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Why I’m so “against” Ethereum

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Re: Why I’m so “against” Ethereum

#21

Post by j1vms »

randomacct3847 wrote: post #3

He’s criticizing Eth for being a “ science experiment”? The entire crypto ecosystem is just an experiment, including bitcoin. It’s all immature and unstable.

There are a lot of valid arguments to be made, but it's not clear that being an experiment is a sufficient one. One need only think of the "Great Experiment" [0], to realize that immaturity and instability might not be too much of a hindrance if purpose and mindshare can be ultimately established.

[0] https://www.themorgan.org/exhibitions/the-great-experiment

Re: Why I’m so “against” Ethereum

#22

Post by StavrosK »

toufiqbarhamov wrote: post #16
jazzyjackson wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

If the merchant pays something, you pay something. Where do you think the merchant gets the money from?

Re: Why I’m so “against” Ethereum

#23

Post by apron1 »

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…

Vitalik Buterin disagrees with you specifically on the topic of endlessly increasing impractical eth blockchain:

https://medium.com/@VitalikButerin/because-of-ethereums-expo...

Re: Why I’m so “against” Ethereum

#24

Post by wpietri »

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.

Exactly I would have absolutely no problem with them if these things were obscure little open source projects like most tech experiments are. When I first read the Bitcoin paper I was skeptical but interested to see where they'd take it.

My problem is that these projects are simultaneously treated as humble little experiments and the perfect future of the global financial system, deserving of hundreds of millions of dollars of investment and endless public attention. If they would pick one or the other, I'd be fine with it. But I've dealt with years of a radical, quasi-mystical pro-crypto contingent who believe they deserve all of the upside with none of the accountability. I am 100% over it.

In short, the crypto hate is a reaction to the crypto hype. I have very little sympathy for people who profited from the hype, delivered approximately nothing of use to the rest of the world, and now have a sad that there are consequences.

Re: Why I’m so “against” Ethereum

#25

Post by yebyen »

toufiqbarhamov wrote: post #16
jazzyjackson wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> I don’t pay a fee on my credit cards, the merchant does

While that may be technically correct, it's ignorant of the fact that costs are always passed down the line in any economic relationship like you're describing.

That fraud protection costs the card issuers, which is the basis for that merchant fee, and the merchant passes the cost on in the form of higher prices. (Merchant accounts with higher fraud rates will pay higher fees!)

So from another perspective, you actually are paying the bill for those unknown percentage of frauds, which you wouldn't be as much on the hook for so directly if only everyone was responsible for their own individual security.

Re: Why I’m so “against” Ethereum

#26

Post by berberous »

gumby wrote: post #7
randomacct3847 wrote: post #3

He’s criticizing Eth for being a “ science experiment”? The entire crypto ecosystem is just an experiment, including bitcoin. It’s all immature and unstable.

You're agreeing with him. He's responding to people saying "hey, why are you criticising ETH, don't you like this stuff?" And he's saying that even the "blue chip" cryptocurrency projects are still very experimental phases and he takes them seriously enough to criticize them.

Except he seems to give BTC a pass. I'm not familiar with this guy and just skimmed his tweetstorm, but he seems to be part of a group that thinks BTC >>>> ETH.

Re: Why I’m so “against” Ethereum

#27

Post by jazzyjackson »

toufiqbarhamov wrote: post #16
jazzyjackson wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The seller passes the savings onto you ;)

Re: Why I’m so “against” Ethereum

#28

Post by toufiqbarhamov »

yebyen wrote: post #25
toufiqbarhamov wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> I don’t pay a fee on my credit cards, the merchant does While that may be technically correct, it's ignorant of the fact that costs are always passed down the line in any economic relationship like you're describing. That fraud protection costs the card issuers, which is the basis for that merchant fee, and the merchant passes the cost on in the form of higher prices. (Merchant accounts with higher fraud rates will…

If the price of Good N is Value of N+x where x is a markup to cover the costs you’re talking about, that cost is passed on to people who pay with any means. If I buy a TV with cash, or credit card, it costs the same. Except of course that I can get cash back on my card, but not with cash (or bitcoin).

So, credit card or not, the cost is there, even if I pay with bitcoin or ether. Except of course for the benefits of the credit card.

Re: Why I’m so “against” Ethereum

#29

Post by duskwuff »

gumby wrote: post #7
randomacct3847 wrote: post #3

He’s criticizing Eth for being a “ science experiment”? The entire crypto ecosystem is just an experiment, including bitcoin. It’s all immature and unstable.

You're agreeing with him. He's responding to people saying "hey, why are you criticising ETH, don't you like this stuff?" And he's saying that even the "blue chip" cryptocurrency projects are still very experimental phases and he takes them seriously enough to criticize them.

I think the disagreement is on other cryptocurrencies. The author of the original Twitter thread has positive views of Bitcoin, e.g. this post which he linked in the thread:

https://medium.com/@tuurdemeester/why-im-short-ethereum-and-...

Re: Why I’m so “against” Ethereum

#30

Post by stillbourne »

randomacct3847 wrote: post #3

He’s criticizing Eth for being a “ science experiment”? The entire crypto ecosystem is just an experiment, including bitcoin. It’s all immature and unstable.

I've always tried to tell people that ask me about crypto currencies that not only do they not have any intrinsic value, but the only positive value that they have is entropy. I explained it like this over Christmas dinner, lets say I wanted to start a new commodity, for arguments sake lets say that this new commodity is based on matches. Matches have a value, you light them and they produce a certain amount of energy. You can use them to light candles, clean out that odor from the previous occupant of the toilet, you could even combine a match with a small sterling engine to create motive power. But my commodity isn't the matches, its the energy used as the match is burnt. In my novelty commodity I only trade in matches that have been used, its proof that the match performed work in that it burned a fractional number of BTUs. This proves that the matches are sound. Furthermore, I, as a processor of used match commodities, can charge a nominal transaction fee when people trade spent matches on my Matchchain(TM) platform. Also, while this is a commodity I will call it a currency regardless of the fact that it has no debt instruments, lacks liquidity and is completely unregulated and prone to theft. Would you care to invest?

Now replace spent matches with spent compute.

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