[swivelmaster]

Can someone explain to me why any of these values truly matter?

My background is in game development both on Facebook and mobile, and I spent a lot of time paying close attention to the growth of the web and its various startups. Number of nodes and market cap both look a lot like vanity metrics to me - numbers that sound good in a market/tech-specific way but don't actually reflect the true value or growth potential from a business perspective.

Cryptocurrency, AFAIK, has network effects, so the true value should likely be measured in common KPI's like DAU, MAU, and some kind of replacement for ARPU - likely average transaction volume per daily/monthly user.

The numbers I've seen for crypto games - DAU in the tens of thousands - are absolutely laughable compared to the numbers on Facebook and mobile games even in the first year or two of the platforms. If crypto was truly going to be a revolutionary mass-market phenomenon, I would expect to see hundreds of thousands to millions of DAU on any individual currency and AFAIK that's just not happening.

[cowtools]

The number of nodes doesn't really matter as long as it's sufficiently high. The network security is mostly based on how decentralized the hash-power is (or staking-power) is.

You're right that better measures are number of transactions-per-second, merchant acceptance, etc:

https://mempool.space/lightning https://bitinfocharts.com/comparison/transactions-btc-eth-lt... https://moneroj.net/merchants/

I agree that crypto games have been pretty pitiful in their current incarnation, outside of gambling applications (thanks to provable fairness). They have a bad reputation of being too centralized and pay-to-win, which is really the only problem cryptocurrency is supposed to solve.

[rhodorhoades]

Because crypto is banned on every meaningful platform. I can’t use my phone to mine, I can’t use defi on IOS or android. In the US I can’t access shorting on CEX, am not allowed to use tornado cash to gain privacy, I am platform locked everywhere I go and yet crypto hangs on the fringe.

Crypto is heavily censored in the US from multiple directions.

[cowtools]

I can use my phone to CPU mine with https://github.com/XMRig-for-Android/xmrig-for-android albeit at a very low hashrate. IDK about GPU mining though, seems like that could be more useful. But if you root your android device you can pretty much install anything you would on a linux system, with exceptions.

Also, I don't see why you couldn't just distribute a defi app on android as an APK, including tornado cash. I don't really know if trading on leverage is a critical part of using cryptocurrency, but I don't really see how you would be prevented from doing that on mobile unless your CEX distributes a different desktop app.

Crypto is not heavily censored in the US. I mean maybe, but it depends on what state you live in. Also, you can't legally mix coins as a service like tornado cash or coinjoin server, as that constitutes money laundering.

[rhodorhoades]

What you are describing is against androids terms of service and can find your entire google identity banned.

> Crypto is not heavily censored in the US. I mean maybe, but it depends on what state you live in.

There are major roadblocks being put in place by powerful entities. I have to use VPNs, different distribution/ platforms, .onions, NATS, and other bits of technology to get around those roadblocks and use the technology as I see fit.

> tornado cash or coinjoin server, as that constitutes money laundering.

Ensuring privacy is money laundering? Please tell.

[cowtools]

>What you are describing is against androids terms of service and can find your entire google identity banned.

Distributing an APK? There is nothing google can do about this. I never accept google's terms of service because I use an AOSP distro like calyxos or grapheneos

>There are major roadblocks being put in place by powerful entities. I have to use VPNs, different distribution/ platforms, .onions, NATS, and other bits of technology to get around those roadblocks and use the technology as I see fit.

The cryptocurrency is only as decentralized as its development infrastructure.

>Ensuring privacy is money laundering? Please tell.

It can be prosecuted as money laundering if you are offering a service (tornado cash, wasabi, coinjoin, etc.). If it is a passive feature of the network (zcash, monero, etc.) then there is no one to prosecute.