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There's No Good Reason to Trust Blockchain Technology

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Re: There's No Good Reason to Trust Blockchain Technology

#51

Post by Kiro »

baxtr wrote: post #8

I hate blockchain so much and I can’t even exactly say why. Not because of the technology itself. I care about it as much as any other technology. I think it’s because of the sleazy non-tech people that suddenly turned into “experts” raising money for their BC startup, people organizing meetups, becoming “consultants” and of course the whole crypto craze... I really wish it will die soon.

You hate it because you missed out on the gold rush. It's called jealousy. Simple as that.

I hate it too for the same reason but at least I'm honest about it.

Re: There's No Good Reason to Trust Blockchain Technology

#52

Post by jayd16 »

dragontamer wrote: post #47
jayd16 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>On the other hand, fiat money is constantly being secretly manipulated. Crypto can be secretly manipulated in the exact same way fiat can. The only thing different about crypto is that there's no central bank that can literally print money. Instead we get defacto authority with no legal framework in place.

> The only thing different about crypto is that there's no central bank that can literally print money Satoshi's pile of ~1 Million bitcoins disagrees with you. The entire BTC economy innately trusts Satoshi to not ruin the fun for them. If Satoshi decides to liquidate his holdings of BTC, it would crash the market harder than the next 10-years worth of mining. Satoshi's pile of 1-million bitcoins acts as a centraliz…

We're saying the same thing. Satoshi is a defacto central bank. The main difference is the money is already printed but that fact is essentially irrelevant.

Re: There's No Good Reason to Trust Blockchain Technology

#53

Post by legionof7 »

verdverm wrote: post #50
legionof7 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are correct with borrowing, I'm not sure what that's about, happy to be enlightened by OP though. Not sure about investments, haven't done too much research into the benefits of ICOs and letting more people invest. I think corporations are a good point though. If more companies became DAOs, we'd have much better checks and balances and transparency for corporations.

Or do DOAs become more like our current political conundrum, where it's a popularity contest full of opinionated misinformation with people who don't have the expertise or time to become sufficiently informed. With a DAG based voting proxy, there may be interesting applications within a business. Like putting support behind higher ups or something like support for RFCs. I'd expect anything applied to the wide populat…

Yep, that's definitely a concern. There are different voting mechanisms/design systems that help deal with this. Definitely a work in progress though.

Re: There's No Good Reason to Trust Blockchain Technology

#54

Post by joe_the_user »

dragontamer wrote: post #47
jayd16 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>On the other hand, fiat money is constantly being secretly manipulated. Crypto can be secretly manipulated in the exact same way fiat can. The only thing different about crypto is that there's no central bank that can literally print money. Instead we get defacto authority with no legal framework in place.

> The only thing different about crypto is that there's no central bank that can literally print money Satoshi's pile of ~1 Million bitcoins disagrees with you. The entire BTC economy innately trusts Satoshi to not ruin the fun for them. If Satoshi decides to liquidate his holdings of BTC, it would crash the market harder than the next 10-years worth of mining. Satoshi's pile of 1-million bitcoins acts as a centraliz…

Satoshi's pile of 1-million bitcoins acts as a centralized bank, whether he likes it or not. Satoshi realizes this fact, and that's why Satoshi has ensured that his BTC has never moved.

Speculation on cause is kind of stretching it. Satosh's identity is still unknown. Maybe that bitcoin is lost entirely, maybe "Satoshi" is going to liquidate as soon as he/she gets out of prison or maybe something else.

Re: There's No Good Reason to Trust Blockchain Technology

#55

Post by oarabbus_ »

jondubois wrote: post #21

If you're a technical person, you don't need to trust Blockchain technology; you can verify that it works on your own. If you're not a technical person, you can find independent technical experts to verify it for you. Much of the value of a cryptocurrency can be attributed to the fact that it's difficult to coordinate a large number of people to agree on changes. Also, because most blockchains are public ledgers; it'…

>Cryptocurrencies have the potential to greatly improve the financial system by making it simpler, fairer and more transparent. When anyone will be able to launch their own cryptocurrency, we will have a chance to free ourselves from the coercive influences of debt, venture capital and corporations.

When "anyone will be able to launch their own cryptocurrency" it will become completely useless. This is what many technical folks who don't understand economics don't see. The utility of fiat is twofold - first of all, real guns, missiles, tanks, and planes are protecting your fiat dollars. Technical cryptobulls (and non-technical crypto mega-bulls) seem to miss this point entirely.

A corollary to this is a world with only cryptocurrency invites chaos. If we're all being paid in crypto, and crypto is anonymous, what incentive does one have to pay taxes to the government? No one will pay. Or some might, but others won't, and it will be the burden of the few taxpayers to subsidize the taxes of the many who skip out.

>chance to free ourselves from the coercive influences of debt, venture capital and corporations.

Yes, you'll also be freeing yourself from the influences of public roads, highways, and public schools. You'll free yourselves from the coercive influence of venture capital and corporations and governments/banks (latter is implied) and we'll free ourselves straight into an anarchic/chaotic society.

Second, a central entity (or a few entities) determining an agreed-upon exchange rate between various fiat currencies keeps the system running without severe loss of efficiency. We already see highly illiquid, inefficient markets in cryptospace. Sure, people should be able to launch their own toy cryptocurrencies for fun purposes, but it will have zero utility.

This will not be fixed by adding MORE cryptocurrencies - it will only exacerbate the problem. This will be fixed by adding more users to a basket of existing cryptocurrencies. Crypto/blockchain certainly have powerful use cases but to decry fiat as some extraordinary evil which should be 100% supplanted by cryptocurrency is, quite frankly, a display of a lack of understandings of economics, sociology, civics, and what have you.

Re: There's No Good Reason to Trust Blockchain Technology

#56

Post by verdverm »

jondubois wrote: post #21

If you're a technical person, you don't need to trust Blockchain technology; you can verify that it works on your own. If you're not a technical person, you can find independent technical experts to verify it for you. Much of the value of a cryptocurrency can be attributed to the fact that it's difficult to coordinate a large number of people to agree on changes. Also, because most blockchains are public ledgers; it'…

As a technical person I do need to trust the technology, because I'm not going to spend the time understanding the math and code in a language I don't use. It's a highly complex system that extends and is impacted by social, economic, and human decisions.

Not only do I need to trust the blockchain technology, I also need to trust every piece of technology around it. Phones, emails, the Linux kernel, TLS, browsers ... and all the people building this technology. Look at the recent NPM exploit, or the Crypto exchange CEO who died without a plan for his password.

Because the blockchain doesn't get hacked, it's the tech and humans around it that gets exploited.

Re: There's No Good Reason to Trust Blockchain Technology

#57

Post by fdggdfsvscvsd »

Maybe with Bitcoin I have to trust the software a little bit, but at least if it turns out to be faulty, I can switch to another app.

That's much harder to do with governments controlling fiat money. Or with banks. What is a person supposed to do, who is denied financial transactions by the established financial service providers (paypal, credit cards,...)? There have now been several cases where paypal and others have tried to silence people by cancelling their accounts. What can you do, in the traditional banking world?

And many complaints are not about things Bitcoin actually promises to do. It doesn't promise to make exchanges safe.

The environmental impact is a concern. Miner power perhaps not so much. For example mining hardware coming from one company doesn't seem that bad - you can simply verify the transactions the miners find before sending them out to the network.

Re: There's No Good Reason to Trust Blockchain Technology

#58

Post by jondubois »

jayd16 wrote: post #43
jondubois wrote: post #21

If you're a technical person, you don't need to trust Blockchain technology; you can verify that it works on your own. If you're not a technical person, you can find independent technical experts to verify it for you. Much of the value of a cryptocurrency can be attributed to the fact that it's difficult to coordinate a large number of people to agree on changes. Also, because most blockchains are public ledgers; it'…

>On the other hand, fiat money is constantly being secretly manipulated. Crypto can be secretly manipulated in the exact same way fiat can. The only thing different about crypto is that there's no central bank that can literally print money. Instead we get defacto authority with no legal framework in place.

But a key difference is that nobody is forced to use a specific cryptocurrency and it's much easier to see if your cryptocurrency is being manipulated. If a currency isn't working for you; you should be able to choose a different one which does.

As an investor, it would make things more interesting because you will no longer be able to just sit around and wait for the capital to come to you through the same reliable fiat channels (e.g. interest, corporate dividends, index funds, ...); you will have to keep moving your investments across cryptocurrencies to follow the value and talent.

If any specific cryptocurrency becomes unfair, smart people will dump it for another one; the manipulated coin will lose its value.

There are crooks in every country and it's not fair that you should be forced to share a currency with them just because you live in a country which happens to have a lot of them.

Re: There's No Good Reason to Trust Blockchain Technology

#59

Post by XMPPwocky »

legionof7 wrote: post #44
XMPPwocky wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When anyone will be able to launch their own cryptocurrency, we will have a chance to free ourselves from the coercive influences of debt, venture capital and corporations. You can borrow cryptocurrency. You can invest cryptocurrency with terms that are bad for the business you invest in. Corporations can use cryptocurrency. What, exactly, have you changed?

You are correct with borrowing, I'm not sure what that's about, happy to be enlightened by OP though. Not sure about investments, haven't done too much research into the benefits of ICOs and letting more people invest. I think corporations are a good point though. If more companies became DAOs, we'd have much better checks and balances and transparency for corporations.

> If more companies became DAOs, we'd have much better checks and balances and transparency for corporations.

Why on earth would any corporation ever want to become a DAO?

The transparency benefit there is roughly that a DAO must, by design, not be able to keep any secrets, since it's incapable of having nonpublic state. Similarly, the "checks and balances" benefit seems to be just "more literal enforcement of contracts".

Is there a positive advantage, something doable with a DAO that's not doable with just "a court system", besides doing illegal things where you can't rely on courts (which is, at least, a valid use case)?

And note, too, courts already exist, and there are plenty of folks with very exciting weapons eager to enforce their judgements. Your smart contract's bytecode may say you don't have to pay somebody, but if the sherriff's office shows up to start seizing your assets... Well!

Re: There's No Good Reason to Trust Blockchain Technology

#60

Post by verdverm »

Kiro wrote: post #51
baxtr wrote: post #8

I hate blockchain so much and I can’t even exactly say why. Not because of the technology itself. I care about it as much as any other technology. I think it’s because of the sleazy non-tech people that suddenly turned into “experts” raising money for their BC startup, people organizing meetups, becoming “consultants” and of course the whole crypto craze... I really wish it will die soon.

You hate it because you missed out on the gold rush. It's called jealousy. Simple as that. I hate it too for the same reason but at least I'm honest about it.

I h#$@ it and I didn't miss out. A month's salary turned into 16 months of freedom and a bit of money to start a non-crypto company.

Reason being the ignorant hype, even greater inequality, and the support of criminals, terrorists, and bad actors built into the very nature of public blockchain.

Private blockchain is a different story, but I see that more like a choice between SQL and NoSQL. Just need to wait a decade or so for the tech to mature.

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