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The Limits to Blockchain Scalability

vitalik.ca

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Re: The Limits to Blockchain Scalability

#221

Post by kaladin_1 »

puranjay wrote: post #178
gricardo99 wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean on a larger scale. The great promise of crypto, A billion plus “unbanked” people turning to a crypto enabled shadow banking system, will not happen without drawing the attention of the eye of sauron

Shouldn't the fact that central bankers want to ban crypto make you think that maybe there's something here more than ponzis and scams? If the eye of sauron wants to destroy something, surely it can't be all bad?

>> Shouldn't the fact that central bankers want to ban crypto make you think that maybe there's something here more than ponzis and scams?

Note that I do not support Gov banning crypto.

I see two things: 1. That there's a legitimate threat to their power and existence which they would do anything to mitigate.

2. Also, it could be that majority of their population are being exposed to unhealthy risk.

Take the case of Nigeria for example. MMM a ponzi scheme rocked the country in early 2017. People lost a total estimate of about 18 billion Naira (or $60m as of March 2017)

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MMM_Global

The Government actually warned people, but the Government has gained reputation for stifling any form of growth. Therefore, no one listened.

Re: The Limits to Blockchain Scalability

#222

Post by BenoitEssiambre »

laurent92 wrote: post #3
maxrev17 wrote: post #2

This is a really good read. More of this and less of Elon's chatter needed!

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…

-Since it is a non productive investment without dividends or interests, making a profit entails someone else making a loss. It's a zero sum game. On average no money is made.

-If you follow the herd, if you buy when people are talking it up positively, you are probably buying high and making less than average (less than zero).

-Covid 19 probably made crypto investment frothy because of unprecedented amount of government stimulus and fewer places than normal to spend money. The government benefits are going to taper over the summer so crypto prices will lose an important support, and the gradual reopening of everything will give people more places to spend their money instead of bidding up digital coins. There could be a third downward force if high inflation takes hold and central banks starts fighting it. They do this by raising interest rates which literally means banks are paying people to hold fiat or government debt instead of other assets. Gold and stocks usually have lower than normal prices during periods of high interest rates, crypto could do the same. At least stocks should have accelerating dividends with higher inflation, not so for gold and crypto.

So if you really want to buy cryptocoins, wait to see what the economic conditions look like in the fall or next year, if the economy is near done working through the above dynamics, prices could be near their lows and it should be a less terrible time to buy.

Re: The Limits to Blockchain Scalability

#223

Post by SubiculumCode »

legulere wrote: post #129
SubiculumCode wrote: post #90

I used to be a skeptic of blockchain, but then I actually investigated what is going on in the industry. Yes there is a lot of fud, poor ideas, etc, but there are also lots of interesting cool ideas that just will not go away. Reminds me of the dotcom boom, actually.

Which ideas do you think will not go away?

Gambling is a given...paired with oracles (e.g. Link) for real world outcome verification to decide smart contract outcomes. I think applications to supply chain manufacturing would be useful to cut down the tons of fraud that happen in manufacturing. It is already finding use in cargo logistics. I believe Egypt has recently incorporated blockchain to imports (https://theloadstar.com/egypt-authorizes-cargox-as-the-block...). There are some interesting ideas about using it for increasing throughput for video streaming (see theta.tv). Non fungible tokens (NFT)are too hyped, but will find some permanent niches for digital trading economies and games..and perhaps uses that we do not foresee. In real estate, there is some movement to adopt blockchain to streamline an inefficient and byzantine process of title transfer and centralized solutions of final authority are not likely to be accepted by parties.

Re: The Limits to Blockchain Scalability

#224

Post by imtringued »

c01n wrote: post #127
jollybean wrote: post #91

The notion of 'decentraliztion' as presented by the blockchain community is basically extremist/absolutist, and it's ruining their own projects. Our entire civilization and everything in it depends on networks of trust. Without it, we'd fall down instantly. To require a system of 'absolute decentralization' when 'partial decentralization' would work just as well, doesn't make sense. We technical people have an odd wa…

But with fiat there is no trust between the people, the trust is provided by the banks, they act as the arbitrators because humans cannot trust each other. When we used to barter we stopped because it was sometimes unfair (convert bread to chickens?) so we invented money (gold) which is natural occurring and rare so we trust it more. Later on we invented banks which are a third party we use them as arbitrators becaus…

>When we used to barter we stopped because it was sometimes unfair (convert bread to chickens?) so we invented money (gold) which is natural occurring and rare so we trust it more.

That's wrong. Debt existed before money and barter didn't exist at all without a medium of exchange like metals or spices.

When you give someone a chicken and the other side gives you bread you remember or even write down that this person owes you more bread in the future and you trust that this person will uphold his promise, the same way you trust that his bread is not rotten.

Re: The Limits to Blockchain Scalability

#225

Post by kaladin_1 »

seibelj wrote: post #56
jeremycarter wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not a hater. I am just applying some critical thinking and design thinking to try to figure out where the value is in all of this to the customer. I am happy to say I'm wrong, and happy to backflip.

Here is one of many comments I have written https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25641940 But again, to those reading this thread, HN is not a place where you will find a lot of people who patiently defend crypto and blockchain. It garners a lot of downvotes.

>> But again, to those reading this thread, HN is not a place where you will find a lot of people who patiently defend crypto and blockchain. It garners a lot of downvotes.

Blockchain is a wonderful piece of technology. IMHO I do not think anyone really has personal beef with the technology. I think majority really want to understand, and if they're asking and posing questions it is because do not understand. There might be some that have their skin in it going south but I doubt that's the situation of many.

People really want to understand its use case as money.

Re: The Limits to Blockchain Scalability

#226

Post by djamrozik »

legulere wrote: post #113
pfisch wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Polymarket is a real use case.

Why do you need a blockchain for that? Gambling and Insurance existed both long before blockchains.

Polymarket is centralized, but one benefit of it is that you can sign up and fund your account anonymously (though you do require an email). Users are not restricted by state or national laws.

On a true decentralized gambling app, email would not be needed, just wallet. It would also be difficult to regulate (the team behind it could be anonymous).

And I'm not saying this is great or anything, but it shows how you can build something with a blockchain that you could not otherwise.

Re: The Limits to Blockchain Scalability

#227

Post by EGreg »

I love that Vitalik is always being honest and admits when something is overpriced, or the fact that Blockchains have inherent limits to scalability.

The problem is the global consensus. It's a very expensive operation to do per block.

Re: The Limits to Blockchain Scalability

#228

Post by mvzvm »

cinntaile wrote: post #42
mvzvm wrote: post #26

Scam after scam, that's all blockchain is. Just another way to fleece the average consumer. There has not been a single valuable use, a single product, that actually improves anyone's day / process / life / anything. I am very open to changing my stance if someone presents evidence to the contrary.

Just by the way you describe it you already signal that you're not open to change your stance. Which is fine by me, but don't fool yourself.

I am very open. Focus on the statement, not the person.

Re: The Limits to Blockchain Scalability

#229

Post by mvzvm »

noxer wrote: post #98
mvzvm wrote: post #26

Scam after scam, that's all blockchain is. Just another way to fleece the average consumer. There has not been a single valuable use, a single product, that actually improves anyone's day / process / life / anything. I am very open to changing my stance if someone presents evidence to the contrary.

https://ripple.com/ripplenet/on-demand-liquidity/ This is a real product, real people use it (without knowing that they do).

Can you elaborate?

Re: The Limits to Blockchain Scalability

#230

Post by mvzvm »

parksy wrote: post #87
mvzvm wrote: post #26

Scam after scam, that's all blockchain is. Just another way to fleece the average consumer. There has not been a single valuable use, a single product, that actually improves anyone's day / process / life / anything. I am very open to changing my stance if someone presents evidence to the contrary.

A couple of points, the first is criticising lack of real-world use-cases for nascent technology is like criticising the web in the mid 90's. It's like expecting the cart to lead the horse. Having said that, there's plenty of projects big and small that have merit. Granted, a lot of published "case studies" are just marketing fluff to attract search traffic, that shouldn't be an indictment of the technology itself wh…

In comparing it to the mid 90s web, you miss three things:

Everyone I knew was using 90's web. Home pages, websites for companies, movies, etc. It just wasn't really monetized or centralized into the big tech brands you listed. There was already real use for it, even if it wasn't remotely close to its final product form.

There was very little scamming involved. Nothing the likes of which we see with ICOs, pump and dump schemes, etc.

There was also a real spirit of openness and transparency, people pushing open source, an advocacy for a "world wide web", etc. Blockchain is the opposite, where everyone is trying to carve out their own little kingdom and push their own scam coins up.

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