It’s not still the early days of blockchain • Hacker News Board

Re: It’s not still the early days of blockchain

#81

Post by betwixthewires » Sat, Jan 15, 2022, 6:45 AM UTC

chx wrote: post #44

betwixthewires wrote: post #15

> All that to say, a lot has changed in the technology world in the past six to twelve years It sure has. But not really that fundamentally, since 2009. A lot has changed in the blockchain space too. Just because you don't know about it doesn't mean it isn't true. A lot of those changes are on par with some of the tech advancements mentioned before my quote in the article. In 2009, you had bitcoin, so basically a dis…

> Today, you have snip weird things no one gives one hoot about outside of the crypto shill word. All of this is just buttering the cat. https://twitter.com/GossiTheDog/status/1476873668605186050

Well then what's the point of this discussion? The thread is "how has it advanced? How long can you call it early days?" If you just stop reading rebuttals as soon as they're mentioned you're better off talking to a wall, and you'd waste less people's time that way too.

Re: It’s not still the early days of blockchain

#82

Post by qaq » Sat, Jan 15, 2022, 6:45 AM UTC

If there would be a legal framework in place that can tie a DAO to basically be legally binding bylaws of an actual org. and the smart contract lang. is expressive enough for this to work this would be extremely valuable. Outside of this most of web3 looks like hype.

Re: It’s not still the early days of blockchain

#83

Post by ryandamm » Sat, Jan 15, 2022, 6:46 AM UTC

anonporridge wrote: post #17

xmprt wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like even after zooming out and seeing the big picture, it's hard to imagine blockchain solving real world problems. Blockchains are good when there's a lack of trust and decentralization is absolutely necessary. There are very few problems that actually need a blockchain. Anything that has the government in the loop (like buying houses or property) is a non starter and anything that runs on centralized server…

You're right. And bitcoiners have been saying this from the very beginning of the crypto madness. A global, government agnostic money like bitcoin that no group of insiders and early adopters have unassailable control over, seems like the only likely candidate for something that needs a truly decentralized and trustless blockchain. The rest is hype.

I believe this characterization fails to engage with what money actually is and does. It sounds good in print but fails in practice.

Except for bitcoin's current "monetary" uses, like money laundering and tax evasion.

Re: It’s not still the early days of blockchain

#84

Post by foepys » Sat, Jan 15, 2022, 6:46 AM UTC

baby wrote: post #74

hubraumhugo wrote: post #33

I'm still very opposed to the idea of taking a technology and then searching a problem for it. Why? Back in 2017 during the first hype cycle, blockchain companies raised hundreds of millions with ICOs. I became very interested in the technology too, and some friends still work in this space. 4 years later in the web3 era, there is not a single product aside from trading/finance that got traction. Use cases like stori…

People are doing research and deploying cool stuff that others are actively using. You can criticize that as much as you want but it won’t do much.

Can you show some examples?

Re: It’s not still the early days of blockchain

#85

Post by yunruse » Sat, Jan 15, 2022, 6:47 AM UTC

systemvoltage wrote: post #41

hubraumhugo wrote: post #33

I'm still very opposed to the idea of taking a technology and then searching a problem for it. Why? Back in 2017 during the first hype cycle, blockchain companies raised hundreds of millions with ICOs. I became very interested in the technology too, and some friends still work in this space. 4 years later in the web3 era, there is not a single product aside from trading/finance that got traction. Use cases like stori…

This is literally how research in the Universities makes it to the world. Spin-offs like Boston Dynamics are essential to building things that may not have immediate use but payoff can potentially be huge. We need to do more of this. Don’t throw the baby with the bathwater. I really don’t think generalizations of certain jaded experience and then seeing the entire world with the same broken lens does any good. Probab…

From my very (admittedly very inexperienced) perspective, both views here are valid: it's foolish to scour the world for nails, but it doesn't hurt to make a hammer.

Build the technology, think of how it could help, and if you can't find a niche in the world that it fits, don't force the issue. Move onto new things: perhaps re-use some old ideas, of course, but actively get a wider experience, so that you increase your surface area of finding some way for your technology to help.

Re: It’s not still the early days of blockchain

#86

Post by ryandamm » Sat, Jan 15, 2022, 6:47 AM UTC

magicjosh wrote: post #78

ryandamm wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The hype cycle isn't Moore, it's Gartner -- the research firm. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gartner_hype_cycle

Same question I suppose. The parent diagram featured both the hype cycle and Moore's chasm. Do they both operate on different timescales or are they usually a decade end-to-end?

Honestly? I think it's similar to a lot of pop-business constructions. Post hoc, and it sounds insightful enough to inspire pattern matching, but doesn't actually have any real explanatory power.

Anecdotally, I have heard people applying different timescales for the hype cycle for different technologies. Makes the pattern that much easier to match.

Re: It’s not still the early days of blockchain

#87

Post by gls2ro » Sat, Jan 15, 2022, 6:48 AM UTC

systemvoltage wrote: post #60

5e92cb50239222b wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that university research does not tend to produce that many charlatans and snake oil salesmen. I'll keep my skepticism until this technology gives us at least one useful mainstream thing.

I don’t understand your point. So if University research makes it out to the world - but the world decides to create scams from it, is it University’s fault? I get it. People are angry about blockchain. Let’s shoot the world, not the messengers. Otherwise, we’ll be blaming the Bell Labs engineers for 4chan.

I don't think people are angry about blockchain (the technology) but about promises people make that with this technology will solve almost any society or world problem and then attracting people to invest and then if it does not work make the promise larger and atrract more money.

To use your example: it is like Boston Dynamics and people around will start saying invest in our IRO (Initial Robot Offering) as we will solve with robots everything. We can fix with our robots democracy flaws, we can fix with our robots inflation ... and when asked how will this actually work world wide they will say "We will just build more robots, invest more money into this and then when everybody will have one then that is how we fix those problems".

See the problem here? The problem is not the robot but the company/organisation and business model trying to sell it as a solution for everything without actually talking about the solution itself nor explaining how a robot will help with our financial system at large scale. At every critique they will just say "The solution is to build more robots and thus having robots everywhere so people will think about robots and not about other stuff".

Re: It’s not still the early days of blockchain

#88

Post by foepys » Sat, Jan 15, 2022, 6:49 AM UTC

somebodythere wrote: post #57

mizzao wrote: post #54

How's this any different than the typical technology hype and adoption cycle? Perhaps we are just at the "peak of inflated expectations" right now, and are about to dive into the "trough of disillusionment". https://setandbma.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/technology-ado... This certainly happened with AI at least twice... remember the AI summers of 1970 and 2010 and the AI winters in between...before certain applicatio…

A cryptographically signed diploma could be sufficient for this use case, no specific need to commit it to a ledger. Certainly the transferability property of NFTs is not desired in this case.

Yes, a machine readable section on the diploma, like a QR code, would suffice here.

Covid vaccination certificates in the EU use this method. No blockchain required, just some good old public/private key cryptography.

Re: It’s not still the early days of blockchain

#89

Post by mohanmcgeek » Sat, Jan 15, 2022, 6:49 AM UTC

freemanon wrote: post #66

rsanheim wrote: post #52

I'm increasingly seeing "web 3.0" as basically a two headed beast: 1) a way to part greater fools from their money until the hype has died out 2) a hot topic to drive clicks and discussions for nerds and, increasingly, the tech press, from other more pressing issues that exist in terms of tech and culture and finance In other words, its a bullshit scam, can we please move on already?

i suggest learning it properly before jumping to conclusions. everything has pros and cons. e.g. cars pollute but would you want to go back to riding horses? judge less, learn more

I see more and more of this attitude these days: "Stop spreading disinformation. Educate yourself"

A useful contribution would be to point out how exactly the GP is wrong.

I can imagine the current international banking system get upgraded with a blockchain like technology such that you don't need a central bank of central banks.

But the web3 guys simply want to compare detractors to luddites

Re: It’s not still the early days of blockchain

#90

Post by betwixthewires » Sat, Jan 15, 2022, 6:49 AM UTC

deanCommie wrote: post #58

betwixthewires wrote: post #15

> All that to say, a lot has changed in the technology world in the past six to twelve years It sure has. But not really that fundamentally, since 2009. A lot has changed in the blockchain space too. Just because you don't know about it doesn't mean it isn't true. A lot of those changes are on par with some of the tech advancements mentioned before my quote in the article. In 2009, you had bitcoin, so basically a dis…

Do we have proof of stake or do we have a lot of bitcoin folks avoiding criticism about the wasteful nature of most chains by claiming that proof of stake will fix all this. How many coins are actually using proof of stake? Why haven't the biggest including Ethereum done so?

The same reason Bitcoin doesn't implement every tom dick and Harry's supposed solution to every technical problem. The big boys have to get it right the first time. Again, inertia.

Ethereum does have proof of stake, a protocol called Casper FFG. It is currently live on the Ethereum beacon chain, waiting for consensus to move the entire network to it.

There are lots of smaller projects trying different protocols they call proof of stake too, as well as different proof of whatever they came up with for whatever reason. Most of them are veiled centralization, some of them are interesting for one reason or another. I'm not here to shill networks or coins so I won't be tossing names around.