Browsing to that page I notice my browser is pinging mainnet.infura.io over and over. Is infura.io the same company as hexel, do you have a formal partnership with them, or are you just piggy-backing their API without proxying it?
Launch HN: Hexel (YC W18) – Create a cryptocurrency for your community
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Re: Launch HN: Hexel (YC W18) – Create a cryptocurrency for your community
#52Everything you want to do can be done on a simple database. You can mint tokens / share it / explore other tokens / message people / view feed. It isn't clear why you want to forcibly put this on Ethereum blockchain and pay a fee to do every transfer (The transaction charge currently is ~ USD 0.5-1 per transaction)
Simple answer, your centralized database can go away tomorrow, or be arbitrarily modified. That can’t happen with the blockchain.
Does that happen to your databases a lot? That's just bad engineering.
Re: Launch HN: Hexel (YC W18) – Create a cryptocurrency for your community
#53Browsing to that page I notice my browser is pinging mainnet.infura.io over and over. Is infura.io the same company as hexel, do you have a formal partnership with them, or are you just piggy-backing their API without proxying it?
Infura is a service that allows you to make calls to the Ethereum blockchain. We use it to get the current state of your token contract.
Re: Launch HN: Hexel (YC W18) – Create a cryptocurrency for your community
#54Everything you want to do can be done on a simple database. You can mint tokens / share it / explore other tokens / message people / view feed. It isn't clear why you want to forcibly put this on Ethereum blockchain and pay a fee to do every transfer (The transaction charge currently is ~ USD 0.5-1 per transaction)
Simple answer, your centralized database can go away tomorrow, or be arbitrarily modified. That can’t happen with the blockchain.
Is this a real problem? Databases have been handling massive volume of transactions for decades.
Re: Launch HN: Hexel (YC W18) – Create a cryptocurrency for your community
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
Simple answer, your centralized database can go away tomorrow, or be arbitrarily modified. That can’t happen with the blockchain.
Does that happen to your databases a lot? That's just bad engineering.
That's not the troubling case.
The troubling case is the company hosting the DB shutting down, and therefore the entire system becoming worthless. This is what prevents you as the customer from trusting such a system.
Re: Launch HN: Hexel (YC W18) – Create a cryptocurrency for your community
#56Everything you want to do can be done on a simple database. You can mint tokens / share it / explore other tokens / message people / view feed. It isn't clear why you want to forcibly put this on Ethereum blockchain and pay a fee to do every transfer (The transaction charge currently is ~ USD 0.5-1 per transaction)
Simple answer, your centralized database can go away tomorrow, or be arbitrarily modified. That can’t happen with the blockchain.
Evangelism that embraces hyperbole while demonstrating ignorance does little to further adoption of nascent technologies.
Re: Launch HN: Hexel (YC W18) – Create a cryptocurrency for your community
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
Oh I do think the currencies should be used for exchanging things. I mostly meant that they shouldn’t be viewed as an investment or a way to make money. More as an actual currency.
That already exists and is named complementary currency. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complementary_currency There's no need for a blockchain, or distributed stuff, etc. The only thing you need is to convince people to accept it. You might as well make an app that transfers balance between rows on a database. And the reason why you never heard of complementary currency before, is that it's something done "just becau…
But isn't there still a cost advantage? Rather than securing a centralized database you simply create a coin secured by the Blockchain?
Re: Launch HN: Hexel (YC W18) – Create a cryptocurrency for your community
#58I'm somewhat of a blockchain sceptic (or rather, unconvinced at this stage), but this sounds really interesting.
Meta: This is also a very well written announcement post, IMO, and I suggest anyone looking to launch something learn from it. It starts off with the most important soundbites up front, including the rather weird sounding "it's supposed to be fun". Then it gives a bit of backstory, but most importantly, provides interesting examples that back up the weird "fun" assertion.
It ends with a pretty clear explanation of what this costs and what the business model is.
All in all, great job. Good luck!
Re: Launch HN: Hexel (YC W18) – Create a cryptocurrency for your community
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
Simple answer, your centralized database can go away tomorrow, or be arbitrarily modified. That can’t happen with the blockchain.
Does that happen to your databases a lot? That's just bad engineering.
It's just a bit more effort. All companies sell convenience.
Re: Launch HN: Hexel (YC W18) – Create a cryptocurrency for your community
#60I'm somewhat of a blockchain sceptic (or rather, unconvinced at this stage), but this sounds really interesting. Meta: This is also a very well written announcement post, IMO, and I suggest anyone looking to launch something learn from it. It starts off with the most important soundbites up front, including the rather weird sounding "it's supposed to be fun". Then it gives a bit of backstory, but most importantly, pr…
Thank you, that's really nice of you.