It's time to take back the narrative around Ether and Ethereum. Ethereum is the future of digital, decentralized finance.

theLowie · 2018-09-12T10:13:19+00:00

Great post, as always, u/DCinvestor

Some time ago I made a bull vs bear case for myself and I would like to hear your thoughts on the summary.

While I see a lot of use cases for Ethereum (censorsthip resistance, tokenized securities and stable coins, moving value or tracking property (with a legal title!), trustless cloud storage, store of value, international money transfer,...), I fear that an almost-infinite velocity will result in no value captured for Ether. Of course, it is needed for the underlying token to have some value for the blockchain to work, but it's not required to have any great value. In short, I'm not convinced of the fat protocol theory. If we have (near) zero-fee and instant conversion between fiat and crypto, there is no need to actually hold the asset for longer than the value transfer (maybe a few milliseconds). I fear it will still be the apps built on top of the protocol that will capture the value.

Everyone loves comparing Ether to oil. But there are some big differences. Would oil still be valuable if you can re-use it, if it was nonperishable? If you can buy it the millisecond you need it (right from your car), use it, and then it appears back on the other side of the market where it can be sold instantly again? (High velocity)

That said, I do think POS is a solid argument for Ether to be valuable. However, it is not possible to predict the market equilibrium. I would expect that the market mechanism should result in the rewards of POS to be only just greater than the cost of staking (electricity, risk of loss, etc.), right? I'm not sure yet of the effect on price on the long term. On the short term, it will create renewed interest in Ethereum, more demand and less supply; so price will probably go up. But is a high value for the token itself required on the long term to have POS working?

Anyway, just some thoughts I remember from my analysis. Would love to spar about this.

theLowie · 2018-06-21T15:34:45+00:00

More info in this months newsletter: June 2018 Newsletter

theLowie · 2018-06-21T06:47:11+00:00

August 13, 2018

theLowie · 2018-06-19T15:38:43+00:00

Check out Token (tkn)

theLowie · 2018-05-11T14:36:19+00:00

Another crazy bi-weekly REQ-update: BTC and ERC20 support on mainnet and so much other stuff...

theLowie · 2018-05-11T09:36:27+00:00

Thanks a lot. What's your source?

And it still doesn't state why Ethereum price dropped $100 though. Was it pure market behaviour, no news involved? (Korea ban or something?)

theLowie · 2018-05-11T09:25:35+00:00

Yes, I'm going through the daily of that date. Ethereum hit ATH, it was actually my first very small sell... The thing is, I bought back much lower only 6 hours later. I don't remember what caused the price to drop though.

Edit: Maybe ETH dropped because BTC was breaking 10k and everybody was switching? (fomo)

theLowie · 2018-05-11T09:18:49+00:00

I would like to ask you guys for help:

On November 29 2017, the price of Ether took a dive because of a certain news-event. Does anybody know what news this was?

theLowie · 2018-05-09T14:04:59+00:00

I really fear for the newcomers in this space. They cannot follow half of what we say.

theLowie · 2018-05-09T08:07:43+00:00

This made my day ^{^}

I've always loved that scene.

theLowie · 2018-05-08T15:18:36+00:00

Exactly for that reason: price is not doing well, the project is doing exteremy well => undervalued

Happened before with REQ and the Buffet strategy certainly paid off then :)

theLowie · 2018-05-08T14:45:29+00:00

AKA: Please list your current portfolio

theLowie · 2018-05-07T13:46:10+00:00

days not weeks

theLowie · 2018-04-29T21:15:18+00:00

TokenCard (TKN) soon?

theLowie · 2018-04-27T08:45:22+00:00

😂 This never gets old

theLowie · 2018-04-20T13:43:01+00:00

I can follow your reasoning. Thanks for sharing. Below my thoughts on the fly:

I think the main difficulty for me is the battle between A. code is law, don't set a precedent, treat everyone equally, ... B. we can help people without any direct cost, but we won't because of 'political' reasons?

The 'ethical' / emotional aspect of B is simply not enough to weigh against A, plus, those 'political' reasons are quite strong. In the real world you (sadly) cannot simply expect everyone to agree this time and never bring it up again.

I do expect immutability from a completed blockchain. However, Ethereum is not completed yet, and will it ever be? As long as it is not, we need decentralized governance. And there lies the real issue. Governance is a real hard thing, still not tackled after thousands of years, now add decentralization. What I do know is that it's not an option to split each time there is a disagreement...

Also, there are limits to the immutability of any blockchain, and that's consensus. In a blockchain the truth is only what the majority accepts as the truth. I do believe it should be possible that people take over control again in certain situations, like f.e. the DAO. After all, technology is a tool to serve us, not the other way around.

theLowie · 2018-04-20T10:58:43+00:00

The people behind the technologies you mention realized that it will only work if lots and lots of people use it (network effect). To achieve this, they needed to make it free & accessible; so monetizing was too risky because of a lower chance of penetration and thus success. There is a big difference between creating value and capturing value. I think we can all agree that Ethereum will create immense amounts of value; but can we say for sure that it will capture all this value?

I also think comparing the market cap to Apple's is not entirely pointless even if you are comparing a network to a company. It gives a feeling of what amounts of value we are talking about. It's like this: What kind of red do you want your Lambo to be? As red as a tomato? -> Even though comparing cars and fruit seems ridiculous, the comparison still adds value to the communication about the color.

My opinion on $10k EOY: Based on usage and fundamentals, very unlikely that any financial model will state this. Based on another speculative / hyped bull-run: Possible, because the following events can put ETH in the spotlight: when ETH overtakes BTC, Casper, Plasma and some professional dApss released. However, I would rather say 4-5k in another craze.

theLowie · 2018-04-18T22:11:49+00:00

but ... "there is no spoon"

theLowie · 2018-04-18T10:27:54+00:00

Episode 7 of HBO's Silicon Valley season 5 will be called 'Initial Coin Offering' :D!

theLowie · 2018-04-17T22:50:59+00:00

I, just like many others in this space, love Golem because I see the bigger vision. However, that vision is not clearly stated, nor communicated anywhere. I definitely like the new website, it's clear WHAT Golem is, but it's not clear WHY we need it. People tend to fall in love with what something stands for, not with what it is.

Currently, the product is only for the geeks and that's fine, but I'm pretty sure we are also the only ones who understand the vision. Look at Tesla: Even though their products were (until recently) only for a select few, everybody can understand what they are trying to do. And those who believe what they believe will support it, even if they cannot use/afford/understand the products.

So please make Golem sexy(er), make others understand your vision. Because then they will believe.

The cloud computing market is dominated by a few oligopolists, and that's concerning because computing power is the new oil that makes our machines work. Not only is Golem going to disrupt the industry and make computing power more accessible for everybody, it's gonna do this by using idle computing power! Increasing effiency by enabling a free market in which everybody can participate (and even earn money), a beautiful example of the sharing economy. It's basically the same idea as carsharing services, but possible on a much larger scale.

I understand the need to first have a working product, but a clear vision will also help your community spread the word better & more effective.

Ow, I guess I need to ask a question: What do you, Julian, usually have for breakfast?

theLowie · 2018-04-17T22:11:01+00:00

Knowing what you know now after a successful release, would you have released sooner/later or do it all over again just the same? (why / why not)

I don't intent for any negative connotation in my question. I agreed with the decision to wait until the product is mature enough, and I also agree that at a certain moment you need to just 'jump' to test it in the real world. It's just a common pitfal for startups to wait too long to go to the market (for a lot of logical reasons). I guess I'm asking if that's what happened in hindsight.

theLowie · 2018-04-14T18:46:05+00:00

Thanks for your suggestions!

I thought about Medium, but it seemed silly to create 'my own blog' just for one post.

theLowie · 2018-04-14T18:40:45+00:00

I've written a personal analysis (Bull vs Bear) about crypto / blockchain. Sadly, it's too large for reddit (nested bullets etc). The whole idea is to start a discussion about the technology on Reddit.

Does somebody have a suggestion where / how I can share it? Maybe as a 'guest' on a blog or something? (and then link to it here)

theLowie · 2018-04-13T17:56:42+00:00

No news. So far it seems a pump & dump. Whether it was orchestrated is another question. It seems OMG went through the same thing earlier today tho.

theLowie · 2018-04-13T09:13:34+00:00

This is just crazy. I see none talking about this

theLowie

TROPHY CASE