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Ethereum Has Issues

blog.dshr.org

161–170 of 377 posts

Re: Ethereum Has Issues

#161
post #106
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…

Do we have to accept that MEV is a problem? Just because it's been a tactic used in the shadows with traditional finance doesn't mean it's a problem in an open ecosystem where anyone willing to pay can play. There isn't some shadow elite funding a central government here lobbying for restrictive legislation to keep competition at arms length. In my opinion the crypto ecosystem in general is much more understanding an…

Something that rarely gets addressed in these discussions is why Ethereum even has fee market to begin with instead of a cheap FIFO model which ideally would be more fair.

To answer that I would invite anyone to try using a blockchain under heavy load without any way for users to prioritize transactions. What you will find is the network becomes vulnerable to transaction spamming; possibly to point of breaking consensus making it so nobody can transact at all.

MEV is a consequence of a design decision to address this. And that's not to say Ethereum has everything figured out and a better FIFO model can't solve this, but afaik this is the current state of things.

Re: Ethereum Has Issues

#162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

So basically, unpaid volunteers.

Re: Ethereum Has Issues

#163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Having multiple oracles doesn't really change the problem, then you're implicitly trusting a group of oracles instead of just one.

With multiple oracles and a statistic, you're trusting their results to be distributed along some distribution. But I'm being pedantic. Ultimately, yes, you are still trusting the oracles even if you aren't trusting them each in totality. Like I said I don't think there's a way out. Even if you hook up a weather sensor machine and push updates to the chain, even outside of malicious tampering, sensors themselves can be inaccurate or fail. Perhaps there's a case to be made for an autonomous weather sensor machine that is physically tamper-proof, but ultimately there's a certain amount of trust when dealing with off-chain data. I don't think that's able to be overcome.

Re: Ethereum Has Issues

#164
That's why DEXs should rely on order books, not AMMs. Front running can be avoided by allowing traders to place limit orders. AMM orders are even worse than market orders because slippage provides more room for manipulation.

Re: Ethereum Has Issues

#165

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.

Darknet markets? Amazing quality, safety and customer support with literally 0 regulations.

Sorry but thats a failed argument

Re: Ethereum Has Issues

#166
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 i…

There are actually some insane advancements coming out in the form of zero-knowledge order books, Dusk Network being the most well known. It essentially removes frontrunning as a possibility because buyers and sellers are matched using ZK proofs, but are not able to see any orders before they are matched.

Re: Ethereum Has Issues

#167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 i…

There are actually some insane advancements coming out in the form of zero-knowledge order books, Dusk Network being the most well known. It essentially removes frontrunning as a possibility because buyers and sellers are matched using ZK proofs, but are not able to see any orders before they are matched.

That sounds good for any kind of HFT platform matching buyers and sellers. I don't see how that is an "insane advancement" or has anything to do with blockchains.

Re: Ethereum Has Issues

#168
post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I still find it pretty mind blowing that an algorithm can loan me money. Algorithmic lending has been a thing for decades though. What do you think a credit score is for if not a tool to let computers decide whether to give you credit or not?

Credit is loaning you money and providing an interest rate. Usually something insane like 15%. DeFi is unlocking the value of an asset, making it liquid and allowing me to participate in other investment opportunities without an APR. One example is on Kaurura. I have KSM, Stake that KSM for a 19% APR Rate. Throw that LKSM into a vault and mint AUSD as long as i have 160% collatoral ratio. I can then use that aUSD i p…

this is a margin loan it’s not a new concept

Re: Ethereum Has Issues

#169

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.

Darknet markets? Amazing quality, safety and customer support with literally 0 regulations. Sorry but thats a failed argument

There are scams on DNMs. But there are also high quality vendors. And there are also scams that are part of regulated markets. So yeah still failed argument.

Re: Ethereum Has Issues

#170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

>claims are handled jointly between an advisory board and community assessors, with a framework for appeals and community voting.

So you mean like a company with a board of directors, shareholders and voting shares. I'm sorry I just I don't think that's very interesting, because companies already existed without blockchains and DAOs and smart contracts.

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