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

Re: Wall Street rethinks blockchain projects as euphoria meets reality

#351

Post by throwawaylolx » Thu, Mar 29, 2018, 9:50 PM UTC

acdha wrote: post #342

throwawaylolx wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>voting https://eprint.iacr.org/2017/1043.pdf Also, https://eprint.iacr.org/2017/375.pdf Section 4.4.2 >storage https://filecoin.io/filecoin.pdf https://storj.io/storj.pdf ^ Detailed analyses that explain why blockchain is an appropriate solution But please do elaborate how they are "known to be worse." By whom and can you cite the analysis that proved so? Certainly not known by Google if they invested in a blockchai…

Your second link discusses the problems with voting and correctly votes that they are unsolved, which was the entire point. Every solution proposed so far is a huge regression for privacy or coercion, so it’s dishonest to claim that as anything other than an area which could become not-worse if future fundamental breakthroughs occur. File storage is similar: lots of people want you to buy their pet project but if you…

>they are unsolved, which was the entire point.

I thought the point was that "they are known to be worse."

>Every solution proposed so far is a huge regression for privacy or coercion

Can you please elaborate how is the solution proposed in the paper linked in the first URL a regression over non-blockchain solutions?

>it’s dishonest to claim that

I replied to the question of "what problem is this technology solving," and the paper you mentioned claims that "it seems reasonable that blockchain technology can help to achieve some of the desired properties." What exactly am I being dishonest with? I cited a paper where a protocol is proposed to help solving the eVoting problem. It directly answers the question I was aiming to answer--I never said my list was about already working, deployed, tested solutions.

>File storage is similar: lots of people want you to buy their pet project but if you want reliable, secure, and cost effective it’s all “maybe sometime in the future when we have something different”. Talk about it as an advantage when it’s competitive for most people.

Right... so your counter-argument is that "it's not yet ready" despite claiming that "they are known to be worse." No one said they're ready. They're using experimental technology and they're small teams. They already have beta implementations out if you want to test them. Yes, they're not polished and ready for consumers, is this your entire point?

Re: Wall Street rethinks blockchain projects as euphoria meets reality

#352

Post by wpietri » Thu, Mar 29, 2018, 9:54 PM UTC

xtracto wrote: post #138

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…

I think about 70% of blockchain related stuff is hype. However, there have been blockchain related projects that have been useful: In Mexico for example: http://iireporter.com/amis-and-ibm-collaborate-on-blockchain... I saw a very good presentation regarding this HyperLedger project, and IMO this kind of projects are the ones that will form the future of blockchain technology.

This is an announcement of a future prototype. It is literally not useful. It is hype.

I'm all for people trying things out; prototypes are how we learn. So good for them for trying it and seeing what happens; maybe one day it will be useful. But it's maddening that people keep confusing marketing-driven press releases for actual delivered utility.

Re: Wall Street rethinks blockchain projects as euphoria meets reality

#353

Post by throwawaylolx » Thu, Mar 29, 2018, 9:57 PM UTC

toomuchtodo wrote: post #345

throwawaylolx wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>empty promises Can you please support your position? Bitcoin promised a digital decentralized payment solution, and it delivered the first solution in history. Monero promised anonymized payments, and they delivered the most private solution for untraceable digital currency. Can you point me to the superior non-blockchain alternatives?

> Can you point me to the superior non-blockchain alternatives? Credit cards, p2p payments in various countries, and cash. All digital currencies in one form or another are inferior to existing financial instruments.

>Credit cards

Not anonymous nor decentralized

> p2p payments in various countries

Such as?

>cash

Not digital.

>All digital currencies in one form or another are inferior to existing financial instruments.

Then please explain to me how do I make an anonymous payment online without a third party using existing financial instruments.

Re: Wall Street rethinks blockchain projects as euphoria meets reality

#354

Post by ahnick » Thu, Mar 29, 2018, 9:59 PM UTC

sangnoir wrote: post #294

kerkeslager wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, not really. Anything where decentralized trust is useful: money, anonymous messaging, voting, etc. Cheaper/better isn't really relevant, because these things can't be done by a centralized method without trusting a central authority, period.

> Anything where decentralized trust is useful: money, anonymous messaging, voting, etc. I completely disagree with your examples: trust in money is centralized because I trust a central government will ensure it is legal tender, and that a central bank will act in the best interest of stability. If there's no centralized trusted party in messaging - how can I trust the messages? Trust has to be rooted somewhere - wh…

The difference between centralized trust and decentralized trust is you can actually audit and reason about the system. In centralized trust you are typically hoping that human actors obey rules both written and unwritten. In decentralized trust the system is solely responsible and the code of the system is the exact rules it will follow. The tricky part of decentralized systems of course is have their designs been done flawlessly, so there are no vulnerabilities. (A very hard thing to do) In practice, perhaps decentralized systems do not have to be perfect, but just better than the centralized alternatives.

Re: Wall Street rethinks blockchain projects as euphoria meets reality

#355

Post by rootusrootus » Thu, Mar 29, 2018, 9:59 PM UTC

elmar wrote: post #341

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…

>(and also enabling things like money laundering, drug trafficking, etc.) "Darknet markets are no longer a major use of Bitcoin, accounting for less than 1% of Bitcoin transactions in 2017" https://blog.chainalysis.com/crypto-crime/

Mainly because known markets were shut down (maybe some new ones have cropped up which are not in that tracker?) and the dominant use of bitcoin transactions currently is wild speculation.

Re: Wall Street rethinks blockchain projects as euphoria meets reality

#356

Post by sp527 » Thu, Mar 29, 2018, 9:59 PM UTC

CPLX wrote: post #327

donmatito wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Coming from a logistics background, coordinating tracability data is painful within a company , even with help of ERP like SAP. But when you need tracability across an industry , it becomes almost impossible. I had professional experience in an industry where we had to go to the plants to ensure rolls of paper certified from suppliers using responsibly-managed forests were physically separated from the non-certified…

OK great. Now how do you get "the blockchain" to know which paper rolls went into which shipping container.

I've heard the logistics value prop from a number of people, and not a single person has ever been able to fully articulate an answer to "okay walk me through how it works". I once literally went through 5+ iterations of this with a friend that devolved into hand-waving.

Re: Wall Street rethinks blockchain projects as euphoria meets reality

#357

Post by machinehermit » Thu, Mar 29, 2018, 10:01 PM UTC

SlowRobotAhead wrote: post #41

pxmpxm wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The delay and cost is a function of mandatory compliance and recourse, rather than anything to do with technology.

I’m glad some people get it. Banks do zero delay and zero cost transactions between themselves already. The idea that “if only we coukd figure out where to use blockchain, everything would be FREE” is really naive. You take away a banks ability to charge for X, don’t be surprised when Y gets a new fee. As to decentralized, there seems to be a wonderful libritarian ideal around cryptocommodities but I’m reality they a…

The power consumption is the most goofy part of the whole idea though.

It is the fatal flaw of POW. It is like just pretending that the power cost is not part of the cost of a transaction.

Re: Wall Street rethinks blockchain projects as euphoria meets reality

#358

Post by chrisco255 » Thu, Mar 29, 2018, 10:01 PM UTC

mad44 wrote: post #126

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…

https://medium.com/@cdixon/why-decentralization-matters-5e3f...

Re: Wall Street rethinks blockchain projects as euphoria meets reality

#359

Post by toomuchtodo » Thu, Mar 29, 2018, 10:08 PM UTC

throwawaylolx wrote: post #353

toomuchtodo wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Can you point me to the superior non-blockchain alternatives? Credit cards, p2p payments in various countries, and cash. All digital currencies in one form or another are inferior to existing financial instruments.

>Credit cards Not anonymous nor decentralized > p2p payments in various countries Such as? >cash Not digital. >All digital currencies in one form or another are inferior to existing financial instruments. Then please explain to me how do I make an anonymous payment online without a third party using existing financial instruments.

Explain to me where this is a valid use case. I think that’s where we disagree. I don’t see the need for anonymous electronic payments.

Re: Wall Street rethinks blockchain projects as euphoria meets reality

#360

Post by TheSpiceIsLife » Thu, Mar 29, 2018, 10:08 PM UTC

bunderbunder wrote: post #305

simias wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the average human being values convenience and low fees much more than privacy (otherwise Facebook and credit cards wouldn't be quite as popular). That means that I expect that wallets and stores that offer the smallest fee will be the ones people use most. A well connected node will be cheaper to transact with by virtue of not having to open a new channel. That gives well connected "bank" nodes a lot of powe…

> I think the average human being values convenience and low fees much more than privacy I think it ends up being more nuanced than that, with plenty of gradations of all of those factors. If it means, "Literally nobody can know whether I prefer pads or tampons, and where I get them, not even the person I buy pads or tampons from", then I'm going to lean toward paying cash at some random drug store. A brick and morta…

In reality, the average person is going to buy pads or tampons in a way that is most convenient to them.

Only the subset of privacy concerned consumers who don't want anyone to know whether they prefer pads or tampons will go out of their way to visit a random drug store.