Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Blockchain at Berkeley

blockchain.berkeley.edu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 63 posts

Re: Blockchain at Berkeley

#31

Post by [deleted] »

xg15 wrote: post #29
simias wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think you can really split one from the other, the blockchain and its surrounding algorithms is how "you can bootstrap issuance of a new asset by incentivizing participants to assist in maintaining a specified computer network in exchange for cryptographically-{verifiable|enforced} units". I find the blockchain technology very interesting because it solves a very hard problem in an inventive way and at the sa…

If you talk about the general idea of an append-only distributed database with no central point of control, I agree with you. However the proof-of-work/auto-adjusting-difficulty method of asserting truth still seems horrible to me from a technical perspective. Politically, I don't want to live in a world where this principle catches on and an ever-growing % of energy production would be spend on solving meaningless m…

[deleted]

Re: Blockchain at Berkeley

#32

Post by cycomachead »

adi2412 wrote: post #11

This doesn't seem to open in Firefox on OSX for me. Anyone else facing an issue?

Berkeley undergrands have a special talent for building pretty websites that are terribly underperformant.

I say this with the utmost respect; I built a few of those as an undergrad too. :)

(And yes, it's obviously not just us Berkeley folks.)

Re: Blockchain at Berkeley

#33

Post by akhosla »

cycomachead wrote: post #32
adi2412 wrote: post #11

This doesn't seem to open in Firefox on OSX for me. Anyone else facing an issue?

Berkeley undergrands have a special talent for building pretty websites that are terribly underperformant. I say this with the utmost respect; I built a few of those as an undergrad too. :) (And yes, it's obviously not just us Berkeley folks.)

Haha, thanks for the feedback. We're gonna redesign soon so we'll make sure it's performant next time. :)

Re: Blockchain at Berkeley

#34

Post by nugget »

jameskegel wrote: post #23

There's a lot of pessimism in the comments here, and I feel like I'm the only one interested in where this will go. I can identify with what some of you are saying, but it is still interesting regardless. Distributed tech has some of the most fascinating projects right now. Here's a few examples: Distributed file storage: Sia [1] and Storj [2] are both using blockchain tech to form a dropbox-like atmosphere where you…

I like the concept of Sia but wouldn't the coin value be 1) loosely tied to Dropbox et al storage costs and 2) deflationary over time as storage costs are continually decreasing?

Re: Blockchain at Berkeley

#35

Post by akhosla »

arthurcolle wrote: post #24
mtgx wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You call it boring, others call it the most important invention in the last 500 years: https://hackernoon.com/why-everyone-missed-the-most-importan...

I'm a huge fan of cryptocurrencies and related decentralized technologies, but that is immaterial to the fact that anyone who acts obsessively focused on the blockchain data structure is missing an appreciation of what the actual underlying innovation is - please re-read my previous comment, it seems clear you didn't spend time thinking about the actual words I wrote. > the interesting part is how you can bootstrap i…

Hi! Blockchain at Berkeley executive here, we totally agree with you, and with all the buzzwords being thrown around these days, skepticism is understandable.

At the end of the day, we see blockchain as a general term. We have humble roots as the Bitcoin Association of Berkeley, but we wanted something agnostic and recognizable for the future, so we ended up with this. Sure, blockchains are just a data structure but the cryptographically enforced units wouldn't exist if it weren't for blockchain, or something like it (IOTA Tangle). I can assure you that the people here are only interested in the real stuff. :)

Some of the things we do here are related to teaching ([1]), Ethereum Dapp Development, and whitepaper talks. [2]

[1] https://blockchain.berkeley.edu/decal [2] https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5sgoRfoSp3jeX4DEqKLwKg

Re: Blockchain at Berkeley

#36

Post by akhosla »

xg15 wrote: post #29
simias wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think you can really split one from the other, the blockchain and its surrounding algorithms is how "you can bootstrap issuance of a new asset by incentivizing participants to assist in maintaining a specified computer network in exchange for cryptographically-{verifiable|enforced} units". I find the blockchain technology very interesting because it solves a very hard problem in an inventive way and at the sa…

If you talk about the general idea of an append-only distributed database with no central point of control, I agree with you. However the proof-of-work/auto-adjusting-difficulty method of asserting truth still seems horrible to me from a technical perspective. Politically, I don't want to live in a world where this principle catches on and an ever-growing % of energy production would be spend on solving meaningless m…

Recommend you check out Proof-of-Stake. It solves the problem of power wastage. ;)

Re: Blockchain at Berkeley

#38

Post by yosito »

akhosla wrote: post #33
cycomachead wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Berkeley undergrands have a special talent for building pretty websites that are terribly underperformant. I say this with the utmost respect; I built a few of those as an undergrad too. :) (And yes, it's obviously not just us Berkeley folks.)

Haha, thanks for the feedback. We're gonna redesign soon so we'll make sure it's performant next time. :)

May I suggest HTML? It's a revolutionary new technology developed by CERN that's accessible on virtually all web browsers.

Re: Blockchain at Berkeley

#39

Post by koolba »

I don't understand what this is. Is it a consulting company run by students? Is it normal to be able to use the name (and sub domain) of your school like this for a for-profit pursuit?

Re: Blockchain at Berkeley

#40

Post by atomical »

akhosla wrote: post #28
latenightcoding wrote: post #8

Honestly, it just looks like a group of students piggybacking on Berkeley's reputation to make some money doing blockchain consulting

Hi there, I am one of the executives of Blockchain at Berkeley. Happy to see we're getting some attention on here! I would love to clear some things up about what we do. :) We're a student group (mostly undergraduate) that runs somewhat like a non-profit. We focus on all things related to cryptocurrency and decentralized tech (more simply put, blockchain - that's at least how the world sees it). In the case of consul…

Does anyone in your group receive ether or tokens from your work with Ethereum?
Post reply on HN