Blockchain Revolution: from the internet of information to the internet of value

[at9]

@Shyheels has got it spot on in his last post. Unless you're an experimenter by nature you need a good reason to use something new. I'm sure some people have very good reasons for using cryptocurrencies but I don't yet. I experiment with various things, both new and old, but don't often bother unless either I'm fascinated or have a practical need.

[kneehighs]

If this weren't hhplace, I wouldn't have spent nearly the amount of time in real life discussing the issue (no smart phone is key indicator).  I say that with respect.  We do after all live in a digitally distracted world, documenting rather than experiencing life.  

Rogers Diffusion of Innovations explains "an experimenter by nature" with regards to new technology adoption.  Each type signifies a psychological attitude towards new tech adoption.  It's not gospel, but it aids in understanding the differences in types of people.

When time and money in real life is at stake, I'll qualify my efforts towards Innovators and Early Adopters.    Par for the course.

Edited September 25, 2017 by kneehighs
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[Shyheels]

One fbthe nice things about HHP is the remarkable diversity of backgrounds, skills and knowledge one finds here.

[at9]

Hands up those who bought an Apple Newton? Definitely not me. I was probably in the early majority to get online (1995/6) and late majority for a smartphone (2013) and still use that same 4 year old phone as I've not yet found a good reason to replace it.

As with a fair bit of social science research, Rogers makes a rather big deal of a subject that's intuitively obvious. Though perhaps it wasn't so obvious back in 1962 when he did his original work. Not sure he covers how scarcity and cost can slow down adoption. I can remember when just getting a landline phone installed in the UK could be expensive and often involve waiting for the GPO to pull its finger out.

As for economics, I'm sure there's some value in it but I struggle to find it. Just remember that if you place 1000 economists end to end it's doubtful if they would reach a conclusion. It's not known as "the dismal science" for nothing.

[Shyheels]

No one will be surprised to hear that I did not buy an Apple Newton and I have yet to acquire a smartphone....

[kneehighs]

Interesting.  I got my first iPhone in 2008, back when everyone thought the smooth screened buttons would never fly.   Produced an award winning VR film, the first of it's kind in 2015.

Now back to real life (which includes due diligence on many blockchain applications. Clearly I have my work laid out for me if this is a direction I choose to take).

This is a cool toy that really allows you to see the tech side of blockchain.  Play with it and watch the numbers change.

https://anders.com/blockchain/blockchain.html

Edited September 25, 2017 by kneehighs

[meganiwish]

All currency is a token of a share in wealth.  Have no wealth, you have a share in nothing.  The numbers mean nothing.  A share of nothing, no matter how big a share, is nothing.  Money can't be a commodity because it has no physical existence.  A large part of the World's problems comes from supposed economic experts not understanding the implications of Third Grade arithmetic.

[Shyheels]

A large part of the world’s troubles come from people who flunked Sandbox when they were four 

[at9]

7 hours ago, meganiwish said:

All currency is a token of a share in wealth.  Have no wealth, you have a share in nothing.  The numbers mean nothing.  A share of nothing, no matter how big a share, is nothing.  Money can't be a commodity because it has no physical existence.  A large part of the World's problems comes from supposed economic experts not understanding the implications of Third Grade arithmetic.

Megan, I think you've rather limited the functions of money here. Yes, it can be a token of wealth but another function is a means of exchange and keeping track of transactions. Every time we buy something we're using money (as cash, card, tally stick, bitcoin etc) as a means of exchange and effecting a transaction. It's more convenient than bartering my good for yours. You can see this in a simplified form in local currencies (LETS).

When I referred to commodity money I was using the generally accepted definition of using something of instrinsic worth to represent money. Such as gold, silver etc. Anything that is widely accepted as being of instrinsic worth can be used as commodity money. Whether it be gold, conch shells or whatever. Treating money as a commodity is a whole different question. It has a physical existence of some kind, whether it be gold, dollar bills, a mark on a tally stick or some electrons in a particular place on a silicon chip. Or more generally it can also exist as information (the distinction between bits and atoms) which can be transmitted and received.

Problems arise when money becomes the object of the exercise rather than it being a means to an end. The love of money may not be the root of ALL evil but it accounts for a fair amount. The problems get even bigger when people start trading in debts, derivatives and more complex financial instruments. Many of these things have legitimate uses (I no longer wish to lend money to Mr X to buy his house so I sell the debt to Mrs Y, possibly at a discount, and can then go out and buy an expensive holiday) but taken too far it ends up as the 2008 crash.

[Shyheels]

...and the 1987 crash, and the 1929 crash, and the Panic of 1907, and the Panic of 1901, and the Panic of 1893, and the Panic of 1873 and on and on and on...right on back to the days when Jesus was playing for the Bethlehem Under-7s. 

[Heelster]

On 17/09/2017 at 11:34 AM, kneehighs said:

 If someone in NYC wants to send money back home to Somalia, it's often not possible.  With crypto and just a cell phone, the transfer of money is now possible.  

This alone may hurt Bitcoin and any other currency of this type. There is a deep concern by some world powers regarding sending or transferring monies or "value" to some country's.

Example - Drug cartels, and of of now, anything to North Korea. 

[kneehighs]

1 hour ago, Heelster said:

This alone may hurt Bitcoin and any other currency of this type. There is a deep concern by some world powers regarding sending or transferring monies or "value" to some country's.

Example - Drug cartels, and of of now, anything to North Korea. 

Focusing on just Bitcoin does a disservice to other beneficial services blockchain can provide. 

Governments like people, fear what they don't understand.  Or in this case, what they can't control.  With regards to taxation, money laundering, and money supply control, these are inevitable showdowns between crypto and governments.  

Take China as a case in point.   From a global perspective, it's like a game of "whack a mole" http://gph.is/2lVWWY8.  China may whack it, but people in other countries with less restrictive regulations like the US, Russia, or Japan will just pop up to compensate.   Some countries will follow Switzerland's lead.   My wager is that eventually China will follow Switzerland, Australia, or Britain's approach to regulating crypto.  Eventually they will allow reintroduction of crypto, under a more rational regulatory framework they can work with.  

On the upside for Bitcoin, there is a report from James Altucher (co-founder of 20 companies, former Hedge Fund Manager, Venture Capitalist, click here for LinkedIn profile) that Amazon has plans to announce acceptance of Bitcoin as early as October 26th.  Let's see if that holds true.  

[Shyheels]

I've no doubt it will create massive wealth - for a few. People have been hunting the next way to make a few easy billion and I am sure, for a few, this could be the baby. Small wonder they are keen.  For the vast majority of the rest of us, it would be - at best - business as usual. At worst, introducing all sorts of new levels of risk and uncertainty in world where we already have quite enough!

[kneehighs]

For those that have time, an interview on Bloomberg TV with former Goldman Sachs partner, Mike Novogratz.  Mike keeps about 20% of his portfolio in crypto.  I left it playing in the background while I pack to move to a new apartment.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2017-09-26/how-macro-trader-novogratz-became-a-bitcoin-convert-video

[Shyheels]

And if he lost the entire 20 per cent he would still be staggeringly rich. He is not averse to risk and with any wildly fluctuating gamble there is always the potential for big upside. So why not?

 

[kneehighs]

There's so much opportunity still, it's really about planning your work and working your plan.  And determination come hell or high water to make it happen.

https://www.freesociety.com/ these guys are making a country!

If you're a photographer for example, one could seek to replace centralized agencies like Getty or Imax Tree, with a decentralized peer-to-peer photo sharing system.  You'd have a core image registry, with undisputed proof of ownership in the first image.  The image itself wouldn't be stored on the blockchain, but the Meta Data Provenance could be (time stamp, signed).  A web crawler bot could search the web using an image matching technology. 

Y-Combinator has a thread on this:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12529729 

[Shyheels]

The thing is, as a photographer, I can do that already. I have a website and clients contacts me through it, either to buy an image or to commission me to do some work for them. They pay me by wire transfer in US dollars, British pounds or Euros. It is entirely satisfactory. I don’t need a new currency or medium of exchange or method of payment. I see no benefit to myself. The only benefit would be to those who would like me to use their new system. Fair enough to them, but let’s get selfish here - what’s in it for me?

It keeps getting back to their being no compelling reason to adopt any of this.

[Gudulitooo]

On 26/09/2017 at 2:15 PM, kneehighs said:

Focusing on just Bitcoin does a disservice to other beneficial services blockchain can provide. 

Governments like people, fear what they don't understand.  Or in this case, what they can't control.  With regards to taxation, money laundering, and money supply control, these are inevitable showdowns between crypto and governments.  

Take China as a case in point.   From a global perspective, it's like a game of "whack a mole" http://gph.is/2lVWWY8.  China may whack it, but people in other countries with less restrictive regulations like the US, Russia, or Japan will just pop up to compensate.   Some countries will follow Switzerland's lead.   My wager is that eventually China will follow Switzerland, Australia, or Britain's approach to regulating crypto.  Eventually they will allow reintroduction of crypto, under a more rational regulatory framework they can work with.  

On the upside for Bitcoin, there is a report from James Altucher (co-founder of 20 companies, former Hedge Fund Manager, Venture Capitalist, click here for LinkedIn profile) that Amazon has plans to announce acceptance of Bitcoin as early as October 26th.  Let's see if that holds true.  

When you have doubts something may be strange, try to see who is going to immediately benefit from this.

This message tells (OK bitcoin is not the only blockchain), but nevertheless, it tells :

"look, folks, my new product is going to be used by [insert here a well known and financially sound potential user], it is time to invest massively in my company".

And what it implies, is: "and the minute after you invest, I take my interests back and jump in the first plane to [insert here a place with a lot of sun]"

[Shyheels]

This - in today's Guardian (UK) - doesn't make me like it any better:

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/sep/27/pirate-bay-showtime-ads-websites-electricity-pay-bills-cryptocurrency-bitcoin

 

 

[kneehighs]

3 hours ago, Shyheels said:

The thing is, as a photographer, I can do that already. I have a website and clients contacts me through it, either to buy an image or to commission me to do some work for them. They pay me by wire transfer in US dollars, British pounds or Euros. It is entirely satisfactory. I don’t need a new currency or medium of exchange or method of payment. I see no benefit to myself. The only benefit would be to those who would like me to use their new system. Fair enough to them, but let’s get selfish here - what’s in it for me?

It keeps getting back to their being no compelling reason to adopt any of this.

You've never had people illegally redistribute your photos?  I am friends with a lot of photographers who have this problem.  On a major scale too.

[kneehighs]

2 hours ago, Shyheels said:

This - in today's Guardian (UK) - doesn't make me like it any better:

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/sep/27/pirate-bay-showtime-ads-websites-electricity-pay-bills-cryptocurrency-bitcoin

 

 

Ad-blockers and other browser extensions solve this.  Just because someone uses a car to run someone over doesn't mean never use a car.

[Shyheels]

15 minutes ago, kneehighs said:

You've never had people illegally redistribute your photos?  I am friends with a lot of photographers who have this problem.  On a major scale too.

It has happened, the same as shoplifting happens in shops. I don’t like it, but there are far more serious problems n the stock business - such as prices for images being driven down to, literally, pennies. In any event, I do not see how Bitcoin or blockchain is going to improve anything, or prevent theft - bearing in mind one still needs to promote and display stock images - or alter the reality that images now go for a song.

[Shyheels]

7 minutes ago, kneehighs said:

Ad-blockers and other browser extensions solve this.  Just because someone uses a car to run someone over doesn't mean never use a car.

True, but motor vehicles are used by the overwhelming majority of society, whereas cryptocurrency seems to find its niche among fringe dwellers, crooks and fast buck artists. 

[kneehighs]

5 minutes ago, Shyheels said:

True, but motor vehicles are used by the overwhelming majority of society, whereas cryptocurrency seems to find its niche among fringe dwellers, crooks and fast buck artists. 

LOL, classic anti crypto bullet points based on Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt.  (This is often trying to control the frame, a political tactic for communication).   

Sega was afraid of innovation and look where it landed them.  Bell South, Wang Computers, Blackberry and Word Perfect were afraid of innovation and look where it landed them.  DEAD.

Amazon, Apple, and Sales Force aggressively pursued innovation.  Their stock performance was up 600-1800% over the last 10 years.  

I don't know about you, but that's where I want to be.  On the offense with new tech, not asleep at the wheel and let it catch me by surprise when it's too late.

[Shyheels]

I agree that new tech can be a great thing. And to the list of companies that didn’t see big changes coming, and react, one can also add Kodak.

But companies such as Apple - great innovators - have also had their turkeys. And generally when they were trying to creat so,unions in search of problems, and to my mind, at present anyway, Bitcoin and blockchain seem to be just that.

[at9]

1 hour ago, Shyheels said:

I agree that new tech can be a great thing. And to the list of companies that didn’t see big changes coming, and react, one can also add Kodak.

But companies such as Apple - great innovators - have also had their turkeys. And generally when they were trying to creat so,unions in search of problems, and to my mind, at present anyway, Bitcoin and blockchain seem to be just that.

That's the nature of innovation. Some win, the majority lose. Who wanted Edison and Swan's crude electric light bulbs when we had perfectly good gas lighting? c1900 it wasn't obvious that the internal combustion engine would dominate for over 100 years as both steam and electric vehicles were successful back then. Amazon shook up the retail world and succeeded. Plenty of others failed in the dotcom boom/bust. Sometimes even titans lose. Let's add Nokia to Kodak. Who knows if Apple will be a "has been" company in 2037.

When we look back from 2037 I have no idea whether Bitcoin and its ilk will survive. The blockchain concept will probably endure but perhaps in ways we can barely envisage now. When Vint Cerf invented TCP/IP could he, in his wildest dreams, have predicted the WWW and its huge growth? The roots of hyperlinking are many and varied. Including Vannevar Bush's ideas in the 1940s. Took the genius of one man to invent the WWW, originally to solve a problem of sharing information at CERN. In 1993 I doubt if even Sir Tim Berners-Lee could have envisaged what his invention would do in less than 10 years.

Innovation is a crazy business. Some ideas make it big time, most fail. Some get resurrected, electric cars for example. Most are forgotten except by specialist historians.

Edited September 27, 2017 by at9
Typo

[Shyheels]

There was actually quite big demand for electric lights as gas was perceived as (and indeed was) dangerous. The trouble was figuring out how to distribute electricity. Nikola Tesla solved that one - only to be shafted by the big money interests - JP Morgan et al - who took his patents and left him hanging out to dry. (The whole story is more nuanced and complex but that is pretty much what happened)

Nobody can read the future and by 2037 cryptocurrencies and blockchain may seem to have been obviously the future and people will wonder that so many never saw it. But in the here and now, I can see no compelling reason to change other than for the sake of change itself. Nothing I have read thus far changes my view on that. I am not averse to new technology and ways of doing things, but I want there to be some good reason for change, especially in something as potentially life altering as this. 

[meganiwish]

I'm just going to do a Lennon and throw a Greek in the works.  We do know what 'crypto-' means, do we?

[Shyheels]

We do - said he, speaking in the royal plural, or in the manner of one who has a tapeworm...

[meganiwish]

Well, I know you do.