Buttcoin

[Mongrel]

What really stung was seeing him talk about "theoretical scenarios" and realizing how many of those I've run into in games already, even with no NFTs at all.

e.g. tanks sold for money in World of Tanks can almost never be nerfed, because many years back someone successfully brought a challenge against WG for nerfing their tanks - which under EU consumer protection law qualified as a substantial change to a digital good after purchase, and WG ended up having to refund anyone who bought that tank and didn't want it anymore.

The end result, at least in Tanks' case is that at certain tiers there are virtually no tech tree tanks worth playing. Every single one is a "premium" tank (to address THAT, for years they've also had regular marathon events where people can grind to obtain such tanks free or discounted).

Also seen no shortage of that "theoretical" hell-economy shit in Path of Exile.

[Thad]

What really stung was seeing him talk about "theoretical scenarios" and realizing how many of those I've run into in games already, even with no NFTs at all.

Which itself is another point. Regardless of whether these ideas actually have any merit, blockchain isn't actually necessary for any of them.

Which is, of course, true of blockchain in general. If there's any real value to decentralizing a database, it's still hypothetical. I won't rule out that blockchain may present some value that traditional centralized DBs don't at some point, but I can't think of a single real-world example where it actually has.

[nosimpleway]

That's how I've heard the whole thing summed up before: the blockchain is a solution in search of a problem

[Mongrel]

Yeah, so far it's not a very good solution irrespective of what problems it might solve.

For one thing, it's certainly not one sustainable over a long term.

[Thad]

That's how I've heard the whole thing summed up before: the blockchain is a solution in search of a problem

Yeah, looking at the blockchain from a purely technical standpoint, in isolation from all the bullshit around it, it's an impressive achievement. And hell, maybe it'll be good for something someday (like how number theory was just something mathematicians did for fun for hundreds of years and it took the invention of computers to discover a staggeringly useful real-world application for all that fucking around with prime numbers).

But hell if I know what that might be. And it's not terribly surprising that the first people to adopt it are criminals and anti-government cranks.

Yeah, so far it's not a very good solution irrespective of what problems it might solve.

For one thing, it's certainly not one sustainable over a long term.

Proof-of-stake mitigates (but doesn't entirely solve) the energy requirements of blockchain; the problem, as in so many things, is lock-in. There are proof-of-stake cryptocurrencies, but good luck getting people to convert their Bitcoin to Cardano or whatever. Government crackdowns on mining might goose people into switching, but I don't see anything short of that doing it.

Ethereum is perpetually eight months away from converting from PoW to PoS. I'll believe it when I see it.

And even if they reduce the environmental impact, well, that's a good result but it's still a fundamentally silly and useless technology that doesn't have any practical function that isn't already supported by traditional DBs.

[Mongrel]

NYP trolling coinbros, fucking loooool



#NotTheOnion

[Yoji]

...what the- hey! I know you!

I never thought about that before, but it makes all kinds of sense. The only thing better than making tons of money is making even more money, so a business as lucrative as porn would've been all over it.

I've never seen a "revolutionary" invention have to argue so fiercely for itself like crypto has. And I've tried to be fair; I read in Bill Bryson's At Home that even electric lighting was a little slow in being adopted. But with cryptocurrency and especially NFTs, it just gets worse the more I try to understand it.

Like, I read some pieces on Medium from November about how ridiculous the whole thing is for gaming in particular. Do crypto people... really want to be able to do the equivalent of using their Magic cards in a Digimon game? How would that even work? Do you hear what you are saying? Are you currently suffering from a concussion?

[hngkong]

Do crypto people... really want to be able to do the equivalent of using their Magic cards in a Digimon game? How would that even work?

Yes, yes they do: https://www.thegamer.com/duel-masters-b ... ing-cards/

[Mongrel]

[Mongrel]

^___^

[Mongrel]

As someone commented yesterday: You know what's awesome if a robber breaks into your local bank and clears out all the tills and safety-deposit boxes, while his accomplice also clears out your bank account and maxes out your credit digitally? You know the bank will restore every penny.

[Büge]

it never gets old

[KingRoyal]

Could post that every month and it would probably be relevant to something going on

[Mongrel]

dril's on quite a tear

[beatbandito]

[Thad]

WSJ: NFT Sales Are Flatlining

Paywalled, but here's a general summary:

The sale of nonfungible tokens, or NFTs, fell to a daily average of about 19,000 this week, a 92% decline from a peak of about 225,000 in September, according to the data website NonFungible.

The subhead is "Is this the beginning of the end of NFTs?" and I'd sure like to think so. I'd be especially amused if the fad died off before any of the big game publishers could actually complete any of the NFT projects they're pouring money into.

Cryptocurrency isn't going away, at least not for awhile. But I think NFTs are just one level of abstraction too far. Cryptocurrency is bullshit but it lends itself to easy comparisons. It's like money. (It's not, really, for a number of reasons, but that's generally how its proponents describe it.) What the fuck is an NFT analogous to? A certificate of authenticity for something you don't actually own? That's, uh, a tough sell to anyone who isn't already a cryptobro. IME a typical conversation about NFTs goes something like, "I don't think I understand what they are, because it sounds like [completely accurate description of what they are] and that can't be right."

At least a Beanie Baby is something.

[Thad]

Cryptocurrencies collapse after 'Black Wednesday' for blockchain

Almost $200bn has been knocked off the value of all the cryptocurrencies in circulation in the last day, according to CoinMarketCap, which tracks prices.

I still don't think this is the collapse that's going to spell the end of cryptocurrency, though I do think twenty years from now when economic textbooks talk about the collapse that spelled the end of cryptocurrency this is going to be a significant moment along that path.

It is going to be the end of several coins, and if not the entire concept of a "stablecoin" then at least the particular implementation that's just demonstrated how stable it isn't.

[Mongrel]

A friend of mine mentioned yesterday their bellweather for a true collapse is if Stablecoins, namely Tether, go (and according to that link, Tether is cracking).

Which prompted the natural question: WTF is Tether and Stablecoins? So I looked it up and... motherfucker, is crypto backed by RESERVE CURRENCIES?!

I mean I get that the Cryptobros are in many ways the inheritors of the Gold Standard assholes, but I didn't think that was the case LITERALLY.

[Grath]

A friend of mine mentioned yesterday their bellweather for a true collapse is if Stablecoins, namely Tether, go (and according to that link, Tether is cracking).

Which prompted the natural question: WTF is Tether and Stablecoins? So I looked it up and... motherfucker, is crypto backed by RESERVE CURRENCIES?!

I mean I get that the Cryptobros are in many ways the inheritors of the Gold Standard assholes, but I didn't think that was the case LITERALLY.

Don't worry, it's not fully backed by currency, only partially (it's mostly backed by cryptobros believing it's worth what it's worth)

[Mongrel]

Yeah, it's a fraud. But it's still serving that role, in much the same way as a Fort Knox full of gold-painted wood would.

I just think it's hilarious. The entire concept of crypto is a fraud anyway, but now I find out it's only been held up at all by a much older, more conventional fraud, one which basically goes against the entire point of crypto being freed from such constraints.