Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Limits to Blockchain Scalability

vitalik.ca

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 465 posts

Re: The Limits to Blockchain Scalability

#11

Post by 542458 »

javert wrote: post #6

You could also just not scale the blockchain, and instead use layer 2 solutions, which is the bitcoin approach.

BTC’s layer 2 method also doesn’t scale because (among other reasons) you still need on-chain transactions to handle opening connections and creating wallets, which the main chain does not have the throughput to do at scale. That’s also not to mention all the practical difficulties of using lightning (have to constantly monitor for fraudulent closing of connections, locks up liquidity, etc) and technical issues (route finding doesn’t scale, introduces massive DoS vulnerabilities).

Re: The Limits to Blockchain Scalability

#12

Post by noofen »

rapsey wrote: post #8
laurent92 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was trying to summarize, for an employee who got caught in “Elon Musk shouldn’t have manipulated the BTC” (!) (obviously the employee lost 25% of his savings), I was trying to summarize the list of dangers of having savings in BTC. - Laws of any big country could change and trigger the sale for a lot of sellers of a country, - Especially given BTC is used by Iran to bypass petrol restrictions, used by ransomware an…

The price is manipulated by hedge funds and/or whales to fleece unsophisticated investors. Wyckoff pattern has described BTC this tear to a t.

It's genuinely concerning how 1:1 the Wyckoff pattern is for BTC at the moment [1].

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lhf_2gJJS1I

Re: The Limits to Blockchain Scalability

#13

Post by sktrdie »

This "blockchain" space is getting so complicated that I can't see anymore what it is about. Is it a database? Is it a p2p network? Is it a currency?

Most of the "blockchains" listed on aggregators such as coinmarketcap.com are essentially clients communicating to a few nodes which, for all we know, sync up in a coordinated way to provide the illusion of a decentralized consensus system.

Like maybe we need to take a step back and ask "what problem are we actually trying to solve?".

Is an uncontrollable & anonymous currency truly the next big thing we need? Did we even stop to think of the potential issues of a system like that?

To me the future should be more audacious. Maybe we don't need some kind of unalterable decentralized database where capitalism can thrive from. Maybe we need to rethink society where money is not as crucial as it is today.

Hoping that the "next" cryptopunks can think of these ideas to really change the world for the better rather than ways to scale an unalterable database which, for all I can tell, just provides a distributed way to track who owes what to whom.

Re: The Limits to Blockchain Scalability

#14

Post by bob33212 »

rapsey wrote: post #8
laurent92 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was trying to summarize, for an employee who got caught in “Elon Musk shouldn’t have manipulated the BTC” (!) (obviously the employee lost 25% of his savings), I was trying to summarize the list of dangers of having savings in BTC. - Laws of any big country could change and trigger the sale for a lot of sellers of a country, - Especially given BTC is used by Iran to bypass petrol restrictions, used by ransomware an…

The price is manipulated by hedge funds and/or whales to fleece unsophisticated investors. Wyckoff pattern has described BTC this tear to a t.

I suspect they are following sentiment analysis on social media and also have demand details on the exchanges.

I assume that soon they will let it drop to 9k and leave it there for a few years and the start the whole thing over again, with the next round of "investors". These "Maximalists" are unintentionally helping them set a floor.

Re: The Limits to Blockchain Scalability

#15

Post by DSingularity »

sktrdie wrote: post #13

This "blockchain" space is getting so complicated that I can't see anymore what it is about. Is it a database? Is it a p2p network? Is it a currency? Most of the "blockchains" listed on aggregators such as coinmarketcap.com are essentially clients communicating to a few nodes which, for all we know, sync up in a coordinated way to provide the illusion of a decentralized consensus system. Like maybe we need to take a…

It’s a network supporting both a decentralized data-store with a consistent view into valuable data and an a distributed computer with consistent results. What is so hard about this?

Re: The Limits to Blockchain Scalability

#16

Post by jeremycarter »

Blockchain, Decentralization and Smart Contracts have had nearly a decade to prove their value and disrupt the marketplace. So far nothing but whitepapers, pipe dreams and exit scams - nothing my mother can use. What's the point? Nobody is using crypto as an alternative to fiat. Prove me wrong.

Re: The Limits to Blockchain Scalability

#17

Post by bob33212 »

javert wrote: post #9
laurent92 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was trying to summarize, for an employee who got caught in “Elon Musk shouldn’t have manipulated the BTC” (!) (obviously the employee lost 25% of his savings), I was trying to summarize the list of dangers of having savings in BTC. - Laws of any big country could change and trigger the sale for a lot of sellers of a country, - Especially given BTC is used by Iran to bypass petrol restrictions, used by ransomware an…

There are also big risks to fiat money, such having the entire economic output of your civilization be grossly distorted by central banks.

No one is saying that fiat money is perfect. This is a logical fallacy to jump to "Fiat has issues, therefore I will only own bitcoin". That is like saying "McDonalds is unhealthy, therefore I will only eat sand"

Re: The Limits to Blockchain Scalability

#19

Post by abecedarius »

javert wrote: post #9
laurent92 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was trying to summarize, for an employee who got caught in “Elon Musk shouldn’t have manipulated the BTC” (!) (obviously the employee lost 25% of his savings), I was trying to summarize the list of dangers of having savings in BTC. - Laws of any big country could change and trigger the sale for a lot of sellers of a country, - Especially given BTC is used by Iran to bypass petrol restrictions, used by ransomware an…

There are also big risks to fiat money, such having the entire economic output of your civilization be grossly distorted by central banks.

"Risk-free rate" as in "nobody gets fired for buying IBM" rather than "actually no risk".

Re: The Limits to Blockchain Scalability

#20

Post by jeremycarter »

DSingularity wrote: post #15
sktrdie wrote: post #13

This "blockchain" space is getting so complicated that I can't see anymore what it is about. Is it a database? Is it a p2p network? Is it a currency? Most of the "blockchains" listed on aggregators such as coinmarketcap.com are essentially clients communicating to a few nodes which, for all we know, sync up in a coordinated way to provide the illusion of a decentralized consensus system. Like maybe we need to take a…

It’s a network supporting both a decentralized data-store with a consistent view into valuable data and an a distributed computer with consistent results. What is so hard about this?

Yes but what problem is it trying to solve? It's a solution to a non existent problem.
Post reply on HN