Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

A faster, more efficient cryptocurrency

news.mit.edu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 839 posts

Re: A faster, more efficient cryptocurrency

#31

Post by dijit »

malloreon wrote: post #16

I have long wondered how cryptocurrency fans would answer the question: ‘Would you be happy if the crypto-utopia you bring up happens in the next 10 years, and all value is stored/transacted through a cryptocurrency, but it was a coin that you do not possess now, nor could you transfer any of you current currencies into it?’ Say tomorrow someone releases the one true coin, but no one notices. All other cryptocurrenci…

I think that's a fair question; A good litmus test is people who had bitcoins prior to 2012 (arbitrary date), I had friends who mined bitcoins because they thought it was "cool" and because they liked the idea, not because it was an investment.

Personally the computational overhead makes me weep a fair amount; we're simultaneously trying to save the planet while making our payment methods several orders of magnitude more expensive in terms of power. But if there was a "coin" that was comparative in terms of energy expenditure with what currently exists then I'd be more than happy to "lose" my wealth in other coins. That is a very low price to pay for such a system.

Re: A faster, more efficient cryptocurrency

#32

Post by Synaesthesia »

malloreon wrote: post #16

I have long wondered how cryptocurrency fans would answer the question: ‘Would you be happy if the crypto-utopia you bring up happens in the next 10 years, and all value is stored/transacted through a cryptocurrency, but it was a coin that you do not possess now, nor could you transfer any of you current currencies into it?’ Say tomorrow someone releases the one true coin, but no one notices. All other cryptocurrenci…

I want a cryptocurrency which is egalitarian - evenly distributed among people in the world, rather than one in which a few people own the majority and profit hugely.

Re: A faster, more efficient cryptocurrency

#33

Post by WrtCdEvrydy »

malloreon wrote: post #16

I have long wondered how cryptocurrency fans would answer the question: ‘Would you be happy if the crypto-utopia you bring up happens in the next 10 years, and all value is stored/transacted through a cryptocurrency, but it was a coin that you do not possess now, nor could you transfer any of you current currencies into it?’ Say tomorrow someone releases the one true coin, but no one notices. All other cryptocurrenci…

The counter is that if that crypto really became that used, you'd begin being paid in it.

There was a brief moment where companies began paying employees in crypto.

Re: A faster, more efficient cryptocurrency

#34

Post by mirekrusin »

emilfihlman wrote: post #20
malloreon wrote: post #16

I have long wondered how cryptocurrency fans would answer the question: ‘Would you be happy if the crypto-utopia you bring up happens in the next 10 years, and all value is stored/transacted through a cryptocurrency, but it was a coin that you do not possess now, nor could you transfer any of you current currencies into it?’ Say tomorrow someone releases the one true coin, but no one notices. All other cryptocurrenci…

Exactly. Cryptocurrencies are a pipe dream unless they can be effectively and fairly distributed first.

What is fairly distributed in this world?

Re: A faster, more efficient cryptocurrency

#35

Post by ForHackernews »

kakarot wrote: post #25
emilfihlman wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. Cryptocurrencies are a pipe dream unless they can be effectively and fairly distributed first.

Care to link those two unrelated concepts together a bit better? Money isn't effectively and fairly distributed and it's obviously not a pipe dream.

Money is more fairly distributed than cryptocurrencies.

Credit Suisse found that 97% of bitcoin is held by 4% of addresses (though some may belong to exchanges): http://www.businessinsider.com/bitcoin-97-are-held-by-4-of-a...

Re: A faster, more efficient cryptocurrency

#37

Post by lostjohnny »

kakarot wrote: post #25
emilfihlman wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. Cryptocurrencies are a pipe dream unless they can be effectively and fairly distributed first.

Care to link those two unrelated concepts together a bit better? Money isn't effectively and fairly distributed and it's obviously not a pipe dream.

money have replaced values already owned by people

it didn't pop-up from nothing

crypto currencies need to be acquired using either real currencies or through some form of mining, that requires real currencies to acquire the resources needed to bootstrap it

the crypto space is already a place where rich got richer, less rich got sometimes more rich, most of the times nothing changed for them, really poor individuals from really poor countries couldn't even get started

Re: A faster, more efficient cryptocurrency

#38

Post by naveedi »

Full disclosure: I work on the cryptocurrency in this article, Algorand.

There are a lot of questions and speculation here about this paper and Algorand. I would be happy to try an answer them to your satisfaction. Some context may be helpful first, though. This paper is an innovation about one aspect of our technology. Algorand has a very fast consensus mechanism and can add blocks as quickly as the network can deliver them. We become a victim of our success. The blockchain will grow very rapidly. A terabyte a month is possible. The storage issue associated with our performance can quickly become an issue. The Vault paper is focused on solving this and other storage scaling problems.

The Algorand pure proof-of-stake blockchain and associated cryptocurrency has many novel innovations aside from Vault. It possesses security and scalability properties beyond what any other blockchain technology allows while still being completely decentralized. Our website, algorand.com, and whitepaper are great places to start to learn more.

If you learn best from videos then I suggest you watch Turing award winner and cryptographic pioneer, Silvio Micali, talk about Algorand: https://youtu.be/NykZ-ZSKkxM. He is a captivating speaker and the founder of Algorand.

Re: A faster, more efficient cryptocurrency

#39

Post by williamdclt »

Synaesthesia wrote: post #32
malloreon wrote: post #16

I have long wondered how cryptocurrency fans would answer the question: ‘Would you be happy if the crypto-utopia you bring up happens in the next 10 years, and all value is stored/transacted through a cryptocurrency, but it was a coin that you do not possess now, nor could you transfer any of you current currencies into it?’ Say tomorrow someone releases the one true coin, but no one notices. All other cryptocurrenci…

I want a cryptocurrency which is egalitarian - evenly distributed among people in the world, rather than one in which a few people own the majority and profit hugely.

The discussion is not about cryptocurrency anymore at this point

Re: A faster, more efficient cryptocurrency

#40

Post by williamdclt »

kakarot wrote: post #23
malloreon wrote: post #16

I have long wondered how cryptocurrency fans would answer the question: ‘Would you be happy if the crypto-utopia you bring up happens in the next 10 years, and all value is stored/transacted through a cryptocurrency, but it was a coin that you do not possess now, nor could you transfer any of you current currencies into it?’ Say tomorrow someone releases the one true coin, but no one notices. All other cryptocurrenci…

Anyone who answers no isn't a fan of cryptocurrency; you're asking the wrong people. Those people are just fans of getting rich on the latest fad. Those of us who have been here since the beginning just want cryptocurrency to succeed and flourish and fulfill its roles, and we already know Bitcoin won't be the answer so we're all waiting on The One True Coin.

Looks like a True Scotsman to me (https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/No_True_Scotsman)
Post reply on HN