In a space absolutely filled with hucksters and scam artists, vitalik is legit. Good read.
This is the guy that thought you could do Shor's algorithm by emulating a quantum computer and having it be faster than a classical solution.
Hard Problems in Cryptocurrency: Five Years Later
81–90 of 378 posts
Re: Hard Problems in Cryptocurrency: Five Years Later
#82Your site's SSL cert has just expired at November 24, 2019 at 1:00:59 AM Eastern Standard Time Safari, Chrome give errors now.
is there a mirror somewhere? article seems interesting.
Re: Hard Problems in Cryptocurrency: Five Years Later
#83The biggest problem is actual uptake for real transactions, as opposed to speculation and black markets. The 2 biggest barriers to be solved are: -lack of trust/ease of use for the layman -volatility These problems may or may not sort themselves out with time.
Even if I could use it for regular transactions, I’d still need a reason to want to. If the justification is “you don’t need to pay credit processing fees” then things would have to be priced cheaper. But I think you’d have to pay me more than the credit card fee to give up the ability to do chargebacks for a lot of online transactions. Maybe I’d use it for making donations where I’m not expecting anything back from…
Certain use cases are currently very difficult/too expensive on current payment rails (Card networks, ACH etc.). Whilst I am not bullish on using Crypto directly. I think a clearing layer that can be settled with crypto can create a very interesting space for real time value exchange. We are currently working in the space on Interledger.
Re: Hard Problems in Cryptocurrency: Five Years Later
#84Can some people from the crypto space give a quick tl;dr of what’s going on in the space that’s of note? Seems like I hardly hear about interesting stuff after the bubble burst (kind of at least). Are there any people using crypto to actually do work for clients and solve fiat currency based businesses problems? I am curious if the crypto start up space is mostly filled with crypto-to-crypto services or if there are…
Security Tokens: https://coinsutra.com/security-tokens/
Re: Hard Problems in Cryptocurrency: Five Years Later
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
One legitimate use case for cryptocurrency is so you can transact with individuals who do not have bank accounts. Cryptocurrency allows anyone in the world to get a cryptocurrency "bank account" and that "bank account" allows the individual to transact freely in society. It is important for a free society.
Cash? Otherwise, for digital, who are we talking about, exactly? What country doesn't have banks? If you can't get a bank account it's unlikely your basic needs are going to be met by a stranger you've never met.
Here's a practical example: due to US sanctions, no Iranian citizen can have a Visa or a MasterCard. Assuming they've acquired cryptocurrencies somehow, it's their only way of paying for digital goods.
(assuming, of course, that the government doesn't shut down the Internet, as it did just days ago: https://ooni.org/post/2019-iran-internet-blackout/)
Re: Hard Problems in Cryptocurrency: Five Years Later
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Smart contracts basically throw all of your consensus guarantees out the window because they can cause arbitrary exchanges of value in the application layer, which can be used to incentivize miners into all sorts of shenanigans. Do you have an example?
So glad you asked: 1. https://eprint.iacr.org/2019/748.pdf 2. https://arxiv.org/pdf/1810.11605.pdf 3. https://eprint.iacr.org/2019/775.pdf 4. https://users.encs.concordia.ca/~clark/papers/2019_wtsc_fron... 5. http://homepages.cs.ncl.ac.uk/patrick.mccorry/minerbribery.p... This one isn't an attack per se, it is mostly an exploration of arbitrage bots in decentralized exchanges running on Ethereum smart contracts. Howe…
I haven't read all those papers, but basically you could always bribe miners, even without smart contracts, just by giving them money outside the blockchain they mine.
One of the ideas of PoW is that if you have enough money to bribe the miners, it's better for you to be a miner yourself. Is this the principle your examples weakens? I may have misinterpreted them.
Re: Hard Problems in Cryptocurrency: Five Years Later
#87I literally spent the past week reading a couple dozen papers on cryptocurrency attacks, in service of a term paper which should hopefully turn into a master's thesis (and possibly more during my PhD campaign). I'm pretty damn pessimistic as a result. Smart contracts basically throw all of your consensus guarantees out the window because they can cause arbitrary exchanges of value in the application layer, which can…
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Re: Hard Problems in Cryptocurrency: Five Years Later
#88I literally spent the past week reading a couple dozen papers on cryptocurrency attacks, in service of a term paper which should hopefully turn into a master's thesis (and possibly more during my PhD campaign). I'm pretty damn pessimistic as a result. Smart contracts basically throw all of your consensus guarantees out the window because they can cause arbitrary exchanges of value in the application layer, which can…
Eos is a good a example. It's governance is falling apart.
How to solve it? Well, I guess it needs more governance and rules :)
Re: Hard Problems in Cryptocurrency: Five Years Later
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
Phase 0 of Ethereum v2 arrives in Q1 2020. Coming since 2014 but finally arriving :) Proof of stake reduces the issuance of new ETH to pay for the cost of securing the network. It's cheaper than paying miners. And anybody can buy ETH to stake so it's more egalitarian than mining which requires economies of scale in hardware and electricity.
Doesn't phase 0 exclude the ability to transfer money? The whole point of a "currency"???
My understanding is that Phase 0 features the ability to lock up eth and take it out of circulation.
You might consider if perhaps the parties in control of that system have a different idea of its point than you do.
Re: Hard Problems in Cryptocurrency: Five Years Later
#90The biggest problem is actual uptake for real transactions, as opposed to speculation and black markets. The 2 biggest barriers to be solved are: -lack of trust/ease of use for the layman -volatility These problems may or may not sort themselves out with time.
Black market transactions are as real as any other. Real payment for real goods or services.