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Cryptocurrency is something people tell lies about in hopes of getting richer

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Re: Cryptocurrency is something people tell lies about in hopes of getting richer

#21

Post by krageon »

karpierz wrote: post #9
wyager wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only two known usage of blockchain that actually seem to offer a clear advantage over some other strategy (running the thing centralized, not having coordination at all, etc) are A) solving double spend (a la Bitcoin) B) solving zooko’s triangle (a la Namecoin, or the clone you mentioned from ipfs). Identity on blockchain beyond resolving zooko’s triangle (I.e. stably mapping pseudonyms to pubkeys) typically does…

Why does Bitcoin have a clear advantage in solving double spend over a centralized solution?

> centralized

If you want to trust a conglomerate of folks who have a vested interest in keeping you small and poor to solve your problems, then there is no advantage. If you do not, then the advantage is exactly that it is not centralised.

Re: Cryptocurrency is something people tell lies about in hopes of getting richer

#22

Post by tiborsaas »

marban wrote: post #7
xwdv wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean at some point NFT had you?

Well, I found it to be a decent solution to support actual artists (esp. Photographers or folks like eBoy fame) who were already selling their digital art in genuine and honest capacity. But when some random guy without a story renders a thousand animated dogs from a script and the actual art is how to push it via Reddit bots, my support for artistic value creation has reached its limit.

I don't get this. The concept hasn't changed since and those genuine artists are still there you supported.

Or things are only cool until they are not mainstream?

Re: Cryptocurrency is something people tell lies about in hopes of getting richer

#23

Post by cryptica »

mminer237 wrote: post #16
cryptica wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Authentication using the blockchain makes a great AI-resistant alternative to signups with captcha. The same account could be used by multiple independent services and this removes the need for a signup process altogether. It also removes the need for password management since you can use a single account/passphrase to log into various services without revealing your passphrase to any of these services; you can simpl…

Wouldn't that make it impossible to change your password if compromised?

Yes but it also makes it a LOT less likely that your passphrase would be compromised because it is never sent to any service over the wire; with blockchain signatures, your passphrase never needs to leave your own machine. So the service providers you log into never have any opportunity to even see your passphrase; they only see your signatures which proves that you know the passphrase. You could use a different program for signing login messages so that you don't even need to insert your passphrase inside third party UIs. You'd use one trusted program of your choice to handle logins for all the different services; just copy paste the signature into the different services.

There are some stateful blockchains which allow changing the passphrase but of course there is no 'forgot my password' feature; a malicious actor who manages to steal your passphrase could potentially use it to change your passphrase and lock you out of your account but at least you don't have to live in doubt if you suspect that your passphrase was compromised.

The idea behind the blockchain auth approach is that you would only need one passphrase for all services but you would have to secure it carefully since losing it would cause you to be locked out of all services associated with that account.

Re: Cryptocurrency is something people tell lies about in hopes of getting richer

#24

Post by superkuh »

> Neither, strictly speaking, is anything that a normal person would really need to know or care about unless that normal person is the victim of a ransomware scam, or wants to buy drugs on the internet...

Ah right... because normal people never donate to journalists. Never pay for online subscriptions, never buy hardware off newegg. Just because the author has no exerience using cryptocurrency he assumes everyone is like him and repeats the FUD.

Re: Cryptocurrency is something people tell lies about in hopes of getting richer

#25

Post by ironSkillet »

snarf21 wrote: post #15
karpierz wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does Bitcoin have a clear advantage in solving double spend over a centralized solution?

Because the trust is distributed. One single person can't cause the entire system to break down or steal all them money. With blockchain coins, the incentives are aligned. The weird thing that happened with BTC that I don't think Satoshi could forsee is that the more valuable it got, the less usable it got. This is one of the unsolved issues: how to create decentralized consensus very very quickly that can't also be…

Do you know of any lines of research that are out to prove mathematically that it is impossible to have these desirable characteristics simultaneously? I.e. any improvement in consensus efficiency necessarily gives up some amount of decentralization, appropriately defined.

Re: Cryptocurrency is something people tell lies about in hopes of getting richer

#26

Post by Tenoke »

oefrha wrote: post #11
marban wrote: post #5

The whole NFT craze lost me when tech founders I once highly respected started pushing and showing off their ugly gifs and trading cards on Twitter. Bad taste of the bored rich is not a new thing, but I hope NFTs won't become a noble tradition.

I'm on board if charities* could somehow get in on the action and convince the bored rich to part with their money. * Real charities, not those billionaire tax avoidance schemes.

I'd wager billionaires donate a lot more to charities than they spend on nfts. Look at the Gates Foundation.

Re: Cryptocurrency is something people tell lies about in hopes of getting richer

#27

Post by endisneigh »

ICANN isn't perfect (not even close, lol) - but I wish a consortium of countries would just create their own crypto. Unfortunately this would probably devolve to what we currently have with individual fiat.

Would anyone even use a not-for-profit backed "crypto"? I don't mean in the blockchain-backed sense, more in the ICANN/gift-cards/points globally distributed sense.

Re: Cryptocurrency is something people tell lies about in hopes of getting richer

#28

Post by hervature »

mminer237 wrote: post #16
cryptica wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Authentication using the blockchain makes a great AI-resistant alternative to signups with captcha. The same account could be used by multiple independent services and this removes the need for a signup process altogether. It also removes the need for password management since you can use a single account/passphrase to log into various services without revealing your passphrase to any of these services; you can simpl…

Wouldn't that make it impossible to change your password if compromised?

As the saying goes: not your keys not your wallet. This is the fundamental issue with the anonymity. You can prove you have access, but you cannot prove it belongs to you. The centralized/decentralized conversation often doesn't touch this aspect. When it comes to ownership, at some level, there needs to be a central power to enforce it as ownership is in itself a vague concept.

Re: Cryptocurrency is something people tell lies about in hopes of getting richer

#29

Post by acomms »

krageon wrote: post #21
karpierz wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does Bitcoin have a clear advantage in solving double spend over a centralized solution?

> centralized If you want to trust a conglomerate of folks who have a vested interest in keeping you small and poor to solve your problems, then there is no advantage. If you do not, then the advantage is exactly that it is not centralised.

Why are you so convinced that cryptocurrency solves the "outside forces much larger and more powerful than me have influence over the system" problem? It exchanged a solution to some problems for a new set of problems to be solved.

Re: Cryptocurrency is something people tell lies about in hopes of getting richer

#30

Post by cryptica »

UncleMeat wrote: post #18
cryptica wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Authentication using the blockchain makes a great AI-resistant alternative to signups with captcha. The same account could be used by multiple independent services and this removes the need for a signup process altogether. It also removes the need for password management since you can use a single account/passphrase to log into various services without revealing your passphrase to any of these services; you can simpl…

> The same account could be used by multiple independent services and this removes the need for a signup process altogether. This is only marginally better than SSO with Google/Apple/Facebook/whatever. It dodges the "Google closed my account" problem, which is a meaningful improvement. But I'm not fully certain why you need the public key to be part of a blockchain for this to work. Couldn't you just publish your pub…

- Resistant to centralized censorship (as you pointed out)

- It allows you to use the same passphrase for all services without compromising security since your passphrase never needs to leave your own machine; it is never sent over the wire. You just send signatures to different services.

- The cost associated with purchasing tokens needed to initialize an account on the blockchain would serve as a spam prevention mechanism; an alternative to SIM cards which most centralized services rely on today as a cost barrier to limit the creation of spam accounts.

- Superior integration potential between different services/systems provided by different companies/groups since they can all refer to the exact same account on the same blockchain and provide new ways to unify data between the different services.

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