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Building for the Blockchain

blog.ycombinator.com

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Re: Building for the Blockchain

#281

Post by mbrock »

banachtarski wrote: post #265
mbrock wrote: post #262

People are so upset about blockchain being useless. Meanwhile I use it regularly to do business transactions from the command line and shell scripts, which appeals to me greatly as a hacker who does business. Open source finance! It's the future, guys. Sorry about the speculative bubble. It's not really my fault though. Traders and investors are a bit crazy.

You don't need a blockchain to "do business transactions from the command line and shell scripts" so I don't find your personal counterexample particularly compelling

Which alternative are you referring to?

Re: Building for the Blockchain

#282

Post by Shoothe »

zaptheimpaler wrote: post #252
Shoothe wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But generally speaking, this protocol issue is of little interest for end users. > What is of interest to them is the fact that their data can become decentralized with the blockchain I'm not really interested in putting my emails in a blockchain, or did you mean some kind of... different data?

Bank data is one example. We don't even own our own transaction history/data - no bank provides free APIs to access this for consumers, the only option is to download manually/scrape through their websites. And as banks own this data, they could stop or handicap exports even further anytime they choose. I know if my bank gave me simple API access to my own data I would not have any use for apps like Quicken/Mint. Cre…

> no bank provides free APIs to access this for consumers, the only option is to download manually/scrape through their websites.

In Europe they will have to provide the API thanks to PSD2: https://softjourn.com/blog/open-banking-api/

> Ad tracking/browsing data is another. The current model is the people making the trackers own all your data. A model where WE own our web activity data and selectively choose what to expose to websites/advertisers would be much better for consumers.

I don't know how this relates to blockchain at all. Blockchain by design is public and replicated to anyone. How would you withdraw your data from there?

Re: Building for the Blockchain

#283

Post by cturner »

Jasper_ wrote: post #263
cturner wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(I'm explaining the dream here. If I knew what I was talking about, I would have done it.) If the blockchain community gets the contract/language issues sorted out, a small dev team could knock out a first-stage system like the fisheries system in three months and in two layers of technology (contracts, oracles). It would be trivial to operate and resilient to server failure (less-so the oracles). Ten years later, it…

So it sounds like what you really want is a better centralized database that has those properties, rather than a slow, energy-inefficient ledger providing features you don't need like reward tokens, mining, and decentralization.

You don't have mining in proof-of-stake. (Mining is for proof-of-work.)

My focus is multiple-host, centralised async systems. I think this is the future, and that databases will be marginalised. Comment here elsewhere gives more details.

I may turn out to be wrong. In that case, we will end up in the kind of blockchain world described in my earlier comments. I suspect it will hinge on whether it is possible to create a good-enough high-level language.

Re: Building for the Blockchain

#284

Post by ruiquelhas »

CPLX wrote: post #238
ruiquelhas wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know about so called blockchain projects like ethereum, but bitcoin has value because it has inelastic demand. There are a lot of underserved people out there that need bitcoin, regardless of its value, in their daily lives because they can't use fiat currency for things like buying quality drugs online, getting rid of ransomware, laundering money, etc. Hell, if these don't pass the ideological test, just ask…

I'll bite. Why does someone from Venezuela need Bitcoin?

You have some good answers here: https://apnews.com/f7ccc4ea283746f28b261cabeaf8f0c5

Re: Building for the Blockchain

#285

Post by TeMPOraL »

tikwidd wrote: post #253
TeMPOraL wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Whatever value has been delivered seems extremely minor compared to the vast sums of money being spent, making this perhaps the worst ROI I've ever seen. What's even worse, from my POV, is the humongous amount of electricity that is used to support the blockchain. And to what end? Personally, I won't start believing in the blockchain until a non-wasteful alternative to the present PoW scheme gets developed and actu…

The 'end' is the security of the bitcoin blockchain. Defence forces consume a massive amount of energy and human resources. They are still funded because countries don't all trust each other and they want security. An alternative to Proof of Work such as Proof of Stake would be like a country having a nuclear arsenal, allowing it to cut back on military spending. The problem seems to be that the incentives are on the…

You're talking about the means of blockchain to self-preservation; I'm saying that we don't need blockchain, that it eats way too much for the fun it provides, so we should just kill it off and call it a day.

> The 'end' is the security of the bitcoin blockchain. Defence forces consume a massive amount of energy and human resources. They are still funded because countries don't all trust each other and they want security.

Yes. Wasteful as evil as the concept of a military is, countries need military forces to maintain peace, by keeping each other in check. It's an unfortunate direct consequence of the way humans organize themselves into societies.

But blockchain is not a direct consequence of a fundamental issue in human organization process (if anything, it's just a direct consequence of human greed meeting 2010s tech). It's the least efficient way of doing anything, because it completely eschews the need to trust other actors. Yes, I believe trustless systems are mostly a bad thing, because trust is literally the efficiency hack that allows us to coordinate at scale.

There are probably some theoretical problems where a trustless solution is perfect. But as it is today, the blockchain is trying to turn everything in the society into a Cold War-like military spending problem to avoid having to trust one another, even though trust-based systems work just fine.

Re: Building for the Blockchain

#286

Post by ThomPete »

sah2ed wrote: post #279
krrrh wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does a blockchain limit illegal reproduction? Having an record of ownership ain’t gonna shut down the torrents whether it’s in a database in Apple’s data center, or on a blockchain. How does this square with blockchain-related projects like IPFS which basically make it impossible to stop piracy?

Sorry if my reply implied that the blockchain is somehow comparable to DRM -- they are not. I was merely talking about the effects of the blockchain. The outcome of using a blockchain is identical to the outcome of using DRM: they both can be used to engender the illusion of scarcity of something that is not naturally scarce. Without (the illusion of) scarcity, the enforcement of property (or access) rights on the In…

The illusion of scarcity isn't the point. The point is saving the unique history of an asset. Like leaving your footprint in the digital world like it was in the physical.

The art-scene is based on this principle.

Re: Building for the Blockchain

#287

Post by goldenkey »

tenaciousDaniel wrote: post #153
goldenkey wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bingo. Most cryptocurrencies/contracts/anything in the field/realm -- they don't attack the problem of "person" vs address/wallet/account. ChainLink might think they are clever but like you said..when accounts in your network are free, then don't expect any kind of consensus to work. Accounts or rather, more abstractly, entry into your network -- needs to cost something that can't be easily done to gain majority. Ano…

Accounts are free, but interaction is not. There's a stake to be lost in these transactions.

One thing that these networks don't seem to protect well against are fake peers that request data but dont provide it. These currencies and coins have been lucky in that regard and have prevented some of it by seeding their own trusted peers as the initial peer neighborhood. But is this true decentralization? Seems a bit obtuse. To add to the baffle, IPFS started using bitcoin and ethereum for storing the initial peer data for new clients to connect to. Its a web... maybe thats ok. Are things allowed to be this tangled? ;-)

Re: Building for the Blockchain

#288

Post by Heraclite »

traverseda wrote: post #174
manderson2080 wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a penalty payment that each node puts up into escrow for each assignment of data, and if the data is not accurate in relation to all the other providers of that same data, the node will lose the payment. There will also likely be a small amount fo LINK required to start a node with enough reputation to gain assignments which would also increase the cost of a Sybil attack.

Mmm, what would stop me from just grabbing the data the other oracles made available, and pretending I did the actual calculation/check/api-call/whatever?

Check the paragraph about Freeloading in their whitepaper

Re: Building for the Blockchain

#289

Post by CryptoPunk »

natural219 wrote: post #156

> Alternatively, the distribution of value in the blockchain paradigm can be described with fat protocols and a thin application layer. This paradigm shift is possible due to the innovation of cryptographic tokens. As a long-time decentralization activist, this sentiment makes me want to tear my eyeballs out. Why are cryptographic tokens necessary to implement fat protocols? Why does "standardizing communication acro…

It explains in the two subsequent paragraphs:

>>“Historically the only way to make money from a protocol was to create software that implemented it and then try to sell this software (or more recently to host it)… With [cryptographic] tokens, however, the creators of a protocol can ‘monetize’ it directly and will in fact benefit more as others build businesses on top of that protocol.”

>>Previously, the creators of open communication protocols for the Internet, largely DARPA researchers and non-profit contributors, could not align financial incentives with protocol development. In contrast, protocol creators today can issue “tokens”, like Bitcoin and Ethereum, that represent the value of their decentralized protocols.

The key is that it can "align financial incentives with protocol development".

Re: Building for the Blockchain

#290

Post by lgierth »

goldenkey wrote: post #287
tenaciousDaniel wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Accounts are free, but interaction is not. There's a stake to be lost in these transactions.

One thing that these networks don't seem to protect well against are fake peers that request data but dont provide it. These currencies and coins have been lucky in that regard and have prevented some of it by seeding their own trusted peers as the initial peer neighborhood. But is this true decentralization? Seems a bit obtuse. To add to the baffle, IPFS started using bitcoin and ethereum for storing the initial pee…

> To add to the baffle, IPFS started using bitcoin and ethereum for storing the initial peer data for new clients to connect to.

This is false. Where did you get that impression?

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