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The Limits to Blockchain Scalability

vitalik.ca

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Re: The Limits to Blockchain Scalability

#391

Post by ric2b »

bottled_poe wrote: post #367
dannyw wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. If bitcoin or ethereum gets completely killed today, I'm confident you'll still be able to download the chain in four decades (assuming civilisation still exists) out of pure history and data hoarding.

When the pillars of some derivative blockchain have collapsed, how will we be certain about which download is the untampered version?

For Bitcoin the correct one is the one with the most accumulated proof of work that doesn't contain any invalid blocks.

For Ethereum 2.0 I believe it's something about asking a friend?

Re: The Limits to Blockchain Scalability

#392

Post by dmitriid »

n0mad01 wrote: post #387
dmitriid wrote: post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> one should have the intuition to recognize them as such, otherwise he will miss the opportunities of such developments. That's the narrative of scam artists since before time.

its worth a dollar - its a scam. its worth a hundred dollars, people use it to buy goods - its a scam. its worth a thousand dollars, people start using it as a store of value and a hedge against inflation - its a scam. its worth 65.000 dollars, theres also ethereum changing the face of banking forever - its a scam. calling me a scam artist while disregarding all the givens of reality, at this point its really hard to…

> its worth... its worth... its worth... its worth... its worth...

Empty words

> people start using it as a store of value

People are using for speculation, not for the store of value.

> theres also ethereum changing the face of banking forever

Ethereum is changing literally nothing

> while disregarding all the givens of reality

What you're describing are fantasies that have little to no bearing on reality.

> at this point its really hard to convey how extraordinarily mind-bendingly narrow-minded this point of view is.

At this point it's really hard to understand how anyone who talks about reality can be so far removed from reality.

Re: The Limits to Blockchain Scalability

#393

Post by dmitriid »

miracle2k wrote: post #374
dmitriid wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yes, the blockchain data structure ensures that if you verify the older transactions, the newer transactions on top of it are verified. That is not enough. Blockchain is proposed for various things like, for example, land registries. They have to be kept around indefinitely long. In many countries financial institutions are required by law to keep financial transactions around for 4 years. Ans so on. But yeah, sure…

Then participants who are obligated to keep 4 years of history around will run nodes that keep that data around.

Will they?

Re: The Limits to Blockchain Scalability

#394

Post by ric2b »

noxer wrote: post #272
sillysaurusx wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No matter what your validating gives you in the end you can only accept the current final state of the running network or not use it at all. I'm a bit of a blockchain noob, but isn't this the opposite of how blockchain works? What I mean is, yes, you can design it the way you're saying, but doesn't that open you up to double-spend attacks and enforced centralization? You need a central ledger at that point, since you…

If you have a final state double-spend attacks are actually impossible. They are based on the fact that someone can insert a transaction then "overwrite" it by providing a longer chain where the transaction didn't happen or went somewhere else. This is only ever possible if there is no final state. Also not sure why you would need centralization for what. Simplified a final state is when a majority declares it as fin…

> Simplified a final state is when a majority declares it as final not a central entity does that.

A majority of what? How do you know if you really have a majority or someone is faking a lot of identities and/or hiding a lot of real ones from you?

And if you later find out you had the wrong "majority" what do you do, if the state is final from your perspective?

Re: The Limits to Blockchain Scalability

#395

Post by ric2b »

sillysaurusx wrote: post #268
jimmydorry wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The model you propose is weak to sybil attacks [1] and is based on trust, while the BTC model is based on zero-trust. There is nothing stopping someone malicious from spinning up thousands of nodes that all say the current hash is Y (with transactions that break the rules of the blockchain) while the remaining minority of nodes say the hash is actually X (the original longest chain). It is only by calculating the has…

One way to sidestep this: every few minutes, post the longest hash to some distributed medium that can't be edited, like Twitter. Then the threat model moves to "do we trust the person with the keys to this twitter account?" However, this is also "zero trust," because you can write a program to verify every tweet as it's tweeted, and run that on a server somewhere. But, now that I've written this, I suppose Vitalik's…

> some distributed medium that can't be edited, like Twitter.

It this supposed to be a joke? Twitter is the exact opposite of that.

> Then the threat model moves to "do we trust the person with the keys to this twitter account?"

> However, this is also "zero trust,"

Ok, it's a joke.

Re: The Limits to Blockchain Scalability

#396

Post by puranjay »

losvedir wrote: post #273
puranjay wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think money transfer was Blockhain Era 1.0 use case. The use case has advanced - very rapidly - to money automation. This is all really new stuff, much of it barely a year old, and it has come so fast that even I've been surprised. A smart contract can currently take your tokenized USD (we'll use USDC since its backed by Coinbase), use that as collateral to borrow ETH on AAVE.com (a lending protocol), use 50% of th…

Wat. But... why?

Because its accessible from anyone from anywhere without requiring a sign up or kyc or any of the other hurdles that stop the flow of money and information between legal jurisdictions.

A banking and trading account where I can access multiple currencies without ever filling out a form or talking to a sales rep or being from the same country as the banking institution or passing some arbitrary credit check has to be worth something

I can’t buy AAPL here in India without going through a broker and clearing kyc and having certain amount of capital. I can buy tokenized AAPL that will sit in a wallet I control at all times, can buy with literally fractions of a dollar, and buy without ever going through a gatekeeper.

But again, you’re likely in the first world so it doesn’t matter to you. But here in the third world, people are willing to literally break local laws to access these markets.

Re: The Limits to Blockchain Scalability

#397

Post by ric2b »

noxer wrote: post #297
sillysaurusx wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One way to sidestep this: every few minutes, post the longest hash to some distributed medium that can't be edited, like Twitter. Then the threat model moves to "do we trust the person with the keys to this twitter account?" However, this is also "zero trust," because you can write a program to verify every tweet as it's tweeted, and run that on a server somewhere. But, now that I've written this, I suppose Vitalik's…

>One way to sidestep this: every few minutes, post the longest hash to some distributed medium that can't be edited, like Twitter. Then the threat model moves to "do we trust the person with the keys to this twitter account?" The XRPL does this by broadcasting. Every node tells everyone what they think is right, therefore everyone can see who lies and more importantly no one can see who you listen too. Its hard to tr…

> All decentral systems trust that the majority of something does "the right thing".

There's a difference between assuming a majority of relevant nodes are honest and relying on your ability to identify that majority.

Re: The Limits to Blockchain Scalability

#398

Post by spaceman_2020 »

dmitriid wrote: post #385
puranjay wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaking as someone from the third world, absolutely. I just implore anyone here to approach this with an open mind. There's lots of fraud, but that's also leading people to come up with newer, more exciting solutions. Like on-chain insurance ( https://nexusmutual.io/ ) or tranches to compartmentalize risk ( https://saffron.finance/ ) or creating entirely synthetic assets on-chain ( https://synthetix.io/ ) It's a wei…

> Like on-chain insurance Doesn't need blockchain > tranches to compartmentalize risk Doesn't need blockchain > creating entirely synthetic assets on-chain What does it even mean? Also: doesn't require blockchain.

Blockchain is what makes it freely accessible to anyone from anywhere without requiring a sign up or kyc or local presence.

For instance, I can’t sign up for a US trading account without a certain amount of capital, going through a specialized broker, and clearing certain KYC rules.

I can do all of that without ever needing to go through a single centralized authority. I can buy a tokenized version of TSLA stock without going through a broker and having complete and 100% control over my capital at all times.

Unless you consider financial inclusivity and free and open financial markets a bad thing, of course.

All the criticism is so first world centric and elitist

Re: The Limits to Blockchain Scalability

#399

Post by ric2b »

napoleond wrote: post #265
crazypython wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you need to make a consumer-friendly distribution of the node software https://bitcoinknots.org It's a distribution of Bitcoin Core. It needs 5GB to store enough blockchain state to fully verify everything. AFAIK Bitcoin Core also has a convenient GUI interface. I set up a node on my computer. I didn't touch the command-line once. It has a nice GUI and built-in wallet.

And how did you verify its integrity? And what is the upgrade path?

The releases are signed with well-known keys.

But if you don't trust the devs you'll need to use other software, yes.

Re: The Limits to Blockchain Scalability

#400

Post by Retric »

noxer wrote: post #309
Retric wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The solution is to use the hash power between points of consensus. Aka everyone thinks node A is state last year and here are the next N transactions resulting in the current state X. Sybil attack says no it’s actually B and here are the next N transactions resulting in state Y. You can compare the effort it takes for history A vs History B. Now, unlike traditional 51% attacks you don’t just need hashing power that i…

You mean like hacking a few mining pools like 4 and then performer 51% attack at near zero cost. Sounds silly but you get the point. The hacking argument is just not realistic. And it gets less and less relisting to more nodes there are. (and more realistic the fewer mining pools are needed for a 51% attack) BTW if you would have full control over any 4 XRPL validator nodes at your choice you could do absolutely noth…

The solution I posted isn’t based on consensus, like Bitcoin even 1 node with a stronger history should win.

Validator nodes aren’t the weak points. It’s as you say the mining pools themselves, internally they need to be coordinated and have access to the Bitcoin network so they can’t be air gapped. So while all major pools have solid network security as they’re major targets, it’s still an actual risk.

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