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diff --git a/crypto.org b/crypto.org new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ec4669a --- /dev/null +++ b/crypto.org @@ -0,0 +1,113 @@ +#+title: A Review of Cryptocurrency +#+author: Preston Pan +#+description: Are cryptocurrencies useful in economic transactions? As technologies? +#+html_head: <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="style.css" /> +#+html_head: <link rel="apple-touch-icon" sizes="180x180" href="/apple-touch-icon.png"> +#+html_head: <link rel="icon" type="image/png" sizes="32x32" href="/favicon-32x32.png"> +#+html_head: <link rel="icon" type="image/png" sizes="16x16" href="/favicon-16x16.png"> +#+html_head: <link rel="manifest" href="/site.webmanifest"> +#+html_head: <link rel="mask-icon" href="/safari-pinned-tab.svg" color="#5bbad5"> +#+html_head: <meta name="msapplication-TileColor" content="#da532c"> +#+html_head: <meta name="theme-color" content="#ffffff"> +#+html_head: <meta name="viewport" content="width=1000; user-scalable=0;" /> +#+language: en +#+OPTIONS: broken-links:t +#+OPTIONS: html-preamble:nil + +* Introduction +Cryptocurrencies are often talked about as either a new technology that will solve everything, or +an environment destroying, ponzi creating mechanism that has no real value other than to criminals +or to people who want to scam other people looking to "invest" in said technology. I say it's still +too early to tell what the economic impacts of cryptocurrency are, and I will be looking at this +from the perspective of someone that is not a libertarian, but is nonetheless a techbro at heart. +** "It's a ponzi scheme" +Yes, in many cases they are, but people who say this often aren't getting the whole picture. Popular +cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin often have the expectation attached to them that whoever is marketing +it is either a sleezy businessperson trying to take your money, a financial institution that likes gambling +on retail liquidity, or a libertarian techbro whose only hopes are to make a money that is untracable, often +to the detriment of society due to factors such as the lack of financial regulation, sound monetary policy, +high transaction fees, etc. Bitcoin in particular takes a lot of the blame for being the biggest Ponzi scheme +on earth. However, if /other/ cryptocurrencies have value, that would peg the price of bitcoin to being +the de-facto metric of cryptocurrency success, thus pegging it to some real value in the world. + +To prove what I just said, most cryptocurrency prices move with bitcoin, rather than moving independently, +which is a fact known to almost anyone that has done trading in the cryptocurrency world. Additionally, because +bitcoin is the first of these currencies to exist, it is basically the face of the industry, with the largest +market cap (as of me writing this) out of all of these cryptocurrencies. In esscense, purchasing bitcoin is equivalent +to an informal prediction market on cryptocurrency success, plus the added cost of the small chance it as of replacing +fiat currency (something I think will not happen). +*** Other Currencies and Their Value +The ethereum network is, generally speaking, what people in the cryptocurrency space point to when they talk about +real world applications. Although this is currently far-fetched, I don't believe it's far-fetched enough for it +to make sense talking about banning cryptocurrencies and investment into these industries. There are many competing +networks that do essentially the same thing as ethereum but maybe better, but the point is to talk about the idea. + +Ethereum is an interesting case because it is home to the idea of smart-contracts. They can be used to automate away +the arbitrator in any agreement between two parties that can be formalized within blockchain internet (web3. See, it's +a useful phrase!) facing code. Though there are currently centralization issues with using smart contracts and having +to trust a single source of truth, projects like ChainLink solve this by using yet another decentralized information +rewarding system that provides reliable information to smart contracts for the Ethereum network. I believe many +other such centralization issues such as the ones outlined by, for example, various NFT critics (that NFTs aren't +stored on-chain but rather via google drive links, etc...) can be solved with other projects such as something like Filecoin. +Which leads me to this common talking point: +** "You Don't Actually Own NFTs" +You have ownership to a pointer of a picture but not the rights to the picture via copyright. This is correct, but this +is not usually what people value. Rather, what people value when they buy digital artwork is just some conception of +"owning" the picture in question. Yes, you can /copy/ the image, but the particular token you are trading will always +be both non-fungible and scarce. +*** "But the Google Drive Links" +Yes, while many NFTs are stored on google drive, many are stored on IPFS, a decentralized storage system where, if pinned, +IPFS addresses /always/ host the same content. If any one of these protocols becomes standardized, then it could be easy +to see how these NFTs suddenly become quite valuable, because a given CID on IPFS will almost /always/ correspond to a +given piece of data, and vise versa. Now, on Ethereum, for example, any person can create a contract that points to the +same data. However, for a /particular/ contract, everyone can verify how many of each NFT is actually created, and if you +believe that the contract supplier is trustworthy (where there is an open market for contract suppliers), then it can +be easy to see how you can trace the chain between NFTs and some form of value. If you /could/ own IPFS addresses, it would +actually be easy to see the value, and all that is needed is a particular set of contract providers on Ethereum to be +trusted from consumers in order to see how you could assign IPFS links to NFTs that could be considered to retain value +in the same way owning art retains value. If you just see the system for what it is and the logical chain of ownership, +you can see that the only link in the chain that is inconsistent is not the ownership of the tokens, not the IPFS links, +but the tokens corresponding bijectively to the IPFS links, and that can be solved pretty easily with the market naturally +trusting a single or set of providers. + +What's particularly frustrating is that I've had people tell me that they host images on IPFS like this is somehow scamming +the person buying the NFT, when IPFS is pretty rock solid, only requiring a little bit more trust compared to storing +the image on-chain. But of course, NFTs are only a small part of why smart-contracts are useful. +** "Just Buzzwords" +Smart contracts! DeFi! Web3! Those are all just buzzwords, they couldn't mean anything, right? Well, if you've actually +been paying attention for long enough, you can assign a meaning to all of these words in a completely logical manner. +DeFi is actually a particularly interesting usage of smart contracts, as it allows one to automatically transfer liquidity +(make loans, make financial contracts between willing parties). This is useful because it automates the job that banks have. +We like automation when it comes to everything else (unless you're a luddite or don't know anything about economics), +so we should try to automate arbitration jobs in the same way. But people, for some reason, lose their minds when we do this. + +In any case, Web3, like I said above, can literally just be taken to mean /Blockchain-Internet Facing/. This is important +as a phrase because blockchain itself is a /walled garden/, with very specific informational requirements (the network +and all data that gets supplied to the network as inputs to smart contracts have to be trustless). Smart contracts are +legitimately just the term used to describe the type of financial transaction automated by cryptocurrencies. +** "Global Warming!" +That's all industry/technology right now, why would you expect blockchain to be any different? Okay, maybe it uses more +power than some other things, but that's because I think we have a combination of a few things: +1. we might have a genuine blockchain bubble +2. the technology is not mature, so everyone is rushing to use blockchain while the technology to make it scalable is not there +but proof of stake does really well at counteracting blockchain energy usage, currently. +** Transaction Costs +Proof of stake solves this to an extent, but there are also some high transaction-per-second (TPS) networks (such as Polygon) +that stack up well against existing payment processors with respect to TPS. Also, I think some currencies should be more +liberal for how much they print for miner rewards (paying miners/validators costs a lot of money for the network it +turns out), which is pretty easy to try out, and would reduce the transaction costs by quite a lot. +** "Do you Think It'll Actually be Useful?" +I don't know, and if I knew for sure, I would be trading options on cryptocurrency right now, but I'm clearly not. However, +what I do know is that the promise of automating arbitration jobs is niche yet enticing +(also, blockchains can do other cool things like with Chainlink and manufacturing truth with a decentralized network). +Already, they have some niche usecases like in prediction markets and in the NFT space (although, yes, that space does +run a lot of scams, it'll eventually be just the beneficial stuff). Monero is already used as a currency on the dark web +because it's anonymous. If one of these experimenters could come up with a good enough algorithm that could keep into +account price stability, cryptocurrency might actually be the superior way of transacting, simply because it has a lot +of programability baked into it. +* For the Laymen +Before you talk about cryptocurrency like you know everything about it, you should figure out more about the underlying +ecosystem. Although I like listening to and reading Paul Krugman, he gets cryptocurrency pretty wrong, maybe because +a lot of libertarians shill the technology. You might be the same. I'm pretty confident that I know a decent bit about +the technology, but if you think I'm wrong, then you can message me. Though, it seems pretty obvious that how legacy +media talks about cryptocurrency isn't the full picture, and neither is how libertarian tech-bros talk about it. @@ -62,22 +62,34 @@ Who is the man behind ret2pop? How do you contact him? So many mysteries await†I wrote this website in org mode. For more information, see the [[file:README.org][README]]. Here is how I upload my website: #+begin_src shell :exports code :results silent -cd ~/org/website git add . -git commit -m "Add cryptocurrency" -git push origin main rsync -azvP ~/website_html/ root@nullring.xyz:/usr/share/nginx/ret2pop/ #+end_src - -No, seriously, this is how I update my website. This code block right here. That's right, this website will be filled -with code blocks that both act as /examples/ of how the website might be maintained, but also run the commands themselves. -I run these code blocks from within org files in order to actually execute the commands! - +Then I run magit after. * Donate -If you like anything that I do, donate! But should you use cryptocurrency? Why do people shill for it, and should +If you like anything that I do, donate! But [[file:./crypto.org][should you use cryptocurrency]]? Should it be used as a means of exchange? Probably not, but it's cool and free for me to do so here you go: +** XMR +An anonymous form of ecash, the only one out of these that is actually being used for the purpose +of currency (on the dark web): +#+begin_example +42eCG7GXqhofN9X4m8kTiwBLWr7b2m6QgdSd1NTtKZWqKCUzC7xuRcWUzct7SydZfUCqpf7KsWC6FhFmuP1ffGFwFskuURH +#+end_example +** ETH (And associated tokens) +Utility in the form of smart contracts (which are perhaps useful for something important in the future), +with first mover advantage in this regard: +#+begin_example +0x8512B753D1613143A379d0ba39bd335e94F37DCF +#+end_example +Note that this includes subprojects such as LINK which I find to have some value. +** BTC +The standard, and probably will continue to be used as a prediction market/speculative asset for the +efficacy of other cryptocurrencies: #+begin_example -BTC: bc1qjxec4e08hzv09h0ss8q80ey0kc7356p6c8fg8h -ETH: 0x8512B753D1613143A379d0ba39bd335e94F37DCF -XMR: 42eCG7GXqhofN9X4m8kTiwBLWr7b2m6QgdSd1NTtKZWqKCUzC7xuRcWUzct7SydZfUCqpf7KsWC6FhFmuP1ffGFwFskuURH +bc1qjxec4e08hzv09h0ss8q80ey0kc7356p6c8fg8h #+end_example +Note that all of the above cryptocurrencies I believe are either potentially useful for some niche, or have +value because of their de-facto link to other currencies that are useful for some niche. +** Do I advocate for using these as currencies? +Only Monero and some forms of ETH tokens for privacy reasons, and maybe they can become better than fiat, +but that algorithm that keeps them stable does not really exist yet. diff --git a/journal/20240314.org b/journal/20240314.org new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3356a44 --- /dev/null +++ b/journal/20240314.org @@ -0,0 +1,21 @@ +#+TITLE: Daily Journal +#+STARTUP: showeverything +#+DESCRIPTION: My daily journal entry +#+AUTHOR: Preston Pan +#+HTML_HEAD: <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="../style.css" /> +#+html_head: <script src="https://polyfill.io/v3/polyfill.min.js?features=es6"></script> +#+html_head: <script id="MathJax-script" async src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/mathjax@3/es5/tex-mml-chtml.js"></script> +#+options: broken-links:t +* Thursday, 14 March 2024 +** 15:13 +Did nothing today, except laze around. Going to the Papery to get my replacement nib, and also suprise +(not suprise) Anslie. Suprise! She's reading this right now, so it's not really one anymore. Ate at the sub. + +Server is coming along, the only server that I want to run now is the email server, although that is quite hard +as it involves running both an imaps and smtps server with dkims and dmarc verification. It's not very easy +to get accepted as not-spam, even if you do add these verification markers. + +In any case, I also want to run a gitea server or some frontend where people can view code. Perhaps a mailing +list and a cgit interface is enough for this, as one can simply mail patches over to be applied, and email +is a good interface for stuff like this +. diff --git a/journal/index.org b/journal/index.org index a9db80e..f6d6619 100644 --- a/journal/index.org +++ b/journal/index.org @@ -35,6 +35,14 @@ done #+end_src #+RESULTS: +- [[file:20240314.org][20240314.org]] +- [[file:20240313.org][20240313.org]] +- [[file:20240312.org][20240312.org]] +- [[file:20240311.org][20240311.org]] +- [[file:20240310.org][20240310.org]] +- [[file:20240309.org][20240309.org]] +- [[file:20240306.org][20240306.org]] +- [[file:20240301.org][20240301.org]] - [[file:20240229.org][20240229.org]] - [[file:20240228.org][20240228.org]] - [[file:20240226.org][20240226.org]] |