asynchrony

A blockchain isn't optimal for anything. If it was there should be some evidence of it improving something in the real world, no? Something other than a cult of buzzwords and speculation.

So why not use a central database and allow all stakeholders to replicate and keep their own logs of edits. It would be far more efficient. It would lack a certain buzzword though.

Faith is required to sustain belief in promises that are never delivered.

Putting lies into a blockchain doesn't make them true. Lettuce can still kill you in a post-blockchain society.

I actually thought this was talking about the Ethereum Foundation paying its employees in ETH at first.

Hey, I'm an FM and a full-stack web dev (though mostly frontend over the past few years). I'd love to be a beta tester. Any way I can contact you?

Mt.Gox manipulated the price upwards then insiders stole the coins in the last bubble. Now the fraud is more distributed, but it's pretty much the same story. There's a lot more scrutiny this time around. "Fool me twice" and all that. Let's watch it all unfold and not make too many predictions.

The speculative pricing bubble and the hype around the technology are two different things.

This is effectively funded by all the student loans and double mortgages that FOMO drove people to trade real money for virtual commodities at the peak of last year's bubble. I'm calling it. We have reached peak blockchain hysteria. This is "if you build it they will come" on the blockchain.

Savers can choose to loan their currency to a bank for some guaranteed returns, they can loan it to corporations and public institutions in the form of bonds, or they can purchase ownership of real estate and businesses through equities. They can buy bitcoin if they consider it a wise investment. Only lenders and the people who insist on hoarding cash suffer from inflation.

Historically deflation has resulted in economic stagnation and depression. The reason is that there is no incentive to borrow or spend money on a risky investment when increasing value of currency over time is guaranteed. What exactly is supposed to be different this time?

Inflation benefits borrowers more than hoarders. Your example is strange because in the one you compare a base currency to economic activity in that currency and in the other you take a loan in one currency in order to transact in another. If you borrow bolivars to start a Venezuelan corner store, at least your debt would lose value as rapidly as the currency you receive from your customers. If the price of BTC continues to rise indefinitely, you would be in for an even worse time if you borrowed BTC to start your Venezuelan corner store.

I also don't see how infinite divisibility helps. It's still deflation. Let's say the world converts to BTC. Now if I take a loan of 1 BTC to start my corner store, the value of that 1 BTC will continue to increase, but if the goods selling do not increase in price, I will have to charge less and less for them over time. There's the same amount of space between 1 and 0 as there is between 1 and infinity.

The only benefit that doesn't involve evading regulations is (a dream) of lower fees for sending money. But even that hasn't materialized and comes with rather large costs.

I think he understands the technology better than a fair percentage of casual readers here. Perhaps you should read the rest of the paper.

If you can’t offer a concrete example of more efficient micropayments or useful smart contracts, you’re basically talking about how great the second coming of Jesus might be.

There must some ironic meaning of "economy" that I'm not aware of. Societies have gone through many recessions and depressions. Is that what you're advocating?

If the primary medium of exchange is an inflating currency then possessors are incentivized to exchange it. If debt is owed in a deflating currency than the burden of all debts will only grow. Could you address these points rather than simply dismiss them as irrelevant?

There already many ways to exchange cash for assets that are likely to appreciate in value (gold, real estate, equities, bitcoin). Won’t a depreciating asset like cash always make for better incentives to participate in trade than an appreciating one?

Please explain the advantages you see in the simplest terms you can.

I think your point about infinite divisibility is an interesting one. But the main downside is that there is no incentive to exchange the currency (a pizza or ownership in a business) when you know that the currency will be more in a year than it is worth today.

Yes, human civilization has been doing this for quite a long time. I'm not really sure what your point is relative to inflation.

I was just trying to be direct. What would be a more polite way to say that?

You can replace "grow" with "function" if you prefer.

If a regulated banking system mixes with an unregulated banking system everything becomes an unregulated banking system.

Also proof-of-stake has been promised for so long I would be embarrassed to talk about it if I worked at the Ethereum Foundation. Delivering things that work isn't their strong suit.

Inflation is a desirable feature in a currency. A currency should be a medium of exchange. Deflation encourages people to hold currency rather than exchange it.

You could certainly accept bitcoin for black market transactions and spend bitcoin on black market transactions, but wouldn't most participants want to transport their gains to the real world eventually?

I like your idea of time-arbitrage. I think Uber and AirBnB are good examples of startups that have created value by operating in loosely regulated areas. Still, I haven't anything emerge from the crypto space that appears to have a true value proposition and is not intimately connected to the exchange rate of virtual tokens

Your premise is to "fix" the monetary system, but you failed to articulate the issues that you want to resolve.

Could you try saying this some other way? I don't grasp your meaning at all.

I can definitely see the attraction for entrepreneurs, just not the value for anyone else.

At some point they'll want to exchange their profits for real goods and services. They will rely on some exchange service to cash out eventually.

Crypto assets are only valuable insofar as they can be exchanged for real world goods and services (mostly people seem to want US dollars). Purely crypto backed stable coins lack a stable relationship to the real world.