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Hard Problems in Cryptocurrency: Five Years Later

vitalik.ca

341–350 of 378 posts

Re: Hard Problems in Cryptocurrency: Five Years Later

#341
post #330
post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, they forked the whole thing, and essentially destroyed the concept that cryptocurrency ledgers were immutable.

By installing the fork you agreed to the statement "everything is exactly as before except the balances of two addresses"

And of course the fact that the fork is no longer immutable as it’s controlled by people who don’t believe in the core tenet of cryptocurrency.

Re: Hard Problems in Cryptocurrency: Five Years Later

#342

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

There's no such thing as money laundering This, on its face, is a pretty outrageous assertion. I think if you throw a statement like this into the discussion I'm sure you don't mind if I demand that you prove it.

My apologies, I shouldn't treat HN like Twitter. My statement was meant to spark a discussion but I should try to explain myself.

Maybe "Money laundering doesn't exist in a hypothetical world of private peer-to-peer transactions" is better? That's what I believe the crypto-folk are working towards.

I recognize the existence of laws again 'money laundering' in countries like the USA. I suppose a better way of framing what I think is that money laundering is an invented crime in order to further empower agents of a State to seize assets of those suspected of actual crimes. By 'invented' and 'actual' I'm appealing to a sense of legitimacy separate (or adjacent?) to said State's legal system.

Re: Hard Problems in Cryptocurrency: Five Years Later

#343

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…

> 4. Buzzword soup

Maybe I'm in too deep but peer-to-peer is a buzzword? I mean person-to-person, without intermediaries. This seems useful and powerful to me (and my politics I suppose).

> 5. no transparency/security using crypto as bulk transport

I don't mean building a social layer on top, I mean building digital infrastructure on top, 'smart contracts' etc.

I still maintain hope for something like this but after watching the gradual but massive increase in the complexity of 'DeFi' (decentrialized finance) in the Ethereum community I don't know where to look and what to work on these days...

Re: Hard Problems in Cryptocurrency: Five Years Later

#344
post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Either Vitalik is extremely smart or he just doesn't know what he's talking about. Overall, his opinions are just confusing and distracting like the whole Ethereum ecosystem. Vitalik started out years ago with writings consisting entirely of self-citing the Ethereum echo-chamber. Judging by the citations here he's starting to understand the value in the works of the established institutions, tenured university prof…

He is, that's what Ethereum 2.0 is which is being released over the next couple years. He's also worked with academics from outside the crypto space since the beginning.

Always good to raise millions on a broken idea. Squandering it and then propose a nonsensical 2.0 version to solve all

Re: Hard Problems in Cryptocurrency: Five Years Later

#345
post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Either Vitalik is extremely smart or he just doesn't know what he's talking about. Overall, his opinions are just confusing and distracting like the whole Ethereum ecosystem. Vitalik started out years ago with writings consisting entirely of self-citing the Ethereum echo-chamber. Judging by the citations here he's starting to understand the value in the works of the established institutions, tenured university prof…

LOL. I can't stop. :) I'm not going down the path of personal attack. Vitalik is smart. He lacks self criticism and focus. I do hope he'll find success.

Depending on your goals. He raises millions with bad ideas. From his perspective he is wildly successful

Re: Hard Problems in Cryptocurrency: Five Years Later

#346
post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LOL. I can't stop. :) I'm not going down the path of personal attack. Vitalik is smart. He lacks self criticism and focus. I do hope he'll find success.

Depending on your goals. He raises millions with bad ideas. From his perspective he is wildly successful

What is he really supposed to represent? Skipping all the hard work, middle-fingering the system, and getting rich quick? That's worth at most 15 minutes of fame, and a long long time ago. Mr. Buterin isn't in jail simply because no government has the slightest fucking idea how to parse this massive exabyte jumble of cryptocoin hodgepodge over the last decade.

Meanwhile, thousands of poor souls have been lost in the basements of universities doing real honest-to-god useful work which may never be understood and used by industry, or even see the light of day; they lack this disingenuous excessive hyper-promotion and the means to compete for media attention with our favorite cult heroes like Vitalik.

Re: Hard Problems in Cryptocurrency: Five Years Later

#347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bitcoin certainly got enormously slower. But the other major currencies (ethereum, xrp, etc) are both much faster and more liquid than BTC was in 2015.

> Bitcoin certainly got enormously slower. https://bitinfocharts.com/comparison/bitcoin-confirmationtim... Average block time data doesn't agree with you, or are you talking about something else?

It's not about whether the next block will come on time, it's whether your transaction will be in it.

Re: Hard Problems in Cryptocurrency: Five Years Later

#348
post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I willingly concede that legacy/fiat money is better at stopping bad people/criminals/terrorists etc from having access to money.

It is hard to make a definitive statement either way. For example: > Analysts estimate that underground economic transactions account for one-third (33%!) of the total economy in developing countries and slightly more than 10% of the total economy in developed countries. [0] On the Bitcoin blockchain it may be around 19% (approximately USD $380bn in yearly transactions on Bitcoin [1], $72bn of which may be illegal [2…

Once you eliminate the fake transactions, wash trading, tape painting, manipulation, etc, I'd wager you're left with a much much larger proportion of crypto transactions being illicit. Probably close to 100% if you exclude speculation too, since only about 2 or 3 big merchants accept crypto at all.

Re: Hard Problems in Cryptocurrency: Five Years Later

#349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Is it a project that hasn't been released yet ? Or by "clearing layer that can be settled with crypto" you simply mean route ILP payments between two currencies with crypto in the middle ?

The latter. The underlying settlement is separate concern to clearing. Crypto just makes settlement easier for low-zero trust environments or situations where you want to manage liquidity better.

Re: Hard Problems in Cryptocurrency: Five Years Later

#350
post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He is, that's what Ethereum 2.0 is which is being released over the next couple years. He's also worked with academics from outside the crypto space since the beginning.

Always good to raise millions on a broken idea. Squandering it and then propose a nonsensical 2.0 version to solve all

How is Ethereum broken? It is working right now as we speak. ETH2 is just an upgrade of the network. Just because you percieve it as nonsensical doesn't mean it is and you provided no facts to back up your claims.
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