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isubkhankulovon The blockchain paradox: Why DLTs may do little to transform the economy

your second point, what are you basing that on?

isubkhankulovon The blockchain paradox: Why DLTs may do little to transform the economy

not small at all. any substantial change needs buy in from users, miners and developers. not to mention companies.

isubkhankulovon The blockchain paradox: Why DLTs may do little to transform the economy

opaque? have you seen the bitcoin dev mailing list? or the github issue list?

isubkhankulovon The blockchain paradox: Why DLTs may do little to transform the economy

the article is spot on when it comes to Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) but misses the point of Bitcoin. Many in the community cite the lack of governance as a strength of Bitcoin. It's resilience is a virture because it becomes difficult to corrupt, unlike centralized governance of traditional payment methods.

isubkhankulovon The blockchain paradox: Why DLTs may do little to transform the economy

dollar for dollar, traditional money transfer companies are faster and cheaper. unless the user is trying to conceal the source of funds or is evading capital controls.

isubkhankulovon Money can be stolen from an Uber account

the main reason to used credit vs debit is the longer time window alloted to dispute charges. in some cases, debit cards only allow 48 hours.

isubkhankulovon Stripe and Coinbase apparently can't find my Bitcoin

you've done the right thing by posting here. try /r/bitcoin if you haven't already.

On a side note, I like the styling of your blog or rather lack thereof :) its refreshingly simple and your writing is clear.

isubkhankulovon Ask HN: hybrid app framework for an app that runs on iOS and Mac

afaik you can use swift for both mac and iOS however they're different platforms so there won't be 100% overlap. have you considered building a web app? you can run it in the browser on both desktop and mobile. you can also use a cordova based framework to wrap it in an app for the app store.

isubkhankulovon NSA Report on Russia Spearphishing [pdf]

putin's response about individual hackers, like artists, waking up one day and specifically targetting election officials with malicious word documents and powershell scripts is hilarious. glad this report was released. it clearly shows russian nationals registering these gmail accounts.

isubkhankulovon Crypto Tokens: A Breakthrough in Open Network Design

lets assume for the sake of argument some of these platforms aren't scams/bullshit hype and actually add value in some way. like the prediction platforms augur or gnosis.

the main problem, i then see is that if these tokens are required to use the platform, wouldnt their cost be prohibitive? and the platform wont be useful?

these tokens are going up in value just like bitcoin which always had actual use (mostly on blackmarket) so their incentives are aligned with the token being used as a currency, but not as an app token that is required for the product.

so in effect, these are just over hyped quasi securities offerings and trading.

isubkhankulovon The Slow Criminalization of Peer-To-Peer Transfers

In all of these cases, the bitcoin vendors did not register on FinCEN's website. Registering is simple but by doing so the person/company is required to check ID's of their customers and make sure there is no money laundering involved. Including filing reports with the gov't for any suspicious activity and large cash transactions amongst other things.

isubkhankulovon What if the Bitcoin bubble bursts?

waiting for 6 was published as part of the original whitepaper. the hash power is a different level now. i would argue waiting for 2-3 is fine.

isubkhankulovon Bleecker Street’s Swerve from Luxe Shops to Vacant Stores

this phenonomen is not limited to bleecker st. CRE prices are pretty high right now, especially in most parts of manhattan.

landlords are happy to let leases expire, jack up the rent and look for the next 10 yr tenant. usually a 2-3 % annual escalation is added to the lease.

isubkhankulovon Bitcoin mining companies face shutdown in southwest China

yet still relevant

isubkhankulovon Bitcoin mining companies face shutdown in southwest China

liquidity in this case is market liquidity. like how much or little one can sell without moving the price and/or slipping your own price. Bitcoin compared to most other currencies and many stocks, has fairly low fragmented worldwide liquditity.

isubkhankulovon Goldman Buys $2.8B Worth of Venezuelan Bonds, and an Uproar Begins

also, how would GSAM look if they didn't let their clients buy this? they may lose those clients and their own reputation.

isubkhankulovon Goldman Buys $2.8B Worth of Venezuelan Bonds, and an Uproar Begins

if it reads that way, then know also that the bonds already existed. the IOU shifted from one entity to another.

isubkhankulovon Thoughts on Tokens

my exact language was "grown from that" meaning grown from the black market.

isubkhankulovon Goldman Buys $2.8B Worth of Venezuelan Bonds, and an Uproar Begins

goldman's asset management arm bought the bonds for client portfolios- not goldman itself. I don't see any controversy here.

isubkhankulovon Thoughts on Tokens

Google and other large companies return money to shareholders by doing share buy backs at market prices.

isubkhankulovon Twitch is currently playing the stock market with one man’s $50,000

I assume once Robinhood's compliance team finds out about this, his account will get shutdown, or maybe he'll be asked to collect KYC information for all the people trading on his account.

Maybe it helps that users vote instead of directly invest.

isubkhankulovon Thoughts on Tokens

Have you guys thought about adding ETH trading? or Monero/Dash?

isubkhankulovon Thoughts on Tokens

However, when considered as an alternative to classic equity financing, token sales yield a >100X increase in the available base of buyers and a >1000X improvement in the time to liquidity over traditional methods for startup finance. The three reasons why: a 30X increase in US buyers, a 20–25X increase in international buyers, and a 1000X improvement in time-to-liquidity.

these token sales are successful because people who buy into them are selling off their profits from buying Ethereum (from $0.88 in Jan '16 to $193 today >2000% return). Its a diversification play of course. Look how much the DAO raised a year ago.

Its ridiculous that the adults in the room like A16Z, USV, Balaji are falling into hypnosis.

ICO's coming out have no product, no users, just a white paper and a nice website, with an ERC20 contract address for deposits.

If you talk to anyone buying these tokens, they all say the same thing, that they're buying to flip the tokens on Poloniex for a quick buck.

A recent example is Gnosis, which raised $12.5M by selling 4.17% of their tokens at $30 each during the 1st auction round. They started trading at $60-100 a week after the sale and now are trading above $200.

Look at the charts of coins delisted by Poloniex. immediate 50%+ drop. The value of these tokens is their liquidity. Take that away and you won't see these valuations.

For traditional VC's, if companies let their shares float on exchanges, the SEC mandates financials. These tokens are designed around hopes and dreams. Most certainly a bubble but more so a game of musical chairs, make some money while the music is still playing.

Bitcoin at the end of the day grew in price from speculation BUT it had a real use, albeit in the black market. It has grown from that since 2013 but not by much.

P.S. Token sales don't even give up equity. These people are paying millions for API keys they can't yet use? I don't think so.

isubkhankulovon Lessons I Learned from the Dotcom Bubble for the Coming Cryptocurrency Bubble

its actually closer to a multi level marketing scheme, so only slightly less shady. but hey bitcoin works, the others? like gnosis, not so much

isubkhankulovon Realtime Bitcoin

dark markets, ransomware, bypassing capital controls, tax avoidance, international payments, backpage ads, speculative trading

isubkhankulovon The Botmakers Who Rule the Obsessive World of Streetware

louis ck has been vocal about this issue. if ticketmaster/artists sold tickets at the "market " value, then a significant percentage of fans would be locked out the market.

isubkhankulovon The Botmakers Who Rule the Obsessive World of Streetware

These types of bots run rampant in the live event ticketing ecosystem. Ticketmaster and others constantly fight bots with turing tests and other defenses to prevent electronic scalping.

isubkhankulovon Bringing back the Somali shilling

you're comparing a phone sms based payment method to bitcoin. you're missing the charactistic that gives it its killer use case: digital scarcity. the uncensored payment method on top of scarcity is just icing on the cake.

isubkhankulovon The Blockstack Browser: A Gateway to a New, Decentralized Internet

in my view, this is where all the blockchain ideas break down. once you require a central party holding the data for the service, its no longer decentralized. theres a reason the bitcoin blockchain is slow, expensive and hard to use. All of its weaknesses are sacrifices the users make in order to obtain decentralized uncensored internet money.

isubkhankulovon Twilio Sued by Authy (YC W12) Founder Over Merger Compensation

i wonder how often this happens in the valley.