and ETH, dubious teams/companies, zero regulation, etc. Best to be avoided.