The blockchain paradox: Why DLTs may do little to transform the economy • Hacker News Board

Re: The blockchain paradox: Why DLTs may do little to transform the economy

#161

Post by runeks » Wed, Jun 14, 2017, 6:07 PM UTC

jeffnappi wrote: post #82

DLTs 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

Gold is also inefficient by design. But it's been successfully used as a store of value for thousands of years. It causes miners to expend large amounts of energy to extract gold from dirt. "Inefficient by design" misses the point because proof-of-work is the feature, not an inefficiency.

I've written about the similarity between gold and Bitcoin here: https://runeksvendsen.github.io/blog/posts/2017-06-14-bitcoi...

Re: The blockchain paradox: Why DLTs may do little to transform the economy

#162

Post by eterm » Wed, Jun 14, 2017, 6:08 PM UTC

jasode wrote: post #107

eterm wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> prove useful for other recordkeeping such as real estate property transactions (e.g. no need to pay $300 fee for title searches in the future) That doesn't require a distributed ledger, just a database. In the UK it costs £3 and is searchable online. If it costs $300 then that is because someone wants it to cost that much.

> In the UK it costs £3 and is searchable online. If it costs $300 then My short text didn't give enough context. In the USA, that $$$ isn't really for the "search"; it's to pay for the "title insurance" . That title company insures that the buyer is getting a "clean title" with no conflicting claims of ownership from others he doesn't know about. The "search" is just one component of labor of what you're paying for.…

If "dirty" titles are an issue (and title insurance costing $300 suggests it is), Why is there no government department (state or federal) holding the title registry?

That would also solve the problem. Once again it seems like this is a social issue not a technical issue.

Re: The blockchain paradox: Why DLTs may do little to transform the economy

#163

Post by jasode » Wed, Jun 14, 2017, 6:09 PM UTC

jcoffland wrote: post #156

There 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 syst…

>Email or TCP/IP are examples of such decentralized systems.

I'm not sure about those analogies. SMTP email and TCPIP require DNS to route packets. DNS root authority is centralized. (Yes, DNS for performance purposes is implemented across distributed computers worldwide but ultimate authority still traces back to the root servers.)

Even without DNS lookup, the numerical IP addresses are assigned by a central authority.

(Yes, if we're only talking about playing with protocols instead of actual global connectivity, one could run private SMTP on an isolated network with no central authority but that's not the analogy we're interested in.)

Maybe your analogies and my disagreement with them is a perfect illustration of what the author is talking about: centralized governance is still there even if we don't notice it.

Re: The blockchain paradox: Why DLTs may do little to transform the economy

#164

Post by semi-extrinsic » Wed, Jun 14, 2017, 6:11 PM UTC

root_axis wrote: post #152

moduspol wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 conn…

"They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown."

- Carl Sagan

Re: The blockchain paradox: Why DLTs may do little to transform the economy

#165

Post by lawrenceyan » Wed, Jun 14, 2017, 6:11 PM UTC

rockmeamedee wrote: post #85

I 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…

They all say that they'll never roll back or retroactively make any changes. But inevitably, they always do. I thought Ethereum might have been different, but of course I had to be disappointed.

The problem with blockchains is that they still fundamentally fail to solve the problem of mob rule, though, I suppose you could argue that's one thing you'll never fully get rid while the human element is still involved. Robot overlords or bust?

Re: The blockchain paradox: Why DLTs may do little to transform the economy

#166

Post by afuchs » Wed, Jun 14, 2017, 6:11 PM UTC

jasode wrote: post #107

eterm wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> prove useful for other recordkeeping such as real estate property transactions (e.g. no need to pay $300 fee for title searches in the future) That doesn't require a distributed ledger, just a database. In the UK it costs £3 and is searchable online. If it costs $300 then that is because someone wants it to cost that much.

> In the UK it costs £3 and is searchable online. If it costs $300 then My short text didn't give enough context. In the USA, that $$$ isn't really for the "search"; it's to pay for the "title insurance" . That title company insures that the buyer is getting a "clean title" with no conflicting claims of ownership from others he doesn't know about. The "search" is just one component of labor of what you're paying for.…

How is a distributed ledger different from the centralized ledgers that many US states use?

Normally, to verify ownership, each transaction is reviewed to verify that they follow a direct chain back to the property's origin.

Compare that to a blockchain, where an algorithm which all involved parties must agree to, traces ownership through each transaction involving the property back to its origin.

Both have situations that result in conflicts that have to be resolved, whether by algorithm or in a court room.

Re: The blockchain paradox: Why DLTs may do little to transform the economy

#167

Post by zeven7 » Wed, Jun 14, 2017, 6:15 PM UTC

gjem97 wrote: post #95

serg_chernata wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would say that this is exactly why Proof of Stake seems to be in higher regard than Proof of Work for new currencies as well as Ether's eventual transition later this year. Among other reasons, of course.

Is it generally accepted that this is inevitable? Or is it going to be a SegWit/Unlimited sort of situation?

It won't be like SegWit/Unlimited. The politics are very different and the technology is very different.

1. Politics. Ethereum has a leadership team which functions very differently from Bitcoin Core. For one, the creator of Ethereum is well known and outspoken. He and the other members of the Ethereum Foundation made it clear that their intention was always to move to Proof of Stake. Though there are some who may not support this move, the general community bought into the project knowing that this was the plan from the beginning. And there's a lot of trust of Vitalik.

2. Technology. Ethereum adapts much more quickly to mining difficulty than Bitcoin. Bitcoin can't survive with 90% of the hash power on one chain and 10% of the hash power on another chain. The smaller chain would take 10 hours to mine a single block and months to readjust the difficulty. It would be unusable. Ethereum has already shown its resiliency to a split during the DAO hard fork. The smaller chain adjusted quickly and survived. What this might mean is that with the change to PoS, there could be a dissenting faction that remains on PoW, and both chains will survive. This will allow the PoS chain to go ahead and push through with a split easily even without 100% support.

Re: The blockchain paradox: Why DLTs may do little to transform the economy

#168

Post by matt4077 » Wed, Jun 14, 2017, 6:15 PM UTC

nemo44x wrote: post #98

If 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…

What's most off-putting for me is the political ideology that often accompanies bitcoin. It's a sort of Ayn Rand-inspired libertarian anarchy that, among other things, wishes to replace democratic institutions (like central banks or courts) with algorithms.

It's too close to the conspiratorial and/or anti-establishment mindset to be comfortable.

Re: The blockchain paradox: Why DLTs may do little to transform the economy

#169

Post by mr_spothawk » Wed, Jun 14, 2017, 6:16 PM UTC

aaron-lebo wrote: post #139

nemo44x wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Groups of actors across the world can make an agreement that is enforced by a smart contract. When an actor fails to live up their obligation they are refused payment. There is no way to take off with something that is not yours. There is no reliable or efficient way to cheat. You don't have to know the other actors you are making an agreement for something with. Can you do this now without a smart contract? Of cours…

If it's so uncheatable, why did the original DAO get hacked?

IIRC, It wasn't "hacked". Rather the contract was written incorrectly from the outset, and the "hacker" merely used the withdraw method to ... withdraw.

Re: The blockchain paradox: Why DLTs may do little to transform the economy

#170

Post by mr_spothawk » Wed, Jun 14, 2017, 6:20 PM UTC

coldtea wrote: post #137

nemo44x wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cars were a solution to a problem that didn't exist when considered a certain way. Texting seemed fine but yet here we are with many billions of market cap for messaging programs. I agree there's hype on the other side of it too - look at the recent ICO craze. I'm not saying that crypto isn't getting love. But that it isn't getting much love from a very particular place. A place that traditionally has never had a pro…

> Cars were a solution to a problem that didn't exist when considered a certain way. What way? Because people absolutely would have jumped at the chance to go from a place to another faster (and more comfortably) and had myriads of reasons to want to do so at any time in history. > I'm not saying that crypto isn't getting love. But that it isn't getting much love from a very particular place. A place that traditional…

>Because people absolutely would have jumped at the chance to go from a place to another faster (and more comfortably) and had myriads of reasons to want to do so at any time in history.

The first cars were incredibly noisy, smelly, and actually killed a lot of folks. Yet somehow, here we are something like 100 years later, evaluating how many more years we'll have to wait before we can get go place to place without even having to touch a steering wheel.