171–180 of 244 posts
The answer to the fundamental ills of both Ethereum and Bitcoin is addressed in Cardano, which has been hard at work for 2+ years to create Ada and the first formally verified PoS type algorithm, Ouroboros. I wish more people would wrap their heads around the rigid approach to developing Ada that Cardano's taken so the light will come on... sort of like seasoned imperative language programmers who get bitten by the F…
It's strange to me how there are many among the Hacker News crowd who can read an article like this and have doubts about its thesis. You lived through the 80s and 90s right? I can't count how many times in my life I was told no one would ever need a computer in their house, we've gotten along for decades just fine without them. No one will ever buy books online, that's ridiculous, you can go to the store and have on…
Not sure the parallels are as strong as you're making them out to be; there are deep, deep flaws with proof of work as a concept because of the energy consumed. There will probably be a better end state for distributed trust, but we're legitimately not there yet.
It's strange to me how there are many among the Hacker News crowd who can read an article like this and have doubts about its thesis. You lived through the 80s and 90s right? I can't count how many times in my life I was told no one would ever need a computer in their house, we've gotten along for decades just fine without them. No one will ever buy books online, that's ridiculous, you can go to the store and have on…
And even those things that became successful did so in a form that the contemporaneous positive predictions did not expect. The 1990's predictions of the Internet was of decentralised power and freedom of information, what actually happened? There was a land-grab, and a new generation of billion-dollar corporations have become established. Where once there was Blockbuster, now there is Netflix...
My prediction is the same will happen with cryptocurrency and blockchain applications. The technology will live-on, mostly in non-currency applications (e.g. behind the scenes settlement rather than day-to-day transactions); most of the "land grab" phase will die off though. Then, one day, ten or twenty years from now, we'll realise that "fiat" currencies have been blockchain based since some un-trumpeted central bank upgrade eighteen-months prior. But no-one will have noticed, as they still spend "dollars" on a credit card... same as they always did.
It's strange to me how there are many among the Hacker News crowd who can read an article like this and have doubts about its thesis. You lived through the 80s and 90s right? I can't count how many times in my life I was told no one would ever need a computer in their house, we've gotten along for decades just fine without them. No one will ever buy books online, that's ridiculous, you can go to the store and have on…
1. Just because something is true in the past does not make everything else true in the future.
2. Just because something works does not mean it should be overvalued.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This - all things that can by done by SomethingSpecificCoin can be equally well done on smart contract platform ala Ethereum. There is no reason (except for rewarding founders and early investors) someone who want to provide taxi rides own specialized mining equipment for maintaining blockchain of a proprietary coin. I rode a taxi few months ago, and I don't remember having to change my currency for a TaxiCoin which…
> In fact, it is illegal for him not to accept the national currency. What country are you referencing? It can't be the US. https://www.federalreserve.gov/faqs/currency_12772.htm Is it legal for a business in the United States to refuse cash as a form of payment? Section 31 U.S.C. 5103, entitled "Legal tender," states: "United States coins and currency [including Federal reserve notes and circulating notes of Federal…
It's strange to me how there are many among the Hacker News crowd who can read an article like this and have doubts about its thesis. You lived through the 80s and 90s right? I can't count how many times in my life I was told no one would ever need a computer in their house, we've gotten along for decades just fine without them. No one will ever buy books online, that's ridiculous, you can go to the store and have on…
The future will definitely have cryptocurrency used in ways we can’t even imagine. Digital cash will be huge. That I believe. That any of the current currencies warrant any value at all much less the speculation, I’m iffy on.
Both statements “the future is crypto” and “current crypto is a bubble and all are worthless” can both be true.
The main use case of crypto currency, digital cash for digital transaction, does not require a bitcoin worth $1M. Successful cash doesn’t mean massive increases in crypto portfolios.
So the article doesn’t seem in conflict with my HN reading, 80s/90s surviving self any more than me thinking AOL and Broadcast.com sucked back then even though I bet my whole career on the Internet.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I lived through the 80s and early 90s. The difference is that I could do stuff with the early Internet. I could do stuff with BBSes. I could do stuff with early PCs. These things were almost immediately very useful to a lot of people. The reason I've become a bear on cryptocurrency is that I don't see the utility to justify the monstrous amounts of money pouring into it. It's almost 10 years old and today it's actual…
> I lived through the 80s and early 90s. The difference is that I could do stuff with the early Internet. I could do stuff with BBSes. I could do stuff with early PCs. These things were almost immediately very useful to a lot of people. You must have hung out with a nerdier crowd than I did :) I was the only person I knew who owned a personal computer until well into the late 90s. > The reason I've become a bear on c…
The fact that network effects to some extent works in the wrong direction for this technology is concerning. What happens when the current speculative cycle comes to an end and crypto needs to justify itself by its utility to end-users as opposed to investors?
P.S. Beside this point but one thing that can work in favor of crypto is the conflation of investors & users. You essentially get so many evangelicals for your project from the investment perspective "for free". If you can turn them to users, then you are in a nice shape. Though issue is that most these investors are only summertime soldiers.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
From a fintech perspective, I'll make a thirty year prediction that blockchains will be used to reduce costs associated with third party clearinghouses and auditing firms by strengthening assurances that data hasn't been manipulated while reducing the amount of staff necessary to carry out the required verifications.
Do you know much about those things? It'd be great if you could elaborate.
If all of the transactions of a company existed on a blockchain system, this would greatly simplify the auditing process. In order to have access to this system, your financial institution or business would run a node on the network, spreading out the overall cost of using the system. Because of cryptographic assurances, you can guarantee that past data hasn't been manipulated. Using smart contracts, you can also guarantee that every transaction follows certain conditions, making it impossible to do trickery like backdating documents. Security additions (like zkSNARKs today) would enable concealing specific aspects of transactions while allowing third parties to verify their validity.
Long term, you could theoretically have an entire exchange that runs on a blockchain, with asset transfers mediated via smart contracts. The clearinghouses that exist to verify the assets of those who buy and sell, and complete the paperwork to document such transfers, could be largely automated.
All of this can be achieved today with third parties, but you pay a lot for that trust. Once the technology has matured to a point where it's deployed widely and these types of transactions can be automated, I expect the associated costs of that trust to be reduced.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, you didn't get that right at all. Doubt and skepticism are inherent parts of creating new ideas, and at no point did I express that the people who are skeptical are wrong. Rather, I am surprised to see comments on a technical website like Hacker News that are treating the long, drawn out development of cryptocurrencies and blockchains as something that is completely different than the long, drawn out development…
So your point is that some technologies take a lot longer to mature than average, for example {some examples}, and the delay itself should not be held against such late-blooming technologies. I'm onboard with that. Although your argument may benefit from better phrasing, because it actually does come across like that, which is a disservice to your advocacy effort. Back on topic, I don't see a lot of people in this th…
Paper currency that may be in your pocket has serial numbers printed on it. Those numbers cannot be readily associated with an individual. Bitcoin and all other blockchain systems can be connected to a user directly or through alternative methods. This is ideal for government and is the direction most are taking - control over blockchain systems and therefore control over the system's users.
Pointing to credit or debit cards is a poor comparison since those require significant hurdles for participation. Cryptocurrency requires only a smartphone or some kind of computer and a rudimentary internet connection. The infrastructure for the entire system is already in place, unlike growth of the early internet needing computers and modems. Transactions work now and have been for years; higher level functions such as decentralized exchanges, asset registration and such are gradually being tested and implemented.
Meanwhile, users are voluntarily joining. Government needs do little other than take some corrective actions and dictate rules for usage of cryptocurrency that can be enforced within borders. It's a control-freak's dream come true.
It's strange to me how there are many among the Hacker News crowd who can read an article like this and have doubts about its thesis. You lived through the 80s and 90s right? I can't count how many times in my life I was told no one would ever need a computer in their house, we've gotten along for decades just fine without them. No one will ever buy books online, that's ridiculous, you can go to the store and have on…
Pretty much everything successful now was ridiculed or dismissed in the past, but that doesn't mean everything that was ridiculed or dismissed became successful. And even those things that became successful did so in a form that the contemporaneous positive predictions did not expect. The 1990's predictions of the Internet was of decentralised power and freedom of information, what actually happened? There was a land…
Tom, Dick, and Jane may not notice, but I would hope that those investing in that space, and those building out the technology, would :) The general public may not have an appreciation for the complexity behind it, but I assume many of Hacker News's readers, now and in the future, will be working on the forefront of developing this new technology.