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Ethereum Isn't Fun Anymore

timdaub.github.io

141–150 of 650 posts

Re: Ethereum Isn't Fun Anymore

#141

Building something useful on something that is primarily used as highly volatile financial speculation instrument always rubbed me the wrong way. The whole crypto scene is just about making quick dough with a technology, that for some reason remains hyped through and wrapped in mysticism. Face it, there is no sexy killer app for the masses. Wait. There is one: Crypto trading to... make quick dough. And the cryptonerd…

Largely agree. It's what makes Bitcoin different. Bitcoin's killer app is the network itself. The fact that you can send money/transfer wealth instantly without a bank to tell you what you can and can't do IS the value of Bitcoin and why it's not some purely speculative ponzhi scheme. As far as I understand, you can't reaaally use Ethereum for the same purpose because of high fees.

That's one of the point that makes little sense to me. The government/bank regulation kicks in when you try to convert to your local currency. They now have your full history of transactions and can decide to refuse your bitcoins or find you guilty of fraud or whatever illegal thing you tried to hide. Regulations will always be present at the edge.

Re: Ethereum Isn't Fun Anymore

#142

Building something useful on something that is primarily used as highly volatile financial speculation instrument always rubbed me the wrong way. The whole crypto scene is just about making quick dough with a technology, that for some reason remains hyped through and wrapped in mysticism. Face it, there is no sexy killer app for the masses. Wait. There is one: Crypto trading to... make quick dough. And the cryptonerd…

>Face it, there is no sexy killer app for the masses. It's not only the volatility but also the inefficiency which is the price that has to be paid for the decentralization. I really have trouble coming up with an app where the constant fees that have to be paid for actions are justified compared to a centralized solution.

> where the constant fees that have to be paid for actions

I agree, this has to change. I see Ethereum fees as the early days of the internet when we paid for every freaking minute! Today you can have high-speed internet with no bandwidth limit with a fixed monthly fee. The only limit is maximum download/upload speed and that's probably the key question: What is "maximum speed" for Ethereum? Instead of paying for every action, we would pay fixed daily/weekly/monthly fee, but it would be limited by that "maximum speed".

Re: Ethereum Isn't Fun Anymore

#143
post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about a voting system? That's the only application of a public, decentralized ledger that can kind of makes sense to me. I'm from Switzerland, every few months we have a public voting for various changes to the federal or cantonal laws. I currently do not have a way to be certain that my vote is taken in account. With a public ledger I can check and be sure that my vote is correct. I'm generally opposed to softw…

This may surprise you, but most voting systems make verification hard deliberately. If you can check your vote at home, others can verify your vote as well, which means you've lost the advantages of a secret ballot.

You can only know my vote if you have a way to associate an address with an identity. Unless that's the case, you may be able to check the set of votes, but that's it.

Re: Ethereum Isn't Fun Anymore

#144
post #64

I really, really don't understand where cryptocurrencies are going. Billions have been poured in this technology for almost no actual return technologically wise. And I understand, because interest are not aligned. It really seems like nobody actually care about advancing the state of art, except actual researcher who work in universities and not in crypto startups... Cryptocurrencies had a goal and a usefulness when…

IIRC Dogecoin was born as a meme. And now I'm supposed to believe it is a serious investment or cryptocurrency?

Re: Ethereum Isn't Fun Anymore

#145
post #131

I was away from the crypto space for a while and I decided to try shorting some currencies yesterday using a DEX based on Ethereum. I wanted to create a position with 1000 dollars. The estimated fee for my transaction was 490 dollars. Something is broken in this environment.

How does that even happen?

Limited transaction throughput (given by block size * block time) + an open fee market where people outbid each other to get priority.

The only reason it's this expensive is that there's enough capital willing to pay the price.

Re: Ethereum Isn't Fun Anymore

#146
This constant whining is getting popular nowadays, specially on hn. >ooohh this thing I got in early is now popular Give me a break. Alot of smart people here think they know what matters but they don't. They often point at the technology and this and that, but it doesn't matter, they are all wrong. The price chart is the only thing that matters. Even if you had the best scalable crypto. Would it matter if nobody could make money on it? People only adopt these things to make money because it's not a necessity, unlike In your country where you need, your government's printed money to buy food and survive. Theories sometimes make alot of sense in paper, but reality proves otherwise. In crypto all it matters is price performance. When there is a bear market most people don't want to talk or touch crypto at all. They all want to stay a away, like it is a leprous dog. You can pay for less shit with bitcoin today, than in 2017.

Re: Ethereum Isn't Fun Anymore

#147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about a voting system? That's the only application of a public, decentralized ledger that can kind of makes sense to me. I'm from Switzerland, every few months we have a public voting for various changes to the federal or cantonal laws. I currently do not have a way to be certain that my vote is taken in account. With a public ledger I can check and be sure that my vote is correct. I'm generally opposed to softw…

> I currently do not have a way to be certain that my vote is taken in account. That is something we do a lot of R&D on @Electis, along with the fine fellows from InfernoRed, Microsoft and others. Because the value of an election is the thrust that voters have in it! It is part of what the homomorphic encryption protocol we use (electionguard) aims at solving. Your ballot is encrypted with a joint public key, and all…

That's great, thanks for sharing. That could be its own HN submission!

Re: Ethereum Isn't Fun Anymore

#148
post #144
post #64

I really, really don't understand where cryptocurrencies are going. Billions have been poured in this technology for almost no actual return technologically wise. And I understand, because interest are not aligned. It really seems like nobody actually care about advancing the state of art, except actual researcher who work in universities and not in crypto startups... Cryptocurrencies had a goal and a usefulness when…

IIRC Dogecoin was born as a meme. And now I'm supposed to believe it is a serious investment or cryptocurrency?

Nobody is claiming that it's a serious investment.

Re: Ethereum Isn't Fun Anymore

#149

Building something useful on something that is primarily used as highly volatile financial speculation instrument always rubbed me the wrong way. The whole crypto scene is just about making quick dough with a technology, that for some reason remains hyped through and wrapped in mysticism. Face it, there is no sexy killer app for the masses. Wait. There is one: Crypto trading to... make quick dough. And the cryptonerd…

What about a voting system? That's the only application of a public, decentralized ledger that can kind of makes sense to me. I'm from Switzerland, every few months we have a public voting for various changes to the federal or cantonal laws. I currently do not have a way to be certain that my vote is taken in account. With a public ledger I can check and be sure that my vote is correct. I'm generally opposed to softw…

A public ledger can be achieved without a blockchain right? My understanding is that a ledger can guarantee that your vote was counted, but it can't guarantee that all the other votes are legitimate.

Re: Ethereum Isn't Fun Anymore

#150
I still hold firm to my belief that, whatever the initial intentions the idea of cryptocurrency had, since 5 or 6 years ago, cryptocurrencies are the MLM of the tech world.

I even knew a few non-techies acquaintances that almost got roped into it (in the figure of thousands of USD) with the same pyramid scheme manipulation techniques and terminology.

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