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The Web3 Fraud

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Re: The Web3 Fraud

#311

Post by mattwilsonn888 »

nraynaud wrote: post #68

I’m not a crypto bro, but I don’t think it’s fair to criticize a prototype on its cost. Airplanes were very bad at the beginning. I think the valid criticism would be if there is some kind of physical limitation that prevents the system from evolving to something useful (think of the rocket equation, the ratio of useful mass/propellant is stuck at a ridiculous number).

Nah man. Its been ten years! Time to shut it all down because after ten years if its not perfect yet its not a good technology. I would know, I'm a computer programmer on HackerNews!

Re: The Web3 Fraud

#312

Post by acdha »

tata71 wrote: post #295
acdha wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Alternatively, "You really really have to give a shit about your own security". Imagine if banks had some skin in the game in terms of their security story. Why was I able to have 2 factor on my world of warcraft account many years before my bank account? It’s telling that you don’t know how wrong this is, but feel qualified to redesign a mature industry anyway. Banks are highly regulated and spend billions on secu…

> the major breaches which are routine in the cryptocurrency world don’t have an analog in the real financial system. You're either ignorant or joking. Just because FDIC has taken care of the blunders that couldn't be sorted out internally between the banks does not mean there haven't been huge privacy and security hacks on these systems since the 90s.

> Just because FDIC has taken care of the blunders that couldn't be sorted out internally between the banks does not mean there haven't been huge privacy and security hacks on these systems since the 90s.

Yes, that's the point: banks have not lost that much money because they have layers of process built around preventing large amounts from moving quickly without lots of layers of approval, things like the SWIFT hacks (which were smaller than the cryptocurrency losses even before you consider how many orders of magnitude larger the banking system is), and as a customer your risk of a permanent loss is extremely low. This is a stark contrast to what happens when cryptocurrency attacks are successful and the community says “you should have been more careful, nothing we can do”.

Re: The Web3 Fraud

#313

Post by QuadrupleA »

nraynaud wrote: post #68

I’m not a crypto bro, but I don’t think it’s fair to criticize a prototype on its cost. Airplanes were very bad at the beginning. I think the valid criticism would be if there is some kind of physical limitation that prevents the system from evolving to something useful (think of the rocket equation, the ratio of useful mass/propellant is stuck at a ridiculous number).

Always these comparisons to wildly successful products. Airplanes, smartphones, the internet, the computer. A great hype technique.

Any day now, just you wait, once we have PoS or Zkp or Cardano launches X or people adopt Solana, etc... crypto is going to do something amazing and unforseen, indescribable and worldchanging besides trading it for more crypto.

Re: The Web3 Fraud

#314

Post by mattwilsonn888 »

acdha wrote: post #297
mattwilsonn888 wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That irrecoverable failure mode is one of the core design flaws of cryptocurrency No reason it has to stay that way in all cases. There are many solutions such as layered approaches, semi-custodial services, community forgiveness.

It’s designed in at the base level — that immutability is a feature for most proponents: if you don’t have it, you’ve just paid a lot more for a very slow database.

You're operating under a binary understanding. Forks are the very obvious proof that what you say is wrong - they are a primitive way of settling disputes but a good starting point none the less.

Token governance is the next step from forking that isn't so arduous. With proper governance, the community around a token can come to a consensus that a mistake led to irrecoverable funds (for example) for one user and if the amount is worth the time issue a proposal and vote on minting replacement tokens for that user. Token holders are the share holders of their protocol, no reason all the normal operations that make a business safer for users can't be implemented in token contracts.

Try not to confuse the current state with what's possible.

Re: The Web3 Fraud

#315

Post by Misdicorl »

selestify wrote: post #66
Misdicorl wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless there is a killer feature it enables, it's an implementation detail and I don't care. And I will gladly compare other solutions against blockchain despite not having the same implementation detail you claim puts it above comparison. And so will everyone else that isn't blinded by fanaticism.

Do you feel the same about Tor? That the anonymity is an implementation detail and you don't care?

Yes. Though Tor has demonstrated a far more killer (heh) capability set it enables than the blockchain has.

Re: The Web3 Fraud

#316

Post by QuadrupleA »

mattwilsonn888 wrote: post #309
QuadrupleA wrote: post #141

I once had a lot of excitement about it, but the closer I looked at and used "web3" tech the more I came to the conclusion this is all a big pump and dump scheme. What's crypto been good for in its 10+ year span? Financing terrorism and ransomware, selling meaningless jpeg certificates of ownership, ICO scams, totally empty and greedy "number go up" speculation consuming the money and attention of potentially creativ…

You are incredibly confused like many on this site. Confused about the difference between marketing and actual technology. You've basically stepped into a metaphorical convention center with no aid for beginners, been hit with 99 sale's pitches that are genuinely empty and made the conclusion that the whole industry is a scam without realizing that your inability to discern the 1% of actual value makes you conflate a…

I've written and deployed smart contracts, have run an ethereum node, and know most of the EVM opcodes. I'm not an expert by any means but my criticism of crypto isn't that of an "incredibly confused" beginner listening to marketing hype at a convention center.

Re: The Web3 Fraud

#317

Post by mattwilsonn888 »

QuadrupleA wrote: post #316
mattwilsonn888 wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are incredibly confused like many on this site. Confused about the difference between marketing and actual technology. You've basically stepped into a metaphorical convention center with no aid for beginners, been hit with 99 sale's pitches that are genuinely empty and made the conclusion that the whole industry is a scam without realizing that your inability to discern the 1% of actual value makes you conflate a…

I've written and deployed smart contracts, have run an ethereum node, and know most of the EVM opcodes. I'm not an expert by any means but my criticism of crypto isn't that of an "incredibly confused" beginner listening to marketing hype at a convention center.

Well perhaps you should expand your horizons a bit. If you have a good grasp of the core issues with Ethereum then you should have a good idea of what to look for in newer projects.

Re: The Web3 Fraud

#318

Post by zer01 »

da-x wrote: post #301
zer01 wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, so what's happening right now is much more akin to the early days of the internet than anything else IMO. In the same ways we couldn't have ever predicted Facebook, Google, iPhones, etc, in the 90s it's hard to say exactly what impact crypto/web3 will have on the modern world. There's actually something truly new and tangible that crypto has spurred - the ability to drive consensus in a trustless manner automa…

> a trustless manner automatically and the ability to execute computer programs that are deterministic, immutable, and will run forever. Let's try to think quite ahead , going sci-fi even: Maybe the only use case for such programs is valid if they are powerful AIs, or uploaded human minds. But for the blockchain to be able to run that? The compute and memory needed is astronomical. It also means that blockchain will…

Right now smart contracts are very crappy computer programs, but people are still building amazing things with them (like DAOs or decentralized exchanges). It’s hard to say what people will be building 20 years from now or what they’ll look like in the same way that the idea of end to end encrypted video calls through Signal was not even something people could dream up in a practical sense without the groundwork invention/innovation of things like public key cryptography, and a minimal level of ubiquitous computing power in the form of cell phones to make it usable and practical.

Quantum computing is going through this too right now where we have the ability to compute with a handful of qbits, but the implications on a years time horizon are profound.

You do bring up a valid point in that it’s unclear exactly how the “legacy software” story fits in here. Migrations to new blockchains and the blockchains themselves upgrading without contention (Tezos comes to mind with this as a core feature) seem like the natural response to this problem. Not unlike anything else though it’ll be hard to predict until it slaps us in the face lol.

Re: The Web3 Fraud

#319

Post by dexter89_kp3 »

esjeon wrote: post #166
dexter89_kp3 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand what problem email can solve that mail cannot. Sorry to be sarcastic. I am still skeptical of most web3 use cases touted on twitter, but have personally experienced a few that have made me pause and be a bit more open minded. Personal experiences: - Transferring money was in seconds, compared to Fidelity/Venmo which took 3 days!!! - Very easy to loan money against crypto holdings vs stocks - Resear…

> I don't understand what problem email can solve that mail cannot. I think it's a wrong example. Email provides light-speed delivery, dirt-cheap cost, and brain-dead convenience on top of also being able to mail. So email actually never competed with mail. Web3 is yet to strike any decisive blow against today's web (or it may never). It's more like another part of the web. > Transferring money was in seconds, compar…

"Email provides light-speed delivery, dirt-cheap cost, and brain-dead convenience on top of also being able to mail. So email actually never competed with mail"

These advantages are obvious now. See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gipL_CEw-fk . My point being that blockchain does offer some new capabilities that were hard to build before. We maybe oblivious in what applications that may unlock.

Regarding money transfer, I know the technology exists, but all providers don't built it. That is native technology in blockchain.

Re: The Web3 Fraud

#320

Post by webmaven »

derangedHorse wrote: post #283
toomuchtodo wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hot take: The proponents of decentralized systems feel disenfranchised by those who own and govern centralized systems, therefore decentralized systems are their way around what they consider injustice. It is a grasp for control and power where they feel they have none. They don’t feel they have a seat at the table, so they argue for building their own table, which is, naturally, “superior” to the existing table (why…

I would say it’s about choice, not an “our finance” vs “their finance” (at least not primarily). I don’t think the traditional finance systems needs to be overthrown but I do think people have a right to choose an alternative open system if they choose. If it was an “our finance” vs “their finance” problem, people could just build a new centralized system without the properties offered by the blockchain.

> If it was an “our finance” vs “their finance” problem, people could just build a new centralized system without the properties offered by the blockchain.

Well, they did. They pretty much all failed or were made to fail (DigiCash[0], Flooz, e-gold, etc.) or were subsumed into the existing system (eg. PayPal).

As far as I can tell, the big picture hope this time around is that the existing system will be subsumed into one or more successful cryptocurrencies, rather than the other way around (which defeats the decentralization).

[0] DigiCash was an anonymous, nominally distributed, system, which is a different set of properties than current cryptocurrencies.

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