• Knock_Knock_Lemmy_In@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    Oh yes. A huge amount of speculation. Just like NVDA.

    My point is that you can say a lot of negative things about crypto, but you can’t say it doesn’t work. It definitely works.

    • merc@sh.itjust.works
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      2 days ago

      It doesn’t work as a currency. It “works” as a speculative investment in that the bubble hasn’t yet popped.

      But, what if the bubble doesn’t actually pop, and the prices remain at the current levels, more or less, for another couple of decades. If that happens, will cryptocurrencies be seen to “work”?

      • Knock_Knock_Lemmy_In@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        I think i made a mistake by using the market cap as evidence that it works, because this just shows people believe it is valuable. Not that it works.

        What I mean is that the technology is mature and adopted by a large number of independent users. However, it doesn’t yet have mass adoption because the user experience is not yet seamlessly integrated into legacy systems.

        • merc@sh.itjust.works
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          22 hours ago

          What I mean is that the technology is mature and adopted by a large number of independent users

          That doesn’t mean it isn’t a speculative bubble.

          it doesn’t yet have mass adoption because the user experience is not yet seamlessly integrated into legacy systems

          Or it doesn’t have mass adoption for the same reason that legacy systems don’t accept payment in tulip bulbs.

          • Knock_Knock_Lemmy_In@lemmy.world
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            20 hours ago

            If you are hung up on value, let’s just consider stablecoins.

            The price of a particular token has nothing to with how blockchain works. It works.

            • merc@sh.itjust.works
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              20 hours ago

              Stablecoins? The best that you can hope for is that they keep their promise not to crash. And sometimes they do crash and people lose all their value. They’re like having cash, but much, much worse.

              The price of a particular token has nothing to with how blockchain works. It works.

              Blockchain is just an incredibly inefficient distributed database. Of course the price of a token has nothing to do with an incredibly inefficient distributed database. So what?

              • Knock_Knock_Lemmy_In@lemmy.world
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                19 hours ago

                Blockchain is just an incredibly inefficient distributed database.

                Agreed. Most of the time a traditional database is far cheaper and better performing.

                The key innovation of blockchain is that write access is algorithmic, not centrally controlled. This feature is not possible with any other technology.