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Ethereum Has Issues

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Re: Ethereum Has Issues

#291

Post by lottin »

3np wrote: post #271
throwaway82652 wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It does add additional transparency to financial markets though No, not really. This comment is more crypto myth-building. There's nothing technical about blockchains that adds transparency. Any company that wants to publish all its financial statements publicly can technically already do so and could always do so. They don't for many reasons, the most important ones being that customers overwhelmingly want financia…

> There's nothing technical about blockchains that adds transparency False. On a public chain like Ethereum, every single historical operation and its outcome events and state can be traced and verified. If the source code is published, the running bytecode can be verified to match the source code. > smart contracts are [...] not "non-custodial" because they require middlemen to run the blockchain Also false - miners…

Right... why do you think the perpetrators or ransomware attacks demand to be paid in crypto-currency, instead of via a plain old wire transfer which according to you is more opaque?

Re: Ethereum Has Issues

#292

Post by thallium205 »

Ruphin wrote: post #276
Lazare wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That makes no sense. > try going to a bank and taking out a loan because you're broke and unemployed), but because I had digital assets to pawn "Broke" means you have no assets, thus you have nothing to pawn, therefore the loan would be unsecured. You COULD NOT have obtained such a loan via defi, and while you could have obtained one in the traditional finance system (which is strictly an advantage over defi...), it…

Obviously I was not "broke" in the sense that I had no possessions of any value. With that definition nobody is ever broke unless they are naked with nothing left to sell other than their labor. I had plenty of things of value, like a trading card collection, a personal computer, a phone. But no bank would ever accept any of these things as a collateral for a loan. I could have sold things I owned, but I didn't want…

You got a loan and collateralized it using a priced and liquid asset. Your situation is not novel at all. You don't need defi to do this.

Re: Ethereum Has Issues

#293

Post by thallium205 »

Galanwe wrote: post #254
throwaway82652 wrote: post #118

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…

> there's no human you can talk to when something goes wrong. This goes both ways. I may not want a smart contract for my life insurance, but I can perfectly imagine myself taking a lot of very small, very short insurances on mundane things because of the very low fee and hassle of smart contracts versus actually signing contracts and paying for the humans that will support it. Think flight insurance, etc

Travel insurance? There's literally no hassle on that other than checking a box at any airline website.

Re: Ethereum Has Issues

#294

Post by RC_ITR »

polygamous_bat wrote: post #261
tornato7 wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

So, the blockchain bros have reinvented... dark pools, which has been around since 1979? Because that's what you just described.

The entire story of crypto is that it’s a somewhat volatile new form of security (I know I said it) that has two disadvantages vs. traditional securities.

1) It lacks the sophisticated financial tools and derivatives that have been developed over the past century

2) It does not have enough volume to keep up with the new sources of arbitrage that come with every new DeFi product (looking at you DEX’s and synthetic stocks!).

Every time a crypto asset “solves” one of those two problems (almost always incompletely) the crypto verse acts like they’ve proven p=np.

Re: Ethereum Has Issues

#295

Post by 3np »

lottin wrote: post #291
3np wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's nothing technical about blockchains that adds transparency False. On a public chain like Ethereum, every single historical operation and its outcome events and state can be traced and verified. If the source code is published, the running bytecode can be verified to match the source code. > smart contracts are [...] not "non-custodial" because they require middlemen to run the blockchain Also false - miners…

Right... why do you think the perpetrators or ransomware attacks demand to be paid in crypto-currency, instead of via a plain old wire transfer which according to you is more opaque ?

For other reasons than the ones I am replying on.

For one, accounts on it are pseudonymous. If by "transparency", you mean "every activity can be traced back to a meatspace individual or institution as recognized by a national government and/or law enforcement", that is a different level of "transparency".

It's not being compared to wire transfers but to server-side software (including those responsible for executing legacy wire transfers).

Re: Ethereum Has Issues

#296

Post by eptcyka »

lottin wrote: post #291
3np wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's nothing technical about blockchains that adds transparency False. On a public chain like Ethereum, every single historical operation and its outcome events and state can be traced and verified. If the source code is published, the running bytecode can be verified to match the source code. > smart contracts are [...] not "non-custodial" because they require middlemen to run the blockchain Also false - miners…

Right... why do you think the perpetrators or ransomware attacks demand to be paid in crypto-currency, instead of via a plain old wire transfer which according to you is more opaque ?

Because it's still less tracesble than a bank account, but unless one converts it in a dex to something truly untraceablr like monero or zcash, ones attempts to transact with it will be traced, so you won't be able to do much else with it. Coinbase and all other exchanges are known to freeze coins linked to illegal activity.

Re: Ethereum Has Issues

#297

Post by thallium205 »

whymauri wrote: post #154
maupin wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe not early, but saying that we are in the "late stages of adoption" is laughable.

This might get me crucified on HN, since many here are from developed countries, but I would argue we're just cresting the hill of late stage adoption for the Internet. Like, 40% of the world still does not have Internet!

Those folks aren't going to push the needle in any meaningful way.

Re: Ethereum Has Issues

#298

Post by lottin »

thebean11 wrote: post #54
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.

An insurance requires an independent assessment that a certain event has taken place (e.g. a car accident) and of the circumstances surrounding the event. A loan requires the ability from the lender to initiate legal action against the borrower in the event of default. Smart contract can't help with that or make any of that more efficient.

Re: Ethereum Has Issues

#299

Post by nicbou »

recursive wrote: post #99
pshc wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I keep seeing this "eternal six months away" FUD, but no one wants to admit the devs delivered on the Beacon Chain which has been running smoothly for 1.5 years, and the Merge testnets are working quite well. Bitcoin maximalists are out there all day grousing about made-up deadlines promised by strawmen and laundered through hearsay. It has nothing to do with reality.

I understand the arguments about how cryptocurrencies use too much electricity, but I understand none of what you've just said.

Which is telling for a technology that is meant to replace money, something everyone knows how to use.

I've been passively following this scene for years and read/watched tons of content about it, but I still wouldn't know how to pay my friend across the room, especially not without an internet connection.

Re: Ethereum Has Issues

#300

Post by nicbou »

dmitriid wrote: post #188
trompetenaccoun wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Postponed would mean the date was officially announced by one of the devs? I've not had time to pay attention much over the past months, but to me that June date was always a silly rumor. Correct me if I'm wrong. End of year is what I heard, but even that isn't set in stone of course and I wouldn't be surprised if it doesn't happen till then.

> Postponed would mean the date was officially announced by one of the devs? In true "decentralised fashion" the devs spread their info thin over multiple veues so it's hard to hunt down their statements. But we could take to ethereum.org which previously stated [1] --- start quote --- When's it shipping? ~Q2 2022 This upgrade represents the official switch to proof-of-stake consensus. This eliminates the need for en…

I don't remember having to follow twitter accounts to understand how a five euro note works.
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