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As Bitcoin Sinks, Industry Startups Are Forced to Cut Back

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Re: As Bitcoin Sinks, Industry Startups Are Forced to Cut Back

#311

Post by rchaud »

superkuh wrote: post #142
tonyedgecombe wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The easiest person to fool is yourself.

If you haven't seen the need for an apolitical currency yet you probably never will. But maybe you're just all viewing this from the perspective of traditional speculators and haven't even considered it?

> If you haven't seen the need for an apolitical currency yet you probably never will.

I do see the need for such a currency.

But if this one of the principles crypto enthusiasts believe in, why I do see so little being done to make it a viable medium of exchange? Did everyone just caught up in the gold rush and put their focus on seeing just how much fiat they could get for their BTC?

In fact, in the past year I've seen less news about BTC and more about the hordes of offshoot alt-coins that appear to have been released for the sole purpose of separating speculators from their money.

Re: As Bitcoin Sinks, Industry Startups Are Forced to Cut Back

#313

Post by shemnon42 »

hannasanarion wrote: post #265
shemnon42 wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The change needs to be coordinated, but how do you coordinate action between multiple actors when some of those actors are nefarious and actually acting against the change?

By punishing them with the force of law, just like we do with everyone else who doesn't follow the rules.

You missed the point where I was describing the Byzantine Generals problem, of which Byzantine Fault Tolerance solves, and BFT solutions are at the core of almost all blockchain protocols. Software imitates life.

Re: As Bitcoin Sinks, Industry Startups Are Forced to Cut Back

#314

Post by hannasanarion »

shemnon42 wrote: post #313
hannasanarion wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By punishing them with the force of law, just like we do with everyone else who doesn't follow the rules.

You missed the point where I was describing the Byzantine Generals problem, of which Byzantine Fault Tolerance solves, and BFT solutions are at the core of almost all blockchain protocols. Software imitates life.

There is no need for Byzantine tolerance when there is a single authority that is held responsible, like a bank, or a government.

Byzantine problems rarely occur in real life, they were effective invented by cryptocurrencies and "solved" by cryptocurrencies (by turning luck and wasrefulness into a measure of authority)

Re: As Bitcoin Sinks, Industry Startups Are Forced to Cut Back

#315

Post by Nasrudith »

hannasanarion wrote: post #314
shemnon42 wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You missed the point where I was describing the Byzantine Generals problem, of which Byzantine Fault Tolerance solves, and BFT solutions are at the core of almost all blockchain protocols. Software imitates life.

There is no need for Byzantine tolerance when there is a single authority that is held responsible, like a bank, or a government. Byzantine problems rarely occur in real life, they were effective invented by cryptocurrencies and "solved" by cryptocurrencies (by turning luck and wasrefulness into a measure of authority)

>There is no need for Byzantine tolerance when there is a single authority that is held responsible, like a bank, or a government.

Where do you live where a single authority that is held responsible? It must be a very idyllic place. In all seriousness a single authority is both very exploitable and failure prone.

Re: As Bitcoin Sinks, Industry Startups Are Forced to Cut Back

#316

Post by jsgo »

hndamien wrote: post #298
hannasanarion wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In me it triggers loss aversion: I don't want to put my money in a uninsured security that could be stolen or lost at any moment with no recourse.

Is the cash in your wallet insured? If stolen do you have recourse? Now you might tell me you have no cash for this very reason. That’s fair, but probably similar to the amount of money you should allocate.

Personally, I don’t carry cash on me. The only time I use it (kid’s lunches, lottery tickets for office pool (I refuse to be left behind in the unlikely event they win, otherwise wouldn’t play), and spur of the moment things requiring cash/check), I either withdraw right before needing or the night before. I also don’t do checks, really.

I’ve been able to get by with card for the vast majority of things, so it works for me.

Re: As Bitcoin Sinks, Industry Startups Are Forced to Cut Back

#317

Post by tuesdayrain »

cageface wrote: post #250
leppr wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So "open" = "toxic"? Or is it another aspect of Facebook and Bitcoin that you're criticizing? I fail to see another common characteristic.

Openness is not the issue. I think algorithmic feeds are the root of a lot of the problems. They tend over time to favor sensational and negative content because that's the easiest way to drive engagement. Valuing "engagement" over all other metrics has caused a lot of the problems with this generation of social platforms IMO. I guess I'd describe Bitcoin as more naive than toxic. The failure of its designers to see…

> The failure of its designers to see that it would mostly be used as a platform for money laundering

Is there a source on this? I have a hard time believing that's what it's "mostly" used for.

Re: As Bitcoin Sinks, Industry Startups Are Forced to Cut Back

#318

Post by stale2002 »

sgt101 wrote: post #307
stale2002 wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are talking about an extreme edge case situation, where the entire world declares crypto to be illegal. I will agree that in this situation, crypto is probably dead. The much more likely scenario, though, is that a couple countries try to make crypto illegal, and other countries don't, and the decentralization of crypto makes it very difficult for the attacking country to stop it. The banning country isn't going…

Nhawww - I was thinking about the USA doing it...

The USA has proven to be extremely friendly to crypto, actually. The SEC supports it.

So once again, this hypothetical seems very unlikely.

Re: As Bitcoin Sinks, Industry Startups Are Forced to Cut Back

#319

Post by jMyles »

bmer wrote: post #211
jMyles wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am unable to edit my comment at this time, but reading it, I think it's very, very obvious from my language ("If I am permitted to send one of my recent talks[0] back with this message about our progress at NuCypher...") that I work at NuCypher. It's not like I mentioned it in passing; I mentioned it specifically to talk about my own experience. And what are "NuCoin things"? What are you talking about? Do you even…

> If you have specific suggestions about how to be more responsible than we have, please offer them and stop with the melodrama. HTTP and TCP/IP do not provoke "child like" wonder and curiosity, because they can be understood by everyone. In other words, they provoke a more mature sense of wonder: one that is backed by a fundamental grasping of the technology, which means people also understand the challenges associa…

> HTTP and TCP/IP do not provoke "child like" wonder and curiosity, because they can be understood by everyone. In other words, they provoke a more mature sense of wonder: one that is backed by a fundamental grasping of the technology, which means people also understand the challenges associated with the tech. The fun is in overcoming the challenge.

It's precisely the same with blockchain tech in every respect you've described here. And indeed many of us did (and still do) have a high degree of wonder over what's possible with HTTPS and TCP/IP more generally. The "child like" part comes from the realization that the species is indeed undergoing a rapid maturing process, and that the internet is a part of our collective childhood.

> With shitcoin technobabble: little to no effort is made to explain the underlying tech with useful analogies (often times, because there isn't really any underlying tech, or because the tech is actually only going to benefit a small proportion of "users").

Did this person just tell me that I have used too few analogies? I strongly suspect that you actually have no idea who we are or what we're about.

There is nothing about this part of the comment that reflects a mature and educated grasp of this topic.

Re: As Bitcoin Sinks, Industry Startups Are Forced to Cut Back

#320

Post by jMyles »

mindfulplay wrote: post #213
jMyles wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am unable to edit my comment at this time, but reading it, I think it's very, very obvious from my language ("If I am permitted to send one of my recent talks[0] back with this message about our progress at NuCypher...") that I work at NuCypher. It's not like I mentioned it in passing; I mentioned it specifically to talk about my own experience. And what are "NuCoin things"? What are you talking about? Do you even…

The NuCypher has the Hallmark of a marketing website for ICOs and perfect whitepapers and awesome 'team' photos and other stuff that should raise a million red flags. I have seen this game a million times with so many ICOs with 'super nice squeaky clean websites' before. I am sure there is _some_ technology hidden there. But to me it just screams money money money. Not technology technology technology. Have seen this…

You said in a separate comment that your intention is specifically to inflame, so I don't care to respond to you anymore. However, I will take care to correct some of your misinformation just in case others are mislead by what you've said here:

> The NuCypher has the Hallmark of a marketing website for ICOs and perfect whitepapers and awesome 'team' photos and other stuff that should raise a million red flags.

1) As you already know but seem wont to pretend you don't: we are not having an ICO in the typical sense. We will not be having a public sale until our network is launched. There is nothing "ICOish" about our method. If people are interested in using our network, they can buy our token. And they can't even do that until we launch.

2) We have awesome whitepapers. We are leading the fields of proxy re-encryption and homomorphic encryption. I'm not going to apologize for the fact that we have published our whitepapers.

3) We have an awesome team. I mean, seriously, look at the team we've built. Working at NuCypher feels like playing at the all-star game. And yes, we all get along and enjoy traveling together. I'm not going to apologize for documenting that.

We are putting out solid code that runs. And it does things that haven't been done before. Ideally, I'd love for people not to have the kind of anxiety and discomfort living in the world today that is displayed by this comment. But I don't really know what more to do about it. I'll continue committing and releasing.

> I am sure there is _some_ technology hidden there.

Is that because you watched the live demo to which I linked you? Or because you looked at our repositories? Or because you have watched any of our recent talks at conferences specifically discussing our tech?

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