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AWS and Blockchain

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Re: AWS and Blockchain

#311

Post by bartread »

gatewaynode wrote: post #301
dsco wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See this is where HN has fallen off a cliff, the top commented Runeks supplies a highly theoretical and nonchalant answer to what blockchains _can_ be. That’s been the majority of HNs take on the technology. But the Internet was made for text communication and here we are decades later with social media and streaming video. TimJRobinson at least states something which is rare on HN, a take on blockchain technology wi…

This. It's not like all innovation that has occurred in the crypto-currency space is useless, there are some real valuable innovations there. Blockchain as a whole is just too tainted to see the forest for the trees in all the greed, specifically the word "blockchain" has become magical and deceptive. "Having one neutral platform, controlled by no one, with standardized API's and immutable open programs that anyone c…

> Tim is dead on with this observation, this is amazing.

I'm not saying Tim's wrong, but one of the problems that Ive seen a lot - to the point of being tempted to use the word "constantly" - with blockchain is this sort of gushing rhetoric that actually does a really poor job of explaining why it's amazing, and especially of explaining why it's amazing in a few short paragraphs of jargon-free plain English that anyone with technical background can understand.

Again, Tim's post may be right, but it really falls short here and that's a big problem for the perception of blockchain. Until you can get people to understand why it's valuable, without the answer being to go and spend hours reading when there's perhaps no certainty of what you learn being valuable, it's always going to face this scepticism.

It's not helped by the fact that the scammers and the non-scammers talk about it in the same kind of way, so you end up unable to distinguish the real information from the "blockchain doublespeak" - again, certainly without a lot of research. If you're busy you end up developing a heuristic where you file all of this in the mental waste basket.

Re: AWS and Blockchain

#312

Post by atypeoferror »

runeks wrote: post #167

Blockchain was invented to solve one particular problem: distributed consensus on a sequence of transactions, where the choice of which transaction to include from a set of conflicting transactions is irrelevant. The latter property here is key to understanding where blockchain is useful. It was created to solve the "double spend problem", ie. two transitions that spend the same coin but send it to different recipien…

Maybe I am a confused luddite, but it seems telling that this argument immediately launches into the solution space of a problem that is itself created by the presence of a blockchain.

Double-spend has been solved by the financial sector quite some time ago. The distributed system part - I guess this is the problem that I think the article is claiming is yet to be found.

Re: AWS and Blockchain

#313

Post by api »

runeks wrote: post #167

Blockchain was invented to solve one particular problem: distributed consensus on a sequence of transactions, where the choice of which transaction to include from a set of conflicting transactions is irrelevant. The latter property here is key to understanding where blockchain is useful. It was created to solve the "double spend problem", ie. two transitions that spend the same coin but send it to different recipien…

There is one other case where a structure like a block chain can make sense. It’s an easy way to build an unalterable log. If you give me hash 200000 in the chain I know that log entries 0-200000 are all unaltered.

This is perhaps the simplest easiest use case for a hash based linked list. Of course this is not the complete picture of what cryptocurrencies are; the hash list is just part of the system.

Re: AWS and Blockchain

#314

Post by candiddevmike »

TimJRobinson wrote: post #268
runeks wrote: post #167

Blockchain was invented to solve one particular problem: distributed consensus on a sequence of transactions, where the choice of which transaction to include from a set of conflicting transactions is irrelevant. The latter property here is key to understanding where blockchain is useful. It was created to solve the "double spend problem", ie. two transitions that spend the same coin but send it to different recipien…

I used to think this, but working with DeFi on Ethereum for a while I've realized the killer feature is actually permissionless composability. Which is why enterprise block chains make little sense. Having one neutral platform, controlled by no one, with standardized API's and immutable open programs that anyone can permissionlessly build on - is amazing. We've never had this before, and it's incredible how fast the…

What is the benefit of deploying something on a platform controlled by no one? Why not just run all of those things on a server you own?

Re: AWS and Blockchain

#315

Post by anonymousDan »

TimJRobinson wrote: post #268
runeks wrote: post #167

Blockchain was invented to solve one particular problem: distributed consensus on a sequence of transactions, where the choice of which transaction to include from a set of conflicting transactions is irrelevant. The latter property here is key to understanding where blockchain is useful. It was created to solve the "double spend problem", ie. two transitions that spend the same coin but send it to different recipien…

I used to think this, but working with DeFi on Ethereum for a while I've realized the killer feature is actually permissionless composability. Which is why enterprise block chains make little sense. Having one neutral platform, controlled by no one, with standardized API's and immutable open programs that anyone can permissionlessly build on - is amazing. We've never had this before, and it's incredible how fast the…

Good comment. While a lot of the complaints about blockchain are valid issues, the argument that it is useless and could be replaced with a database always makes me roll my eyes given the fundamental benefit is the open nature of the platform. Nonetheless, I think the key issue is scalability/performance.

Re: AWS and Blockchain

#316

Post by super256 »

TimJRobinson wrote: post #268
runeks wrote: post #167

Blockchain was invented to solve one particular problem: distributed consensus on a sequence of transactions, where the choice of which transaction to include from a set of conflicting transactions is irrelevant. The latter property here is key to understanding where blockchain is useful. It was created to solve the "double spend problem", ie. two transitions that spend the same coin but send it to different recipien…

I used to think this, but working with DeFi on Ethereum for a while I've realized the killer feature is actually permissionless composability. Which is why enterprise block chains make little sense. Having one neutral platform, controlled by no one, with standardized API's and immutable open programs that anyone can permissionlessly build on - is amazing. We've never had this before, and it's incredible how fast the…

> It's similar to AWS where it got exponentially more valuable as each new service was added

But... I have yet to see a service which really adds value. All I've seen so far are:

A) collection games, which are not different from collecting Pokémon for real money.

B) liquidity PvP, where users open leveraged bets to hunt other market participants' stops/liquidations, so the hunter can reduce their position for cheap, which the hunted takes a loss (this is not different from tradfi).

I am looking at Aave right now, and all I see is a speculation platform with tokens instead of currencies. So basically, you guys are re-inventing what tradfi had years ago, just with worthless(?) tokens instead of debt backed assets. I am assuming they are worthless because every project you have mentioned is optimized for USD cash inflow, as you have "buy crypto with fiat"-buttons on almost every project[1][2][3], but no way to cash out to fiat. Furthermore, the staking feature from AAVE seems to only artificially decrease supply, so prices rise. What's the value proposition here?

Anyway, I don't really think that this stuff is even remotely comparable to AWS.

[1] https://app.aave.com/ (press "more" on the nav bar)

[2] https://zerion.io/ (FAQ > "just tap the blue button in the center of your screen, select ‘Buy’, and you will be taken to the dialogue window where you can buy crypto with a credit or debit card.")

[3] https://blog.1inch.io/transak-fiat-on-ramp-provider-is-integ...

Re: AWS and Blockchain

#317

Post by threeseed »

dsco wrote: post #277
TimJRobinson wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to think this, but working with DeFi on Ethereum for a while I've realized the killer feature is actually permissionless composability. Which is why enterprise block chains make little sense. Having one neutral platform, controlled by no one, with standardized API's and immutable open programs that anyone can permissionlessly build on - is amazing. We've never had this before, and it's incredible how fast the…

See this is where HN has fallen off a cliff, the top commented Runeks supplies a highly theoretical and nonchalant answer to what blockchains _can_ be. That’s been the majority of HNs take on the technology. But the Internet was made for text communication and here we are decades later with social media and streaming video. TimJRobinson at least states something which is rare on HN, a take on blockchain technology wi…

> But the Internet was made for text communication

No it wasn't.

ARPANET [1] was made for transferring software and allowing remote access into the large mainframes on the network. Email came in 1971 and then 6 years later audio was being transferred. So it was always intended to support binary transmission and streaming video was being demoed by the BBC not soon after.

The reason to be nitpicking is that the original protocols were flexible and efficient enough from day one to support a myriad of use cases. Where as platforms like Ethereum are already struggling with a lack of flexibility and a lack of efficient and cheap data transfer.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARPANET

Re: AWS and Blockchain

#318

Post by threeseed »

gatewaynode wrote: post #301
dsco wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See this is where HN has fallen off a cliff, the top commented Runeks supplies a highly theoretical and nonchalant answer to what blockchains _can_ be. That’s been the majority of HNs take on the technology. But the Internet was made for text communication and here we are decades later with social media and streaming video. TimJRobinson at least states something which is rare on HN, a take on blockchain technology wi…

This. It's not like all innovation that has occurred in the crypto-currency space is useless, there are some real valuable innovations there. Blockchain as a whole is just too tainted to see the forest for the trees in all the greed, specifically the word "blockchain" has become magical and deceptive. "Having one neutral platform, controlled by no one, with standardized API's and immutable open programs that anyone c…

> Having one neutral platform, controlled by no one, with standardized API's and immutable open programs that anyone can permissionlessly build on - is amazing

It is unquestionably amazing. But it's not the reality.

Most data is not stored on the blockchain but instead in proprietary databases due to the prohibitive cost. And even if it was free the VCs are pushing hard for a defensible moat i.e. lock your users in with proprietary data and features.

We've seen this play out with OpenSea and how its view of NFTs is different from what's on chain.

Re: AWS and Blockchain

#319

Post by acdha »

Finbarr wrote: post #146
legutierr wrote: post #10

> He named a region in Asia and explained that the small farmers there mark their landholdings carefully, but then the annual floods sometimes wash the markers away. Then unscrupulous larger landowners use the absence of markers to cut away at the smallholdings of the poorest. “But if the boundary markers were on the blockchain,” he said, “they wouldn’t be able to do that, would they?” The developed world is distingu…

Arguments like this one strike me as extremely condescending. Have you directly spoken to developing world farmers who have experienced these problems? Do you think people with these problems are just clamoring for the first world to come in and solve this for them with blockchain technology? Do you think all of the participants in the situation you described would even adopt blockchain (the small farmer, the larger…

> Do you think people with these problems are just clamoring for the first world to come in and solve this for them with blockchain technology?

Especially in this case where the pitch is “commit now to paying me and friends first world transaction fees on everything you do, and maybe we’ll figure out how to help with the actual hard problems in the future”. If the real goal is helping small farmers I’d expect the answer to involve things like paying for accurate surveying and working with big agricultural buyers so the calculation changes from “bribe local official to ignore this small farmer’s deed; profit!” to include things like major buyers not buying from any of your farms.

Re: AWS and Blockchain

#320

Post by arcturus17 »

pavlov wrote: post #308

The events described here took place in 2016, over six years ago. That's a long time in technology! Since then additional billions of investment dollars have flowed into the space (a "VC crypto spasm" as the author calls it). Yet zero meaningful products have emerged. But we've witnessed many giant scams and endless crypto startups that happily spun their wheels producing nothing, just minting tokens so that insiders…

Any moment now…

I think in any other space, if you had millions of people (some of them wicked smart) m looking for applications of a technology without results, you’d see the space dwindle into irrelevance quickly…

Crypto is very special in this sense. Despite massive failures and frauds at scale, people keep flocking to it. Is it the promise of unlimited riches, the romantic aspects of it (“decentralization”, etc.), something else altogether?

I don’t know, but to answer your question: I get the feeling that despite the FTX case crypto still has many years ahead of it, regardless of whether it ever produces positive outcomes.

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