No it isn't. I've been hearing this for years and I still haven't seen any reason anyone would actually want this, beyond the novelty factor. It's strictly worse than any other equivalent insurance or loan for a number of reasons, the worst one being that there's no human you can talk to when something goes wrong. If you think it's bad enough now when your bank has terrible customer service or your insurance company is fighting your claims, blockchains are like taking that a step further by making it technically impossible to provide any kind of customer service.
>It could seriously bring down insurance margins if you no longer have drones of people administering policies.
This sentence also makes zero sense. You don't need blockchains to replace insurance actuaries with an algorithm, insurance companies could already do that. Over the long-term they can't rely on this because the whole point of insurance is you constantly readjust your models based on risk which cannot be predicted. Once again I'm reading a cryptocurrency thread where everything is wrong and nothing makes any sense.
The worst part is that for a DeFi loan, you need something like 200% to 300% collateral (look it up, it varies but is usually around that amount). This makes it less than useless for just about all reasons people now get loans. The whole point of a loan is that you're willing to pay extra over time in order to have access to more funds at the present. With DeFi loans, you pay extra over time and have less access to funds than you would have had without the loan.
It only really makes sense for crypto gamblers, who are hoping that their collateral has insane appreciation that will offset the downsides. If anything, DeFi loans are less like actual loans and more like crypto gambling partnerships where one partner takes a position with lower risks and rewards and the other takes a position of higher risks and rewards.
No, that's not the point of these loans at all. They are the equivalent of remortgaging your home to get cash. If need money for renovation and you have a lot of equity in your house you can borrow against it. They are doing the same thing with crypto. They don't want to sell their crypto because they want to speculate on it and they need money so they use it as collateral.
I personably think it's a very stupid idea to invest in something like crypto on credit. Lending your crypto to these morons looks like a pretty good idea if you can trust that the smart contracts doesn't have bugs. You get a stable and guaranteed >5% without all the risks of the stock market.
It's actually the opposite of remortgaging a home to get cash. Remortgaging a home to get cash is paying a premium to increase the amount of liquid assets available to you; this is the point of most loans. A DeFi loan is paying a premium and _decreasing_ the amount of liquid assets available to you. As you said, it's useful for juicing speculation, worthless for anything else.
> You get a stable and guaranteed >5% without all the risks of the stock market.
I think the long-term risks are actually greater than something like an index fund, since your collateral is all in crypto. The returns are also less than historical index fund returns.
No, because from their point of view the crypto they put as collateral is NOT liquid. the entire point is do not sell them but somehow get cash from it.
Without this option, I would have to either finance myself at a criminal rate, or accept a job I wasn't ready for. I feel I'm much better off personally from having this option available.
Outside the personal anecdote, I don't understand how it's difficult to see the utility in having digital goods of value. It allows all sorts of use cases, and using them as collateral for loans is just one. I have a harder time accepting that goods of value simply cannot be digital. If I look at the past 30 years of history, literally everything is turning digital; our consumption of entertainment, our work, our communication, social connections. What is the argument for having all things of value be either be a physical thing, or something controlled by some central authority? It seems like a "because that's how things have always been" sort of position.
> try going to a bank and taking out a loan because you're broke and unemployed), but because I had digital assets to pawn
"Broke" means you have no assets, thus you have nothing to pawn, therefore the loan would be unsecured. You COULD NOT have obtained such a loan via defi, and while you could have obtained one in the traditional finance system (which is strictly an advantage over defi...), it would be have been, yes, very expensive.
But you weren't broke! You had assets! The traditional finance system loves to lend money secured by liquid assets, does so all the time, and at lower interest rates!
> I don't understand how it's difficult to see the utility in having digital goods of value
...digital goods of value. Otherwise known as a number on a ledger somewhere, otherwise known as a bank account? Nothing in your story in any way depended on crypto/defi; every part of it is a normal, traditional part of the financial system. All crypto added here was higher costs and a worse UI.
I had plenty of things of value, like a trading card collection, a personal computer, a phone. But no bank would ever accept any of these things as a collateral for a loan.
I could have sold things I owned, but I didn't want to lose any of the things I had collected over the years. Having access to digital things of value made it possible to take out a loan without having to sell anything.
You say crypto added higher costs and worse UI, but do you have any evidence for this? I was able to get a few months income on my bank account in less than an hour of work, at a rate that is more favorable than any mortgage rate currently offered by banks (with mortgage rates almost at an all-time low).
Digital value does not have to be limited to bank accounts, just like physical value does not have to be limited to cash. If I have other physical things of value (like collectible trading cards) I can trade these with other people directly or use them as collateral for cash loans with any third party. Why are digital things of value limited to bank accounts? If other digital things of value exist, and we have standardised interfaces for digital valuables, that enables incredible amounts of flexibility in financial transactions, such as using things I have as collateral for loans, without requirements for appraisal, risk assessment, fraud protections, etc.
If I had traditional financial assets I could have used those and use the traditional financial system to get credit, but I didn't have any of those. I had other things of value, and because they are digital, with standard interfaces, I was able to get credit, which I otherwise wouldn't be able to get.
I'm only offering some kind of anecdotal evidence here that some people do in fact get some utility from these things. To me personally, it was very convenient to have this option at the time. If I get into a similar situation in the future, I would use it again.
If you'd had a couple hundred $k of index funds in a brokerage account, you could have quickly and easily borrowed a significant amount of money secured by the shares at a very low interest rate. And yes, significantly cheaper than a mortgage. I think Interactive Brokers is charging well under 2% for a margin loan these days? (And under 1% if you have enough assets...)
> some people do in fact get some utility from these things
But strictly less utility than if you'd just bought non-crypto assets. Right?
This goes both ways. I may not want a smart contract for my life insurance, but I can perfectly imagine myself taking a lot of very small, very short insurances on mundane things because of the very low fee and hassle of smart contracts versus actually signing contracts and paying for the humans that will support it.
Think flight insurance, etc
But people are using it, and (in the protocols I've seen) claims are handled jointly between an advisory board and community assessors, with a framework for appeals and community voting.
I think that's pretty interesting.
So you mean like a company with a board of directors, shareholders and voting shares. I'm sorry I just I don't think that's very interesting, because companies already existed without blockchains and DAOs and smart contracts.
Although with my insurance company I at least know the assessor is qualified enough to look at pictures from a car accident and determine the sequence of events and who was probably at fault.
I'm sorry I don't understand what you're talking about, this makes no sense. The judicial system also requires humans who are tasked with resolving the problems who you can talk to, that's literally the whole point of it.
>Removing human decision making from a process makes it a game where everyone plays by the same rules.
First of all, no it doesn't because that presumes the machine is always going to be working correctly. Computers don't do this. Second of all, somebody always has to build and maintain the computers, so there is no situation where you can remove all human decision making from the process. I hear executives making these kind of comments all the time as an excuse for cost cutting but that's all it is. You can't make a tech company that isn't paying IT staff in some way.
>You ignored his point
No, you're wrong. His point was also wrong. I actually agree you can indeed reduce administrative expenses by using computer modeling, and most insurance companies already do that. My point is this has nothing to do with blockchains. You don't need blockchains to do that, and attempting to do that on blockchains only increases cost. We're getting into an area where everything is wrong again, please stop with this because I would rather not.
>If you keep making up your own bad arguments
Except this is not my argument. The parent comment just made it and I've heard it probably hundreds of other times. It's the same kind of comment as "maybe we can put the deed to my house on the blockchain" which is equally nonsensical and I've probably heard that hundreds of times too.
Blockchains create a completely transparent, decentralized ledger. If you don't see any novelty or potential value in that, then that's fine. As far as life is concerned, one's opinion on blockchains should probably fall pretty low on the priority list. I suspect we at least agree on that.
Yes, you're right that by itself it doesn't invalidate the proposed solution. Aside from that, blockchains are still useless and that's what invalidates it. They don't do anything meaningful. Any blockchain-based solution is useful in spite of the blockchain, not because of it. I've never seen any use of blockchains to disprove this.
>Blockchains create a completely transparent, decentralized ledger.
No they don't, in theory they could do that if everything was perfect and if we didn't have to deal with the other side effects of open trade and capitalism, but in practice they don't. Every blockchain I've seen is heavily manipulated by private interests and has serious problems with centralized control. And those are just the big L1 chains. It only gets worse when you consider side chains, a lot of those have no attempt at providing transparency or decentralization at all and it's evident they're privately controlled by one company or group.
>If you don't see any novelty or potential value in that, then that's fine.
I agree there's novelty in it, but that's about it. There's no practical value whatsoever, current or potential. They're useless. I've been pretty consistent about this for the last year. Personally I humored crypto enthusiasts for the last 10 years before this and I listened to as many of their pitches as I could, I tried to look high and low for the good in it, but it's just not there. Enough is enough. It's all bad and nothing meaningful has been accomplished. There's no practical uses of this technology. However it is a very big lightning rod for scammers and fraud.
I am not suggesting that this isn't ethically fraught -- of course it is. But one can imagine uses. I personally have known a couple people who fled Syria during the civil war, and bitcoin was a useful way to pull money out of the country, and much less dangerous than carrying a suitcase of cash.
IF that is the summary conclusion to crypto (which I'm currently holding), then this is pretty close to "no practical value whatsoever", isn't it?
Yup.
> And ... saying that publicly _and_ supporting the implementation tends to go very badly. (As it should imo, but that's a different story).
Good. (I don't support the implementation.)
> IF that is the summary conclusion to crypto (which I'm currently holding), then this is pretty close to "no practical value whatsoever", isn't it?
For ordinary people who don't need such services, yes.
No it isn't. You don't need blockchains to create illegal banks and exchanges or to launder money. All of that was around for a long time before blockchains. You could even create those things "as a service" without blockchains, it would be just as shady and illegal. I'm serious here, there is absolutely no practical value to blockchains whatsoever.
Let me explain: you can have a smart contract where you get 5-20% of the value whenevder it's sold and that'll work and be guaranteed (assuming the network isn't compromised eg 51% attack). That is wholly continaed with the blockchain.
But what if someone wants to sell that for cash? Now you've introduced the exact same trust issues that exist in every transaction in the traditional finance system: trust in the institutions involved and the potential needs for courts to enforce contracts.
So what exactly have you gained? Nothing. Literally nothing.
That seems like an issue with cash (no way to enforce you giving me the thing I paid for, and no way for you to enforce me giving you the cash for the item you gave me).
Yes using cash gets rid of the guarantee that the transfer of goods is fully atomic that crypto generally offers. Buying tomatoes at the store has the exact same problem.
The main issue with insurance is actually assessment. All smart contracts do is replace execution, which was never a hassle to begin with.
For insurance I don't agree. Something basic like weather insurance (widely used in agriculture) is already possible. The hardest part is getting the weather information onchain in a way that's trusted by the buyers and sellers of the insurance. Weather oracles do exist though.
I still find it pretty mind blowing that you can make a Turing complete language with nothing but S and K combinators. Good luck finding a real world application for that, though.
Sometimes the crypto space (the part that isn't just FOMO coin buyers at least) strikes me as folks who have been looking at something technically interesting for the first time in their lives, under the initial lure of money, and haven't figured out yet that "technically interesting" does not necessarily translate into real world applicability.
Algorithmic lending has been a thing for decades though. What do you think a credit score is for if not a tool to let computers decide whether to give you credit or not?
DeFi is unlocking the value of an asset, making it liquid and allowing me to participate in other investment opportunities without an APR.
One example is on Kaurura. I have KSM, Stake that KSM for a 19% APR Rate. Throw that LKSM into a vault and mint AUSD as long as i have 160% collatoral ratio. I can then use that aUSD i printed, buy other assets and participate in liquidity pools, which are giving anywhere from 50% to 300% APR.
It's a new era of finance. Play around in the space before you say it's worthless.
I have no experience with crypto, but this I don't understand.
> DeFi is unlocking the value of an asset, making it liquid...
Like a mortgage or a bond issuance (bonds are secured against assets of the corporation)?
> Credit is loaning you money and providing an interest rate. Usually something insane like 15%.
Average rate for a 30-year fixed mortgage in the US is about 4%[1]. Average Aaa corporate bond yield is 3.43%[2]. I guess that you are talking about interest rate on credit cards? I think that credit card debt is pretty small compared to the size of the mortgage or bond markets.
> One example is on Kaurura...
I'm not sure I follow you here, but it sounds like you get a loan at 19% APR against some collateral. Then you use the loan as capital for some other investment at a higher rate of return.
My question: how is this any different, for example, from a company issuing bonds at 4% coupon rate and using the proceeds to fund operations when the company's profit margin is, say, 50%?
Let's say it's a matter of scale; I, as a person, can't issue bonds to trade on a public market. But I can get a mortgage and invest in other stuff hopefully at a return higher than the rate on the loan.
As I said, I don't understand how this is a "new era of finance".
[1] https://www.valuepenguin.com/mortgages/average-mortgage-rate....
>how is this any different, for example, from a company issuing bonds at 4% coupon rate and using the proceeds to fund operations when the company's profit margin is, say, 50%?
It's nothing like that. Because A.) It's not getting people to loan me money. Company issuing bonds at 4% has to pay that 4% to get access to their assets because it's 'Risky'. In the blockchain there is no risk because they have constant oracle access to the price of the underlying asset so i can do it for free, with no counter party. Simple a piece of code collectively floating on thousands of nodes running around the world.
I'm sorry, but this sounds ridiculous.
Now it's "$X but with crypto!". Only with crypto there's a constantly evolving set of jargon that obfuscates the fact that yeah, traditional finance does it already To be fair, the dotcom era had it's fair share of obfuscating jargon too. Maybe crypto just seems worse because the dotcom boom was so far back in my memory.
I think there might be some actual valuable use cases for crypto. I just wish all the people reinventing the wheel and thinking it's new would get out of the way. Then at least we can find out if crypto actually has something interesting it can do.
1.) Amplified losses if the securities in your account decline in value
2.) Margin calls or liquidation of securities
3.) Losses greater than the original investment are possible
- Not possible due to constant access via oracles to the underlying asset. The Protocol may experience more loss in very rare instances, but as an individual i never will.
And due to 3.) is why you have an 'interest rate'. I have no rate of interest on my margin loan. The protocol generates money from trade fees, more liquidity is and leverage increases TVL.
So the hardest part is trust, the very thing that blockchains supposedly make unnecessary?
Anyway, I'm obviously not claiming this can work without input from humans off chain. My point is that the infrastructure needed to get clean and honest weather data on to the chain (which requires human inputs) is much smaller than the entire infrastructure needed to administer weather insurance (which other than the previous part, can be done autonomously).
> My point is that the infrastructure needed to get clean and honest weather data on to the chain (which requires human inputs) is much smaller than the entire infrastructure needed to administer weather insurance
Is "much smaller" infrastructure on a different dimension than the "hardest part" of the problem? If so, what dimensions are those?
If not, how can the trust/agreement part be both "much smaller" and also the "hardest", especially given that it requires human inputs, especially human driven systems for routinely validating the process (AKA audits), and adjudicating inevitable claims of breaches of the agreement (AKA the courts).
No, because it's still impossible to do that at scale without solving the oracle problem. Putting some arbitrary data on a chain doesn't mean the data is reliable.
Go to Amazon, put some items in your cart, and click the (almost always present) banner about opening an Amazon credit card. Enter your relevant information, wait about 3 seconds, and BOOM! An algorithm just loaned you money.
Instead you might a bunch of people with zero actuarial experience gambling on policies. I agree, the concept is interesting, no regulation makes everything a crapshoot.
Doing it with a smart contract is as feasible as dating a smart contract.
You can only really “insure” against globally agreed on data, for example the price of wheat. That is an options/futures market not insurance though.
There's no reason this couldn't be expanded for other use cases, including home, car, etc. It really isn't limited to just smart contract data as you suggested.
Well, it’s quite telling that the majority of big crypto hacks are uninsured. And they like to play tricks just like normal insurance companies (1). And the CEO got hacked like any random person would’ve (2).
(1) https://thedefiant.io/badgerdao-hack-insurance-payout/
(2) https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2020/12/14/ceo-of-defi-insu...
That's just a traditional insurance company.
https://protos.com/tether-papers-crypto-stablecoin-usdt-inve...
If only you knew...
You can take out a loan in crypto that's fully secured against some other crypto. It's turtles all the way down, and has zero relevance to what most people think about when they talk about taking out a loan.
If you have initial assets its an easy way to borrow against those assets. e.g. My bank wouldn't give me a loan against my eth as they don\t value the asset, instead I just open a maker vault and borrow against it in dai ($ stablecoin), and then sell that for € and deposit to my bank. problem solved.
I could be missing something, but it seems you're lending $50 worth of eth, rather than borrowing. Your net debt position is <0.
So, say you own 5 BTC and don't want to sell it because it's going "to the moon". You stake it as 200% collateral on a DeFi loan and get 2.5 BTC of liquidity you can use to buy some ETH.
What's interesting about this is that it allows the demand for coins (and therefore their value) to increase without introducing new (fiat) money into the system. I haven't done the research, but I'd be curious to know what portion of crypto trading is funded by these kinds of DeFi loans as opposed to "new" money.
In some 'we own you and command you to pay tribute to mighty rulers from what you produce' regimes, the loan avoids a sale and the resulting tax event. In my experience, the loan can be converted to fiat money.
Why would any rational actor provide a loan denominated upon an insanely volatile "currency" like bitcoin or ethereum? The lender could loan 100 ethereum bux only to lose big time because the price of ethereum went up 10x in a week making the amount repaid worthless. Or it could go down, in which case the borrower would wind up defaulting because who would want to pay back 10x more than they were lent?
Lending requires a pretty stable currency...
People borrow to avoid triggering capital gains, or to gain leverage or to short.
Realistically, this requires more Data-as-a-Service startups, so there's a bit of chicken-or-the-egg difficulty here.
The truly innovative people are those who add the proper constraints and work within them to solve the problems where blockchains actually fit best.
it would be like if google is your insurance provider. If something goes wrong (it eventually will) there would be no recourse, no one to talk to ... all hail our algorithmic overlords.