Altcoins, DeFi thread

[jacoavlu]

House deeds and car titles, art provenance, game assets. That's just the tip of the iceberg for things that would benefit greatly from having an immutable record of ownership from the time of creation until the present.

would houses and cars and other physical world stuff greatly benefit though? Or is NFT'ing ownership of houses and cars etc fixing a problem that isn't broken?

call me skeptical. For one real estate title, car title etc the current system seems to work reasonably well. And don't hold your breath waiting for the gov and legal system to implement the changes that would be necessary to recognize your tokenized ownership of physical property.

[Panscan]

ya I mean doesn't the government then have to get involved and be able to process these things and recognize their validity? Also why cant somebody make their own NFT of your car title and contest your ownership? Sounds like opening a bag of worms.

[Doc Spouse]

would houses and cars and other physical world stuff greatly benefit though? Or is NFT'ing ownership of houses and cars etc fixing a problem that isn't broken?

call me skeptical. For one real estate title, car title etc the current system seems to work reasonably well. And don't hold your breath waiting for the gov and legal system to implement the changes that would be necessary to recognize your tokenized ownership of physical property.

The same argument "Why fix things that aren't broken?" was made against cars, computers, etc, but it's not about fixing problems. It's about being more efficient.

Something standardized on chain would allow a title or deed to be looked up anywhere, without having to jump through hoops of figuring out which county it's registered at, or hidden liens, or dealing with town offices being closed on federal holidays. It's also globally friendly. Instead of worrying about having multiple realty/deed/government systems all being compatible, you have one chain, accessible and publicly available, able to be used whether it's buying a house in Indianapolis or Istanbul.

Take it a step further and replace your SSN with your own personal identification NFT on chain that cannot be transferred. Now you have a sure fire protection against title fraud, simply because your title NFT cannot be transferred without your personal NFT signing the smart contract.

There's plenty of work left to be done before any of the above is realistically feasible, but it's technically possible right now. There have been plenty of sectors that have been waiting for something to come along and provide this functionality. That's why everyone was so hyped up on blockchain to begin with - It promised to be a disruptor in so many areas of life if we could just figure out how to make it useful. NFT's are a big step in that direction. All of a sudden you have utility on chain. That's huge.

[Doc Spouse]

ya I mean doesn't the government then have to get involved and be able to process these things and recognize their validity?

Well, the recognition of validity is actually quite simple. You have a contract address where the original NFT was minted. If the government is the one minting the NFT's via their own smart contract, then it's a simple check - Either the NFT's contract address is the same as the government's (it's valid) or it's not (it's a fake). If you wanted to dish that out to third parties, then you have a simple directory of valid contracts, much like our current system (licensed title companies/register of deeds). The difference being is that it's accessible anywhere, at anytime, and you can pull up the entire history of owners, taxes paid, leins, in a single NFT (if structured that way).

Also why cant somebody make their own NFT of your car title and contest your ownership? Sounds like opening a bag of worms.

That's a common misconception. As noted above, the NFT is created from a single contract address. For example, Cryptopunks (which are ridiculous, but stick with me) are located at this address - https://etherscan.io/address/0xb47e3cd837ddf8e4c57f05d70ab865de6e193bbb#code

So let's say Ford Motor Company has their own contract and mints a NFT for a particular Mustang that just rolled off the line. That NFT is sold along with the physical car, and that NFT is used to register the car in the particular state. So that NFT now has all the dealer info (VIN, make, model, options, whatever) and also has you listed as the owner, proof of taxes paid, inspection passed, a link to your current insurance, etc.

Someone cannot simply create a similar NFT with all of the above information and expect it to actually contest ownership, because the contract address it was created from is not going to be the same address as Ford's contract. That's where the immutable part comes in. Once it's on the chain, it's really, really, darn near impossible, to fake or change something.

Edit: If you'd like to read up on NFT's, OpenSea has a pretty good writeup. It gets a bit technical since it assumes some understanding of cryptocurrency and blockchain in general, but it attempts to keep things simple enough for all to understand the basics.

[jacoavlu]

The same argument "Why fix things that aren't broken?" was made against cars, computers, etc, but it's not about fixing problems. It's about being more efficient.

Something standardized on chain would allow a title or deed to be looked up anywhere, without having to jump through hoops of figuring out which county it's registered at, or hidden liens, or dealing with town offices being closed on federal holidays. It's also globally friendly. Instead of worrying about having multiple realty/deed/government systems all being compatible, you have one chain, accessible and publicly available, able to be used whether it's buying a house in Indianapolis or Istanbul.

Take it a step further and replace your SSN with your own personal identification NFT on chain that cannot be transferred. Now you have a sure fire protection against title fraud, simply because your title NFT cannot be transferred without your personal NFT signing the smart contract.

There's plenty of work left to be done before any of the above is realistically feasible, but it's technically possible right now. There have been plenty of sectors that have been waiting for something to come along and provide this functionality. That's why everyone was so hyped up on blockchain to begin with - It promised to be a disruptor in so many areas of life if we could just figure out how to make it useful. NFT's are a big step in that direction. All of a sudden you have utility on chain. That's huge.

efficiency is great but large scale changes like the type you discuss encounter resistance inversely proportional to the benefit, and I don’t see the benefits as a massive leap

and you get new problems. What if someone fraudulently uses my “personal NFT” to sign a contract? Let’s not pretend that’s impossible. I presume the transaction gets reversed. But to do so requires a central authority meaning almost certainly a governmental entity. Legal processes. So we’re kind of back to square one.

heck, what if grandpa loses his NFT password? No joke.

and you have to get past the lobbyists of the competing interests

I'm bearish

[Doc Spouse]

What if someone fraudulently uses my “personal NFT” to sign a contract? Let’s not pretend that’s impossible.

A NFT isn't fungible. You can't duplicate it. In order for them to "use" the item, they have to be in possession of it. For that to happen, they'd need to be in control of the wallet (or account) where that NFT is stored since it wouldn't be able to be transferred. If that account was tied to something like biometrics, then it would be incredibly hard for someone to steal access to that account. Possible, but would make fraud an order of magnitude harder to accomplish. I know that biometrics opens its own can of worms because while technically possible, it would take work to get mass adoption. Ironically enough, the military would probably be an early adopter since their ID cards are tied to biometrics already.

heck, what if grandpa loses his NFT password? No joke.

This is a legitimate concern. The biometric solution would solve this, but it's definitely a hurdle.

and you have to get past the lobbyists of the competing interests

I'm bearish

Hehe, I don't blame you at all. To be clear, I'm not convinced this is the silver bullet that the blockchain crowd has been waiting for. As I said earlier, I do think it's an important step along the path. Whether that path leads to widespread adoption and use of blockchain in everyday life remains to be seen.

[Panscan]

Go eth go

[chocolatebear11]

Go eth go

Panscan Hey, I can’t figure out Ethereum and other platform crypto. I’m believer in Bitcoin.

however, I currently don’t understand the value of Ethereum and other platform crypto like polkadot, Cardano and others because for ether and ADA, etc to work they would have to have a stable price not increasing.

I would love to find the “Amazon” out of those, but There’s no way to invest in those companies right?

[xraygoggles]

Binance Coin (BNB) really making moves this year - the launch of the Binance Smart Chain has really cemented them as the #3 market cap coin now. Their sphere of influence is growing daily. They now have BTC, ETH, and USD-pegged coins on their blockchain. Not to mention they are the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the world.

If Ethereum's layer 2 solutions don't pan out, it's feasible, however unlikely, that BNB could surpass ETH as #2. But again, I think this is a stretch.

[BlueMD]

I recommend anyone who's interested in this space to check out a free MIT course on Youtube entitled "Blockchain and Money". It's taught by Gary Gensler back in 2018, who was recently pushed through as the new head of the SEC this year.

I'm personally middle of the road when it comes to the technology but know it has great ways to make the financial system more efficient/accessible. I'm still young in my career so I've might try to get into blockchain applications within healthcare, such as records and within insurance but there's so many inertia and policy hurdles to cross.

In the investment side, probably 1% of my portfolio is in the crypto space, mostly in passive income ways via Celsius interest, Staking on Kraken, or KuCoin Lend. These seem to be the "safest" ways in my opinion to get exposure to crypto without needing to get sucked into the hype or wasting time and effort since we all have busy lives.

[chocolatebear11]

In the spirit of WCI recent post about allow more crypto posts assuming it doesn't overrun, I thought we could have a dedicated thread for BTC and a dedicated one for the other stuff. Perhaps talk about DeFi in here too.

Are there any defi tokens you recommend looking into?

[Panscan]

I'm still learning myself, there are people who know way more than me but I doubt people are going to straight up tell you what to buy or look into.

I look at it similar to stocks, there are blue chip (bitcoin and possibly eth depending on who you talk to), then lower tier stuff that has market caps of a billion plus, then basically penny stock equivalent.

Be careful because lots of these youtube people are basically just pump and dumpers.

[xraygoggles]

Binance Coin (BNB) really making moves this year - the launch of the Binance Smart Chain has really cemented them as the #3 market cap coin now. Their sphere of influence is growing daily. They now have BTC, ETH, and USD-pegged coins on their blockchain. Not to mention they are the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the world.

If Ethereum's layer 2 solutions don't pan out, it's feasible, however unlikely, that BNB could surpass ETH as #2. But again, I think this is a stretch.

Up 50% since this post... Solid #3 market cap coin. 13x in 3 months; 37x in 1 year. Even if it corrects 50% from here, would still be in the top 5 MC coins.

The Binance Smart Chain has really accelerated their growth. It's safe to say it has landed on the Moon, and is now on the journey to Mars, and will likely outpace the Tesla car that is heading there as well...

[Panscan]

Up 50% since this post... Solid #3 market cap coin. 13x in 3 months; 37x in 1 year. Even if it corrects 50% from here, would still be in the top 5 MC coins.

The Binance Smart Chain has really accelerated their growth. It's safe to say it has landed on the Moon, and is now on the journey to Mars, and will likely outpace the Tesla car that is heading there as well...

weren't you in on the coinbase DPO or was that one of the other crypto people?

[Vae Victis]

If you are looking for a high quality altcoin that has backing from major companies across the world, take a look at HBAR (Hedera Hashgraph). Governing council includes Google, LG, Boeing, IBM, among many others. Kind of a do-everything token with a new kind of technology that solves a lot of the issues inherent to blockchain. Also up 1000% since January 1, so there's that too. Technically about to take off again after consolidating its latest run. Available on BinanceUS.

https://hedera.com/council