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

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

#481

Post by wahnfrieden » Sat, Jan 15, 2022, 11:50 AM UTC

rsanheim wrote: post #129

heurist wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a way to authenticate yourself without a centralized authority. So right now it's being used to create exclusive communities, access to which theoretically has some value. In the future, there may be application ecosystems which operate solely against your wallet information, no need for registration. Maybe that has some value too - time will tell. I don't follow the details of the web3 market closely, so not sp…

We've had "auth without centralized authority" for decades, and 99% of people don't care and won't deal with the hassle involved. see PGP, encrypted email, OpenID, etc etc.. The exclusive communities you mention only have value because of the hype and FOMO and high dollar amounts that people see being made on sales of "exclusive" NFTs or some such. Same as many of the many crypto pumps, same as the dotcom bubble, sam…

those are ideas on a shelf. even stackexchange dropped openid years ago

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

#482

Post by myrion » Sat, Jan 15, 2022, 11:57 AM UTC

speedgoose wrote: post #330

travbrack wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Online shopping hadn't hit product market fit in the late 80s even though the Internet had already been around for a few years.

France had online shopping in the early 80s with the Minitel.

Plus, it was clear that online shopping could work and offered certain advantages (and disadvantages). It was also pretty clear that online access was only going to expand, which would make online shopping more attractive.

It hadn't hit a peak, but it was clearly _doing_ something that wasn't scams.

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

#483

Post by dmitriid » Sat, Jan 15, 2022, 11:59 AM UTC

Dwolb wrote: post #48

IMO L1 (Ethereum, Solana, Fantom, etc.) development is closer to building out a communications or telco network. From that “hard” technology perspective, it’s very early days. And the apps that run on top of these L1s are fully limited by L1 bandwidth, latency, and blockspace. So, I think we’re in the pre-dial-up days for blockchains and will need a couple more orders of magnitude improvement to be (universally) on p…

Yup. Of course everything that has "blockchain in it is "the next internet".

Now this ridiculous claim is taken further: it's not even the internet, but "the fundamental infrastructure of the internet".

Whereas all signs point to it being a Juicero, an Enron and an AT&T ISIS Mobile Wallet rolled into one.

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

#484

Post by janandonly » Sat, Jan 15, 2022, 12:00 PM UTC

I never understand critiques like these.

> "somehow no one appears to have managed to find a positive use for blockchains that wouldn’t be better served by blockchainless technologies"

There is now a sovereign nation state that accepted Bitcoin as a currency, and, mark my words, no doubt more will follow this 2022.

Replacing central banks, and by extension, their grasp on the limitless money printing, is the whole reason why bitcoin and it's blockchain exist. And it is working wonderfully well.

People in countries where the central bankers and politicians are letting them down are flocking to bitcoin and other later inventions (such as stable coins).

Just check these countries:

- Lebanon: https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2020/2/25/distrust-in-leba...

- Turkey: https://etfdb.com/crypto-channel/as-turkey-lira-falls-bitcoi...

> "Rampant inflation is once again plaguing Turkey’s local currency, the lira, but one saving grace could be its citizens using bitcoin to supplant the plunging fiat currency."

- Also Turkey: https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/turkeys-inflation-is-an-exam...

- El Salvador: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jun/09/el-salvador-bi...

- And El Salvador again: https://bitcoinmagazine.com/culture/bitcoin-el-salvador-geop...

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

#485

Post by EdSchouten » Sat, Jan 15, 2022, 12:00 PM UTC

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…

> My wife recently suggested a possible one: NFTs minted by your university as proof of your diploma. Or perhaps your academic transcript. No way to forge a fake diploma again.

You could already do this using x509 certificates signed by a university owned CA. No need to use blockchain here.

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

#486

Post by dmitriid » Sat, Jan 15, 2022, 12:00 PM UTC

darawk wrote: post #339

dmitriid wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So, you're opposed to the internet, then? No. We're opposed to Juicero and Enron

Both of those things had very clear intended purposes at inception. Seems completely orthogonal to the question at hand.

> Both of those things had very clear intended purposes at inception.

You're this close to understanding the whole of the crypto/web3 space

> Seems completely orthogonal to the question at hand.

It really isn't

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

#487

Post by stefanfisk » Sat, Jan 15, 2022, 12:02 PM UTC

Galanwe wrote: post #417

gambiting wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And literally none of it, not a single step that you mentioned requires blockchain.

> And literally none of it, not a single step that you mentioned requires blockchain. Then tell me, where is this wonderful centralized database that tells me who owns which car? Blockchains are not just about decentralization, it's also about publishing the actual databases in the wild for everyone to see, because you have the guarantee that no-one can fake it. Sure, a lot of the use cases could be done with central…

In Sweden we use https://biluppgifter.se.

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

#488

Post by marcellus23 » Sat, Jan 15, 2022, 12:02 PM UTC

jakupovic wrote: post #454

First video call was made in the 60s. It took 50+ years before it was ubitiquous.

Yeah but the advantages of video calling are obvious to anyone immediately. Same with the internet.

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

#489

Post by dmitriid » Sat, Jan 15, 2022, 12:02 PM UTC

neiman wrote: post #337

dmitriid wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah yes. Unlike that recent issue with a smart contract that was "verified by community" and then drained all wallets of money.

Which one?

Any of them. There are so many it's hard to keep track.

https://web3isgoinggreat.com/

Filter by hack/scam and look for all "error in contract code"

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

#490

Post by wayoutthere » Sat, Jan 15, 2022, 12:06 PM UTC

chucke wrote: post #474

tomputer wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see why something like insurance needs a token on a decentralized blockchain. The Bitcoin blockchain needs a token because the token itself represents the value (BTC) inside the network. The token is also needed because it adds an incentive for nodes (miners) to support the network. Note: this is my current view of it. If someday it turns out it is useful, I am happy to admit that I was wrong.

You're missing the forest for the trees. Bitcoin is broken and will never be more than a speculative asset with no intrinsic value. Blockchains can solve problems. Decentralisation can quickly become federation. Example: a global id system where the "miners" are countries. It removes the need of physical passports and their associated costs and delays.

You’d have to get those countries to agree on a common set of governance rules, and inevitably some bloc of countries would eventually fork and go it on their own because they want a different set of rules (e.g. mandatory biometric data, inability to update passport data like gender, etc). I’m not sure it solves any problems that the diplomatic system doesn’t already solve.

This also ignores that the costs and delays associated with passports are frequently the point — you can’t have a corrupt official ask for a cash payment to “expedite” your passport / visa application if it’s fast to begin with, and doling out those kinds of patronage positions to the right people is often how you build a winning political coalition domestically.