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Why I’m so “against” Ethereum

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Re: Why I’m so “against” Ethereum

#11

Post by nonbel »

yoshuaw wrote: post #10
nonbel wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "existing solutions which don’t burn energy" Like what?

Most computer programs don't rely on brute-forcing hashes to produce results. Programs that don't require brute-force commonly use many times less energy than programs that do rely on brute force. This extra cost is often seen as wasteful.

>"Programs that don't require brute-force commonly use many times less energy than programs that do rely on brute force."

Can you give an example of a program that gives similar results?

Re: Why I’m so “against” Ethereum

#12

Post by api »

gnarbarian wrote: post #8
simonebrunozzi wrote: post #2

TL;DR: A long, insightful, and at least partially correct critique of the "state" of Ethereum as of today. My humble 0.02 is that what's current is immature and unstable, but there's a decent chance that Ethereum, or Bitcoin, or both, will at some point in the future provide some interesting technical solutions/services. The fact that Ethereum is not there yet is not a good enough argument for me.

I agree. Your position is reasonable and cautiously stated. Unfortunately the crypto hate here on HN is real and pretty disappointing really. Crypto Currencies are an emerging technology that have value far beyond currencies. IPFS for example, d.tube etc.

The crypto hate comes from a combination of fatigue and a reaction to the incredible number of total scams in the crypto ecosystem.

Re: Why I’m so “against” Ethereum

#13

Post by jazzyjackson »

toufiqbarhamov wrote: post #4
simonebrunozzi wrote: post #2

TL;DR: A long, insightful, and at least partially correct critique of the "state" of Ethereum as of today. My humble 0.02 is that what's current is immature and unstable, but there's a decent chance that Ethereum, or Bitcoin, or both, will at some point in the future provide some interesting technical solutions/services. The fact that Ethereum is not there yet is not a good enough argument for me.

Other than making some people really rich, what problems would it solve that aren’t better solved by existing solutions which don’t burn energy to create secure entropy?

Remittances without high fees.

I think as entropy becomes very inefficient to produce (difficulty multipliers increasing on crypto as the network expands...) it will become more clear that the expensive part about sending money internationally is trusting all parties involved.

You pay VISA/MASTERCARD a 3% fee because you trust them to protect your account in the case of fraud. Moneygram takes 2% of all transcations over $900 because you trust them to move money from your account to the recipients account without losing it.

Even in computer security, you have to put your trust in something. Somebody picked cryptography and high numbers of CPU cycles.

Anyway, you asked what problems crypto could solve, and I guess my answer is, maybe it will cost less to send money around the world. As it turns out, there's not necessarily a way to make it free.

Re: Why I’m so “against” Ethereum

#14

Post by antonvs »

nonbel wrote: post #11
yoshuaw wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most computer programs don't rely on brute-forcing hashes to produce results. Programs that don't require brute-force commonly use many times less energy than programs that do rely on brute force. This extra cost is often seen as wasteful.

>"Programs that don't require brute-force commonly use many times less energy than programs that do rely on brute force." Can you give an example of a program that gives similar results?

Many of the things that people want to use smart contracts for can be implemented using a model involving some degree of trust between vetted participants. Anything involving a distributed value chain for an industry, for example.

Re: Why I’m so “against” Ethereum

#15

Post by maxxxxx »

nonbel wrote: post #11
yoshuaw wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most computer programs don't rely on brute-forcing hashes to produce results. Programs that don't require brute-force commonly use many times less energy than programs that do rely on brute force. This extra cost is often seen as wasteful.

>"Programs that don't require brute-force commonly use many times less energy than programs that do rely on brute force." Can you give an example of a program that gives similar results?

Do you think these questions are clever? How about YOU give an example for a crypto use case that can't be achieved with traditional methods?

Re: Why I’m so “against” Ethereum

#16

Post by toufiqbarhamov »

jazzyjackson wrote: post #13
toufiqbarhamov wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Other than making some people really rich, what problems would it solve that aren’t better solved by existing solutions which don’t burn energy to create secure entropy?

Remittances without high fees. I think as entropy becomes very inefficient to produce (difficulty multipliers increasing on crypto as the network expands...) it will become more clear that the expensive part about sending money internationally is trusting all parties involved. You pay VISA/MASTERCARD a 3% fee because you trust them to protect your account in the case of fraud. Moneygram takes 2% of all transcations o…

I don’t pay a fee on my credit cards, the merchant does, and in case of fraud I can issue a chargeback to boot. As long as I pay my balance each month, my credit card is free, plus generating rewards. That’s almost the opposite of cryptocurrency, where far from being able to tackle fraud, it makes theft or loss nearly impossible to remediate. A credit card is also one of the easiest things to use, and all of the hard work on security is undertaken by merchants and the credit card issuer.

Re: Why I’m so “against” Ethereum

#17

Post by alexkcd »

coralreef wrote: post #5
toufiqbarhamov wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Other than making some people really rich, what problems would it solve that aren’t better solved by existing solutions which don’t burn energy to create secure entropy?

You kind of asked a loaded question, but to answer your question; whatever thing needs decentralization.

PoW will centralize towards cheap energy access. PoS will centralize to majority stake holders. I would bet that such energy access or stake follows a power law distribution. So long as that is true, neither system will ever provide decentralization.

Re: Why I’m so “against” Ethereum

#18

Post by apo »

By now the Ethereum bloat is so bad that cheaply running an individual node is practically impossible for a lay person.

This is an important yet under-appreciated point. It's now extremely difficult to sync an Ethereum node from scratch. If the processes ever completes on commodity hardware, it takes weeks. And that difficulty will only climb as more and more stuff gets dropped onto the Turing-Complete "world computer."

This situation drives users in ever greater numbers to services that tell them which transactions are valid or not. Verification with a full node, the bedrock of censorship resistance, dies a death of 1,000 cuts as a result.

Re: Why I’m so “against” Ethereum

#19

Post by smokeyj »

api wrote: post #12
gnarbarian wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. Your position is reasonable and cautiously stated. Unfortunately the crypto hate here on HN is real and pretty disappointing really. Crypto Currencies are an emerging technology that have value far beyond currencies. IPFS for example, d.tube etc.

The crypto hate comes from a combination of fatigue and a reaction to the incredible number of total scams in the crypto ecosystem.

Even in purely technical discussions people providing information get downvoted.

HN is a crypto “safe space”. Just don’t talk about it here.

Re: Why I’m so “against” Ethereum

#20

Post by snissn »

apo wrote: post #18

By now the Ethereum bloat is so bad that cheaply running an individual node is practically impossible for a lay person. This is an important yet under-appreciated point. It's now extremely difficult to sync an Ethereum node from scratch. If the processes ever completes on commodity hardware, it takes weeks. And that difficulty will only climb as more and more stuff gets dropped onto the Turing-Complete "world compute…

It takes me about a day to sync parity on a consumer desktop with an ssd and a 7 year old i5 Intel cpu
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