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Hard Problems in Cryptocurrency: Five Years Later

vitalik.ca

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Re: Hard Problems in Cryptocurrency: Five Years Later

#151

Post by mhluongo »

arcticbull wrote: post #141

None of these are the actual hard problems in cryptocurrency and the fact this is the focus speaks volumes. The real hard problems are: 1. How do we stop using more power than Switzerland to process 4 transactions per second (lol) 2. How do we stop payments to international terrorists and rogue states. 3. How do we stop money laundering. 4. How do we stop price manipulation by fraudulent actors. 5. How do we allow pe…

> How do we stop money laundering.

Hm, so the dollar won't reach wide adoption until we close Wells Fargo, HSBC, and other major banks that have been party to large-scale money laundering?

Re: Hard Problems in Cryptocurrency: Five Years Later

#152

Post by arcticbull »

emsimot wrote: post #148
arcticbull wrote: post #141

None of these are the actual hard problems in cryptocurrency and the fact this is the focus speaks volumes. The real hard problems are: 1. How do we stop using more power than Switzerland to process 4 transactions per second (lol) 2. How do we stop payments to international terrorists and rogue states. 3. How do we stop money laundering. 4. How do we stop price manipulation by fraudulent actors. 5. How do we allow pe…

1. I don't know if it will work, but the idea is Proof of Stake (ETH2 in Ethereum-land) 2. You can't -- this is a cultural problem, not a technological one 3. There's no such thing as money laundering 4. Peer-to-peer, transparent finance infrastructure 5. User-money as a layer on top of cryptocurrency

> 1. Proof of stake.

This has yet to be proven, and as you say, there’s reasons why it has yet to land. I give this one vitaliks sideways smiley face.

> 2. You can't -- this is a cultural problem, not a technological one

Uh, one that doesn’t exist in the current financial system. I’m sure y’all will find a way. As I said, it’s a prerequisite.

> 3. There’s no such thing as money laundering.

Hilarious. I see someone never took compliance training at work. With that attitude I’d love to see you explain your position to a judge. Money laundering is literally financial transactions arranged in such a way as to conceal the original source of funds.

> 4. Buzzword soup.

> 5. More buzzword soup.

More buzzword soup that immediately falls down as once you use crypto as only a bulk transport instrument you’ve lost out on all its ostensible benefits. No transparency, no security, it’s no better than just using a wire transfer.

Re: Hard Problems in Cryptocurrency: Five Years Later

#153

Post by mhluongo »

joosters wrote: post #108
bouncycastle wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There hasn't been any high profile smart contract hacks for a while now. Early days are always fraught with disasters. The field is evolving with "best practices", formal verification and lessons learned from past mistakes, so you'll find that these days things are more stable. One example is MakerDAO which has around $300 million in value locked, and has been running without incident for a while now.

I bet you that their smart contract, like most other significant ones, has been designed to be upgradable. That means the authors can modify the smart contract whenever they want, which means it implicitly has a centralised trust mechanism (I.e. you had better hope that the authors don’t go rogue and screw over the users) Central point of trust => blockchain part is now pointless, as ever.

Those upgrade mechanisms don't need to be centralized, and are sometimes vote-based. Unsure about the upgrade mech behind Maker though.

Re: Hard Problems in Cryptocurrency: Five Years Later

#154

Post by arcticbull »

mhluongo wrote: post #150
arcticbull wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny you can online pay your drug dealer in countries where drugs are legal, like pot in Canada. It’s almost like social solutions are the right way to solve social problems.

You don't think cryptocurrency is a social solution? To your implication- what's legal and what's right are orthogonal concerns. Individuals decide which to follow based on their own principles.

No, it’s a technological problem. The social solution is to make what you’re trying to do legal. And yeah you’re free to do whatever you want so long as you’re willing to pay the consequences such as fines and jail time.

Re: Hard Problems in Cryptocurrency: Five Years Later

#155

Post by qqii »

arcticbull wrote: post #141

None of these are the actual hard problems in cryptocurrency and the fact this is the focus speaks volumes. The real hard problems are: 1. How do we stop using more power than Switzerland to process 4 transactions per second (lol) 2. How do we stop payments to international terrorists and rogue states. 3. How do we stop money laundering. 4. How do we stop price manipulation by fraudulent actors. 5. How do we allow pe…

Oraces and a reputation system can attempt to solve these "currency" problems, in the same way that they are solved with real currency.

Re: Hard Problems in Cryptocurrency: Five Years Later

#156

Post by arcticbull »

mhluongo wrote: post #151
arcticbull wrote: post #141

None of these are the actual hard problems in cryptocurrency and the fact this is the focus speaks volumes. The real hard problems are: 1. How do we stop using more power than Switzerland to process 4 transactions per second (lol) 2. How do we stop payments to international terrorists and rogue states. 3. How do we stop money laundering. 4. How do we stop price manipulation by fraudulent actors. 5. How do we allow pe…

> How do we stop money laundering. Hm, so the dollar won't reach wide adoption until we close Wells Fargo, HSBC, and other major banks that have been party to large-scale money laundering?

Luckily there are efforts being made to stop it, and fines paid and systems put in place. Are they perfect yet? No. It is still orders of magnitude better than pretending the problem doesnt exist or outwardly encouraging and abetting it.

Re: Hard Problems in Cryptocurrency: Five Years Later

#157

Post by Hendrikto »

arcticbull wrote: post #141

None of these are the actual hard problems in cryptocurrency and the fact this is the focus speaks volumes. The real hard problems are: 1. How do we stop using more power than Switzerland to process 4 transactions per second (lol) 2. How do we stop payments to international terrorists and rogue states. 3. How do we stop money laundering. 4. How do we stop price manipulation by fraudulent actors. 5. How do we allow pe…

> 2. How do we stop payments to international terrorists and rogue states. > 3. How do we stop money laundering.

No currency ever achieved that.

Re: Hard Problems in Cryptocurrency: Five Years Later

#158

Post by realusername »

arcticbull wrote: post #152
emsimot wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. I don't know if it will work, but the idea is Proof of Stake (ETH2 in Ethereum-land) 2. You can't -- this is a cultural problem, not a technological one 3. There's no such thing as money laundering 4. Peer-to-peer, transparent finance infrastructure 5. User-money as a layer on top of cryptocurrency

> 1. Proof of stake. This has yet to be proven, and as you say, there’s reasons why it has yet to land. I give this one vitaliks sideways smiley face. > 2. You can't -- this is a cultural problem, not a technological one Uh, one that doesn’t exist in the current financial system. I’m sure y’all will find a way. As I said, it’s a prerequisite. > 3. There’s no such thing as money laundering. Hilarious. I see someone ne…

> Uh, one that doesn’t exist in the current financial system. I’m sure y’all will find a way. As I said, it’s a prerequisite.

Is that sarcasm? How do you think criminal groups get funded? They use the financial system like anybody else. You should have a look into the history of HSBC, money laundering and financing drug cartels is one of their main specialty.

Re: Hard Problems in Cryptocurrency: Five Years Later

#159

Post by mhluongo »

arcticbull wrote: post #154
mhluongo wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't think cryptocurrency is a social solution? To your implication- what's legal and what's right are orthogonal concerns. Individuals decide which to follow based on their own principles.

No, it’s a technological problem. The social solution is to make what you’re trying to do legal. And yeah you’re free to do whatever you want so long as you’re willing to pay the consequences such as fines and jail time.

Writing code collaboratively and convincing thousands of people to run nodes replicating your slow database is a social act -- I'd even call it a political act.

Not sure why you think technology is outside the context of our society. This stuff isn't built by elves.

Re: Hard Problems in Cryptocurrency: Five Years Later

#160

Post by Hendrikto »

3fe9a03ccd14ca5 wrote: post #43
optimiz3 wrote: post #11

Some hubris in this post. Claims ASIC resistant PoW is "Solved as far as we can", with Ethash being the near end-all of hashing. Random-X is a significant step towards ASIC resistance, requiring near general purpose computation to perform efficiently (i.e. if you can build a better CPU than Intel/AMD/ARM, you've already won). https://github.com/tevador/RandomX/blob/master/doc/design.md (Random-X requires code JITting…

This is what I really dislike about owning crypto long term as a store of value. It's a cat-and-mouse game with hardware and software development, and there's a lot of faith in maintainers to stay ahead of the threats.

I‘d rather put my trust in an open source community than in centralized banks.
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