tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4503292949532760618.post4881019554340953273..comments2024-03-28T00:21:45.637-07:00Comments on DSHR's Blog: Magical Thinking At The New York TimesDavid.http://www.blogger.com/profile/14498131502038331594noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4503292949532760618.post-14070209595522201602018-02-01T13:39:01.329-08:002018-02-01T13:39:01.329-08:00With "coin" exchanges hacking is indisti...With "coin" exchanges hacking is indistinguishable from embezzling, and viceversa.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4503292949532760618.post-23508212827275745722018-02-01T13:36:19.883-08:002018-02-01T13:36:19.883-08:00«the driving force behind the centralization of th...«<i>the driving force behind the centralization of the Web has been economies of scale:</i>»<br /><br />But that describes network effects, not economies of scale, and while network effects are sometimes called "demand side economies of scale" they are nothing like economies of scale.<br /><br />"Economies of scale", as "economies" says, is about having "economies", that is lower costs, as the amount of production increases. But network effect don't in any way reduce costs, they increase instead the value of the output as more output gets produced, even if it is a constant cost.<br /><br />That really matters because "economies of scale" are very important and whether they exist or not matters a lot.<br />For example there are papers that show that in banking there are no economies of scale beyond a fairly small size of bank, and I am not sure about this, but I am fairly sure that there are also no economies of scale in online businesses beyond a pretty small scale, whether the business is Google search or Amazon (there may be economies of specialization for Google search or of scope for Amazon though).Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4503292949532760618.post-788222293717324972018-01-26T14:49:51.264-08:002018-01-26T14:49:51.264-08:00"Hackers stole several hundred million dollar..."Hackers stole several hundred million dollars' worth of a lesser-known cryptocurrency from a major Japanese exchange Friday.<br /><br />Coincheck said that around 523 million of the exchange's NEM coins were sent to another account around 3 a.m. local time (1 p.m. ET Thursday), according to a Google translate of a <a href="http://logmi.jp/260622" rel="nofollow">Japanese transcript of the Friday press conference from Logmi</a>. The exchange has about 6 percent of yen-bitcoin trading, ranking fourth by market share on CryptoCompare.<br /><br />The stolen NEM coins were worth about 58 billion yen at the time of detection, or roughly $534.8 million, according to the exchange." <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/26/japanese-cryptocurrency-exchange-loses-more-than-500-million-to-hackers.html" rel="nofollow">according to CNBC</a>:<br /><br />"Coincheck management said in the press conference that it held the NEM coins in a "hot" wallet, referring to a method of storage that is linked to the internet."<br /><br />That is why no-one is interested in the alleged billion-dollar "bug bounty". There are wallets connected to the internet with a half-billion dollars ripe for the picking. That is, if you believe the NEM valuation.David.https://www.blogger.com/profile/14498131502038331594noreply@blogger.com