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Ethereum: Rise of the World Computer

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Re: Ethereum: Rise of the World Computer

#231

Post by anonbanker »

repomies69 wrote: post #149
whypeoplepeople wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There were tons of techniques to preserve home-made foods - canning, vacuum drying, salt curing, fermentation, etc. - and then someone invented the fridge. What is widely adopted? As an average developer, I can launch a smart contract with 20 lines of code in Ethereum. I have no idea in earth how to even start writing those things on classic blockchains, let alone prove they work as I expect.

> I can launch a smart contract with 20 lines of code in Ethereum. Meanwhile, everyone is waiting for the first smart contract that is actually useful for something.

Never heard about Arcade City[0]?

0. https://arcade.city/

Re: Ethereum: Rise of the World Computer

#232

Post by jgalt212 »

Anonobread wrote: post #186
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…

Ironically, the only people who have made money on smart contracts - cough Ethereum - did it by convincing other investors to part with their money subsequent to selling those investors on the idea of smart contracts. That whole sub-niche industry is just a big cess pool of people chasing investment gains that we're told can be had by pointlessly tilting at windmills. Conversely, Bitcoin never promised smart contract…

> diverting investment capital away from Bitcoin

Even if that were true, that would necessarily be a bad thing in the interests of not putting all your eggs in one basket.

Re: Ethereum: Rise of the World Computer

#233

Post by nickpsecurity »

contingencies wrote: post #227
nickpsecurity wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

"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. "

BOOM! Now you're seeing what I'm talking about. Regardless of the tech, it ends up coming down to the people controlling key companies, organizations, or code. Plus the legal system. So, I prefer just fixing that angle on a centralized system run by mutually-suspicious parties with open verification and incentives aligned right way.

"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)."

That's a good idea. I'd push several good ones if they were available. Preferably they'd be really different from one another to maximize the diversity benefit. Another angle on that is to derive the currency value from a set of high-value or stable commodities. That was what high-assurance engineer Clive Robinson pushed for as an alternative to either gold or our currency. Turns out, there's an altcoin company doing exactly that. Can't recall the name.

Re: Ethereum: Rise of the World Computer

#234

Post by nickpsecurity »

jgalt212 wrote: post #232
Anonobread wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ironically, the only people who have made money on smart contracts - cough Ethereum - did it by convincing other investors to part with their money subsequent to selling those investors on the idea of smart contracts. That whole sub-niche industry is just a big cess pool of people chasing investment gains that we're told can be had by pointlessly tilting at windmills. Conversely, Bitcoin never promised smart contract…

> diverting investment capital away from Bitcoin Even if that were true, that would necessarily be a bad thing in the interests of not putting all your eggs in one basket.

I take it you meant to word that as "wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing." As in, diversion would be good to avoid monoculture risks.

Re: Ethereum: Rise of the World Computer

#235

Post by contingencies »

nickpsecurity wrote: post #233
contingencies wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

"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. " BOOM! Now you're seeing what I'm talking about. Regardless of the tech, it ends up coming down to the people controlling key companies, organizations, or code. Plus the legal system. So, I prefer just fixing that angle on a centralized system run by mutua…

When we founded Kraken, I did a lot of research and reach-out in the alternate financial systems space. The 'basket of commodities' suggestion is very well promoted by theorists in that area, though of course it doesn't remove the problem of manipulation: whether static or dynamic in composition, it has the same problem as setting central bank interest rates today - prior knowledge of manual change to the system becomes profitable, and corruption ensues. Some also suggest emphasizing particular qualities in the selected commodities.

Re: Ethereum: Rise of the World Computer

#236

Post by [deleted] »

nickpsecurity wrote: post #233
contingencies wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

"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. " BOOM! Now you're seeing what I'm talking about. Regardless of the tech, it ends up coming down to the people controlling key companies, organizations, or code. Plus the legal system. So, I prefer just fixing that angle on a centralized system run by mutua…

[deleted]

Re: Ethereum: Rise of the World Computer

#238

Post by csarva »

drcode wrote: post #66
LAMike wrote: post #59

Is there a "Hello World" version of a DAC? What is the simplest contract I can make? And do I need a 3rd party oracle to confirm anything?

It would look something like: contract Hello { string greeting; function setName(string name) { greeting="Hello "+name; } } The solidity compiler will automatically produce a "getter" function to retrieve the greeting.

It will only be exposed automatically if you mark it public, i.e., 'string public greeting'

Re: Ethereum: Rise of the World Computer

#239

Post by Mamacom »

kang wrote: post #81
crazydoggers wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Give me any ethereum use-case & I'll tell you how to do it with bitcoin That's like saying give me any HTTP use-case, and I'll tell you how to do it with Gopher. To me Rootstock is like putting the WWW on top of Gopher. You can do it, but why? "We don't need GUIs, command lines can do everything!" "We don't need Java/Python/Ruby, you can do it all in C!" "We don't need C, you can do it all Assembly!" Ease of develo…

You are right, ease of use matters but it is so because ether was sold and got a lot of money whereas no such body exists in bitcoin. With that money ethereum could fund coding. That is a good thing unless the whole point of the system is decentralization. This is similar to Amazon selling AWScoin and launching a SETI-like software so anyone can run their system as an AWS server & earn AWScoins.

Saying bitcoin is less centralized than Ethereum is a joke given the current civil war on block size, and some devs being "frozen out". Also, some core devs made a lot of money with bitcoin and that's funding their commitment. Same same, but different.

Re: Ethereum: Rise of the World Computer

#240

Post by brighton36 »

nickpsecurity wrote: post #221
brighton36 wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Correct. Blockchains are for regulatory arbitrage. The entirety of the efficiency of any blockchain depends on the regulatory environment. If drugs and gambling were legalized tommorrow, across the Internet connected world, no one would mine, and blockchain would die.
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