• Laser@feddit.org
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    2 months ago

    crypto is cancer.

    I respectfully disagree. There are legitimate use cases do make sense. Of course, these don’t make tech bros rich quick so you don’t often hear about them.

    One of them that I like the idea of is NanoGPT. It’s a frontend to various AI services where you pay per request instead of making accounts for each and pay with Nano. I haven’t used it yet, but the currency makes a lot of sense there, as it is feeless and requests can cost less than a cent.

    Another one is Monero for goods and services that might be illicit under one’s jurisdiction. I don’t want to go into the discussion whether this is right or wrong; all I want to say is that laws can be nonsensical and dangerous.

    • squid_slime@lemm.ee
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      2 months ago

      NanoGPT? What’s special about it? Is mining the nano coin used to create the AIs responses or is it just a crypto skin on top. If the latter we can self host AI.

      But beyond that many dislike crypto for gas cost and same for AI so strapping them together is way less palatable.

      • Laser@feddit.org
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        2 months ago

        It’s just used as a means of payment for very small amounts, even less than a single cent if you calculate in dollars.

        If the latter we can self host AI.

        Sure you can; I certainly can’t, lacking the equipment, and the investment would be much higher than any return on it.

        But beyond that many dislike crypto for gas cost and same for AI so strapping them together is way less palatable.

        Nano, as I said, has no fees, and there’s no miners, it’s quite ecologically friendly. It does have other challenges (for example only being pseudonymous and fully traceable, plus fighting spam is an ongoing battle, no standard way of association a payment with an invoice). But I always liked its premise and it does make sense for such cases for me.

        The beauty with how they implemented is that there’s no explicit about apart from a wallet address they create for you, saved in a cookie, so you can straight up use it.

        I’m not trying to argue that this is somehow revolutionary or the right way to do it, but it manages to leverage the advantages quote well in my opinion.

        • squid_slime@lemm.ee
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          2 months ago

          So if I made a confident AI and hosted it on a website you could visit, you buy my tokens $5 for 5 tokens, responses priced at .01 tokens. Essentially its very cheap.

          Would you be as likely to use this service?

          • Laser@feddit.org
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            2 months ago

            I mean if it’s competitive, why not?

            The thing is it’s unlikely you’d find a payment provider making this viable. For example, PayPal charges 49 US cents as a minimum fee, or 39 Eurocents. Even just credit card companies charge 5 cents fixed, so cheap payment processors will charge you about 10 cents per transaction plus variable rates and possibly a monthly fee.

            • squid_slime@lemm.ee
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              2 months ago

              True but these companies are gate keeper that also work with fiet to crypto so its just moving the issue. If I want to convert my British pounds I will be charged even if I sent it physically. How do you buy nano coin?

              • Laser@feddit.org
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                2 months ago

                It’s true that you need to factor in the conversion fees. The same however is true, maybe for a smaller fee, when converting between fiat currencies, though my bank is usually pretty fair. Other providers - again PayPal being an offender and often ATM operators - will often have worse rates.

                NanoGPT itself doesn’t sell crypto I think, they include sellers for convenience. I provided mine years ago on Kraken which is a market exchange.

                For testing, I just transferred 0.1 XNO to them, which arrived basically instantly without fees, it was credited to the wallet before I switched back windows to my browser.

                I’ll try a prompt and get back here if you want? I mean this is not really the core of the discussion but for completion’s sake…

                Edit: I created this with the Flux Pro model (the most expensive one I think) for about 0.1 XNO: AI result of "A close-up view of a girl looking through a wall of glass with her right hand touching the glass wall. Behind the glass wall, there's space with stars visible. The glass wall is slightly cracked, creating a prism of light."

                • squid_slime@lemm.ee
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                  2 months ago

                  So entry cost is the kicker, like for myself I don’t have any crypto, or at least crypto I can access (lost my monero keys) so for me to use nano I would still need to face conversion fees.

                  Tbh I hear about speeds but I’ve not had issues of slow transfers when it comes to fiat.

                  Sure, is it comparable to open AIs chatgpt?

                  • Laser@feddit.org
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                    2 months ago

                    If you want, I’ll send you some to an address of your choosing; you can just use nault.cc as a wallet.

                    Due to how the site works, you can choose what model etc. they have without ever sending them any money.

                    like for myself I don’t have any crypto, or at least crypto I can access (lost my monero keys)

                    Didn’t we all? Nobody warned me of the dangers of boating

    • explodicle
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      2 months ago

      Nano is a scam. They mined all the coins up front, and then told the most gullible rubes in the universe that everyone else had to fill out CAPTCHAs too.

      • Laser@feddit.org
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        2 months ago

        Nano wasn’t mined, it was all created at inception, and as you correctly said distributed via CAPTCHA; this was to disincentivize or stop people running bots to claim it automatically. After the distribution period ended, the Nano foundation burned undistributed coins minus an amount that they kept to ensure further development. This fund ran out in 2023 if I’m not mistaken. It’s now being developed by volunteers.

        Do you know a better idea how such an initial airdrop would be done?

        • explodicle
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          2 months ago

          https://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/premining.asp

          You are one of those suckers if you believe every distributed coin was solved by a CAPTCHA. The centralized(!) foundation pinky promises that they didn’t sock puppet ten times as many suckers at launch, and then keep a controlling share of stake permanently.

          A better way to do the initial “airdrop” is to not do centralized issuance at all, because anyone would be a complete fool to trust any crypto foundation.

          • Laser@feddit.org
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            2 months ago

            What would be a controlling share with Nano? The largest representatives according to voting weight were the exchanges last time I checked, which would imply most of the currency is in “circulation” as in no longer held by the foundation. And even then, voting weight doesn’t grant you an immediate advantage in Nano, as there’s no staking.

            So I mean, while I can’t prove that the foundation held now coins than they claimed, I’m unaware that there was ever a sign of them actually doing so.

            A better way to do the initial “airdrop” is to not do centralized issuance at all, because anyone would be a complete fool to trust any crypto foundation.

            It has to come from somewhere, right? How would you fairly distribute coins that aren’t mined?

            Anyhow, I’m not here to shill the coin, the ones I bought I bought off an exchange long after the original issuance and all I wanted to show was an example for a good technical solution. Not perfect mind you, just something of which I thought is a positive example where it’s just used as a means of payment.

            • explodicle
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              2 months ago

              What would be a controlling share with Nano?

              51%

              The largest representatives according to voting weight were the exchanges last time I checked

              Which is irrelevant because holders can just choose different representatives.

              So I mean, while I can’t prove that the foundation held more coins than they claimed, I’m unaware that there was ever a sign of them actually doing so.

              The sign is them creating a design that expects this tremendous amount of trust. It’s extremely conspicuous to create a vulnerability that only the foundation can exploit, that can go undetected if they don’t make a huge mistake.

              It has to come from somewhere, right? How would you fairly distribute coins that aren’t mined?

              You can’t fairly distribute a premine. Don’t use coins with premines.

              I’m glad you’re not here to shill Nano, but it is a scam and you are promoting it.

              • Laser@feddit.org
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                2 months ago

                Can’t make it right for everyone… Some people will complain about mining and the energy consumption (Bitcoin is supposed to currently use about 850 kWh per transaction), others complain about a supposedly unfair premine. They didn’t even hold an ICO.

                51%

                That’s not currently a required percentage, you need 67% of votes to confirm a transaction. Which in turn means 33% are enough to stall the network. But even then, what would their gain be, apart from owning more of their own currency?

                Which is irrelevant because holders can just choose different representatives.

                You can, but then you can no longer vote. And if you can’t vote, holding Nano does nothing.

                I don’t think there’s a cryptocurrency today that comes without downsides, be it high resource usage, lack of anonymity or others, if they’re not straight up money grabs and a copy paste of another random junk on ETH. Bitcoin is not an option for me because of the monster mining has become - I don’t blame Satoshi, this is something I didn’t expect either, but it’s insanity currently.

                • explodicle
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                  2 months ago

                  That’s whataboutism - a low carbon footprint doesn’t change whether or not Nano is a scam. My Excel spreadsheet has an even lower carbon footprint than the AI you’re pitching here. If they own a large enough majority to control the network, then they can dictate policy or favor their own blocks for free money.

                  • Laser@feddit.org
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                    2 months ago

                    It’s ok dude, I’m not trying to sway you. I’m not invested into the topic enough to defend something against theoretical and unsubstantiated claims. Use what you want or don’t