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Blockchain, the Solution for Almost Nothing

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Re: Blockchain, the Solution for Almost Nothing

#181

Post by anon9001 »

ahdeanz wrote: post #159
godelski wrote: post #61

Looking at all the comments here I have a single response to most of them: I'll call it a solution when it is implemented. You can talk all you want about solutions to some of the (minor) problems addressed here (ignoring the rest of the problems) but unless it is in use then the article's commentary still stands. Unless it has a ton of users, the article's commentary still stands. If you really do believe in block c…

The shifting goalposts of this argument have been interesting to watch over the last 3-4 years. Stablecoins: I remember plenty of commenters being quite certain that volatility made cryptocurrency unusable. And yet a short time later we have successful decentralized stable coins. DeFi: Just in the past months Uniswap has rivaled centralized exchange volume as a decentralized exchange. It's permissionless composabilit…

The DeFi thing has finally pushed me to look at crypto again, which turned me on to metamask (via Brave), and after experiencing the UX, it's glaringly obvious that this is the next big thing. Nobody even talks about it, but the fact that I can "sign in" to my "brokerage account" simply by visiting dydx or unisawp and authenticating securely with my browser is pretty incredible.

People are claiming to be excited about DeFi because everyone loves unregulated derivatives and lending at insane APYs, but I think the real reason this has taken off is because the UX makes the future feel so real and achievable.

I'm just scratching at the surface now, but it's clear we've come a long way since bitcoin. I won't be shocked if it turns out bitcoin becomes seen as worthless old technology, but blockchains will never go away.

Re: Blockchain, the Solution for Almost Nothing

#182

Post by ShorsHammer »

alasdair_ wrote: post #42
Animats wrote: post #25

Bitcoin has lots of uses: - Getting money out of China. Buy into a mining consortium with yuan, get a fraction of the bitcoins, sell outside China for dollars or euros. You're manufacturing and exporting, which the government of China likes. - Extortion. The ransomware extortion business depends on Bitcoin. - Drugs. Delivered to your door in a plain wrapper.

>- Drugs. Delivered to your door in a plain wrapper. What are the transaction costs like on BTC these days? I'm surprised many people still bother with BTC given the enormous costs I've seen.

Perhaps delve into this tx from 2 weeks ago:

https://www.blockchain.com/btc/tx/d56ae8052711ac81cb68a0ccf3...

Re: Blockchain, the Solution for Almost Nothing

#183

Post by zelly »

john_moscow wrote: post #119
zelly wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My hope is that some centimillionaires and maybe billionaires will convert all their cash to BTC when a wealth tax comes. That's one possible scenario for 100k or higher.

Yeah, sure, buying an extremely volatile asset with ~2x price swing within recent couple of years is much less risky than paying 0.4% per year, while actively moving your assets to a different jurisdiction. And the anonymity is guaranteed by design. You just send your billions through a couple of mixers registered to phony IDs and it they magically get obfuscated because hey, other billionaires do that every day as w…

There's no need for anonymity. I don't understand why that's relevant.

> extremely volatile asset with ~2x price swing within recent couple of years

Can be hedged with futures. Also S&P 500 had ~1.5x price swings recently and no one cared. The derivatives market has solved the problem of volatility in all markets not just Bitcoin.

There are already several billionaires who publicly say they have lots of BTC, prob many more who don't speak up. Jack (8B), Chamath (1B), Paul Tudor Jones (6B), Winklevii (1 B), Peter Thiel (2B). Eventually it will be known as the tax haven coin (already kind of is) and that will be its killer app.

Re: Blockchain, the Solution for Almost Nothing

#184

Post by petra »

csande17 wrote: post #131
andreskytt wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Number mobility between Indian telecoms runs on private blockchain. AFAIK it is live and actively used. BC solves a problem there because operating a database for that scale would be very complicated. So every telco has their own copy that get synced via a consensus mechanism and signed transactions

> BC solves a problem there because operating a database for that scale would be very complicated. Would it, though? Google tells me that India has a population of around 1.4 billion people. Let's assume each person has one phone number, and each phone number requires one kilobyte of number-mobility-related data. Then the database would need to store 1.4 terabytes of information. 1.4 terabytes doesn't seem like an im…

Start non-profit for that purpose that will manage the database.

Ther database will hold only entries signed by telco companies. Some rules will apply on what happens when a number changes.

Everyone gets access to the raw database, and to query the database.

In case of mismatches there will be an agreed arbitration process, with agreed upon fines to the party no being responsible. This or some other contract.

This sort of solves the problem.

The key win in the blockchain - is the decentralization. But we know, in the real world how to arrange cooperation using centralization. it works. It's done every day. So this case is mostly useful when you want to avoid regulation.

Another win of the blockchain - a lot of work has been done verifying that it is secure. It probably is the mose secure system for those sort of problems. And that's a good reason to use it in many places.

Re: Blockchain, the Solution for Almost Nothing

#185

Post by zucker42 »

csande17 wrote: post #176
zucker42 wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I imagine the issue is maintaining consensus between the different phone companies. Without blockchain you'd have to have a canonical database run by a single entity, whereas you can use blockchain as the consensus mechanism among competing companies.

It's a shame there's no central authority responsible for regulating telecom in India, or this would be a really easy problem to solve.

I mean sure you could have the government manage the central database but maybe the Indian government is not equip to run such a database. Plus you can avoid some of the problems with high costs or stagnation that can happen with centrally run systems. I don't think there's any particular reason to reject blockchain if it works in this case.

Re: Blockchain, the Solution for Almost Nothing

#186

Post by dk8996 »

rainbow-road wrote: post #161
dk8996 wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) Not all voting needs privacy 2) For stronger privacy, I would look into reading more about; a) Xpub, Ypub and Zpub and UTXO b) Mimblewimble c) Monero and PIVC

Please just explicitly enumerate the benefits of blockchains in voting. That would make it much easier for both you and everyone reading.

-Decentralized Identity (see W3C DID)

-Votes aren't verifiable by everyone.

-Privacy

Just to name a few.

Re: Blockchain, the Solution for Almost Nothing

#187

Post by csande17 »

petra wrote: post #184
csande17 wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> BC solves a problem there because operating a database for that scale would be very complicated. Would it, though? Google tells me that India has a population of around 1.4 billion people. Let's assume each person has one phone number, and each phone number requires one kilobyte of number-mobility-related data. Then the database would need to store 1.4 terabytes of information. 1.4 terabytes doesn't seem like an im…

Start non-profit for that purpose that will manage the database. Ther database will hold only entries signed by telco companies. Some rules will apply on what happens when a number changes. Everyone gets access to the raw database, and to query the database. In case of mismatches there will be an agreed arbitration process, with agreed upon fines to the party no being responsible. This or some other contract. This so…

I'm not sure I agree that blockchain is the most secure solution for common problems.

Let's say you get a computer virus that steals your banking credentials and transfers your money to someone else's account. In the traditional banking system, it's often possible to reset passwords and reverse transactions, especially if you catch the bad behavior quickly. With Bitcoin, your money is gone forever and it is mathematically impossible for you to ever get it back.

Re: Blockchain, the Solution for Almost Nothing

#188

Post by mad182 »

ahdeanz wrote: post #177
arkadiyt wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is an ICO really - just a company minting tokens for people that they can exchange for something. They're not using any of the properties of blockchain, and no one is running nodes except for the company itself. They should just sell digital tokens via traditional ecommerce methods - nothing about ICOs depends on or takes advantage of being on a blockchain.

They're literally using the blockchain to distribute the tokens.

Wrong. They are using blockchain to generate hype. Internally it might as well be an Excel spreadsheet instead of blockchain and it wouldn't make a difference to the end user.

Re: Blockchain, the Solution for Almost Nothing

#189

Post by biolurker1 »

tomcam wrote: post #167
biolurker1 wrote: post #137

Been a while since a denialist article appeared here. It is in stark contrasts with governments, nasdaq,banks, people using etc and many others. But hey the right to say computers are worthless is always there

And yet you didn’t provide a single example contradicting the articles thesis.

Again, China usa and eu governments are using it to deploy digital currencies. Nasdaq plans to build the new financial infra on blockchain. What do you need Jesus to come down and tell you it has value as technology?

Re: Blockchain, the Solution for Almost Nothing

#190

Post by csande17 »

anon9001 wrote: post #181
ahdeanz wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The shifting goalposts of this argument have been interesting to watch over the last 3-4 years. Stablecoins: I remember plenty of commenters being quite certain that volatility made cryptocurrency unusable. And yet a short time later we have successful decentralized stable coins. DeFi: Just in the past months Uniswap has rivaled centralized exchange volume as a decentralized exchange. It's permissionless composabilit…

The DeFi thing has finally pushed me to look at crypto again, which turned me on to metamask (via Brave), and after experiencing the UX, it's glaringly obvious that this is the next big thing. Nobody even talks about it, but the fact that I can "sign in" to my "brokerage account" simply by visiting dydx or unisawp and authenticating securely with my browser is pretty incredible. People are claiming to be excited abou…

> Nobody even talks about it, but the fact that I can "sign in" to my "brokerage account" simply by visiting dydx or unisawp and authenticating securely with my browser is pretty incredible.

There's an experimental browser that provides this functionality for all kinds of websites, not just financial ones. You set up an account once when you install the browser, and then you can use it for one-click logins.

It's made by Alphabet Inc, but I can't seem to remember what it's called. Vanadium? Manganese? Ultron? Something like that anyway...

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