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Ethereum 2.0 – Minimum deposit reached

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Re: Ethereum 2.0 – Minimum deposit reached

#231

Post by bhaak »

pfraze wrote: post #219
pkulak wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess I don't understand how proof of stake uses trust while proof of work doesn't. They seem very similar to me. I could argue that with Bitcoin you have to trust all of these large pools that are constantly flirting with 50% of the hashing power.

This is my best understanding, I could be wrong. With PoW, we trust that the mining algorithm is going to take X amount of time given Y amount of computation. That arguably removes trust from people and puts it in the properties of tech. PoS argues that PoW is just a proxy indicator of stake, where the stake is computing resources that are committed to mining. With PoS, rather than reifying your resources into CPUs t…

I wouldn't call Bitcoin's POW as "trust in algorithm runtime on modern hardware".

Just think about it. The algorithm can be changed by anybody. What does prevent the miners from changing the source code to allow them double spending or even extra coins?

But if they do that and don't have a significant hashrate that do the same, they are on a blockchain fork that is worthless to anybody else.

So we trust in the economic game theory that miners don't tamper with the code.

Re: Ethereum 2.0 – Minimum deposit reached

#232

Post by _2d30 »

keymone wrote: post #136
_2d30 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean I guess this depends on how one defines waste but under definitions I generally come across, if you could get the same level of security for less electricity in a new scheme, then the old scheme is wasting electricity.

sure, if you could . but the value is in the eyes of the beholder. if the market genuinely believed that to be the case - PoW currencies wouldn't be worth anything, so far that isn't the case, so claiming that PoW is wasteful is disingenuous at best. p.s. somebody really dislikes my opinions, as i'm banned from commenting on HN for the last couple hours or so :D

You write about markets like they are omnipotent, benevolent gods which they aren't. Markets fail all the time. It's a large part of what economists spend their time studying. Take an intro to game theory course and you can find all sorts of structures that lead to non-socially beneficial outcomes, the prisoner's dilemma being a classic example.

There's nothing about markets nor cryptocurrencies that guarantees that they efficiently select for the currency that requires the least electricity. You completely ignore social alignment issues as well as inertia.

Re: Ethereum 2.0 – Minimum deposit reached

#233

Post by zalkota »

woahAcademia wrote: post #120
ajkdhcb2 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don't trust your government or your personal safety, I can't imagine that it will be smart to use currencies like this that have ZERO privacy. I will stick with Monero. They have gone through all this complex redesign apparently without a single thought given to privacy; looks like a disaster.

I like monero, but these are complete different use cases. Ethereum wants to be a database, monero wants to be a currency.

Ethereum is an ecosystem, you can create monero on top of it.

Re: Ethereum 2.0 – Minimum deposit reached

#234

Post by rstuart4133 »

bhaak wrote: post #231
pfraze wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is my best understanding, I could be wrong. With PoW, we trust that the mining algorithm is going to take X amount of time given Y amount of computation. That arguably removes trust from people and puts it in the properties of tech. PoS argues that PoW is just a proxy indicator of stake, where the stake is computing resources that are committed to mining. With PoS, rather than reifying your resources into CPUs t…

I wouldn't call Bitcoin's POW as "trust in algorithm runtime on modern hardware". Just think about it. The algorithm can be changed by anybody. What does prevent the miners from changing the source code to allow them double spending or even extra coins? But if they do that and don't have a significant hashrate that do the same, they are on a blockchain fork that is worthless to anybody else. So we trust in the econom…

> Just think about it. The algorithm can be changed by anybody.

It can. But the key point is if you change the algorithm by say reducing the number of hashes required (so you increase your chance of winning) it can be detected by just inspecting the block. You don't need access to the code, or be able to watch it running, or trust some hardware, or the person running it, or anything else beyond inspecting the output block and trusting calculating the hash is as hard as it appears. The easy of doing that check that is ultimately what keeps the system safe. Everybody can trivially determine you've cheated, so everybody knows you've behaved in a way that helps you and hurts them, so everybody rejects your block. I guess you could call it game theory, but it is a drop simple game that is easy to analyse and see it gets the desired end result - your bitcoins trade has been immutably recorded in the block chain.

I don't understand how PoS stake works, but the parents description ("reify the resources into in-ledger coins ... block-writers are selected randomly ... weighted by the amount of stake in escrow") makes it sound much more complex. So complex that I wonder if it can be verified by just taking a quick peek at the output block it produced. If it can't, and it's something that relies on trusting code, people or hardware, and within that complexity may well lie a hidden flaw that leads to everyone realising they lost control of their Ethereum days or weeks after it happened. The importance of days or weeks is it's already been cashed out before you realised what was happening.

But I guess that's all wild speculation, and I should look at the algorithm.

Re: Ethereum 2.0 – Minimum deposit reached

#235

Post by beaner »

rglullis wrote: post #111
beaner wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You are completely ignoring second-order effects for these systems Which ones? I don't believe I am, they're just not the point being discussed here.

> they're just not the point being discussed here. In other words, you are ignoring (not paying attention, leaving aside) an aspect that should be considered. (You asked for a good-faith conversation, but after these types of replies it gets hard to take you seriously. The quote " It is hard to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on not understanding it " becomes more and more apt with each resp…

I mean, I literally asked "which ones". You didn't answer. You can't claim I'm ignoring them if you haven't told me what they are.

I'm not sure how your quote applies, my salary doesn't depend on Bitcoin.

Re: Ethereum 2.0 – Minimum deposit reached

#236

Post by pclmulqdq »

dmantis wrote: post #201
pclmulqdq wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Serious question: Who suffers at the hands of Mastercard?

Well, not directly the mastercard, but current banking system - lots of people. TLDR; custody banking model keeps people out of control of their own property. There is a big problem with private property rights and safety guaranties of your capital today in most of the world. There are three problems: unstable govs in 3rd world countries, capital moving restrictions and QEs. I'm, for example, not from developed count…

These are all really good points, but there's some nuance missing in this view. There is actually a fairly narrow slice of the financial world that you don't like, specifically central banking and fiat currency.

Currently, crypto traders are busy learning that all the rest of the financial world, including things like credit and financial derivatives (encapsulated in smart contracts), can still apply to cryptocurrencies.

Things like consumer credit and fractional reserve banking will show up in crypto soon (if they haven't already). It's just a matter of trusted entities offering specific smart contracts.

The one thing I really dislike about most crypto is the traceability: unless you use privacy coins (which themselves have dubious security claims), every transaction is 100% traceable.

Re: Ethereum 2.0 – Minimum deposit reached

#237

Post by mercenario »

_2d30 wrote: post #232
keymone wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

sure, if you could . but the value is in the eyes of the beholder. if the market genuinely believed that to be the case - PoW currencies wouldn't be worth anything, so far that isn't the case, so claiming that PoW is wasteful is disingenuous at best. p.s. somebody really dislikes my opinions, as i'm banned from commenting on HN for the last couple hours or so :D

You write about markets like they are omnipotent, benevolent gods which they aren't. Markets fail all the time. It's a large part of what economists spend their time studying. Take an intro to game theory course and you can find all sorts of structures that lead to non-socially beneficial outcomes, the prisoner's dilemma being a classic example. There's nothing about markets nor cryptocurrencies that guarantees that…

It's pretty simple, if it costs you 1 dollar to mine a bitcoin and someone (the market) wants to buy that bitcoin for 2 dollars, that cost is worth it. It doesn't matter what that cost is, if it's 1 dollar in energy or 1 dollar in wages or whatever, it costs $1 and you sell by $2, you profit, the cost was worth it.

Re: Ethereum 2.0 – Minimum deposit reached

#238

Post by mercenario »

newyankee wrote: post #3
drcode wrote: post #2

TLDR; The transition from Eth1->Eth2 requires the following steps: 1. Network operators (stakers) deposit at least 524,288 ETH in a special contract 2. The early Eth2 blockchain (the "beacon chain") launches Dec 1st 3. The Eth1 blockchain will be merged into Eth2 (details TBD) 4. Other features will be added to make Eth2 fully functional (sharding being the biggest feature) Just a few minutes ago, step 1 has been acc…

Does this mean no more mining and waste of electricity ?

Do you consider the energy spent mining gold a waste? This electricity is necessary to mine bitcoin. It is the same principle.

If you have a more efficient way to mine bitcoin, just do it, you will be rich, or just tell everyone else and everybody will use it.

Re: Ethereum 2.0 – Minimum deposit reached

#239

Post by nootropicat »

keymone wrote: post #76
mikkelam wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is one not allowed to learn ? I'm not familiar with eth foundation's statements but they have matured a lot since 2015 and i wouldn't say they underdeliver, there are 100s of real world applications that are using eth dapps already today. I believe it's different because i understand the tech. It's feasible. Assuming PoS works, it will scale. Eth2 is also not hard fork. The old chain will be attached to the new chain

PoW has nothing to do with scaling and so PoS isn't a way to address it. if you're making this claim, i would suggest to reconsider your belief that "it's different because i understand the tech". PoW and PoS are algorithms to order transactions, but how many transactions and how often to order them are just tunable parameters. the real scalability "tech" that is being sneaked in while everybody is busy talking about…

>PoW has nothing to do with scaling and so PoS isn't a way to address it.

You're wrong, PoW is a poisson process which means time to generate blocks must be a very small fraction of average block time. Block times in PoS have a normal distribution with tight std, which means block generation can take even 1/3 of block time, giving some leeway for propagation.

Re: Ethereum 2.0 – Minimum deposit reached

#240

Post by keymone »

_2d30 wrote: post #232
keymone wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

sure, if you could . but the value is in the eyes of the beholder. if the market genuinely believed that to be the case - PoW currencies wouldn't be worth anything, so far that isn't the case, so claiming that PoW is wasteful is disingenuous at best. p.s. somebody really dislikes my opinions, as i'm banned from commenting on HN for the last couple hours or so :D

You write about markets like they are omnipotent, benevolent gods which they aren't. Markets fail all the time. It's a large part of what economists spend their time studying. Take an intro to game theory course and you can find all sorts of structures that lead to non-socially beneficial outcomes, the prisoner's dilemma being a classic example. There's nothing about markets nor cryptocurrencies that guarantees that…

Yes, markets can be wrong, but baselessly dismissing market data is plain dumb. Until market is shown wrong, the value that market assigns to something is at least some evidence of it’s true value.

Also, sorry to burst your bubble, but universe doesn’t care about socially beneficial outcomes. If a thing has valuable characteristics, no matter how socially harmful you may perceive it to be - those characteristics will not go anywhere.

So right now you’re basically arguing that bitcoin isn’t valuable because you don’t like what it’s valued for. There’s nothing wrong with that, but at least admit how highly subjective and contrary to available evidence that opinion is.

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