Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ethereum Has Issues

blog.dshr.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 377 posts

Re: Ethereum Has Issues

#51

Post by jmyeet »

So Crypto Andys like to hand-wave about the risk of a 51% attack but consider this:

> This is in addition to the long-standing concentration of Ethereum mining power, with normally three and sometimes only two mining pools controlling over 50% of the mining power.

There is further hand-waving about how Proof-of-Stake (over Proof-of-Waste) will magically fix these problems. But it's actually this PoW computing power that makes the network more resilient to hostile takeover.

I've heard it described that the attraction of Crypto is the essence of the American Dream: by getting rich by doing nothing while lauding how smart you are over other people. So much of Crytpo can be explained by Bitcoin FOMO. Everyone just jumps on the latest shitcoin or NFT because "I'm not missing out this time".

Ultimately something has to create value or it will come crashing down. The only use case we really have is illegal activity. Some of that is justified on ethics grounds (eg bypassing capital controls in Venezuela). A lot of it is just shady.

There's a ton of talk about the "potential". So far the offshots (eg NFTs, Web3) are just ludicrous boondoggles in finding problems for a solution. I have doubts this will ever create value for the masses.

Re: Ethereum Has Issues

#52

Post by naoqj »

px43 wrote: post #45
naoqj wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

idk anything about crypto. why is "bitcoin sv" bad?

It's a low value Bitcoin fork from Craig Wright, a delusional dude who claims to be Satoshi, so he made a fork where he could control all the Satoshi coins. "SV" means "Satoshi's Vision".

That's crazy. If he is satoshi what's his excuse for not having the private keys to those coins in the main bitcoin network?

Re: Ethereum Has Issues

#53

Post by undersuit »

MichaelRazum wrote: post #24

Have to agree. Just curios what happens to the whole thing if Ethereum switches to POS.

I don't think Ethereum will ever switch. The miners control the chain now, POS will disrupt that. The miners can't make an orderly exit of resources or to a new coin so they will persist on the dominant PoW-Eth while PoS-Eth loses all chain resources.

Re: Ethereum Has Issues

#54

Post by thebean11 »

jmyeet wrote: post #51

So Crypto Andys like to hand-wave about the risk of a 51% attack but consider this: > This is in addition to the long-standing concentration of Ethereum mining power, with normally three and sometimes only two mining pools controlling over 50% of the mining power. There is further hand-waving about how Proof-of-Stake (over Proof-of-Waste) will magically fix these problems. But it's actually this PoW computing power t…

I think there's at least some value that can potentially be created. The fact that you can take out a loan or buy insurance and your counterparty is a smart contract is pretty interesting. It could seriously bring down insurance margins if you no longer have drones of people administering policies. Obviously remains to be seen how practical it is.

Re: Ethereum Has Issues

#55

Post by bpodgursky »

jmyeet wrote: post #51

So Crypto Andys like to hand-wave about the risk of a 51% attack but consider this: > This is in addition to the long-standing concentration of Ethereum mining power, with normally three and sometimes only two mining pools controlling over 50% of the mining power. There is further hand-waving about how Proof-of-Stake (over Proof-of-Waste) will magically fix these problems. But it's actually this PoW computing power t…

> by getting rich by doing nothing while lauding how smart you are over other people

This is exactly how I envision the dream of old world wealth you see on Downton Abbey or similar.

Get born into a minor lordship somewhere in England and spend your days educating yourself (maybe leisurely publishing a book or two) and raking in tax revenue from the commoners.

Re: Ethereum Has Issues

#56

Post by ironSkillet »

viro wrote: post #49
BobbyJo wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lesser evil?

are you saying that front running is better than regulation?

They are saying the occurrence of front running in a regulated market is a lesser evil compared to the absolute shitshow of scams and con games that play out in an unregulated market.

Re: Ethereum Has Issues

#57

Post by capableweb »

bsamuels wrote: post #50
capableweb wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure how many people share that "common definition". Most people I speak with day-to-day (who understands blockchain in the first place), would consider "programs stored on blockchain to run when conditions are met" as the most defining feature, and doesn't have to be turing complete for doing so.

If you ask any engineer outside the BTC cult if bitcoin script and the EVM is comparable, they would say no.

Absolutely, Bitcoin smart contracts are different than Ethereum smart contracts. What's your point? Doesn't mean one has smart contracts and the other one doesn't.

Re: Ethereum Has Issues

#58

Post by thebean11 »

undersuit wrote: post #53
MichaelRazum wrote: post #24

Have to agree. Just curios what happens to the whole thing if Ethereum switches to POS.

I don't think Ethereum will ever switch. The miners control the chain now, POS will disrupt that. The miners can't make an orderly exit of resources or to a new coin so they will persist on the dominant PoW-Eth while PoS-Eth loses all chain resources.

> while PoS-Eth loses all chain resources

What do you mean by this? Miners are not needed on the PoS chain, and the PoS chain cannot be attacked with PoW resources.

The end users (people transacting in ETH and launching smart contracts) will decide which chain is valuable and which isn't.

Re: Ethereum Has Issues

#59

Post by rurp »

chrisco255 wrote: post #37
jqpabc123 wrote: post #30

Without regulation, the marketplace --- any marketplace --- becomes a platform for scams and extortion. Show me a marketplace without regulation and I will show you a marketplace best avoided if possible.

Show me a regulated market that is free of front-running. It doesn't exist.

There are varying degrees of front running and a well regulated market will generally have much less of it.

It's kind of like saying "show me a market without corruption". Obviously all markets have some amount of shady behavior, but it hardly means every market is equally corrupt.

Re: Ethereum Has Issues

#60

Post by wussboy »

chrisco255 wrote: post #37
jqpabc123 wrote: post #30

Without regulation, the marketplace --- any marketplace --- becomes a platform for scams and extortion. Show me a marketplace without regulation and I will show you a marketplace best avoided if possible.

Show me a regulated market that is free of front-running. It doesn't exist.

So, because we cannot eliminate every issue with regulation, we shouldn't have any regulation?

Surely the answer is in "just the right amount" of regulation. Getting to this sweet spot is a process, but one human societies have been approaching for some time. We would be foolish to throw out all that effort because it couldn't be perfect.

Post reply on HN