Thread by @balajis

Helpful feedback on the $100k prize for a decentralized inflation dashboard at 1729.com/inflation. His points are: (a) too much reliance on scraping, (b) no business model, & (c) too labor-intensive to replicate.

I disagree that these are show-stoppers, but go read first:

https://twitter.com/jp_koning/status/1438117779287252994

1/ JP says:

"while it's easy to find scraped prices of laptop computers, forget about prices for haircuts, rent, or healthcare"

Disagree. Below are online prices for haircuts, rent, healthcare.

[1] booksy.com/en-us/s/haircu…
[2] zillow.com/homes/ks_rb/
[3] healthy.kaiserpermanente.org/northern-calif…

2/ In general, the economy is going online. For almost any good there is now a digital storefront.

Moreover, this is a long-run project, so any absent price will come online.

Finally, as noted in the post (1729.com/inflation), partnering is an alternative to scraping.

3/ Regarding business model, this is for the founder to figure out, but crypto is not a resource-poor space.

One model is to invert the collected inflation data to design a flatcoin, and use "disclosed demurrage" to fund data collection. See thread below.

https://twitter.com/balajis/status/1436067295005069323

4/ Another model is to fund the inflation dashboard out of a new or extant DAO. As open-orgs.info shows, the amounts of money here are nontrivial.

For this reason, I'm not that worried about finding a way to subsidize data collection once someone has a good v1.

5/ Last objection: picking the market basket is nontrivial & resource intensive. BLS has a $600M+ budget[1], after all!

I don't find this a show-stopper either. See the tweet below; billion dollar businesses can start on $100k.
[1] dol.gov/general/budget/

https://twitter.com/balajis/status/1423505773456355332

All that said, I want to thank @jp_koning for taking the time to provide helpful & constructive feedback. One of the best interactions between the "crypto & fiat communities" as @TheStalwart would put it. We're focusing on concrete proposals for better versions of public goods.

See also this related thread.

The reflexive response is "you're reinventing the wheel"! But the wheel has been reinvented many times over the years. A modern tire is not quite the same as the chariot wheel of antiquity.

https://twitter.com/brian_armstrong/status/1438019467309580288

Here's the initial distinction between fiatcoins and flatcoins.

https://twitter.com/balajis/status/1402030233319088139

Here's how flatcoins are the ultimate unlock. An asset that could maintain price flatness across a basket of goods would make the cryptoeconomy independent of *all* legacy states.

https://twitter.com/balajis/status/1422993084002934788

Is it even theoretically possible to do this?

Well, Estonia had ~1M people and had a "pegged stablecoin" in the sense of its own currency, the kroon, prior to joining the eurozone.

So it may be feasible to maintain a flatcoin with a 1M person DAO. Perhaps a smaller one.

The fundamental question is where the budget to maintain flatness comes from. How to fund limit orders in N order books to maintain price vs N goods?

Answer may be *disclosed* demurrage. Explicit tradeoff: long-term depreciation for short-term stability.

https://twitter.com/balajis/status/1436067295005069323

Here's the link again to the $100k prize for the decentralized inflation dashboard. Reviewing entries as they come in! 1729.com/inflation