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The Ethereum merge is done

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Re: The Ethereum merge is done

#341

This doesn't really change anything, I still cannot find any legitimate use cases for blockchain, Proof of Stake or not. I would happy to be proven wrong, but this is extremely rare as I can't find any legitimate actual useful use case since Bitcoin and Ethereum's existence.

As someone pointed out to me recently when I argued the same thing, crypto and blockchain does have a use case: funding organizations and people through anonymous means as to circumvent the scope of the law/avoid the eyes of state or corporate authorities. This includes funding politically persecuted groups or terrorist groups as well as buying drugs or other more or less recommendable things. After all it's mostly w…

Yeah, that's the killer use case. It's also the use case that'll bring in _so much_ regulation.

Re: The Ethereum merge is done

#342
post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find the complexity of that algorithm both impressive ( since they seem to have made it work), but also quite worrying. I'm really not sure how such a beast can't be filled with bugs, not in the implementation but rather in the protocol. I know a lot of very smart people are working on this, but i'd rather have something conceptually simpler to work as the base layer for a whole new economy.

>ly not sure how such a beast can't be filled with bugs The one nice thing about crypto is that if there are bugs, the incentive to exploit them is large, they will get found quickly. How the problem is dealt with after the fact (e.g. ETH Classic hard fork) i.e. the governance model is the real interesting part.

The incentive is to discover them but exploit them after the switch to the new chain

Re: The Ethereum merge is done

#343
post #208

This doesn't really change anything, I still cannot find any legitimate use cases for blockchain, Proof of Stake or not. I would happy to be proven wrong, but this is extremely rare as I can't find any legitimate actual useful use case since Bitcoin and Ethereum's existence.

People have been using it for 10 years, yet it still doesn’t have any usecase. It’s like saying “I don’t get tiktok”

Using it for what.

I see that 99% of use cases are "speculation to get rich on the basis of telling bigger fools to buy and HODL LOL".

People have been using heroin for years, doesn't mean it's a good thing.

Re: The Ethereum merge is done

#344
post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find the complexity of that algorithm both impressive ( since they seem to have made it work), but also quite worrying. I'm really not sure how such a beast can't be filled with bugs, not in the implementation but rather in the protocol. I know a lot of very smart people are working on this, but i'd rather have something conceptually simpler to work as the base layer for a whole new economy.

There is large areas in cryptography where if you don’t do it right the whole thing won’t work at all - in that sense there are large parts that are self verifying which collapses complexity. I’m not saying it’s all easy, just that experts can navigate through complexity because they know what to ignore by abstracting it and thinking about properties it holds, not keeping in mind all the guts underneath. Maybe good e…

[deleted]

Re: The Ethereum merge is done

#345

This doesn't really change anything, I still cannot find any legitimate use cases for blockchain, Proof of Stake or not. I would happy to be proven wrong, but this is extremely rare as I can't find any legitimate actual useful use case since Bitcoin and Ethereum's existence.

Emphasis on you can’t find any uses and other people’s use cases aren't legitimate to you We’re past the point of playing with people’s goal posts

You could just list some great use cases that are happening right now, that'd be a very compelling argument.

Re: The Ethereum merge is done

#347
post #331
post #5

I gotta say, I’ve been really cynical about this and honestly thought Ethereum would keep putting off the move to PoS forever. I’m very very happy to be wrong. I still don’t see the value in cryptocurrency as a project, but now that it’s not rolling back years of renewable energy development, I’m down to have some much more interesting conversations about Ethereum, and I may even be willing to buy some and try it out…

Monero is the only cryptocurrency that is fulfilling its original promise (basically digital cash, untraceable) and that is being banned left and right by exchanges these days. ETH is more of the old power balance with slightly new players without all the previous regulations (i.e. scams everywhere).

No post body was provided.

Re: The Ethereum merge is done

#348

This doesn't really change anything, I still cannot find any legitimate use cases for blockchain, Proof of Stake or not. I would happy to be proven wrong, but this is extremely rare as I can't find any legitimate actual useful use case since Bitcoin and Ethereum's existence.

Have a look into DeFi and what A16Z is investing in is a good start. When many of the biggest SV firms are investing billions and you still don't understand it, don't you get curious and dig deeper?

We know why they're investing billions. Same reason they invest billions into start-ups - their capital gives them preferential terms that let them cash out at the expense of other investors, whether it be at IPO, or ICO.

Re: The Ethereum merge is done

#349
post #170

For those interested in understanding the tech rather than the typical bashing things as beneath them, I wrote up a detailed technical explainer of how Ethereum PoS works: https://0xfoobar.substack.com/p/ethereum-proof-of-stake

I find the complexity of that algorithm both impressive ( since they seem to have made it work), but also quite worrying. I'm really not sure how such a beast can't be filled with bugs, not in the implementation but rather in the protocol. I know a lot of very smart people are working on this, but i'd rather have something conceptually simpler to work as the base layer for a whole new economy.

I'm a crypto skeptic, but I have to admit, one of the cool things about crypto-currencies is that they come with their own built-in bug bounty. If there's a bug, it will most certainly be found.

Re: The Ethereum merge is done

#350
post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find the complexity of that algorithm both impressive ( since they seem to have made it work), but also quite worrying. I'm really not sure how such a beast can't be filled with bugs, not in the implementation but rather in the protocol. I know a lot of very smart people are working on this, but i'd rather have something conceptually simpler to work as the base layer for a whole new economy.

There is large areas in cryptography where if you don’t do it right the whole thing won’t work at all - in that sense there are large parts that are self verifying which collapses complexity. I’m not saying it’s all easy, just that experts can navigate through complexity because they know what to ignore by abstracting it and thinking about properties it holds, not keeping in mind all the guts underneath. Maybe good e…

Good cryptography should be auditable, that means it should be simple. It should not rely on experts knowing their way through the complexity but should rely on mathematical guarantees.

Yes the cryptography primitives should act like black boxes, no need to peak inside but when a number of these black boxes are used together to form a high level protocol allot of subtle things can go wrong for example see the history of SSL/TLS https://www.feistyduck.com/ssl-tls-and-pki-history/

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