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Ethereum Has Issues

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Re: Ethereum Has Issues

#141

Post by Karrot_Kream »

throwaway82652 wrote: post #126
thebean11 wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People get touchy about the word "trust" in blockchain threads. Would it help if I said that the hardest part is creating a way to get the weather data on chain that the buyer and seller can agree on ahead of time? Anyway, I'm obviously not claiming this can work without input from humans off chain. My point is that the infrastructure needed to get clean and honest weather data on to the chain (which requires human i…

>Would it help if I said that the hardest part is creating a way to get the weather data on chain that the buyer and seller can agree on ahead of time? No, because it's still impossible to do that at scale without solving the oracle problem. Putting some arbitrary data on a chain doesn't mean the data is reliable.

I don't know if there's any way out of the oracle problem honestly. There's nothing wrong with shopping around between different human-administered oracles though, or having some code which polls multiple oracles and takes action based on some statistic applied to the oracles (mean, etc.) But yeah I'm not convinced the oracle problem can be solved.

Re: Ethereum Has Issues

#142

Post by joshu »

a) i think that continuous auctions have a bunch of vulnerabilities and that for exchanges, a periodic crossing might be a better mechanism. this works better for high volume instruments. it does come at the expense of immediate trading

b) is it possible to make all the transactions in a block go "at once"? ie if any tx have some sequential interdependence, kick one and make it wait for the next block?

Re: Ethereum Has Issues

#143

Post by _Nat_ »

px43 wrote: post #70

Ha, Flash Boys 2.0 was from 2019. This blog post is literally "I read a thing from three years ago and have lost faith in something that I never believed in in the first place". As someone who knows and has worked with all the people involved with the write-ups referenced in this blog post, I can pretty confidently say that the author is way way behind here. There have been some insane advancements in recent years th…

> As someone who knows and has worked with all the people involved with the write-ups referenced in this blog post, I can pretty confidently say that the author is way way behind here. There have been some insane advancements in recent years that would blow his mind.

Looks like they link a lot of stuff from the past month.

Examples of links in the article from within the last month:

1. https://arxiv.org/abs/2203.15930

2. https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/2022/04/04/if-you-want-...

3. https://datafinnovation.medium.com/the-consequences-of-scala...

4. https://web3isgoinggreat.com/?id=2022-04-05-0

5. https://ethresear.ch/t/np-completeness-of-a-strong-form-of-s...

Re: Ethereum Has Issues

#144

Post by throwaway82652 »

px43 wrote: post #70

Ha, Flash Boys 2.0 was from 2019. This blog post is literally "I read a thing from three years ago and have lost faith in something that I never believed in in the first place". As someone who knows and has worked with all the people involved with the write-ups referenced in this blog post, I can pretty confidently say that the author is way way behind here. There have been some insane advancements in recent years th…

>it comes down to consensus in a world where information can only move as fast as the speed of light.

Yes and now you're circling back around to the usual problems with algorithmic high-frequency trading talked about in Flash Boys, which has nothing to do with blockchains or cryptocurrency. Unless you can cite some "insane advancement" in consensus algorithms that solves these problems everywhere then I doubt there is much more that can be said here. Because AFAICT everything you're talking about is just piling more mitigations and edge cases on top of an existing consensus algorithm. That work is important and it needs to happen on any distributed system. It's not some kind of world-changing thing, it's just necessary maintenance (and cost) to keep the system going.

>This is what happens when people are incentivized to take a really good hard look at what global consensus really means.

They were already incentivized to do that without blockchains. This sentence could be more accurately stated: This is what happens when people deploy an experimental solution that claims to solve global consensus, but as we find out from experience that it actually doesn't, in some ways it actually makes it worse, and generally speaking those problems are still just as hard as ever.

Re: Ethereum Has Issues

#145

Post by mxwsn »

rufusroflpunch wrote: post #92

This is not directly related to the content of the post but is about Ethereum. I have been putting this hypothesis out there on twitter for a while now, looking for someone to refute me, but no one has yet. This seems like a place where I might be able to find someone who understand Ethereum enough tell my grasp of the protocol is wrong (or right): Ethereum is going deflationary. Not disinflationary like Bitcoin, but…

Eth will hit a stable point of total supply, with both inflationary and deflationary mechanisms mentioned in other comments finding an equilibrium according to market forces. It won't deflate forever, so there won't be a centralization death spiral according to your logic.

Re: Ethereum Has Issues

#146

Post by SparkyMcUnicorn »

throwaway82652 wrote: post #118
thebean11 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>The fact that you can take out a loan or buy insurance and your counterparty is a smart contract is pretty interesting. No it isn't. I've been hearing this for years and I still haven't seen any reason anyone would actually want this, beyond the novelty factor. It's strictly worse than any other equivalent insurance or loan for a number of reasons, the worst one being that there's no human you can talk to when somet…

> I still haven't seen any reason anyone would actually want this, beyond the novelty factor. It's strictly worse than any other equivalent insurance or loan for a number of reasons, the worst one being that there's no human you can talk to when something goes wrong.

But people are using it, and (in the protocols I've seen) claims are handled jointly between an advisory board and community assessors, with a framework for appeals and community voting.

I think that's pretty interesting.

Re: Ethereum Has Issues

#147

Post by whymauri »

jqpabc123 wrote: post #98
yucky wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Show me a marketplace without regulation and I will show you a marketplace best avoided if possible. I buy all of my vegetables from the roadside stands that are completely unregulated, and often set up in proximity to other stands with other offerings. I get a higher quality at a lower price - works out great.

I get a higher quality at a lower price - works out great. Are you sure? A lot of these are "the hippies ripping off the yuppies". In my area, they often sell the same stuff as the grocery stores --- just priced differently. A little basket of 4 tomatoes (usually about 2 lbs) is $5. The grocery store price is $1.49/lb (or less if you shop at Lidl or Aldi). The price isn't regulated but there are lots of other regulat…

Really depends on where you live. In South Florida, the roadside and farm-affiliated vendors really do sell higher quality product for less money. I have picked up better quality mangoes off the side of the road than I can buy at a supermarket. But I grew up in Homestead, near the Redland agricultural area.

Re: Ethereum Has Issues

#148

Post by MrMan »

thebean11 wrote: post #112
danans wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The hardest part is getting the weather information onchain in a way that's trusted by the buyers and sellers of the insurance. So the hardest part is trust, the very thing that blockchains supposedly make unnecessary?

People get touchy about the word "trust" in blockchain threads. Would it help if I said that the hardest part is creating a way to get the weather data on chain that the buyer and seller can agree on ahead of time? Anyway, I'm obviously not claiming this can work without input from humans off chain. My point is that the infrastructure needed to get clean and honest weather data on to the chain (which requires human i…

Oracles open up a whole giant industry of data middlemen, sounds great

Re: Ethereum Has Issues

#149

Post by qudat »

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.

Could you elaborate by what you mean by regulation? Regulations come in many forms.

Re: Ethereum Has Issues

#150

Post by otterley »

yucky wrote: post #91
otterley wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Come on, there’s still plenty of regulation involved. There are regulations controlling the quality of the water that’s irrigating the fields, and they’re not using raw human waste to fertilize the plants.

The water used on fields in my area is non-potable. As far as human waste goes, I don't think it's regulations preventing that, but rather efficiency. Other animal waste is used as fertilizer, because it works better.

That is incorrect. You'll find the relevant regulations here: https://www.epa.gov/biosolids/biosolids-laws-and-regulations
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