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A faster, more efficient cryptocurrency

news.mit.edu

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Re: A faster, more efficient cryptocurrency

#481

Post by throwaway415415 »

EthanHeilman wrote: post #353
throwaway415415 wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

False. Algorand has safety, unless you get confirmation from 2/3 of the "money", you don't go forward. The best you can get here is a denial of service.

The CAP theorem [0] states that during a network partition a consensus system must either lose availability or consistency. * Bitcoin loses consistency * Algorand loses availability I'm glad Algorand exists so that systems which value consistency over availability can be built. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAP_theorem

Usually, for distributed systems in adversarial settings we talk about safety and liveness. Bitcoin doesn't have safety, and both bitcoin and algorand seems to fail the liveness test as well.

In your terms, both bitcoin and algorand have weak availability.

Re: A faster, more efficient cryptocurrency

#482

Post by jayd16 »

jstanley wrote: post #409
jayd16 wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What decentralization of power has occurred in a way that significantly different than any other market? Exchanges presumably control most of the coin. Pump and dumps seem to been extremely likely. It might not be worse but IMO it hasn't proven to be better.

How are you going to hold any amount of digital money without entrusting another organisation to hold it for you? That's the decentralisation of power that has occurred. You don't have to prove your identity. You don't have to prove anything to anyone. You just download some software and generate a private key. Bitcoin is to money what the internet was to book publishing.

Its not anonymous. Its the opposite, in fact. Every transaction is recorded and traceable.

Re: A faster, more efficient cryptocurrency

#483

Post by keymone »

root_axis wrote: post #471
keymone wrote: post #451

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, way to miss the point. Bitcoin is money where security is expressed in terms of energy. Banking system uses energy and military to achieve the same job. Do i really need to elaborate further?

I am not missing the point, you're moving the goalposts You: "the banking system is idiotically expensive using much more raw energy" Me: "it uses much more raw energy because it services the financial needs of most of the planet".

No goalposts have moved. Banking system involves politics and military in securing your finances. It is therefore many orders of magnitude more expensive than bitcoin even if you normalize by market cap of transaction volume or pick your own metric.

Edit: typos

Re: A faster, more efficient cryptocurrency

#484

Post by throwaway415415 »

evanevan wrote: post #348
throwaway415415 wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is true. I would be interested in knowing the difference in approaches between vault and coda.

Hi, I'm one of the founders of Coda - In Coda we use zero knowledge proofs to stand in for downloading / checking the blockchain. This means you get the identical computation to normal blockchain syncing, but in only the size of the zero knowledge proof and your account, which ends up being both constant and ~20kb. Which makes a big difference if you want to use Coda from a phone or browser. Check out this video if y…

Whats the difference with vault?

Re: A faster, more efficient cryptocurrency

#485

Post by CydeWeys »

Wow, I'm pretty disappointed that the entire MIT website isn't secure. What's going on over there? Meanwhile, my random state school has a fully secure https website.

Security is of critical importance to cryptocurrencies, and it's hard to take anyone seriously on that subject if they can't even get the fundamentals of web encryption right.

Re: A faster, more efficient cryptocurrency

#486

Post by pygy_ »

bhaak wrote: post #223
SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My family and friends said i was stupid, utopist, being conned, wasting my time, and so lany things. ... All great things start like that. "But the fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright Brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown." -- Carl Sagan https://www.brainyquote.com/qu…

But they were right to laugh at Columbus. He was right for the wrong reasons. Of course, if you don't ever try it, you can never be right for any reasons. Bitcoin is IMO likely somewhere in between. It kickstarted a new concept in IT but money is a really simple (although powerful) usecase. I'm more interested what will be done with the concept in the future.

> But they were right to laugh at Columbus. He was right for the wrong reasons.

He wasn't even right. He was wrong in his estimation of the earth circumference, and lucky that America was there between both oceans...

Re: A faster, more efficient cryptocurrency

#487

Post by dpacmittal »

good-idea wrote: post #242

I'm shocked and disheartened by how infrequently environmental concerns are brought up when discussing crypto. Proof of Work vs Proof of Stake, security, storage size - these are problems for the network and those that want to see it become a real part of our economy. (I am one of those) But the amount of energy being used to mine bitcoin is a real problem - it's not just a technical challenge (like the problems abov…

How much energy does our collective banking infrastructure use? I'm pretty sure the number would be far bigger.

Re: A faster, more efficient cryptocurrency

#488

Post by alkonaut »

SilasX wrote: post #381
good-idea wrote: post #242

I'm shocked and disheartened by how infrequently environmental concerns are brought up when discussing crypto. Proof of Work vs Proof of Stake, security, storage size - these are problems for the network and those that want to see it become a real part of our economy. (I am one of those) But the amount of energy being used to mine bitcoin is a real problem - it's not just a technical challenge (like the problems abov…

No, we don't. Bitcoin is one way to use energy. There are hundreds of thousands of other ways. When you say Bitcoin "hurts the environment", what, concretely do you mean? Presumably, you mean it in a stronger sense than "using energy to produce food hurts the environment" or "using energy to run an ER hurts the environment". That is, you think that relative to the benefit provided , the use of (harmful) energy to run…

This argument assumes that bitcoin provides some value and isn’t mainly used for speculation.

Re: A faster, more efficient cryptocurrency

#489

Post by root_axis »

cdiddy2 wrote: post #475
root_axis wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cryptocurrency doesn't cause a government to lose control of its money supply.

It doesn't, but it does bring competition to the government controlled money monopoly. Competition is generally seen as a good thing for the majority of people

I guess it technically qualifies as competition because it exists, but in reality it isn't at all competitive. If it were, and the government cared to stop it, it could just make its use illegal. That wouldn't kill it, but most people wouldn't use it because there's nothing to gain using it and only to lose (unless you were doing something illegal already).

Re: A faster, more efficient cryptocurrency

#490

Post by saint_fiasco »

Scarblac wrote: post #361
celticninja wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dont think we have any real evidence that cryptocurrencies are predominantly using polluting methods of power generation. The entire argument falls over if it is all renewable energy.

Then it's still using up renewable energy that could have been used on something else. Electricity is mostly fungible.

How is electricity fungible? Conductors waste power proportional to the distance.

Bitcoin, like aluminum before it, can be used to "export" electricity from places where it's cheap and hopefully renewable, like a hydro power plant.

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