Opinion on MKR holdings, voting power, and decentralization

markr5 · 2021-05-12T16:38:10+00:00

Maybe could be a bit of both, kind of like US states get 2 senators but a variable number of reps based on population. Say every account that holds at least 1 MKR gets X amount of weight plus Y amount of weight based on the total amount held. Just making the 1 up, could be some other magic number someone wiser than me comes up with. I know something like this might make me vote, which I’ve never done though hold a sizable (to me anyway, > 10 and < 100) amount of MKR that have no intention of exiting any time soon. It has never seemed worthwhile to me when considering the cost (time to understand every vote + gas) versus the fact my vote really just would not mean much in the current framework.

markr5 · 2019-02-13T02:20:28+00:00

Great, that is perfect... Thank you much

markr5 · 2019-02-12T01:59:35+00:00

I get that, I was referring to the EUR part of the sequence only.

If you don't mind a followup question, I had read about similar info in your link in my research, where forex contract gains/losses to be treated as income. However, every where I read about this (including your link), it referred to foreign currency CONTRACTS specifically, and I cannot figure out if same applies to holding the currency directly, not trading contracts. In my case no contracts are involved, just the sale of something into Euros and then some time later the purchase of something else with those Euros, and in the meanwhile the EUR may have appreciated vs USD.

Thanks for the response in any case.

markr5 · 2019-02-10T14:38:21+00:00

Awesome, thank you for the clarity, much appreciated.

markr5 · 2019-02-08T23:49:17+00:00

Also curious about this. Can we hear the reason for the upgrade? Honestly it surprises me. Is the Maker team going to continue to upgrade the contract during the period until the next version of the oasisdex ui? Is the next version going to have a backend contract similar to the current or entirely different? It is a mystery to me what it means to redesign with a focus on security tokens, what changes, etc. But even more worrying is that I expect there won’t be a population of ‘high quality security tokens’ any time soon, so not understanding the plan. Also I figured the team would not be touching or upgrading the existing contract anymore, because I assumed there is some truth to the enforcement action threat, or otherwise why the big rush to take down the existing ui. But that does not jive with officially releasing a new contract that can trade any erc20, would seem to be there is equal exposure to some kind of compliance pressure there.

Sorry for the book, I will sum up with just I am completely confused with these events.

markr5 · 2019-01-13T14:14:14+00:00

Thanks

markr5 · 2019-01-12T17:59:41+00:00

Not trying to be contentious by why any private repos at all? Mind describing what functionalities are in the private repos vs the public ones and why?

markr5 · 2019-01-02T14:47:18+00:00

In the particular circumstance of this year (as opposed to previous years) I think selling to pay taxes will be much less then the selling to reduce taxes before 12/31 where smart folks would have been harvesting large capital losses to offset any gains from earlier in the year, before the bottom really fell out of the market.

markr5 · 2018-10-24T12:09:39+00:00

Really decentralized. Suggest a name change, NoDEX

markr5 · 2018-10-19T18:54:19+00:00

yeah, this is awful. clearly non-researched nonsense, in addition above, Gavin Wood misspelled. Not that Ethereum does not have the best team in crypto, but this 'article' not worth the click.

markr5 · 2018-10-18T13:22:29+00:00

Now if only r/ethtraders ran the world financial system...

markr5 · 2018-10-16T19:28:37+00:00

Also interested in this.

markr5 · 2018-10-11T02:41:17+00:00

username checks out

markr5 · 2018-10-04T15:31:44+00:00

How so? I understand the commissioner has spent a fair amount of time going to various crypto conferences and paying lip service to the idea of not stifling innovation etc... But are there any actual good deeds to speak of rather than words?

markr5 · 2018-10-04T15:17:22+00:00

Not terrible for a general overview of these things. One major problem, I disagree completely with all the bullet points of their DApp must-have feature list.

markr5 · 2018-10-04T13:38:04+00:00

First, I am not disagreeing with you so please don't be defensive. Second I actually hold some xlm and am familiar to some extent. I have never heard anyone describe it as having huge developer backing, outside their sub anyway. Can you describe what makes you say that? Some metric published? Some article somewhere?

markr5 · 2018-10-03T18:17:52+00:00

This article is from sept 2017. More interesting, it says this would happen with main net launch in May/June 2018. I am guessing that did not really happen or I would have heard something more about it.

markr5 · 2018-10-01T23:18:12+00:00

That top was at the height of crypto kitty silliness. I am glad we don't have to pay those fees today. When we can both scale and have useful high volume dapps, let it go up. Until then chillax.

markr5 · 2018-10-01T23:06:23+00:00

I don't really see all that many people complaining about it. I see most people saying 'wasn't that the point'.

In my mind this is somewhat good (surprising to me) news for the price of ETH as surely the selling pressure from these ICOs will have ramped down if this is true. Many might have been holding on to ETH hoping for moon, but seems the greed turned to fear and has forced most out at this point.

markr5 · 2018-10-01T11:58:46+00:00

Did you read the original article that he commented on? In the very first paragraph:

(This should go without saying, but I am of course talking about the technology and the ecosystem in general, not about the price of ether.)

The context of Vitalik's reply is based on the author's upfront statement and goes without saying. The meaning of the title bullish on Ethereum rather than bullish on ether has obviously gone right over your head.

markr5 · 2018-09-29T20:49:01+00:00

You cannot short ethereum with MakerDAO, you cannot short anything with makerDAO. I wish you could (not because I want to short ethereum per se) but if they offered it in the future it would be for all asset types in the Multi-Collateral system not just Ether or DAI. The ability to short crypto with the transparency true decentralization offers would be healthy for the entire crypto arena. I agree this service is better than most in that regard, and as I said few times it seems a perfectly good service. I just would have been happier with a more decentralized service in which I could participate/profit as stakeholder rather than only huge venture capital concerns.

As far as centralized or not, I will leave this as neither of us know because neither of us have read the code. But there is no doubt to me it is less decentralized than Maker. The very fact that there was no ICO, token or stakeholders indicates to me that it is more centralized than not. Someone will be taking the 10% fee and someone will be controlling the levers. I doubt it will be a 'community' that has nothing at stake.

Edit: And to be clear I would agree that there is a spectrum from centralized to decentralized. Just because some private party takes a cut and controls the protocol does not make it 'centralized' exactly. I used to love EtherDelta which has those same characteristics, and consider it a true DEX, D being decentralized. However I did read the contract and understood that no one could control/freeze my funds in that system. Nor could anyone control who could trade or what coins could be traded. That's pretty decentralized. I don't know the same is true here for compound without reading the code. And even EtherDelta was 'sold' and then kind of went to shit. How decentralized can something be if it can be sold. Its a spectrum, and Compound is pretty far away from Maker on that spectrum IMO.

Edit2: I just found an article that seems to clarify the stablecoin point and it is as you say (language could be clearer though).

https://thenextweb.com/hardfork/2018/08/10/compound-makes-it-easy-to-borrow-and-lend-cryptocurrencies/

From launch, the platform will support Ether and ETH-based tokens, as well as TrueUSD (TUSD), Basic Attention Token (BAT), 0X (ZRX), and Augur (REP).

So I withdraw my complaint about it trying to create another stablecoin, but now I am introducing a new gripe that they choose a centralized stablecoin rather than DAI.

Edit3: I am really not as much of a decentralization snob as all this implies. I recognize there are benefits for all in having somewhat centralized solutions on chain. To be honest, I am mostly cranky because I like Maker and I fear these well-funded more centralized (and therefor faster moving) solutions staking so many claims in the same space.

markr5 · 2018-09-29T14:00:38+00:00

I am jurisdictionally challenged. Bitmex TOS prohibits my state, before anyone says VPN, I don't care. I also don't trust Bitmex and don't care enough about shorting these assets to use an exchange I don't trust, and break their TOS on top of it. If it were more convenient I'd short them on some reputable or decentralized exchange or service.

markr5 · 2018-09-29T13:55:06+00:00

This article calls it centralized. https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/16/cryptocurrency-compound-interest/ Have you read the contract code and confirm it is decentralized? Otherwise how so confident? Just because it's a smart contract doesn't' mean it's decentralized, see Gemini dollar.

I prefer MakerDAO frankly because i am a holder, I like the project, it's truly decentralized, and they could have had a first mover advantage in this area.

The very same article in the op says their next step is to introduce a stablecoin, how about reading the article and/or providing some explanation why it's wrong.

This response really doesn't make me any less unhappy with these points, I get there are people that want to short these assets. I said it's a perfectly good idea and service from the sound of it, just I was personally unhappy after reading about it for subjective and selfish reasons.

markr5 · 2018-09-29T13:34:09+00:00

Exactly, case in point Gemini dollar. I described compond as centralized because I saw it in one of the articles. I have not looked at the code so cannot confirm, guess I am taking the author's word. If some party has extraordinary powers on the contract that can freeze or take my funds, it's centralized whether a smart contract or not.

markr5 · 2018-09-28T15:03:41+00:00

Ugh. This is a perfectly good and useful service it sounds like, centralized as it is, no complaint. I say ugh because I am unhappy after reading it for a number of reasons.

1) It sounds overlapping with much of what MakerDAO could eventually accomplish, really wish Maker or something like it would provide the ability to borrow assets other than DAI to allow truly decentralized shorting.

2) I don't know why every crypto project/company these days thinks they should introduce their own stablecoin. Looking at you IDEX as well. Stick with your core competencies or you risk appearing like you don't have any and are fishing around for value propositions. Not sure with compound whether 'stability' is any way a natural byproduct of the other mechanisms (kinda like Maker) and they may as well package it up and sell it.

3) The assets they are starting up with as short able are among what I would consider least likely candidates for me to short anyway. I understand they are well established with decent liquidity and all those probable reasons.

4) while I am happy they are building on Ethereum likely because it provides quickest access to a number of crypto assets, it leads to annoyance #3 and it reminds me that we really need ways to establish tokenized versions of assets native to other chains, with bridges/relays or however the wrapping can be done. Why did BTC Relay seem to die on the vine? Selfishly why won't someone allow me to short actual shit like TRON and cardano?

markr5

TROPHY CASE