web3isgoing (u/web3isgoing)

web3isgoing commented on Stripe is wrongly suspending accounts · Posted by u/nerder92

websap · 3 years ago

We already have that system - debit cards, cash, venmo, apple pay, etc. What does crypto solve other than anonymization of payments?

web3isgoing · 3 years ago

Open source, public and permissionless infrastructure for the web. Very different than Venmo which is owned by PayPal and limited to USA, and not programmable, no interop.

about the OP’s thread: centralized services like PayPal, Venmo and Stripe can close your account. Nobody can close your private key, even if you are on a L2 for fast payments you can use the escape hatch to withdraw without possibility of censorship.

web3isgoing commented on Stripe is wrongly suspending accounts · Posted by u/nerder92

websap · 3 years ago

What use case of money transfer doesn’t require reversibility for fraud prevention?

I love credit cards because I can dispute transactions.

web3isgoing · 3 years ago

Venmo[1] does not have reversibility. Cash does not have reversibility.

If users really wanted credit card functionality at the expense of its costs, you could build that as a layer on top, without forcing everybody in the system to use it.

And consider, most disputes is not just about the quality of a product. That is handled with regular refunds. Credit card disputes are a lot of times because of fraud or card skimming, which is very often because the system is not very secure to begin with. Secure cryptography can remove a lot of this type of fraud.

[1] https://help.venmo.com/hc/en-us/articles/235171088-Cancel-Pa....

web3isgoing commented on Stripe is wrongly suspending accounts · Posted by u/nerder92

websap · 3 years ago

And be reversible?

web3isgoing · 3 years ago

Yes, if the application and its users demand it. Reversibility is possible in peer-to-peer and decentralized payment systems. But not every app needs reversibility and the centralized intermediaries that come with that.

web3isgoing commented on Stripe is wrongly suspending accounts · Posted by u/nerder92

superkuh · 3 years ago

If only there were a system to transfer money between two people that didn't require a trusted third party...

web3isgoing · 3 years ago

ZK rollup with validity proofs and trustless escape hatches should really be the dominant mode of bridging and storing assets in the future.[1]

To the OP: sorry to hear what you are going through.

[1] See https://vitalik.ca/general/2021/01/05/rollup.html and https://vitalik.ca/general/2022/11/19/proof_of_solvency.html

web3isgoing commented on Web3 – An Arrogant and Treacherous Successor Doomed to Fail g147.medium.com/introduci... · Posted by u/g147

lottin · 3 years ago

What? No, you don't get it. You're making the same exact flawed point that you made before. DEXs are no substitute for CEXs.

web3isgoing · 3 years ago

For some users and use cases, they are.

web3isgoing commented on Web3 – An Arrogant and Treacherous Successor Doomed to Fail g147.medium.com/introduci... · Posted by u/g147

lottin · 3 years ago

This is like telling someone who got a terrible haircut that they should have shaved their head instead. If they got a haircut it's because they wanted a haircut not a shaved head.

web3isgoing · 3 years ago

Your analogy makes no sense.

There are many users who just want to hold crypto and perform basic lending and exchanges, and would be willing to spend fractionally more in gas fees to achieve this with higher security guarantees.

Everybody at Barber CEX got a surprise head shaving the other week, meanwhile Barber DEX is still cutting people's hair normally even though it is more expensive and harder to find.

web3isgoing commented on Web3 – An Arrogant and Treacherous Successor Doomed to Fail g147.medium.com/introduci... · Posted by u/g147

lottin · 3 years ago

DeFi really is just a series of distributed (not necessarily decentralised) applications that enable parties to enter into agreements involving virtual tokens without the need for a contractual agreement between them. Not relying on contractual agreements places enormous constraints on what DeFi can do. For example, DeFi can't handle counterparty risk at all. Therefore DeFi doesn't remove the need for conventional financial institutions that rely on contractual agreements, such as so-called "centralised exchanges" and "lending platforms". It's disingenuous to say DeFi is fine because it didn't fail unlike those centralised exchanges, because DeFi doesn't (and can't) provide the same services that centralised exchanges provide (namely, custodial services and trading that isn't limited to virtual tokens).

web3isgoing · 3 years ago

DeFi never claims to provide the exact same fiat and off-chain services as CeFi and CEX. It has specific goals, like replacing custody with non-custody, or replacing a centralized exchange with an automated market maker that no single party can control.

This has different risks and trade-offs, obviously, but users who opted for Uniswap instead of FTX as their crypto exchange are probably pretty happy with their decision.

web3isgoing commented on Web3 – An Arrogant and Treacherous Successor Doomed to Fail g147.medium.com/introduci... · Posted by u/g147

lottin · 3 years ago

I don't know, you're declaring victory because applications didn't stop working during the downturn, but I don't know that the problem was that applications stopped working during the downturn but rather that various service providers ran into financial trouble.

web3isgoing · 3 years ago

The goals of DeFi and web3 is to create structures that do not rely on centralized service providers, and are able to resist control of single bad actors and provide certain clear and transparent security guarantees. In that they have so far succeeded.

I wouldn’t call it victory yet. We still have years of figuring out which blockchain, DEX and DeFi models work and which will fail, most of this new tech is only a couple years into development. But the long term 10+ year vision seems clearer.

web3isgoing commented on Web3 – An Arrogant and Treacherous Successor Doomed to Fail g147.medium.com/introduci... · Posted by u/g147

lottin · 3 years ago

Why would an application stop working in a downturn?

web3isgoing · 3 years ago

Isn’t that the point? The protocols are built to resist changes by single entities and continue working as expected, handling user deposits non custodially, regardless of market activity. HN can declare a dozen crypto deaths with each new CEX and Uniswap will just keep filling orders for whoever is sending value through it.

web3isgoing commented on Web3 – An Arrogant and Treacherous Successor Doomed to Fail g147.medium.com/introduci... · Posted by u/g147

web3isgoing · 3 years ago

The irony of this post criticizing DeFi and blockchain in the wake of FTX is that those decentralized applications are working just fine in this downturn. Aave and Uniswap aren’t failing, they are thriving.