Wall Street rethinks blockchain projects as euphoria meets reality • Hacker News Board

Re: Wall Street rethinks blockchain projects as euphoria meets reality

#121

Post by hudon » Thu, Mar 29, 2018, 4:12 PM UTC

jcoffland wrote: post #109

hudon wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the fundamental assumption is that "Satoshi invented a useful solution to decentralized consensus". What people don't realize is that Satoshi's solution only works if two assumptions hold true: 1. Mining is decentralized: If mining is centralized than relying on proof-of-work for consensus is waste since the centralized entity controls the blockchain anyway. 2. Consensus rules don't change: If you see the thr…

> If you change the consensus ruleset...then you need an oracle to tell you which chain to choose. What are you talking about? The rule to choose the correct chain is well defined and simple. The longest chain, i.e. the one with the most work done, is the correct chain.

I'm not sure if you've spoken to any Bitcoin developers recently, but they'll tell you you're wrong and that it is the valid chain with the most work, not the chain with the most work. They'll then tell you what valid means.

Some developers would agree with you though, like Gavin Andresen [0].

Either way, you end up with either centralized miners deciding the fate of the chain, or centralized developers deciding the fate of the chain. Both outcomes are contrary to what Satoshi envisioned.

[0] http://gavinandresen.ninja/a-definition-of-bitcoin

Re: Wall Street rethinks blockchain projects as euphoria meets reality

#122

Post by evnn » Thu, Mar 29, 2018, 4:13 PM UTC

x220 wrote: post #100

malvosenior wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they have not enabled any new production or efficient distribution You know of another way to transfer massive amounts of money around the globe without middle men? This claim that cryptocurrency offers no value is completely ignorant of the most basic and fundamental properties of the technology.

You do need middlemen. The middleman is whatever service you must use to convert btc or eth to local currency which will actually be accepted for payments.

No. You don't need "local currency". With widespread adoption you can just pay sellers directly with cryptocurrency.

Re: Wall Street rethinks blockchain projects as euphoria meets reality

#123

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Mar 29, 2018, 4:15 PM UTC

johnchristopher wrote: post #6

scrooched_moose wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> what was all that effort being spent on Not being left behind if you're wrong. I'm in a tech-adjacent industry and see it all the time. Competitor A comes out with "shiny new technology" and markets the hell out of it. My company panics because we're suddenly lagging behind and rushes a competing project into development. Competitor B sees all of this and hops in too. All of a sudden it's the new direction of the i…

An example from the top of your head ?

[deleted]

Re: Wall Street rethinks blockchain projects as euphoria meets reality

#124

Post by kyloon » Thu, Mar 29, 2018, 4:16 PM UTC

Basically the finance industry is trying to shoehorn their legacy business systems into blockchain, which of course will not make any advantage obvious other than finding out it is much more difficult to reimplement what is already working with a different system. My view on this is that blockchain ought to find a very specific problem (e.g. trust as a service) that cannot be achieve with existing technology.

Re: Wall Street rethinks blockchain projects as euphoria meets reality

#125

Post by chrisco255 » Thu, Mar 29, 2018, 4:16 PM UTC

djyaz1200 wrote: post #111

nwah1 wrote: post #7

It is interesting that even in an article like this that they still say things like "for all its potential, blockchain is still in its early days." It is sticking with the unfounded assumption that it will be a success in the future, if only it is given more time. In technological terms, it is old. Innumerable efforts have been attempted, yielding almost no fruit. At what point are the fundamental assumptions going t…

Good point. Having a strong 3rd party intermediary moderating/backing transactions is a feature not a bug. This is why people bank with JP Morgan and similar huge banks. Although they charge fees you do get something for the money. They are governed by laws, have physical locations, people to talk to, fraud prevention and raw financial, legal, and regulatory power. I have no love for them but I believe they will guar…

Did 2008 teach us nothing?

Re: Wall Street rethinks blockchain projects as euphoria meets reality

#126

Post by mad44 » Thu, Mar 29, 2018, 4:16 PM UTC

I have been trying to see why full p2p decentralization matters, but am unable to find much support for it.

[1] https://muratbuffalo.blogspot.com/2018/03/change-my-mind-abo...

[2] https://muratbuffalo.blogspot.com/2018/02/blockchains-from-d...

The applications of full p2p decentralization are also not clear:

[3] https://muratbuffalo.blogspot.com/2018/03/blockchain-applica...

[4] https://muratbuffalo.blogspot.com/2018/02/paper-review-ipfs-...

Re: Wall Street rethinks blockchain projects as euphoria meets reality

#127

Post by granaldo » Thu, Mar 29, 2018, 4:16 PM UTC

The great correction is here https://www.coingecko.com/en shows total red Everyone needs to start waking up. Blockchain solves transfer of value really well, took years for it to prove that it works. What has the other projects proven?

Re: Wall Street rethinks blockchain projects as euphoria meets reality

#128

Post by JumpCrisscross » Thu, Mar 29, 2018, 4:16 PM UTC

mr_spothawk wrote: post #114

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it takes up to 5 days to receive a payment from USA in the EU and the sender pays 40$ for the wire transfer U.S. dollar Fedwires are “immediate, final, and irrevocable“ [1] regardless of from where they are initiated. If your EU bank takes 5 business days to swap between the world’s two most liquid currencies, you have a uniquely shitty bank. [1] https://www.federalreserve.gov/paymentsystems/fedfunds_about...

> In 2008, approximately 7,300 participants made Fedwire funds transfers. The Fedwire Funds Service is generally used to make large-value, time-critical payments. seems like maybe the crux of this discussion is that, all of the sudden the features of banking have been automated. that’s definitely not the same as “the features of banks, regulation, etc...” have been automated. But certainly, we can see that the Fedwir…

> In 2008, approximately 7,300 participants made Fedwire funds transfers

To be a Fedwire participant you have to be a Federal Reserve member, i.e. a bank. Consumers arrange Fedwires through their banks. When I send a wire, I'm not a Fedwire participant--my bank is. If you have a U.S. dollar bank account, you have access to the international Fedwire system.

Re: Wall Street rethinks blockchain projects as euphoria meets reality

#129

Post by soneca » Thu, Mar 29, 2018, 4:17 PM UTC

I think blockchain is like 3D movies. It is intriguing enough to put the foot on the door of public imagination so people with vested interests have a crack to keep pushing their agenda through.

Re: Wall Street rethinks blockchain projects as euphoria meets reality

#130

Post by ftlio » Thu, Mar 29, 2018, 4:19 PM UTC

djyaz1200 wrote: post #111

nwah1 wrote: post #7

It is interesting that even in an article like this that they still say things like "for all its potential, blockchain is still in its early days." It is sticking with the unfounded assumption that it will be a success in the future, if only it is given more time. In technological terms, it is old. Innumerable efforts have been attempted, yielding almost no fruit. At what point are the fundamental assumptions going t…

Good point. Having a strong 3rd party intermediary moderating/backing transactions is a feature not a bug. This is why people bank with JP Morgan and similar huge banks. Although they charge fees you do get something for the money. They are governed by laws, have physical locations, people to talk to, fraud prevention and raw financial, legal, and regulatory power. I have no love for them but I believe they will guar…

You're probably referring to a strong 3rd party intermediary as the aggregate of our financial system when you refer to its regulatory power here, but that it reads like the bank itself has regulatory power is the critique of money provided by Bitcoin in a nutshell. Regulatory capture IS the problem of scalability with our monetary system. Bitcoin exists to prove this.