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Blockchain Is Dangerous Nonsense

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Re: Blockchain Is Dangerous Nonsense

#361

Post by hiq »

mattdesl wrote: post #347
dmitriid wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm not sure what point you are making. As a simbling comment desctibed it, "the scope of the problem you're solving is way smaller than that of a generic transaction, to the point that it has very little relevance for pretty much anything real."

The scope of the problem is basically what is happening on Uniswap (peer-to-peer swapping of ERC20 tokens) and Opensea (peer-to-peer swapping of ERC721/1155 tokens), which together account for the vast majority of Ethereum's daily contract activity. These discussions often circle back to the notion that USDC, ENS, or any other ERC20 or ERC721 (NFT) is "not real" and therefore this problem is not worthy of study. And…

> And yet nobody has an issue with Namecheap marketplace—a centralized ledger

If nobody has an issue with it, why are you talking about an alternative to it? What's the benefit? Also note that Namecheap does sell domains that are then recognized by many other entities, it's not a "virtual property" that only leaves within Namecheap's system, it's something you end up owning in the legal world.

The "not real" argument is that you change your trust model as soon as you reach boundaries. Uniswap etc. are trustless, but only up to the point where the assets traded become real and are redeemed outside of the blockchain and some legal entity can actually back up the value of the tokens you traded. One of the selling points of Ethereum is that you don't need to trust anyone; if that's not the case, as we both agree, what's left? Why do you need Uniswap to be trustless when you rely on legal entities to ensure that what you're trading has some non-fictitious value?

You wrote:

> it can be used as a tool to help build social consensus about certain digital state/records without placing the data in control of a single centralized entity

If I try to parse this, you substitute some blockchain to the laws usually ruling relationships between entities, and instead of a judge, you use smart contracts to decide what happens. But again the scope is too limited to be useful, because the real world doesn't live in a blockchain, and the smart contracts will only rule a tiny part of these relationships. That's the token redemption example above.

Re: Blockchain Is Dangerous Nonsense

#362

Post by dmitriid »

mattdesl wrote: post #347
dmitriid wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm not sure what point you are making. As a simbling comment desctibed it, "the scope of the problem you're solving is way smaller than that of a generic transaction, to the point that it has very little relevance for pretty much anything real."

The scope of the problem is basically what is happening on Uniswap (peer-to-peer swapping of ERC20 tokens) and Opensea (peer-to-peer swapping of ERC721/1155 tokens), which together account for the vast majority of Ethereum's daily contract activity. These discussions often circle back to the notion that USDC, ENS, or any other ERC20 or ERC721 (NFT) is "not real" and therefore this problem is not worthy of study. And…

> The scope of the problem is basically what is happening on Uniswap

So,

1. "a very minuscule subset of a very minuscule number of activities that people engage in", to quote myself, and

2. flash loans and "HFT" using speculative virtual tokens, so very much a circular reference

> And yet nobody has an issue with Namecheap marketplace

1. First time I heard of it

2. It doesn't pretend to be "redefining finance", or "being a revolution", or "destroying traditional banking", or whatever other bullcrap comes out of "DeFi" and other crypto

3. Never does it say anything about "virtual dollars", all prices are listed in real money, and the deposits you may make into your account are also real money

Re: Blockchain Is Dangerous Nonsense

#363

Post by lrvick »

newswasboring wrote: post #320
lrvick wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am one of those people that uses cash and bitcoin for privacy and reliability and for 100% legal use cases. I have experienced bank accounts of mine and those I know be frozen, emptied without warning due to identity theft, a false criminal accusation, forgotten debts, etc. I also know very well that banks have data sharing relationships with Visa, etc, that form a full map of where and when you spend money to aid…

How are you purchasing bitcoin with cash? I know it happens but I don't know how it's happening. Is it safe?

Bitcoin ATMs, and repayment from friends when I pay for things in cash. There are also p2p exchanges like LocalCoinSwap where you can meet people in person in public places to buy or sell an amount of BTC you are comfortable carrying. Some let you use escrow where you deposit cash to a bank account then you are sent BTC on receipt. None of these methods can be stopped no matter how much regulators demand KYC from the Coinbases of the world. Humans can always trade directly.

Similarly I am also paid directly in Bitcoin by some of my clients I do consulting for so neither side needs to fuss with bank transfers. Lastly I can always buy on an exchanges, convert to Monero, then back to Bitcoin to de-associate the Bitcoin to me.

Re: Blockchain Is Dangerous Nonsense

#364

Post by mattdesl »

hiq wrote: post #359
mattdesl wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Namecheap: 10% commission, only works with Namecheap-registered domains, the exchange may take up to 96 hours, and then 5 days later you can withdraw these funds to PayPal (which will incur additional fees). Compare this to, say, Tezos domains: exchange and transfer of funds settled in ~30 seconds, without any need for currency conversion, across any ".tez" domain in the network, 2.5% commission (or 0% via custom con…

> Namecheap: 10% commission, only works with Namecheap-registered domains, the exchange may take up to 96 hours, and then 5 days later you can withdraw these funds to PayPal (which will incur additional fees). > Compare this to, say, Tezos domains: exchange and transfer of funds settled in ~30 seconds, without any need for currency conversion, across any ".tez" domain in the network, 2.5% commission (or 0% via custom…

Sure, they are apples and oranges. Namecheap will likely never be able to match these settlement times, 0-2.5% fees, data privacy, interoperability etc.

If they decide to one day sell crypto domains like ‘.eth’ and ‘.tez’, they will be entering an extremely competitive market; and compete against marketplaces that trade any valid NFT (including domains) like Objkt.com and OpenSea, with commissions around 2.5%, no need for data sharing, and instant settlements. They would also be competing against custom contracts and OSS tools which may take no fees, and other directly peer-to-peer transactions like I outlined in my OP.

The point I’m trying to illustrate here is that there are reasons for choosing a decentralized and peer-to-peer system of digital assets & ownership over a purely centralized system, and blockchain is currently an ideal tech for this application.

Re: Blockchain Is Dangerous Nonsense

#365

Post by igorkraw »

mattdesl wrote: post #280
igorkraw wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And believers always pull of this subtle shift in frame: you bring in trust-less peer to peer decentralised networks, and of course there's no other solution, because it's a setting invented by the same people who came up with cryptocurrency. The rest of the world relaxes the trust-less assumption and talks about Web of Trust, about decentralised roots of trust, federation etc. And this is a rhetorical technique: Whe…

Consider a simple answer: my ENS domain is one of the few digital assets I own (and have “digital ownership” over) that is not inextricably linked to a single corporately-owned user account (that ultimately has full control over the asset). Perhaps you do not see a value in that, or do not feel the risks outweigh this benefit, which is fine. We are acting on a different set of interests.

What is is it good for compared to a traditional domain? If it's censorship resistance,if you break the laws of your country using it, how will you hide from the police trying to force you to take down the content?

Re: Blockchain Is Dangerous Nonsense

#366

Post by lrvick »

TomSwirly wrote: post #324
lrvick wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am one of those people that uses cash and bitcoin for privacy and reliability and for 100% legal use cases. I have experienced bank accounts of mine and those I know be frozen, emptied without warning due to identity theft, a false criminal accusation, forgotten debts, etc. I also know very well that banks have data sharing relationships with Visa, etc, that form a full map of where and when you spend money to aid…

> I have experienced bank accounts of mine and those I know be frozen, emptied without warning due to identity theft, a false criminal accusation, forgotten debts, etc. Your bank account has been frozen and emptied at least four times?! Surely the common factor in these incidents is you!

I said those I know.

Mine was frozen once over a clerical error. I have also had mine frozen a number of times for trying to make medium sized cash withdrawals when traveling. This is a common anti fraud tactic but it is very annoying when I can not spend my own money. I do not carry a phone and even if I did waiting on hold with a bank in front of an ATM in a random country sucks.

Several people I know, including family, have suffered identity theft and had accounts drained that way. I know someone else who had an account frozen due to a false accusation.

Someone I know had theirs drained with no warning due to a decade old forgotten debtor getting a court order. I know others who have had accounts frozen or dismissed because the bank did not like the nature of their business. They commonly do this for legal cannibis, adult, gambling, or crypto asset business they consider a brand risk.

In short banks have a lot of nasty edge cases I like to avoid.

Re: Blockchain Is Dangerous Nonsense

#367

Post by mattdesl »

igorkraw wrote: post #365
mattdesl wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consider a simple answer: my ENS domain is one of the few digital assets I own (and have “digital ownership” over) that is not inextricably linked to a single corporately-owned user account (that ultimately has full control over the asset). Perhaps you do not see a value in that, or do not feel the risks outweigh this benefit, which is fine. We are acting on a different set of interests.

What is is it good for compared to a traditional domain? If it's censorship resistance,if you break the laws of your country using it, how will you hide from the police trying to force you to take down the content?

The whole point of the distributed ledger is that no single entity can “take away” ownership of, say, an ERC721 (NFT, which domains also are) without access to my keys. Websites can de-list this but anybody can still see it clearly indexed in the blockchain state as the system is distributed.

I am not doing this to be censorship resistant from police (who can force me to give up my keys).

The point is that, rather than an asset owned by X company or Y bank, it is owned by me (in a decentralized system). eg: A tech company being acquired or shuttered will have no bearing on my ownership of and ability to transfer this asset.

Re: Blockchain Is Dangerous Nonsense

#368

Post by civilized »

dbrgn wrote: post #115
civilized wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They could also just run a SQL database together and it'd be much less complicated and more efficient.

Certificate transparency logs are essentially a blockchain. Would you prefer Google and the other stakeholders to run an SQL database instead, containing these logs?

To be honest I don't know anything about certificate transparency logs. Maybe they should be on a blockchain. It doesn't mean money should be on a blockchain.

Re: Blockchain Is Dangerous Nonsense

#369

Post by mike_d »

paulgb wrote: post #119
mike_d wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Blockchain" is an append only ledger. It has nothing to do with proof of $foo. Certificate Transparency is a blockchain that your browser queries for every website you visit.

We’re ultimately arguing semantics, but I think this is a pretty clear case where both conventional and academic usage of “blockchain” implies a consensus mechanism in addition to an append-only data structure. Certificate chains and Merkle trees existed long before the term blockchain was popularized.

You are conflating definitions to dismiss an otherwise useful, and at this point foundational, technology.

If you just don't like the name blockchain, we can call it Fluffernutterstructures.

Re: Blockchain Is Dangerous Nonsense

#370

Post by mike_d »

hurril wrote: post #66
mike_d wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What technical solution do you have for multiple parties needing to transact where they do not trust each other and cannot depend on a third party or the court system for dispute resolution? I'll wait.

Why don't you give your answer to these questions first? I'll wait.

Obviously given the context here, various blockchains meet these requirements.
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