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Ethereum: Rise of the World Computer

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Re: Ethereum: Rise of the World Computer

#221

Post by nickpsecurity »

brighton36 wrote: post #201
nickpsecurity wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"VISA does 56,000 tps." That's what I keep telling them. The whole of credit processing and banking... even the Fed... runs on centralized, transactional architectures with redundant datacenters and optionally redundant checks from mutually-distrusting parties. What people want to do can be built on a highly-efficient, log-based system with distributed checking run by a foundation (or international collaboration) in…

The reason to use a blockchain is because you're locked out of service in the incumbent models. That means : gambling, drugs, sometimes porn, and capital flight. That's why you use a blockchain. (And IMO, that's what makes them so cool) Otherwise - Blockchains totally suck at everything, and these private-blockchains/blockchains without energy are completely inane and stupid

I haven't seen anyone say that. Why can you do those things with a blockchain but not non-blockchain, settled ledgers? Seems like it boils down to rules and who is enforcing them rather than the tech.

Re: Ethereum: Rise of the World Computer

#222

Post by mymosh »

cdetrio wrote: post #69
Uptrenda wrote: post #51

Crypto has come a long way since Ethereum was first conceived and what was impossible only a few months ago is now 100% practical. Today there are A LOT of new techniques that allow us to largely implement decentralized autonomous applications on any blockchain (no matter how limited) - a fact I feel often gets missed out in all of the Ethereum hype. If you have a lot a techniques like zero-knowledge proofs, homomorp…

> Interestingly enough - there's even ways to make the answer to any computable problem the keys to unlock a Bitcoin payment Sure, bitcoin script can in theory compute any computable problem (as can any turing machine). But it doesn't have native access to the data it needs, so pretty much any input you'd want to use needs to be put there by a trusted "oracle" (through a clever encoding into UTXO logic). For example,…

I don't think so, because Bitcoin Script is not Turing complete.

Re: Ethereum: Rise of the World Computer

#223

Post by contingencies »

nickpsecurity wrote: post #183
Anonobread wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But Ethereum's raison d'etre is "X for the blockchain". VISA does 56,000 tps. So it's really simple. How are you going to hit 56,000 tps on the blockchain. The Bitcoin community, which is far bigger and generally more experienced than Ethereum's just spent 18 months vigorously debating this question. Do you suggest Ethereum has come up with a better answer? And the criticism here is around the selling point of Ethere…

"VISA does 56,000 tps." That's what I keep telling them. The whole of credit processing and banking... even the Fed... runs on centralized, transactional architectures with redundant datacenters and optionally redundant checks from mutually-distrusting parties. What people want to do can be built on a highly-efficient, log-based system with distributed checking run by a foundation (or international collaboration) in…

The answer, I suspect, is that it potentially wholly and fundamentally disempowers existing centralized authorities - as asset issuers, regulators, reputation police, debt collectors, and border-guards - and promises to outlive them, with relative guarantees of high availability and no SPOFs.

Re: Ethereum: Rise of the World Computer

#224

Post by nickpsecurity »

contingencies wrote: post #223
nickpsecurity wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"VISA does 56,000 tps." That's what I keep telling them. The whole of credit processing and banking... even the Fed... runs on centralized, transactional architectures with redundant datacenters and optionally redundant checks from mutually-distrusting parties. What people want to do can be built on a highly-efficient, log-based system with distributed checking run by a foundation (or international collaboration) in…

The answer, I suspect, is that it potentially wholly and fundamentally disempowers existing centralized authorities - as asset issuers, regulators, reputation police, debt collectors, and border-guards - and promises to outlive them, with relative guarantees of high availability and no SPOFs.

You mean it claims to. In reality, these will be centralized things under management or control of companies with an ecosystem interacting with them. Regulators and lawyers will step in to do their thing. The result is... another set of authorities giving us problems. That's what future it's looking like will happen.

Of course, the problems on authorities' side might be better or worse with the new models. Nonetheless, my argument is that these blockchains are essentially a combination of specific tech, ledgers, distributed verification, cooperation, and incentives on infrastructure side. You can do all that without blockchains using simple, dumb tech with different organizational structure & participation rules.

Re: Ethereum: Rise of the World Computer

#225

Post by aaren »

drcode wrote: post #213
aaren wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you suggesting that Consensys, Microsoft, R3CEV and Red Hat are only developing on Ethereum because of clever marketing? There isn't some technical merit to the platform that means they are doing this? Why didn't these companies develop their products on Bitcoin? Are they incapable of due diligence in this space? https://consensys.net/ http://www.blockapps.net/ https://azure.microsoft.com/en-gb/blog/ethereum-bloc…

To be fair, only Consensys and R3CEV are "developing on ethereum"... Microsoft and Red Hat are merely offering machine images with ethereum software pre-installed for their users, as they do for many other software tools- Though I'm happy to be corrected, if you can point me to a Microsoft and/or Redhat-authored smart contract. The news for ethereum is positive enough right now, no need to exaggerate the facts.

Sorry, I got excited and imprecise. I suppose I mean "developing on and around".

I'm just trying to counter the idea that the excitement around ethereum is somehow manufactured by 'clever marketing'.

Re: Ethereum: Rise of the World Computer

#226

Post by vonklaus »

davidgerard wrote: post #64
vonklaus wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pump and dump the way you phrased it, seems to auggest the entire thing is a pump and dump scheme. Either way, the price fluctuates woldly as people try to do this scheme, but the company raised $15m and appears to be actively developing the tech. So whether it works(it appears promising) or not, they seem to be svidly trying

I'm speaking specifically of the price rise then fall in the last couple of weeks. The fundraiser, of course, was a pre-mined altcoin.

Interesting take. To summarize, you believe that speculators manipulate markets and prices decouple from value because self interested parties force it to communicate information incorrectly?

Also, you point out that the announcement of the intention to premine ether ended up leading to the Ethereum project implementing a plan to premine ether and sell it at a known and predetermined rate?

Riveting conclusion, surprised more people aren't talking about this.

I for one don't buy into the "conspiracy theory" that our society is built on debt, and monetary and fiscal policy have been managed poorly such that capital can not be incentivized to loan. Instead, rates will penalize banks for not lending, as economists try to force staples like food and oil up to introduce inflation into the system as they have lost control on spending as well as flooring rate levels thus losing both measures to fix the problem.

If that were true, it would be bad.

All above was obvious satire

Re: Ethereum: Rise of the World Computer

#227

Post by contingencies »

nickpsecurity wrote: post #224
contingencies wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The answer, I suspect, is that it potentially wholly and fundamentally disempowers existing centralized authorities - as asset issuers, regulators, reputation police, debt collectors, and border-guards - and promises to outlive them, with relative guarantees of high availability and no SPOFs.

You mean it claims to. In reality, these will be centralized things under management or control of companies with an ecosystem interacting with them. Regulators and lawyers will step in to do their thing. The result is... another set of authorities giving us problems. That's what future it's looking like will happen. Of course, the problems on authorities' side might be better or worse with the new models. Nonetheles…

Decentralized systems are demonstrably less centralized than conventional capitalistic private sector/bank/gov/licensing hierarchies and the monopolies they foster. As you point out, it's the human factor that's generally the problem. I doubt we'll ever see a better illustration there than the current situation with Bitcoin. Historically, we've seen the well chronicled growth of government and commercial interests on the internet. Both are good examples of decentralized systems that fail or are weakened through human causes. I suppose these are the same areas in which offensive security research is focused.

We should be smart enough now not to put all of our trust in to one system, and instead to foster a biological-style heterogeneity of systems, all of which we can opt in/out of on a dynamic basis based upon their various objective properties and our risk model versus requirements (==motives).

Re: Ethereum: Rise of the World Computer

#228

Post by kang »

[deleted] wrote: post #159
kang wrote: post #52

Previous discussion https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9987142 Give me any ethereum use-case & I'll tell you how to do it with bitcoin. Is it advantageous if a DSL is turing complete? It is not that bitcoin 'cannot have' a turing complete script but that it is unsafe & there is no need to do so. Turing completeness can be applied on an upper abstraction. There is nothing that ethereum can do that bitcoin cannot! Th…

[deleted]

lightning network or sidechains

Re: Ethereum: Rise of the World Computer

#229

Post by cdetrio »

mymosh wrote: post #222
cdetrio wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Interestingly enough - there's even ways to make the answer to any computable problem the keys to unlock a Bitcoin payment Sure, bitcoin script can in theory compute any computable problem (as can any turing machine). But it doesn't have native access to the data it needs, so pretty much any input you'd want to use needs to be put there by a trusted "oracle" (through a clever encoding into UTXO logic). For example,…

I don't think so, because Bitcoin Script is not Turing complete.

I've heard both arguments: (1) bitcoin script has no loops and so isnt turing complete; but (2) no loops is not a real limitation because the logic just be unrolled ahead of time and packed into a transaction.

Ethereum script is said to only be quasi-turing complete because although it has loops, execution is metered by gas fees (functionally equivalent to bitcoin tx size).

Re: Ethereum: Rise of the World Computer

#230

Post by eternalban »

heliumcraft wrote: post #54
eternalban wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any system based on distributed consensus is by definition a distributed system.

right. But it's meant to be used for consensus and not heavy computations.

The consensus bit is the "heavy computation". The means regardless of the ends.
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