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

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

#211

Post by KirinDave »

DINKDINK wrote: post #117
KirinDave wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If by strength you mean, "A clear methodology from which a sufficiently large ec2 buy can rapidly fragment the Bitcoin consensus" then yes, I suppose that's fantastic. From the perspective of people transacting on Bitcoin's infrastructure I suspect they'd call it "an attack."

>a sufficiently large ec2 buy can rapidly fragment the Bitcoin consensus You grossly underestimate the hashing capacity of the bitcoin network. The hashing capacity, at time of posting, is approximately 5,000,000,000 Gigahashes/second[1]. Spot measurement of the hashing capacity of an EC2 instance is 0.4 Gigahashes/second[2]. You would need 12 BILLION EC2 instances to 51% attack the bitcoin network.[3] Using EC2 to a…

I'm happy to be wrong, but I feel like I don't have to overcome the entire network's hashing, I need to overcome several individual instances. If I could isolate and attack individual members of the cluster quickly, I could begin to leverage their role in the cluster as they join, convinced that a single block must be true.

I don't need to overcome the network, I need to invite the network to have arguments with itself, by finding a way to introduce widespread partitioning of the network.

In this, the preference to longer hash chains seems like a good idea in a unified clock model but a somewhat optimistic decision in a split clock world.

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

#212

Post by just_one_time_ »

this_user wrote: post #176
moduspol wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Watch this video [1] of Bill Gates explaining the value of the Internet to David Letterman, where he's just not getting it at all. Bill's telling him the things it can do relative to David's interests, but he just sees those as problems that don't really exist because they've already been solved. It took decades before the Internet was useful to "the masses." I don't think there's some conspiracy among VCs, but I do…

The Internet opened up a whole new world of applications. Distributed ledgers do not. They are a complex and horribly inefficient solution to a very niche problem that crypto currrencies like Bitcoin have. But outside of that realm, they offer next to no technical advantages that would justify the exploding costs incurred by implementing this technology.

I just played (and lost) 0.25 bitcoin on a decentralized blackjack app. My losses got split up between the nodes hosting the network. If you don't see the huge opportunity for new applications you have your eyes closed.

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

#213

Post by jasode »

saalweachter wrote: post #205
jasode wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Why is there no government department (state or federal) holding the title registry? The governments (e.g. county courthouses) do store copies of the documents such as deeds and transfers. They stamp them with their seal so in that sense, they do "hold the authoritative title records". However, there is no computer database with rows for all real estate that has a binary column called "CLEAN_TITLE" with values TRUE/…

The fundamental question is "why is it easier to get everyone to agree to put their real estate transactions in a distributed ledger than in a centralized ledger?"

I tried to explain that in the last paragraph. Some people might want the features of distributed ledger such as less transaction costs and/or convenience of recording property transfers without requiring without filing papers with the government. Or the decentralized ledger assures public immutable records whereas with the central db, you have to trust there won't be a malicious government employee changing database data to fake ownership records.

Sure, in a limited sense... every distributed ledger use case can be replaced with a centralized database. The reason people would choose a distributed solution is to bypass the controls of the centralized authority. Similar reasons that bitcoin proponents prefer it over centralized fiat government currency.

Whether those distributed reasons are cost-effective or sensible remains to be seen. Who knows, maybe distributed ledgers will become so mainstream that it will be the county governments themselves that seed the real estate blockchain so they don't have to bother administering a central db.

(To be clear, I'm not trying to convince anyone of switching to distributed ledgers but laying out possible use cases.)

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

#214

Post by just_one_time_ »

nemo44x wrote: post #185
root_axis wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> First I'll say this isn't easy to answer in concrete terms. But someone will one day. This is not unreasonable, but you have to admit that it is a far cry from imminent revolution and a key reason why people are skeptical of this technology especially considering the bottomless pit of grandiose hype that accompanies it. > One concept would be to raise funds that can allow you arbitrage at a scalable level. Request…

Another idea: Etsy. Makers build things and post it to a Website and price it in some crypto currency. People buy it by sending money to a smart contract. A third party "oracle" is used to remit payment when the order is received. For instance the company that ships the product will signal delivery to the contract. The company that hosted the product takes a percent of the transaction payable after the final payment…

Root is not worth arguing about this. He is an old time SV Rich Lister who now sees the new thing coming and all he can do is try and shit on it so he can keep his amazing job as long as possible before anyone resizes he is no longer relevant.

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

#215

Post by nemo44x »

narrator wrote: post #192
cercatrova wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, I'll give you a practical example. Here is an excerpt from the book Blockchain Revolution. "bAIRBNB VERSUS AIRBNB bAirbnb is a distributed application (DApp), a set of smart contracts that stores data on a home-listings blockchain. The bAirbnb app has an elegant interface: owners can upload information and pictures of their property. The platform maintains reputation scores of both providers and renters to impr…

Does this scale though? It all sounds nice, but with the massive blockchain overhead is this system going to be able to serve the community at all? I heard that each node has to execute the block chain in Ethereum. Sounds like a lot of duplicated computing just to do something that would be much more efficient if centralized.

Right now probably not. However, Etherum has sharding, as well as other features to help scale, as a feature for the future. It isn't like we are stuck with the current implementations.

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

#216

Post by firethief »

nradov wrote: post #106
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…

Bitcoin is mostly popular in Eastern Europe and Asia for transfer payments, fiat currency conversion, money laundering, and evading capital controls (getting money out of China). In the US if you're doing legitimate business with other US entities then there's really no need for such a thing. I can write a check or send a credit card payment or wire transfer to another US bank with a reasonably high level of trust th…

As a freelancer in the US with local and international clients who are often small businesses or individuals, this has not been my experience at all. I have never found a way of accepting fiat payments that isn't some form of scam. Wire transfers are ok in theory (the $20-$45+ fees are unreasonable but tolerable), but falls apart when the client's way of sending an international wire transfer is through some 3rd party service that's capable of holding the payment in limbo indefinitely (and they do). I prefer Bitcoin because it's cheaper and more reliable than money transmitting services, faster than mailing a check, and I can accept payment from anyone without worrying about chargeback scams. For clients who don't want to do that, if the gig is large enough to warrant the overhead of determining whether I can trust them enough to accept a reversible payment, I accept a check in the mail like it's the '80s.

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

#217

Post by russdpale »

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…

With bitcoin, it is agreed upon using byzantine consensus. The only way a bad actor can manipulate the ledger is if they own enough nodes to gain a majority, which is virtually impossible. After just a handful of bit times is economically and mathematically impossible to reverse the contract.

I suggest listening to this Tim Ferris podcast with Nick Szabo: http://tim.blog/2017/06/04/nick-szabo/

The entire idea is that no arbiter is truly neutral, no third party is truly trustworthy. Block chain is the onset of FAT protocols and trustful computing.

If the poor of the world can understand the social mobility that crypto currency affords them, there will be no stopping it, in my opinion.

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

#218

Post by firethief »

coldtea wrote: post #122
nemo44x wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with this but you might be missing my point. Crypto as a store of value and the ability to transfer funds is nice and all but it's not the big picture. I think focusing on that you rightly see limited practical application in large parts of the world, such as the USA. The real revolution is in smart contracts and virtual machines that run on a blockchain and the ability to define ownership of a distributed or…

> The real revolution is in smart contracts and virtual machines that run on a blockchain and the ability to define ownership of a distributed organization to distribute profits accordingly. Blockchains on blockchains that having turing complete contracts that can guarantee there isn't even the ability to cheat the distributed, mainly anonymous organization participants. Sounds like something utterly complex even to…

People can use things without understanding how they work.

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

#219

Post by randomThoughts9 »

There are currencies with governance built in: PIVX and DASH are the two main exampled I know of.

Basically the nodes that have a stake in the system are allowed to vote on the direction the project is going.

My personal impression is that currently this model is still very rudimentary, but in the future I could still an almost autonomous system taking off.

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

#220

Post by maxthegeek1 »

nradov wrote: post #188
cercatrova wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, I'll give you a practical example. Here is an excerpt from the book Blockchain Revolution. "bAIRBNB VERSUS AIRBNB bAirbnb is a distributed application (DApp), a set of smart contracts that stores data on a home-listings blockchain. The bAirbnb app has an elegant interface: owners can upload information and pictures of their property. The platform maintains reputation scores of both providers and renters to impr…

Seriously? All that work just to save possibly 15%? And in reality the savings would be much less because someone has to pay to develop and support the app. You're going to have to come up with more realistic and compelling examples. It also doesn't address compliance with laws on payments and money transfers. Regardless of what the anarchists might want, those rules aren't going away and will be enforced vigorously…

15% is a lot.
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