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Ask HN: Am I going insane or is there genuinely no value in blockchain tech?

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Re: Ask HN: Am I going insane or is there genuinely no value in blockchain tech?

#561

Post by yebyen »

yencabulator wrote: post #556
yebyen wrote: post #552

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't you want some verifiable continuity in those books? How do you guarantee that continuity breaches are easy to spot when they're "books" and you can publish as many of them as you want, or skip one if it turns out we don't want transparency somewhere because of "national security"? This argument always seems to start with "there is no application for blockchain" and then moves the goal post to "that application…

What's realistic is a policy of "no backsies". You can't prevent a party from lying (without remaking the world so that everything happens on your favorite blockchain, which ain't gonna happen), so what you do is you catch them in their lies. This problem is already solved for TLS, with no bitcoin-style blockchain and no climate destruction: https://certificate.transparency.dev/

Just so you understand me, I have basically zero expectation that anyone is going to choose "my favorite blockchain" for their next big project and send the price soaring. It's just not going to happen.

With that out of the way, what stops the government from implementing their own CBDC and saying "tax revenues SHALL be paid downstream via the US-CBDC Token" and requiring approved vendors to implement it for their US-Gov Receivables? This seems very likely to happen. I would actually bet on it.

You're telling me on one hand, the problem is solved (example TLS) and on the other hand, I need to be realistic about my expectations, since it doesn't solve the whole problem... which seems to indicate to me that your solution is actually not solving the problem you expected me to have, which is there is no effective or continuous transparency about how much money our institutions have in-flight and where it's going or gone, and there is no sponsored route for institutions to "opt in" to such transparency and actually enforce it permanently.

That's what the blockchain is for.

What's un-fixably wrong with the blockchain solution exactly? I fully expect this US-CBDC is going to look nothing like I wanted my blockchain to look (it won't be in any way decentralized at all, it will have some government-sponsored "oracles" instead of user-sponsored nodes, so that it will be a blockchain in name and in function, but you won't be able to mine it, and it won't be "ours" – it might actually go on Ethereum, but I doubt it will and I definitely won't hold my breath. It will probably be super green for the environment, whatever it is.)

So how can you simultaneously believe this is a solved problem, which can't be solved, and yet already has been solved by Blockchain (but we don't need it?)

Re: Ask HN: Am I going insane or is there genuinely no value in blockchain tech?

#562

Post by mvkel »

I personally follow where devs are naturally curious.

Where I see devs making cool stuff:

- AI/ML

- traditional coding

Where I don't see devs:

- Blockchain tech

- AR/VR

Ultimately I think what happened is the hype cycle made crypto seem like the next Internet, when it's really just fintech. It's interesting to Wall Street, not engineers.

Even the whole DAAP thing is DoA. Can't think of a single app that is more than a tiny demo.

Re: Ask HN: Am I going insane or is there genuinely no value in blockchain tech?

#563

Post by Sammi »

noxer wrote: post #523
MacsHeadroom wrote: post #485

Earlier quoted context omitted.

PoW is needed for the "trustless" qualifier. Other schemes like PoS can be very low trust but not fully trustless. They also tend towards ever increasing centralization.

No, its really not. It is literally just a puzzle which solves the "problem" as to who gets to write the next block. Instead if you define the rules for the next block as strict as possible so it essentially eliminates a huge variety of possible blocks, participants can instead easily agree on one (the best) block (one that follows all rules and is objectionably better than all other possible blocks). There is no nee…

"agreeing is way more efficient"

Then it's not trustless is it?

Re: Ask HN: Am I going insane or is there genuinely no value in blockchain tech?

#564

Post by Sammi »

chriswarbo wrote: post #271
rzz3 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Planet destroying is a bit extreme. The traditional finance system is no more energy efficient overall. It’s certainly not environmentally friendly, but that’s more a function of the dirty power we use for anything and everything. We just need to fix our methods of generating energy, not criticize everything that uses a lot of it.

> We just need to fix our methods of generating energy, not criticize everything that uses a lot of it. The problem isn't that proof-of-work "uses a lot of [energy]"; the problem is that proof-of-work only exists to waste energy. "Fix[ing] our methods of generating energy" is a red herring, since proof-of-work will automatically scale to consume any difference. It's a Red Queen's Race, which cannot be won.

No PoW is done so that the blockchain can be trustless. That is a valuable property. No other system has that property.

Re: Ask HN: Am I going insane or is there genuinely no value in blockchain tech?

#565

Post by Sammi »

TomSwirly wrote: post #422
rzz3 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Planet destroying is a bit extreme. The traditional finance system is no more energy efficient overall. It’s certainly not environmentally friendly, but that’s more a function of the dirty power we use for anything and everything. We just need to fix our methods of generating energy, not criticize everything that uses a lot of it.

> The traditional finance system is no more energy efficient overall. The traditional finance system easily does tens of thousands of times more transactions than cryptocurrencies. Visa alone does a thousand times more transactions than Bitcoin. Cryptocurrency uses over 0.5% of the world's electricity to do less than 0.01% of the world's transactions. So, no, your statement is wildly wrong. I have zero problem callin…

There are many "cryptocurrencies" that have vastly more number of transactions than visa. They aren't being bought at the same rate and therefore don't have the same market cap as Bitcoin. The market has chosen Bitcoin as their favorite, because it aligns with the wants of the free market. The free market wants secure distributed and _trustless_ store of value. That's the thing that Bitcoin does better than anything.

Also you can transfer any amount in a single transaction, so the transaction value throughput in Bitcoin is still infinite. This makes Bitcoin useful as a secure settlement layer for other systems.

Re: Ask HN: Am I going insane or is there genuinely no value in blockchain tech?

#566

Post by chriswarbo »

Sammi wrote: post #564
chriswarbo wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We just need to fix our methods of generating energy, not criticize everything that uses a lot of it. The problem isn't that proof-of-work "uses a lot of [energy]"; the problem is that proof-of-work only exists to waste energy. "Fix[ing] our methods of generating energy" is a red herring, since proof-of-work will automatically scale to consume any difference. It's a Red Queen's Race, which cannot be won.

No PoW is done so that the blockchain can be trustless. That is a valuable property. No other system has that property.

Bitcoin uses PoW to be "trustless", which is precisely why it's designed to waste energy.

Bitcoin is a distributed consensus algorithm, and the way it establishes consensus is simple: pick the longest chain. Spamming dummy blocks on to an old chain will cause that consensus to switch, allowing double-spends, so Bitcoin requires PoW as an anti-spam mechanism to slow everything down by wasting energy ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hashcash ).

I wouldn't go so far as calling blockchains "trustless", since PoW has its own vulnerabilities, e.g.

- Lottery-like incentives for mining favours centralisation, to reduce volatility. That gives mining pools a lot of control, e.g. whether to back forks or not.

- Centralised mining is vulnerable to existing power structures, e.g. those with deep pockets can purchase warehouse-sized mining rigs, can launch legal or physical attacks on the rigs of others, etc.

Re: Ask HN: Am I going insane or is there genuinely no value in blockchain tech?

#567

Post by FabHK »

noxer wrote: post #523
MacsHeadroom wrote: post #485

Earlier quoted context omitted.

PoW is needed for the "trustless" qualifier. Other schemes like PoS can be very low trust but not fully trustless. They also tend towards ever increasing centralization.

No, its really not. It is literally just a puzzle which solves the "problem" as to who gets to write the next block. Instead if you define the rules for the next block as strict as possible so it essentially eliminates a huge variety of possible blocks, participants can instead easily agree on one (the best) block (one that follows all rules and is objectionably better than all other possible blocks). There is no nee…

How do you solve double spend?

So you make your objective rules as to what is the best block by defining some measure of quality (maybe include the most transactions that fit in, maybe sorted by fee-per-byte or so).

Now all the good nodes agree on the next block B1 and then start working on B2 (not much work to do, because no PoW, but whatever, they build the next block B2.) Meanwhile, evil actor Eve has transferred a lot of money in B1 to Alice, and received something worthwhile. Now she makes an alternative block B1', transferring the money to her friend Bob instead of Alice, where B1' has even higher quality (higher fee, say), and quickly creates B2' and then B3'.

How is a new node coming in to decide between the chain B1->B2, and the chain B1'->B2'->B3'? The latter chain is longer and has higher quality.

Re: Ask HN: Am I going insane or is there genuinely no value in blockchain tech?

#568

Post by Sammi »

chriswarbo wrote: post #566
Sammi wrote: post #564

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No PoW is done so that the blockchain can be trustless. That is a valuable property. No other system has that property.

Bitcoin uses PoW to be "trustless", which is precisely why it's designed to waste energy. Bitcoin is a distributed consensus algorithm, and the way it establishes consensus is simple: pick the longest chain. Spamming dummy blocks on to an old chain will cause that consensus to switch, allowing double-spends, so Bitcoin requires PoW as an anti-spam mechanism to slow everything down by wasting energy ( https://en.wikip…

Trustless means you don't have to trust anybody to know that a transaction you initiate will happen as you expect. No one can block or alter a transaction you make. This is achieved through multiple cryptographic mechanisms - one of them is PoW.

PoW makes it expensive to attempt a double spend. You can't practically double spend because it is too expensive to do. The high cost of PoW is what gives the network security from double spend. Therefore it is not wasted energy. It is energy spent to secure against double spends.

You could use PoS but that is centralized and vulnerable to manipulation just like fiat.

Slow depends on what you are needing the system to do. If you need to pay for groceries, then Bitcoin is slow. If you need to do remittances or settlement then Bitcoin is extremely fast - much faster to reach finality than anything else. Therefore Bitcoin is only really useful as a base layer of the financial world. But that is also extremely useful. Faster layers like Lightning can be built on top.

Re: Ask HN: Am I going insane or is there genuinely no value in blockchain tech?

#569

Post by FabHK »

FabHK wrote: post #113
paulsutter wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good point - blockchain also prevents transaction censorship (your proposal prevents double spend but allows the central authority to block transactions) Central authorities might do wild stuff like block Folks They Don’t Like (certain truck drivers, etc). Some people think that’s really good, others feel the opposite (edited for clarity)

> blockchain also prevents censorship well... sort of. Naturally, government can regulate and censor the on- and off-ramps [0], exchanges can censor [1a - Coinbase blocking Russian addresses][1b - Coinbase blocking scammer addresses], and developers or "the community", ie other unelected players, can decree a software change if something happens on chain that they don't like [2a - The DAO/ETH/ETC][2b - BTC 0.7/0.8 ac…

Another example:

Juno Blockchain Community Officially Votes to Revoke Whale’s Tokens

https://www.coindesk.com/layer2/2022/04/29/juno-blockchain-c...

Re: Ask HN: Am I going insane or is there genuinely no value in blockchain tech?

#570

Post by FabHK »

ahtihn wrote: post #230
hypertele-Xii wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have to trust the people who figured out the math, when they say "this math is secure". Then you have to trust the people who programmed that math, when they say "this code implements this math correctly". And then you have to trust the binary, unless you compiled it yourself, when it says "this binary compiles this code correctly", and finally you have to trust the machines when they say "this computer executes…

> You have to trust the people who figured out the math, when they say "this math is secure". Not really. I'm convinced the math is secure given the current knowledge, because there's a massive financial incentive to break it. I don't have to trust anyone.

Similarly, I'm convinced my bank is secure, because there's a massive financial incentive to break it. I don't have to trust anyone.
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