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Ethereum Isn't Fun Anymore

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Re: Ethereum Isn't Fun Anymore

#191

Post by dgellow »

probably_wrong wrote: post #176
dgellow wrote: post #126

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…

The main problem as I see it is that such a system would be completely inaccessible to anyone who is not a software developer. With a paper-based system, all you need to understand is that your paper goes into a box and someone counts it later on. Everyone understands every step, including the steps required to secure that box. But once you require people to understand blockchain you are putting the intregrity of the…

Yes, that's a very good point and another reason I personally advocate for paper ballots. But you can also see it the other way: anyone can learn how to check their entry in the ledger, that takes time but it's not some rocket science. That can be democratized in a way paper ballot cannot be as it requires a huge amount of people and has an important cost for the community.

Re: Ethereum Isn't Fun Anymore

#192

Post by louwrentius »

dgellow wrote: post #154
louwrentius wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean that government that just shuts down internet, making your 'system' totally useless? Yes, right! You can't fix societal problems with tech.

Something to consider: shutting down the internet is very expensive for a government and is likely to results in social unrest and have a lot of other negative side effects.

For first-world countries yes, but we see second and third world countries do it all the time.

Re: Ethereum Isn't Fun Anymore

#193

Post by erikbye »

ben_bai wrote: post #95
Darmody wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's more than money. Some coins like Ethereum have a network behind them on top of which you can do a lot of stuff.

Like sia (siacoin) which is used to pay for distributed storage. But still needs mining to keep going, which distracts from it's purpose. Rent and lend storage space. I which there where some other distributed consensus mechanism which doesn't rely on massive mining.

Lots of uses other than pure fin transactions. Most people are blind to this.

E.g. https://golem.network/

Re: Ethereum Isn't Fun Anymore

#194

Post by dgellow »

Nullabillity wrote: post #153
dgellow wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Whoever forces you to vote a certain way can force you to reveal your address too.

Fair point

Re: Ethereum Isn't Fun Anymore

#195

Post by louwrentius »

mirekrusin wrote: post #178
louwrentius wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean that government that just shuts down internet, making your 'system' totally useless? Yes, right! You can't fix societal problems with tech.

Yes you can, access to free information and finance should be a human right. Just like cash can be used by anyone, so electronic cash should be.

Cryptocurrencies and blockchain were never really about human rights.

It's all about making a quick buck. If that's at the expense of other people or our environment, who gives a fuck right?

Re: Ethereum Isn't Fun Anymore

#196

Post by dgellow »

lopatin wrote: post #149
dgellow wrote: post #126

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…

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.

That may be the case. My point was to say that there is at least one potential application for a blockchain. But I'm sure that's not the best way to approach the problem, just a potential solution I could think of.

Re: Ethereum Isn't Fun Anymore

#197

Post by globular-toast »

maeln wrote: 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…

Same. I was super excited for bitcoin ten years ago, but now I've experienced first hand how bad bitcoin is as a currency. Most people aren't even thinking of using it like that. It's just sitting in their coinbase account. So you've just got a bunch of people who all expect to make money from each other. Without any actual value it's a zero sum game, folks!

Re: Ethereum Isn't Fun Anymore

#198

Post by jpalomaki »

Consultant32452 wrote: post #158
aabbcc1241 wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't want to call cryptocurrency as money because they're not circulating as you'd expect from money. Globally limited transaction rate, relatively long confirmation time, and few adoption.

An ACH transfer through my bank takes multiple days. I've only made a few transactions on crypto, but confirmation was more like seconds to minutes.

In euro area we have SEPA instant payments. Cross border payments that take place in real-time (10 seconds max).

Took some time for the old banks to wake up, but I think they have been doing decent work on catching up.

Re: Ethereum Isn't Fun Anymore

#199

Post by gh55 »

audunw wrote: post #173
5350-uiop-1130 wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "that is primarily used as highly volatile financial speculation instrument " How is that different from any other asset; stocks, land, property. It's all speculation nowadays. From what I've read there are pretty much three use cases: 1. store of value akin to gold (bitcoin) 2. decentralised privacy money (monero etc, to avoid taxes?) 3. a platform on which to build decentralised technologies (ethereum, ada, thorc…

> At the end of the day, crypto is mountain you can't ignore anymore Is it really? Is there anyone that can say that a company has suffered because it didn't adopt crypto? It seems like it's perfectly safe to ignore crypto completely. You could gain a bit of advantage. You can use it as a marketing tool, or to attract certain kinds of investors, by cashing in on the blockchain hype. But I haven't seen that there's an…

> The real problem in lending is to ensure that the borrower can afford the loan and uses the money on what he says he will.

So the lender pays the money into a multisignature 2-of-3 wallet, gives 1 key to the borrower, and if when the borrower signs a transaction with that key to spend the funds is buying what they are authorised to buy, countersigns, else does not. And then you wrap this up in a smart contract, call it DeFi, have a liquidity pool for people to loan out a token for car financing, and if those people don't want to perform the check themselves, plug in an oracle like chainlink to deal with the real world part. On the repayment side, if repayment not made, a company can buy the debt and chase it, or can be hired to chase it. Wall torn down around car (insert asset here) financing..

Re: Ethereum Isn't Fun Anymore

#200

Post by dgellow »

louwrentius wrote: post #192
dgellow wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something to consider: shutting down the internet is very expensive for a government and is likely to results in social unrest and have a lot of other negative side effects.

For first-world countries yes, but we see second and third world countries do it all the time.

And that damages their reputation, creates social unrest, makes it difficult to do business from there, etc. I just want to say that yes, you can shut down the internet but that's already a quite high bar if that's the only way a government can stop a system.
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