This is an excellent analysis: insightful and to the point. I'd love to read a counter-analysis that can objectively argue against what I see as the central point here: "Blockchains still need good governance, but once you have good governance in place, you don't need a blockchain."
The blockchain paradox: Why DLTs may do little to transform the economy
151–160 of 355 posts
Re: The blockchain paradox: Why DLTs may do little to transform the economy
#152Earlier quoted context omitted.
I tire of the internet comparison. You're drawing a surface-level comparison between the greatest communication and economic innovation in human history and blockchain software, because people were skeptical of both. And? That doesn't prove anything except that people were skeptical of both; nothing in that comparison speaks to the underlying nature of either things being compared. They are not the same.
Well it's in response to your rebuttal. > Where is the revolution? A common thread among cryptocurrency enthusiasts is that the revolution is coming... except it never does. A technology doesn't need to have all of its potential realized in the first few years of its existence. > Where is the disruption? Bitcoin is a smidgeon of a fraction of the commerce activity happening on the internet The Internet was a fraction…
> Literally every dismissal of cryptocurrencies you made would have applied exactly to the Internet in the early '90s or prior.
It seems I'm not getting through to you.
Just because two things have something in common doesn't mean that they're the same thing.
Showing that people were skeptical of the internet and blockchains does not demonstrate that blockchains will be as successful as the internet. There is no connection between the two (besides the fact that blockchains are software that run on the internet, like all things on the internet). They are totally different.
Re: The blockchain paradox: Why DLTs may do little to transform the economy
#153Earlier quoted context omitted.
"I do see a lot of enthusiasm from Eastern Europeans and all across Asia and they seem to be leading the charge on what could be the next major technical revolution." You may wish to also include hubs in London,UK and Zug,Switzerland
Good point - I've noticed that too. With a certain lack of easily available funds for startups in the UK (compared to Silicon Valley) I can see why they'd embrace that.
Also free state of New Hampshire:
http://freekeene.com/2017/06/07/nh-governor-signs-bill-prote...
Re: The blockchain paradox: Why DLTs may do little to transform the economy
#154If I had a Bitcoin for every skeptic that posts a blog on why it can't work... This may just be my general observation but I feel like Silicon Valley hegemony has a grudge against crypto currencies and I'm not sure why. For an industry that has constantly tried new things and saw potential where no one else did, I just don't see the love for the potential of smart contracts, DApps, etc. And how this is just the begin…
> I feel like Silicon Valley hegemony has a grudge against crypto currencies
I have a grudge against crypt-currencies because their proponents think:
+ Implementations don't need specs
+ PL theory is below them (static typing? referential transparency?)
+ Repeated million dollar hacks aren't a problem
+ There's no shame in lying about the core purpose of your product (Etherium: The implementation is the LAW. Except when we don't feel like it.)
The sad thing is there are lots of cool things crypto currencies can do. They're great for moving money between countries (the banking system really needs to get its act together here). They're great for bug bounties. Someday they'll be good for contracts (bug-free code is possible if you take it seriously). Proponents should focus on those things ... but it's hard to take criticism seriously when you just want to pump up the value of your coins.
Re: The blockchain paradox: Why DLTs may do little to transform the economy
#155If I had a Bitcoin for every skeptic that posts a blog on why it can't work... This may just be my general observation but I feel like Silicon Valley hegemony has a grudge against crypto currencies and I'm not sure why. For an industry that has constantly tried new things and saw potential where no one else did, I just don't see the love for the potential of smart contracts, DApps, etc. And how this is just the begin…
> If I had a Bitcoin for every skeptic that posts a blog on why it can't work... And if I had a real dollar for everyone raving about some optimistic Bitcoin utopia... > This may just be my general observation but I feel like Silicon Valley hegemony has a grudge against crypto currencies and I'm not sure why. Because they're a solution of a problem that doesn't exist? Or rather, whose actual solution is political, no…
Your claim that "the fad is over and nobody much cared" is measurably false.
Coinbase is currently the top bitcoin exchange in the world. Have a look at their traffic: http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/coinbase.com
Not only are they in the top 1000 websites in the world, but they have set a new traffic record every day of 2017, without exception.
Re: The blockchain paradox: Why DLTs may do little to transform the economy
#156There are plenty of examples where one party or a collation of parties set up the rules for a decentralized system that then goes on to operate successfully with little to no further enforcement. Email or TCP/IP are examples of such decentralized systems.
The fact that someone must make the rules and future actors may attempt to change those rules are problems but they do not invalidate the idea of decentralized systems.
I believe the author is reacting to his colleges misunderstanding of crypto technologies. He has bought in to their argument that what cryptocurrency needs to solve it's current problems is centralized control or governance. This, of course leads to the logical conclusion that if you must have centralized control then why use a blockchain at all.
The fallacy is in accepting that after the initial rules are set, that you must continue to have governance to solve the inevitable disagreements. On the contrary, continued governance is the problem faced by cryptocurrencies and other blockchain technologies. Their stability depends on adherence to the original agreement. Any change to that agreement is an existential threat.
It would however be a mistake to think that this problem completely invalidates such decentralized systems. They can and do continue to provide utility even in the face of attempts at continued governance. It's not about these systems working for eternity. It's about them working for long enough for life to happen.
Re: The blockchain paradox: Why DLTs may do little to transform the economy
#157Earlier quoted context omitted.
PoS seems to be definitely happening for Ether.
Could you expand on that any? What's your basis for that belief?
Ethereum has a difficulty bomb (mining becomes more difficult with time). This is a form of control from developers over blockchain. If miners refuse to cooperate, they are left with the blockchain which is more difficult to mine with time (and eventually unusable).
Re: The blockchain paradox: Why DLTs may do little to transform the economy
#158DLTs are inefficient by design. The energy consumption is unsustainable with the technology as it stands. For example Bitcoin consumed an estimated 40 million KWh in the past 24 hours - 137KWh per transaction . Enough to power ~1.3M American homes. Many of the alt-coins are even worse. Source: http://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption
I wonder what's the energy consumption of an average credit card transaction (including keeping the infrastructure, charge backs etc.)...
The more important point is that VISA is broken by design. Every day hackers steal credit card info and leech millions from the system, which is included in the fee you pay. The only reason it keeps working is because hackers aren't sufficiently sophisticated yet.
The solution, of course, is to store a private key on a hardware device, not have the private key be 16+3 decimal digits and an expiration date.
Re: The blockchain paradox: Why DLTs may do little to transform the economy
#159I agree with this article. Proponents of blockchain tech argue its revolutionary quality is its ability to act as a decentralized and trustless database. But I don't ever hear them sort through the issue of how to agree on the schema for this trustless database. For a group of people to use a decentralized DB, they have to agree as to what to store in it, and how to store it. They need to form consensus about how the…
That's not really true. Systems like Ethereum allow for arbitrary data storage and contract structures. The filter for consensus in a distributed environment will be usage. Lots of contracts will get written, a few will get used. Those few will be the ones people agree on.
Secondly, the consensus as to the schema isn't trustless even in blockchains. Deciding what to do and how to do it is and always will be trustful. What is trustless is the execution of that decision once its been made. That is the important contribution of blockchains.
Re: The blockchain paradox: Why DLTs may do little to transform the economy
#160A while back I wondered if networks like facebook, electrical grids should have more direct user decision making. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14293114 I think eventually networks need to figure out distributed decision making.
Here's[0] an interesting take on a possible way forward to achieve that, very much inline with the recent ICO trend. In general I think the token design space is an extremely interesting one, and seeing how different models lead to different social structures and outcomes will be extremely interesting. Of course this is not new (currently reading Debt: the first 5000 years), its just radically easier than before, to…
I doubt facebook does it you need tokens to buy out existing shares or something. To not get sued. Also, tokens get traded and accumulate.
There needs to be some way to manage competing interests fairly(whatever that means) and efficiently.