61–70 of 109 posts
I never really understand the hype behind blockchain related technologies. The low transaction throughput, high compute resource demands makes it pretty unusable in most cases. Lots of workaround either has security problem or violated the idea of decentralization of blockchain, which makes it meaningless to use blockchain. Oh, there is also PoS which doesn't need CPU for mining, but doesn't anyone think it's irony t…
I never really understand the hype behind blockchain related technologies. The low transaction throughput, high compute resource demands makes it pretty unusable in most cases. Lots of workaround either has security problem or violated the idea of decentralization of blockchain, which makes it meaningless to use blockchain. Oh, there is also PoS which doesn't need CPU for mining, but doesn't anyone think it's irony t…
Even the crypto that's newer than Bitcoin (all of it?) and therefore more efficient (not proof-of-work/stake?) is still not efficient in cost/time/other-resources/etc.
IPFS is pretty awesome, and the ideas it builds upon like a Merkle tree DAG are really cool. I love the idea of DApps or Decentralized apps. I've played with some cool projects like MetaMask etc. But I really don't like the idea that all (most?) DApps are based on Ethereum and require huge amounts of Gas to run. Can't we have DApps without Blockchain/Ethereum? I know IPFS doesn't use Ethereum, and neither do things l…
It's disappointing to see this project, like many other decentralized web projects, has tunnel vision with respect to "cool technologies". The real distributed web is not non-web protocols, blockchains, or the like. The real distributed web is THE WEB HTTP servers and every single individual running their own web server to host their content (and then syndicate on whatever walled gardens are most profitable after). C…
Its not easy at all. Try it out with your family on your LAN. People are used to so much convenience, its easy to brush under the carpet, just how much work is happening behind the scenes. Just coming up with a basic list of 3 mordern conveniences you want to support for your family will be non trivial. In fact, just try supporting one. (Worked as an RA in a distributed systems lab back in the day, and just getting e…
Lets not kid ourselves. The vast majority of people don't use the web. They consume it. And they will never care about IPFS or etherium layers. The distributed web is to create a refuge from the types of companies that serve those needs. But adding additional layers of abstraction doesn't help technical users achieve that goal, it's just a fetish. They can easily forward the port and set up a simple static webserver and as a big plus their non-technical friends can actually access the data.
IPFS is pretty awesome, and the ideas it builds upon like a Merkle tree DAG are really cool. I love the idea of DApps or Decentralized apps. I've played with some cool projects like MetaMask etc. But I really don't like the idea that all (most?) DApps are based on Ethereum and require huge amounts of Gas to run. Can't we have DApps without Blockchain/Ethereum? I know IPFS doesn't use Ethereum, and neither do things l…
You absolutely don't need some crypto-based financial scheme to run decentralized web applications. Just some kind of open standard & a set of motivations and incentives to keep the system running and improving. American ideas of decentralization tend to make the root assumption that financial incentives are the only thing that drive human motivation, so almost every decentralization project gets "blockchained" event…
And, if you try to recreate reputation mechanisms, consider how exposed people would be with persistent perfectly precise digital identification of their cooperation efforts whenever such efforts cross interests of some other group. In non-internet life a lot of things are understood and agreed upon without making those decisions public. Even in private contracts, parties prefer that the details of the contract to remain known only to themselves unless (in rare and unfortunate circumstances) their dispute warrants participation of an arbiter.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You absolutely don't need some crypto-based financial scheme to run decentralized web applications. Just some kind of open standard & a set of motivations and incentives to keep the system running and improving. American ideas of decentralization tend to make the root assumption that financial incentives are the only thing that drive human motivation, so almost every decentralization project gets "blockchained" event…
What you call "american ideas" is the only thing that works in the anonymous environment. Communal solidarity works fine in small social groups where "having something at stake" that keeps people cooperate honestly is measured in many things beyond money, which includes the multi-faceted hard-to-quantify reputation. But if you want random people to cooperate on the internet, you can't have any of those properties but…
What about BitTorrent or its various file-sharing predecessors? It has no cash, they had no cash. Or Tor? Exit nodes don't demand money as compensation from attracting the attention of people in authority.
IPFS is pretty awesome, and the ideas it builds upon like a Merkle tree DAG are really cool. I love the idea of DApps or Decentralized apps. I've played with some cool projects like MetaMask etc. But I really don't like the idea that all (most?) DApps are based on Ethereum and require huge amounts of Gas to run. Can't we have DApps without Blockchain/Ethereum? I know IPFS doesn't use Ethereum, and neither do things l…
Others worth looking at would be Avalanche (also PoS and DAG-based) or Polygon/Matic (which is L2)
Further away from Ethereum, the launch of smart contracts on Cardano from a few days ago is the beginning of dapps there as well. The fees on Cardano are getting to be prohibitive for casual usage unfortunately (minimum $0.50 per transaction), but what's nice is that the fees are deterministic, and you can't have a failed transaction that consumes or runs out of 'gas' without finishing (though they don't actually use gas)
(further disclaimer, I actually hold some of all of the above + Ethereum... but I guess it's fair to say I hold these because of the potential of what they're doing)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>there are chains that consume so little gas it's effectively a negligible cost, and more and more dapps are making use of them Can you give some examples? How far along is the development?
It’s important to note that these chains that are cheaper to use have to make trade offs to enable that. The trade off they choose is generally to be more centralized. A better approach over using a new “cheap” blockchain is to use a Rollup network on top of a decentralized blockchain. Rollups inherit the security of the blockchain they are based on, and a user can always leave the rollup network if they become censo…
The tradeoff, based on my understanding, is that there's not as much resilience to node outages (on both of these, 33% of validators by stake concentration going down could lead to block production halting)
I never really understand the hype behind blockchain related technologies. The low transaction throughput, high compute resource demands makes it pretty unusable in most cases. Lots of workaround either has security problem or violated the idea of decentralization of blockchain, which makes it meaningless to use blockchain. Oh, there is also PoS which doesn't need CPU for mining, but doesn't anyone think it's irony t…
I'm also puzzled by the fact that EU is funding this. Usually states and state-like entities are exactly the ones who don't want people to use decentralized technologies, because they often make laws difficult or impossible to enforce. In fact, wanting to circumvent laws is the only reason why people en mass would ever want to use decentralized technologies. I'm not necessarily always against this (there are some rea…
Got a bit of envy for the people that get funds/grants for their idea. I'm always "lucky" enough to find the call for proposals that match my skills and interest past their closing date. Must be a sign :)
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