Clarity, at least on paper, sounds way nicer than Solidity. We'll see how it ends.
Smart contracts on Bitcoin
51–60 of 246 posts
Re: Smart contracts on Bitcoin
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe under very exceptional circumstances, i.e. a systemic network risk. Since the DAO fiasco we've had a number of high profile incidents and the community has rejected stepping in (look at the failure of EIP 999). I'm not sure if there's presently anything on Ethereum, that should it fail, would be as bad as the DAO failure. Maybe MakerDAO?
>Maybe under very exceptional circumstances, i.e. a systemic network risk. that sounds awfully like the justification for bank bailouts.
If they didn't go forward with the DAO fork, I'm not sure Ethereum would even exist today.
Re: Smart contracts on Bitcoin
#53Its crazy how the conversation changes, it felt like many of the people on Hacker News were anti-bitcoin, but now that the price is nice, I'm seeing it on the first page all the time.
Many people (many of the same people, even) on HN are still anti-bitcoin, and conversely its been on the first page quite a bit when the price was less nice than it is now.
This is because HN is diverse, and it can have large factions boosting something while other large factions are negative on it.
Re: Smart contracts on Bitcoin
#54I'm not sure I've gotten a clear answer to this before, so someone please help me understand:
I can see how smart contracts might be useful in contracts that involve other assets that are directly connected in the same decentralized context (i.e., other bitcoin transactions or blockchain entities).
However, for anything else in the real world, they always (from what I've seen) require an "oracle" of some kind. True, that can be based on a consensus algorithm involving multiple parties in the real world, but it always ends up requiring trust that those real-world entities are playing by the rules. If we're relying on the good faith of real-world entities, how is a smart contract any better than a legal contract (a human would have to step in as the arbiter in either case)?
Re: Smart contracts on Bitcoin
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
>From day one Bitcoin was designed to have low or no fees How are miners supposed to be compensated, given that the block reward halves every few years? >because Blockstream was able to wrestle control of the GitHub repo Can you rebut these counter-claims made by one of the Core devs? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25566420 >is a broken system designed to enrich developers of "Second Layer" solutions like this.…
> How are miners supposed to be compensated, given that the block reward halves every few years? A solved problem by Satoshi. The block reward covers miners expenses for the next 100 years or so, THEN, once the block size is large enough and transactions are in the millions, a fee of a few cents per transaction replaces the block reward. > Can you rebut these counter-claims made by one of the Core devs? Yes, easily.…
>he is a master social engineer and manipulator.
Lol, I think we all just learned everything we need to know about your POV.
Re: Smart contracts on Bitcoin
#56I remember Counterparty (XCP) tried something like this a long time ago. Not full blown smart contracts, but things like asset creation (tokens) and decentralized exchanges like on Ethereum. Anyway at the time they received a lot of pushback from some Bitcoin core devs and some threatened to block them over their use of OP_RETURN. Wonder how sustainable Stacks approach is in comparison? Don't know if it works the sam…
I came here to say that. Here's a super informative thread laying out those events from the perspective of one of the Decred developers.
https://old.reddit.com/r/decred/comments/6wxueo/your_best_pi...
TLDR: Smart contracts on BTC were intentionally strangled because it would necessitate bigger blocks.
At the same time, BTC core devs were gearing up to start their sad push in creating artificial scarcity on a perfectly functional blockchain by reneging on the agreement they made to increase the block size.
They traded their ideals to get rich and all that momentum was lost. Instead of peer to peer cash, we're all left with a thousand useless ponzi schemes and a handful of promising coins that can't work together to actually achieve Satoshi's goal.
Re: Smart contracts on Bitcoin
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
>the community voted with their wallets, ETH won, give it a bone already Isn't this the exact problem? That the blockchain isn't actually immutable and community will step in to revert transactions?
I mean, no? There are two cryptocurrencies, ETH and ETC, and apparently most people think it's fine to revert a transaction for the reason ETH reverted it. The only problem is that people posit "but it's a problem when transactions are reverted, and, look, ETH reverts transactions!", which assumes the problem even though the assumption doesn't really seem to hold.
>The only problem is that people posit "but it's a problem when transactions are reverted, and, look, ETH reverts transactions!", which assumes the problem even though the assumption doesn't really seem to hold.
But if all we cared about is the "right" thing to be done at the end, why bother with smart contracts? Why not use the courts?
Re: Smart contracts on Bitcoin
#58I'm not sure I've gotten a clear answer to this before, so someone please help me understand: I can see how smart contracts might be useful in contracts that involve other assets that are directly connected in the same decentralized context (i.e., other bitcoin transactions or blockchain entities). However, for anything else in the real world, they always (from what I've seen) require an "oracle" of some kind. True,…
For onchain purposes it can just be a matter of convenience, not a panacea or cure all
Re: Smart contracts on Bitcoin
#59I'm not sure I've gotten a clear answer to this before, so someone please help me understand: I can see how smart contracts might be useful in contracts that involve other assets that are directly connected in the same decentralized context (i.e., other bitcoin transactions or blockchain entities). However, for anything else in the real world, they always (from what I've seen) require an "oracle" of some kind. True,…
It is much cheaper to execute a smart contract.
Re: Smart contracts on Bitcoin
#60I'm not sure I've gotten a clear answer to this before, so someone please help me understand: I can see how smart contracts might be useful in contracts that involve other assets that are directly connected in the same decentralized context (i.e., other bitcoin transactions or blockchain entities). However, for anything else in the real world, they always (from what I've seen) require an "oracle" of some kind. True,…
There's value in digitizing 90% of the process and relying on as few oracles as possible. Right now your contracts are enforced by fallible, highly paid interpreters (lawyers) executing source code in printed form.