dkoston

> Those are systems for transferring money from JP Morgan to another bank. This system doesn't do that; it can only transfer money from JP Morgan to JP Morgan.

In theory, anyone who passes KYC can transfer money in token format to anyone else on the network.

There is a major issue with the network which is that it seems as if only JPMC can actually redeem the tokens for dollars.

That is wrong. Please re-read the article.

This system is both accounting and transfers. All their other transfer systems (ACH, wire, Zelle) are run by third parties. As mentioned, we don’t know what the cost of building their own transfer system would be.

In the long term, using someone else’s code for your bespoke project typically means you run up against “square peg round hole” issues so it’s likely they are just deferring engineering costs.

“Unlike bitcoin, only big institutional clients of J.P. Morgan that have undergone regulatory checks, like corporations, banks and broker-dealers can use the tokens.”

JPMC still controls who is allowed to exchange tokens. Which means that you still have to transact through JPMC to exchange tokens as JPMC controls the blockchain.

If somehow they don’t retain majority control of the blockchain, then you technically don’t have to transact through JPMC but I don’t see that happening.

I think maybe it wasn’t clear that I was responding to your comment about no innovation was made versus that blockchain was required. The innovation is that JPMC actually has an internal accounting and settlement system they can trust, not what database it uses or what language it was written in. Previously they relied on ACH and Wires which they didn’t control.

That’s a purely technical perspective on the situation. One could make the same argument about gRPC versus SOAP versus XML.

What would have been a more constructive response was:

This looks like JPMC is trying to profit off hype by building a new accounting and settlement system on blockchain. Since they control all aspects of their network and ultimately are the only one redeeming tokens for dollars, they could have used something simpler. However, I bet they did it this way because they think forking ethereum is cheaper than building a new system from scratch and also they might get a bump in stock price from the hype. If they built and announced the same system using bespoke tech (that likely solves the problem more effectively), no one would have probably cared.

HTTP wasn’t needed for you to send that comment to hacker news, they could have used other technologies instead. What’s your point?

edit: didn’t like my analogy

I’d prefer you posted something constructive rather than just saying “doesn’t need blockchain”. Of course it doesn’t. Storing data doesn’t require a relational database, or a key value store either. All have pros and cons.

Saying “doesn’t require blockchain” is obvious and adds no value. It’s like coming into a workshop explain what a saw is and saying “other cutting tools also exist”.

You seem to be making the leap that because I’m explaining what something is without saying whether or not I think it’s the right move that I think it is.

I don’t know whether or not it was cheaper and more effective for JPMC to fork ethereum or to build their own accounting system from scratch and I doubt you have the correct information to make that assumption either. Maybe JPMC doesn’t have a team capable of writing accounting software (seems unlikely). What’s more likely is they are looking for headlines because they know blockchain is hyped technology. It would have probably not made the news if they announced they were adding another settlement system beyond Zelle, ACH, and wire. So, they probably chose this because they think it will reduce costs and move their stock price while building a bespoke software accounting system would have been more costly and wouldn’t have provided as much hype.

Businesses don’t make decisions about technology completely based on its technical merits.

Many times they choose technology because someone recommended to them, or it’s cheap, or they can’t build it themselves, or that’s not their primary business, etc.

I wanted to reply to my above comment to clarify because people are somehow thinking that just because I wanted to take the time to explain what this is that I support it.

I probably don’t. This is an internal accounting system used by JPMC and potentially other banks. I don’t give a crap about what they use for accounting unless it works well and provides consumer benefits. I don’t care if it’s MySQL and PGP or a person with punch cards.

Whether or not I support this depends on if JPMC:

1. Gets adoption so this works with a bunch of banks and people and businesses can send me or I can send them money

2. Results in a reduction in settlement times versus ACH and wire

3. Comes at a lower cost to the consumer than wire or ACH

4. Comes with the same guarantees

I’m pretty skeptical as services like Zelle and Venmo provide way less guarantees than wire and ACH

JPMC will have to track the redemptions on a blockchain ir database to prevent double spend. As mentioned above, this is an internal efficiency system for JPMC, it doesn’t provide any consumer benefits unless they pass on the reduced costs

Nope. JPMC doesn’t give you actual token access. This system doesn’t work like public crypto. It’s all behind the scenes.

As such, it’s mostly marketing hype and adds value only for JPMC, not the consumer

maybe there was ambiguity in my post but I’m saying that this adds an additional layer of trust outside the database which is the signed token

In this case you’re trusting JPMC, the database, their engineers, the cryptography, etc.

For this use case, there is a major issue. Since you have no access to the token yourself, it’s just marketing hype

Correct. Especially since it’s centralized, they could have used any secure form of asymmetric encryption to offer the same guarantees

The blockchain signs each dollar. You could have done this instead by making each dollar a PGP signature and allowing trusted parties to decrypt the signature and claim the dollar.

Honestly though, if the chain isn’t public, JPMC can update the code behind-the-scenes so there’s not as much trust as there would be on a public network.

Before:

- you want to transfer $100,000 to another bank

- you do a wire or ACH

- that’s risky so someone has to verify that you actually have $100,000

After:

- each of your dollars are digitally signed using cryptography

- to transfer them, you share the hashes

- the recipient validates the digital signatures to verify those $100,000 in tokens are legit

It’s all about a system of accounting to reduce risk. With less risk, transfers are faster. Think of it like an api to verify account balances that can only be hacked if the SSL cert for the API is hacked by figuring out the private key

Another point I want to make that I think a lot of people on HN miss is that you cannot do this with a database alone.

This is the equivalent of a token table where the token is a cryptographic hash. However, it’s the cryptography that you are trusting, not the database.

The simple analogy is that you are using PGP to sign a message where the contents are a dollar. Only the person who can decrypt that message gets the dollar so you only give the hash to the person you want to have the dollar.

If there are actually dollars involved, this is a real thing.

I felt it was incredibly self-serving to make the token JPMC only. An arcade is only as good as the games inside. If your token only works at JPMC, that’s a pretty weak banking arcade.

So you can prove to me that my account balance at JPMC is actually $100 when I do a wire or do you take JPMC’s word for it when you see the wire details?

Whether or not the validation will be public could mean you still have to trust JPMC but now you essentially get an API to validate my account balance which you didn’t have before

Unless I am mistaken, DTCC doesn’t provide any trust for internal account balances at JPMC. It only provides trust for the details of transfers. These tokens provide trust before and after transfers. The tokens themselves actually provide no trust during transfers and the transfers are only allowed by trusted parties as a result.

Also, DTCC only handles securities not currency so this doesn’t exist at all.

What actually you should be arguing is that the JP coin and the DTCC need to be combined as they each only provide trust in a certain part of the ecosystem.

I’m going to try to distill this down to it’s easiest form.

- JPMC will now create a digital signature (token) for every dollar that enters its network.

- Those digital signatures can be exchanged by any trusted authority

- JPMC will exchange a single dollar to those trusted authorities for a single digital signature

Using the blockchain allows JPMC to trust each dollar that goes through both their network and partner networks as they cryptographically trust that forgery is almost impossible. They also can trust that when a “wire” comes in that the funds are actually available.

This is purely an accounting system backed by cryptography that allows much more trust.

As mentioned, your internet connected thermostat works based on settings that are stored locally. It’s not making a http request every second asking “should i change the temperature?” The original poster clearly woke up angry and wanted someone to blame but is misrepresenting the situation and that’s why the tweet was removed. Let’s let logic prevail here instead of getting up in arms over penny press headlines.

Came here to say the same thing. Having to click back and forth in history to see the changes is time consuming. Function over flash please

Having a schedule and routine is massively important and can outweigh the benefits/detriments of other choices like whether or not you eat breakfast.

If you are going to eat breakfast, be wary of the stuff that's marketed as breakfast foods and cook with real ingredients.

Yea, I'm not trying to argue that eating right after exercise is not important. I just don't believe it's essential. Your body will use nutrients from the post-workout meal to help rebuild muscle and help your body recover so it's highly recommended. If muscle mass and density is a top priority than you may consider it essential for sure.

I exercise shortly after getting up 5 days a week. I don't eat food until hours later.

Depending on your exercise goals, you may want to eat before or after exercise but it certainly isn't essential.

https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/eating-before-or-after-...

Crucial Conversations and Crucial Confrontations/Accountability

I read these books when I first got into management and they changed so many things about the way I communicate with others. Everything in the books is obvious but things I was never taught growing up.

Learning how to understand others' intentions by the totality of their body language along with what they say is incredibly important. It's helpful for diffusing tense situations, understanding whether or not strangers pose a threat, easing tension in a relationship, etc.

It's surprising to me that so many people recommend eating breakfast. There's no specific value add to eating early in the morning. There are tons of value adds to constraining the hours you eat during each day ("intermittent fasting"). Eat breakfast at your own risk:

https://priceonomics.com/how-breakfast-became-a-thing/

https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/is-skipping-breakfast-b...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_breakfast

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3680567/

https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/intermittent-fasting-sur...

Your other points are solid. I'd add regular exercise as well.

Google TOS is pretty broad. However, one of the main factors here is that export controls could quickly come into play. Since Google is US-based, providing this service for those in embargoed countries could get you shut down quickly.

They also have a "don't misuse our services" clause and I'm sure this would count as misuse if found.

What's funny is that you don't need a label like this to not be olive oil, most "olive oil" in the US isn't really olive oil, it's a blend with a bunch of additives and it's actually spoiled and been packaged up for US-based suckers:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/cathyhuyghe/2014/03/05/the-scam...

You should also NOT BE COOKING with olive oil in most cases. It has a very low smoke point compared to things like Grapeseed Oil or refined Safflower Oil so it's not good for baking, pan frying, or other common cooking techniques. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoke_point

If you are going to go through the effort to use Olive Oil, find a store that carries olive oil from trusted producers with a batch date. NOTE: This is most likely not a supermarket.

One of the big challenges with eating food in the US is that the FDA does little to nothing to make sure consumers are aware of what's good quality and good for you.

If you weren't already aware of it, a large percentage of things found in US-based supermarkets have little to no nutritional value and are bad for your body. You should generally stick to things that spoil in the outer isles but there's a lot of research to be done to find proper foods in the US.

Often, local chefs will teach classes about shopping. They can be incredibly valuable and save you thousands of dollars over the next few years on your grocery bill.

Project ideas come from real world problems.

Things like:

- I cannot keep my pets form eating each others food so I'll create food bowls with covers that are only unlocked via RFID tags on the pets' collars.

- It's a pain in the butt to keep track of these 30 different sources of information I use when preparing a report so I'll build API connectors to automatically suck in the data.

- I'm constantly spending 5 hours a week doing X task which could be automated and I have 10 friends with this time suck as well.

Creating a project that you use yourself to solve a problem or save time has so many benefits:

- you understand the problem

- you can easily determine if your solution actually works by using it yourself

- you kind of understand the consumer (one person isn't a good sample size)

- you'll have personal incentive to keep working on it when things get tough

It's possible to come up with side project ideas that don't stem from problems you've experienced personally but you'll be facing an uphill battle. First, you'll have to research what the problem is and how it affects potential users. Then, you'll build something awful cause you really don't understand the problem. Then, you'll rebuild it again after getting feedback. You'll have to figure out how to test it since the problem doesn't occur in your life so you'll probably have to recruit other people to help out which can be very time consuming.

One major factor is this:

- Don't be afraid to build 15 shitty side projects you throw out. Each one will teach you something and number 16 may be your next company. Almost no one strikes gold on the first try.