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Blockchain Is Dangerous Nonsense

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Re: Blockchain Is Dangerous Nonsense

#371

Post by tsimionescu »

swalsh wrote: post #346
D13Fd wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The game should be integrated with the blockchain directly, if I was unclear I apologize. But it could just as easily be integrated with a non-blockchain central authority. And you are still trusting their code to integrate it, so you haven't solved any trust issue. Nothing stops their code from saying "asset transferred" when the asset wasn't actually transferred. Blockchain solves nothing here. All of this could…

"But it could just as easily be integrated with a non-blockchain central authority." Sure, you could. But then you'e in a feudal arrangement instead of a free economy. "And you are still trusting their code to integrate it, so you haven't solved any trust issue" The tokens are trustless, the transaction of those tokens are trustless. How the are tokens used has nothing to do with my ability to freely trade the tokens…

> The tokens are trustless, the transaction of those tokens are trustless. How the are tokens used has nothing to do with my ability to freely trade the tokens.

The point of the transaction is to use the item, not to own the token. If the item can't be used, then you paid money for nothing (since obviously no one else is going to buy it off you either).

Re: Blockchain Is Dangerous Nonsense

#372

Post by SideQuark »

lustforleif wrote: post #274
SideQuark wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every banking system ever? At vastly lower energy waste, at higher transaction rates, and with all the legal protection of centuries of well developed needs.

> trust-less Trusting a central authority (bank) is not a solution to trust-less prevention of double spending.

>Trusting a central authority (bank)

Strawman?

A bank is not a central authority any more than large mining pools are central authorities. Or China (when it controlled enough BTC to double spend at will).

The banking system is vastly distributed. Trust is a giant network of accountants, central banks, regulators, investors, and lots more that help ensure there is no double spending. There are checks all throughout the system, ledgers, reports, audit trails, and, unlike BTC, when something is actually stolen, lots of protections and methods to claw back stolen money.

BTC can be double spent via majority control, so double spend protection is at best a statistical claim, just like real banking.

A large problem with Bitcoin is developers were unaware of modern (or even ancient) banking and money systems and have tried to reinvent simple money with all the same problems that mankind moved from millennia ago.

Then people unaware of the why of modern money systems think crypto solves an important problem that modern economies and users don't care about, while ignoring all the problems modern systems solved as if they don't exist.

And honestly, in all my life, I have never heard of anyone in the normal banking system double spend. So chalk one more up to the Bitcoin make believe event crowd. How many double spend events have you performed in your entire life via normal banking?

Re: Blockchain Is Dangerous Nonsense

#373

Post by mattdesl »

hiq wrote: post #361
mattdesl wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> If nobody has an issue with it, why are you talking about an alternative to it?

this entire far-too-long discussion I’ve participated in stemmed from the notion that blockchain’s goals are already better solved by existing solutions. I asked for any that solves peer-to-peer decentralized escrow of a digital asset like a domain name; so far the primary response have been “you don’t need to do that since you can trust [centralized company].”

I’m gonna have to step out of this thread at this point but thanks for the discussion!

Re: Blockchain Is Dangerous Nonsense

#374

Post by ddjsn111 »

ahartmetz wrote: post #260
ddjsn111 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, I think it's because the HN archetype is a person who held the moral high ground on early crypto being a "scam" for normies, despite understanding it fundamentally, and those same folks are now feeling upset they didn't "get in" in time.

So you are saying that people only dislike the ponzi scheme because they didn't get in early enough. Is that your ethics or these other people's? FWIW I do own some crypto money, but it's nothing more than a casino game with positive expected winnings to me.

Hahaha

Re: Blockchain Is Dangerous Nonsense

#375

Post by chemmail »

Grustaf wrote: post #18

I'm very sceptical of blockchain (though I've been in crypto off and on since 2013) but most of the arguments in this article are non-sensical. For example: > But even if all code was without mistakes, blockchains can’t do anything against threats like scams, fraud, hacking of devices with keys for the blochain or just plain old typos in a coin transfer. I don't think protection against human-factor scams and frauds…

Yeah, sounds like this guy needs to just not use the internet or computers at all. That is where almost all scams originate. Don't bother even talking to people. When the internet was created, no one knew the power. Maybe some day soon we will be able to employ this tech to further humanity.

Re: Blockchain Is Dangerous Nonsense

#376

Post by Grustaf »

nicbou wrote: post #356
Grustaf wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, cash is great, but it's pretty clear that most first world governments are trying to get rid of cash. And it's pretty inconvenient, especially since you need to trust the recipient. Crypto currencies being volatile is not inherent in the technology. You can easily imagine a crypto currency pegged to something like gold, ideally not run by scammers like in the case of tether. The purchase history is also a non-ar…

> Crypto currencies being volatile is not inherent in the technology How so? It has no control mechanism to prevent it. I get that the brakes (central banks) don't always work perfectly, but removing them entirely is an odd choice. > Having a currency that jumps up and down by a factor of 2 like bitcoin in the last year is still better than one that melts away To whom? When? > You can easily imagine [...], that's not…

We're discussing the technology of crypto currencies, not just the currencies that exist now. It wouldn't be hard to make a utility coin that gives you something real, but virtual, like megabytes of data on your phone plan, domain hosting, virtual goods in games to the value of 1 dollar etc. Such a coin would not be as volatile as one that is untethered from anything tangible, like Bitcoin.

> To whom? When?

To most people. Look at BTC/USD for the last year, and then look at a currency during hyperinflation, that loses 10% a day, every day. Which would you rather hold?

Re: Blockchain Is Dangerous Nonsense

#377

Post by therealdrag0 »

tsimionescu wrote: post #313
mattdesl wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a pretty stupid argument; WoW and FF14 gold are not assets defined on the network. The goal of Ethereum is to record Ethereum-based assets (e.g. ERC20, ERC721), not to record the exchange of every asset on the web. > I can already trustlessly sell a piece of copper in World of Warcraft for gold without involving any other third party. In this case the third party is Blizzard Entertainment, who can control the…

> In this case the third party is Blizzard Entertainment, who can control the state and data. And in the case of two Ethereum based assets, the third party is the Ethereum network, which can be forked to control the state and data (as it was after the DAO fiasco).

I think more importantly the integration with Ethereum network is done by third parties, so even if WOW hooks into eth, your eth assets are worthless without depending on blizzard to maintain that integration. So what was gained?

Re: Blockchain Is Dangerous Nonsense

#378

Post by hestefisk »

hiq wrote: post #283
hestefisk wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Documentary trade finance - e.g cross-border trade where importers and exporters transact physical goods using letters of credit issued and endorsed by banks on both sides of the transaction. A good example is a container load of crude oil shipped from an upstream exporter in India to a refinery (importer) in the States. Banks act as facilitators of such as transaction on import / export side, often have to interact…

How come the trust regarding the physical goods themselves does not expand to the financial aspects of the transaction?

Maybe read up on trade finance :)

Re: Blockchain Is Dangerous Nonsense

#379

Post by igorkraw »

mattdesl wrote: post #367
igorkraw wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 th…

So again, what can you do with it? What's the usage except "I have it and you can't"?

Because, if you use it to point to an IP, who's giving you that IP?

An asset has value, just because you call it an asset doesn't make it one.

Re: Blockchain Is Dangerous Nonsense

#380

Post by mattdesl »

igorkraw wrote: post #379
mattdesl wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 th…

So again, what can you do with it? What's the usage except "I have it and you can't"? Because, if you use it to point to an IP, who's giving you that IP? An asset has value, just because you call it an asset doesn't make it one.

you point an ENS name to an address (a public key hash). in a system built on private/public keys, it can be useful as an alias. the “IP”, or address in this case, is my own, because it is directly generated from a 24 word seed phrase.

this naming system has value for myself and the millions of other users interacting within the network.

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