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Ethereum Isn't Fun Anymore

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Re: Ethereum Isn't Fun Anymore

#421

Post by jcrubino »

samvher wrote: post #409
lazzlazzlazz wrote: post #375

The Hacker News community has long been anti-crypto, and as someone deeply involved in the space, these long threads of complaints and diatribes are difficult to handle. Everyone is missing so much context. Ethereum gas prices are astronomical because there's unprecedented demand to use the network: NFT art and collectibles are exploding (NBA TopShot, Foundation, SuperRare, Rarible, OpenSea, etc.) at the same time De…

I feel like the general tendency on HN (and my personal feeling about the subject) is one of interest in the tech and applications, but a feeling that the hype is bigger than the truth. The ideas that Ethereum is innovative, that there are lots of possibilities in cryptocurrencies/blockchain, that at the moment the scene has major environmental issues, and that the current high valuations are unjustified, to my mind…

The key innovation and premise behind Ethereum was to use a virtual machine to enable smart contracts on blockchains. Now virtual machine interpreters for blockchains is common if not standard. Tough to imagine Ethereum failing any promises based on that premise.

Re: Ethereum Isn't Fun Anymore

#422

Post by yks »

pjfin123 wrote: post #408

There's Cheap Eth which is an Ethereum fork with cheaper prices: https://cheapeth.org/ .

Yeah, where author hardcoded himself 25m coins [1] and bans everyone who mentions it from the official discord. Currency of the future indeed.

[1] https://github.com/cheapETH/go-ethereum/commit/412c38434d8d8...

Re: Ethereum Isn't Fun Anymore

#423

Post by gh55 »

UncleMeat wrote: post #277
gh55 wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your correct to say the debt would need to be legally recognised, before it could be sold on to a legally registered debt collector. Aave for example has a UK Electronic Money Institution license, you might need some legal entity to take part in what I describe until laws catch up with innovation. Self driving cars, uber, Airbnb, face similar issues with regulation needing to adjust, that doesn't invalidate the innov…

I think the comparison to airbnb is revealing. Airbnb allowed individuals to rent their home to other individuals. But this is done through a centralized service. Scams and abuse exist, but the centralized service offers some nice benefits like reviews and bans for abusive participants. The innovative part was the new model of what you could rent, not the how of how you rent it. In comparison, the defi loan innovatio…

At the moment DeFi loans are fully collateralized, with the loan to value ratio affecting the interest rate you pay. If your collateral drops in value you have to recollateralize the loan, or are liquidated.

Re: Ethereum Isn't Fun Anymore

#424

Post by loceng »

toss1 wrote: post #406
loceng wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did Filecoin actually gain any traction?

Seems they recently launched late last year [0], some of the miners went on strike seeing the actual mining deal worse than they expected in several ways [1], and current price is going up a bit in the last few days, but consistently down vs BTC [2]. They may be having some success on their original purpose, having just passed 2.5 billion GB on the network, i.e., 2.5 exabytes, and 1300 miners, 200+ projects and 5900+…

Do you know if they list the price of storing/accessing 1 GB on Filecoin compared to say AWS?

It's obvious that people who own Bitcoin would want to use the system in order to show usefulness, demand, however I'm wondering if there's any use of people who aren't financially incentivized (like early adopters who have the most to gain).

Re: Ethereum Isn't Fun Anymore

#425

Post by tgsovlerkhgsel »

duckfang wrote: post #305
Traubenfuchs wrote: post #56

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…

The hardest pill to swallow is that we already had a very low cost of moving money around between hostile nation-states. And it's been around since the 8th century - read 700ACE-800ACE. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawala Its money dealer to money dealer, and the money dealers keep scrips. Average fees are from 0.2% to 0.5% . It's definitely un-sexy since its not technology based. No chains of blocks or programmers…

Cryptocurrencies can take the role of a settlement network between the money dealers. This allows money dealers who either don't fully trust each other, or simply need to settle debt internationally because the transaction flow is asymmetric, to make these transactions.

It also allows for a new kind of system where the money dealers act as access points to the network, and customers trust their local money dealer, but you don't need trust connections between the money dealers: If I want to send money to you from my remote village to yours, I ask you which money dealer you trust, go to my trusted money dealer, give him cash, and tell him that it is to go to your trusted money dealer.

The two money dealers don't have to trust each other for the transaction to work, and the transactions are much harder to disrupt than classic banking transactions.

Re: Ethereum Isn't Fun Anymore

#426

Post by als0 »

albntomat0 wrote: post #401
lazzlazzlazz wrote: post #375

The Hacker News community has long been anti-crypto, and as someone deeply involved in the space, these long threads of complaints and diatribes are difficult to handle. Everyone is missing so much context. Ethereum gas prices are astronomical because there's unprecedented demand to use the network: NFT art and collectibles are exploding (NBA TopShot, Foundation, SuperRare, Rarible, OpenSea, etc.) at the same time De…

As an outsider missing context, what are the answers to the following? They are all valid questions that come up every time, and aren't well answered, given my research into them. - Is the long term alternatives to PoW actually viable, given the huge power consumption of cryptocurrency currently? - Are the valid use cases (other than drugs, ransomware and speculation) worth the valuation? - If Tether collapses, due t…

> - Is the long term alternatives to PoW actually viable, given the huge power consumption of cryptocurrency currently?

PoS and derived schemes like DPoS have been sound on paper. Their drawbacks have largely been accepted by the community as a good tradeoff for most usage models. However, it can take years of "production" usage to get a good feeling about the long term macro economics, so I wouldn't expect a straight answer to this. The good news is that there will be plenty of big tier networks like ETH2 and EOS experimenting with different variants.

Re: Ethereum Isn't Fun Anymore

#427

Post by jdmichal »

mcherm wrote: post #335
jlokier wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> First off, there have been many implementations of various forms of secret ballots on Ethereum using zero knowledge proofs. Mix and match your feature set of who can verify what and when, and there's a zero knowledge scheme that can do it. Yes, no problem with that. But the GP was arguing that it's better if ballots are not secret. I think it's a common misconception that if only all votes were open they would be m…

I'm a Judge of Elections in Pennsylvania, USA. You write: > If people choose to announce their party affiliation, that's something else. In PA (as in most states) one's party affiliation is public by law. In PA it's important because one can only vote in the primary for the party one is registered as a member of. (Voters who do not register an affiliation or are affiliated with a third party simply aren't allowed to…

To be fair, even if you register for the opposing party, helping to choose the opponent is still useful. I've considered such plays before.

Re: Ethereum Isn't Fun Anymore

#428

Post by castlecrasher2 »

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #361
castlecrasher2 wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dumb this down for me, because it's unclear how blockchain would solve the issues you bring up.

Blockchain is just a ledger. So "the Blockchain" does not make anything significantly better. Its in fact ridiculously expensive. The idea is that everytime sweat shop X finishes sewing sequins on a dress, they can scan the RFID tag on the dress with their smartphone, and the ledger gets updated, and then Walmart can prepare for that dress, the shipping company can print out labels etc. Its a good idea. Industries ar…

I appreciate the response, but it's still entirely unclear how blockchain would help here. In a supply chain, why would blockchain be better than a centralized process? It seems to be trying to put a square peg in a round hole.

Re: Ethereum Isn't Fun Anymore

#429

Post by seizethecheese »

XorNot wrote: post #108
TeeWEE wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Tech behind Ethereum is outdated. Well Eth 2.0 is applying the latest and the greatest in Crypto research to a real coin. In terms of scalabliltiy Ethereum is already way past bitcoin slow transaction rates.

The idea of a new version of your currency somewhat speaks against the utility of the whole thing surely?

USD has gone through many iterations in its history. Even quite fundamental ones.

Re: Ethereum Isn't Fun Anymore

#430

Post by [deleted] »

virgo_eye wrote: post #358
microtherion wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you considered that your use of the term "real money" undermines your position a bit? People spend money on things with little tangible value all the time. The benchmark, IMHO, is whether others accept these things as payment. It's generally pretty hard to pay your utility bill with Farmville coins, or buy groceries with Angry Birds Mighty Eagles.

You can't pay your utility bill with Apple stock, or buy groceries with crude oil ETFs. You have to convert them into money first. Does this mean that they are not a store of value?

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