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Ethereum has blobs. Where do we go from here?

vitalik.eth.limo

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Re: Ethereum has blobs. Where do we go from here?

#471

Post by ForHackernews »

everfree wrote: post #450
ForHackernews wrote: post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suppose the difference is that in most technical topics the complexity is either inherent (quantum mechanics just is this way) or exists for a good reason (consensus algorithms are complicated but they solve a hard problem). IMHO this is not true in cryptocurrency, which is more akin to a self-sustaining pyramid scheme where the complexity serves to obscure the reality of the thing and draw in more rubes. All the n…

You're entitled to your opinion on that, I suppose. As someone who actually does understand most of the jargon (because it's what I do for a living), data availability sampling feels to me just as inherent to good blockchain design as fast fourier transforms are to good digital signal processing. > consensus algorithms are complicated but they solve a hard problem Ironically, this article is about an algorithm that c…

> perhaps consider that you're not the target audience.

I literally said, "I realize this post is the High Priest of Ethereum preaching to his disciples" before going on to laugh at his gibberish.

It's fine if you're into this stuff, but the cryptocurrency people can't seem to decide if they're a bunch of nerd hobbyists or the Future of Finance.

If you want to be HAM radio, then fine, nobody except your club needs to understand or care what you're talking about. If you think you're going to upend the world economy and force all the rest of us to use your bullshit, then you better expect the rest of us to demand explanations in plain English.

I could tell my grandma what TCP/IP is and why it's important. Cryptocurrency proponents have been trying (and failing) to do the same to me for over a decade now.

Re: Ethereum has blobs. Where do we go from here?

#472

Post by ForHackernews »

kandel wrote: post #449
ForHackernews wrote: post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suppose the difference is that in most technical topics the complexity is either inherent (quantum mechanics just is this way) or exists for a good reason (consensus algorithms are complicated but they solve a hard problem). IMHO this is not true in cryptocurrency, which is more akin to a self-sustaining pyramid scheme where the complexity serves to obscure the reality of the thing and draw in more rubes. All the n…

I mean, it's a technical piece of code (ETH, that is), and every new piece gets a new name. It's not a more complicated terminology than you'd get for compilers or protocols - TCP wikipedia has "TCP provides reliable, ordered, and error-checked delivery of a stream of octets " which has 6 (or 5, depending how you'd count it), technical terms. They're not very abstract, sure, but it's just TCP, and we think that's com…

I can explain TCP for a general audience: "TCP is the primary system computers use to talk to each other over a network these days. All the data is broken down into tiny little bits called 'packets' and sent out over the wire. TCP is important because it specifies how the computers should perform 'handshakes' at the start of the conversation, and includes rules for checking the data for errors, and resending corrupted or missing packets."

I know (more or less) what Ethereum is, and I understand (more or less) that these 'blobs' are yet another attempt to work around the fundamental inefficiencies inherent when trying to make a giant distributed system for ideological reasons (rather than a small centralized system).

Re: Ethereum has blobs. Where do we go from here?

#473

Post by qweqwe14 »

godelski wrote: post #434
qweqwe14 wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Opting out of privacy gives it more plausible deniability So if you actually want to interact with the real world, you have to opt out of privacy? And if you enable privacy you are automatically treated as a weirdo? I don't get the whole point of Zcash. It's the same issue as with Bitcoin – you can make your transactions private, but it's not the default and not obvious for new users, and anyone who does it is subj…

Shielded by default or opt in depends on the wallet you use. As you can imagine, a lot of people like shielded by default. There are reasons to have transparent transactions btw. You may want public proof. Again, it is not the same as bitcoin. Using a mixer does not come with ZKPs. The transactions are also still public. You can see how much was put in and how much was taken out. Worse, you now potentially have trace…

> You may want public proof

Monero has view keys for that.

> Zcash has much stronger privacy guarantees

This is false. The fact that it uses ZKP doesn't make it's privacy stronger.

I'm not going to state more points on why Monero is ultimately better than Zcash because this has been done before: https://www.reddit.com/r/Monero/comments/u3saom/eli5_whats_t...

Re: Ethereum has blobs. Where do we go from here?

#474

Post by leashless »

Shawnj2 wrote: post #374
leashless wrote: post #320

7. The blockchain is now at a stage in its development equivalent to where the internet was in or around 1995. The internet was unstoppable in 1995 and blockchain technology is unstoppable now. It will become ubiquitous in all major industrial and financial sectors, simply because it allows for the immutable recording of data, thereby reducing friction in commercial and consumer transactions and obliterating the scop…

I still don’t understand what a fully realized crypto ecosystem would allow people to do that isn’t already being done well by standard technology. Like it or not, for most people doing most things, the government or large companies are suitable enough of a store of trust which is the problem crypto solves by being decentralized. I think it’s a neat technology for tech people but I still struggle to see why normal pe…

So the argument is twofold.

1) governments didn’t get to print money at will until they went off the gold standard, and the financial regime we have now is worse than the gold era. (Highly dubious, I don’t buy this entirely)

2) blockchain done right gives hub-and-spoke efficiency without creating hegemons like VISA, SWIFT and PayPal to boss around their users with impunity.

This I believe entirely.

Re: Ethereum has blobs. Where do we go from here?

#475

Post by Shawnj2 »

leashless wrote: post #474
Shawnj2 wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still don’t understand what a fully realized crypto ecosystem would allow people to do that isn’t already being done well by standard technology. Like it or not, for most people doing most things, the government or large companies are suitable enough of a store of trust which is the problem crypto solves by being decentralized. I think it’s a neat technology for tech people but I still struggle to see why normal pe…

So the argument is twofold. 1) governments didn’t get to print money at will until they went off the gold standard, and the financial regime we have now is worse than the gold era. (Highly dubious, I don’t buy this entirely) 2) blockchain done right gives hub-and-spoke efficiency without creating hegemons like VISA, SWIFT and PayPal to boss around their users with impunity. This I believe entirely.

There are still significant fees doing transactions over blockchain and those giant hegemonies are what allow things like charge backs and fraud detection while if somone hacks your wallet and steals all your crypto, it’s gone forever. It’s great if you’re trying to launder money or pay for sketchy things but I still don’t get the draw for the average person, just decentralization is not that valuable

Re: Ethereum has blobs. Where do we go from here?

#476

Post by troupo »

ArtTimeInvestor wrote: post #468
troupo wrote: post #458

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The joke just wooshed past you :)

No, you miss the point. It's a high barrier for users to pay online. That's why they don't pay $1 on a whim on a small site, even if it offers something they like. Paying online is more like a marriage these days. You pray that the other side will not disappoint you and then you jump in. That's why big popular sites with brand names worth billions gobble up unproportional more paying users.

Yes, the barrier is high because paying is a high-friction activity whenever cards are involved. That's why the various quick checkouts are all the rage the past 10 years or so.

This has very little to do with the original claim of "Users dislike paying on the web because it is a security risk". Users have no issues paying for stuff online.

Re: Ethereum has blobs. Where do we go from here?

#477

Post by everfree »

ForHackernews wrote: post #472
kandel wrote: post #449

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, it's a technical piece of code (ETH, that is), and every new piece gets a new name. It's not a more complicated terminology than you'd get for compilers or protocols - TCP wikipedia has "TCP provides reliable, ordered, and error-checked delivery of a stream of octets " which has 6 (or 5, depending how you'd count it), technical terms. They're not very abstract, sure, but it's just TCP, and we think that's com…

I can explain TCP for a general audience: "TCP is the primary system computers use to talk to each other over a network these days. All the data is broken down into tiny little bits called 'packets' and sent out over the wire. TCP is important because it specifies how the computers should perform 'handshakes' at the start of the conversation, and includes rules for checking the data for errors, and resending corrupte…

Inefficiencies aren’t really inherent if they can be worked around.

Re: Ethereum has blobs. Where do we go from here?

#478

Post by everfree »

ForHackernews wrote: post #471
everfree wrote: post #450

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're entitled to your opinion on that, I suppose. As someone who actually does understand most of the jargon (because it's what I do for a living), data availability sampling feels to me just as inherent to good blockchain design as fast fourier transforms are to good digital signal processing. > consensus algorithms are complicated but they solve a hard problem Ironically, this article is about an algorithm that c…

> perhaps consider that you're not the target audience. I literally said, "I realize this post is the High Priest of Ethereum preaching to his disciples" before going on to laugh at his gibberish. It's fine if you're into this stuff, but the cryptocurrency people can't seem to decide if they're a bunch of nerd hobbyists or the Future of Finance. If you want to be HAM radio, then fine, nobody except your club needs to…

> the cryptocurrency people can't seem to decide if they're a bunch of nerd hobbyists or the Future of Finance

I think it's strange to take a diverse set of people from around the world, from hobbyists to open source developers to fortune 500 teams, and group them all together as "cryptocurrency people", as if they represent a united movement towards a single goal.

It's as if I said "those Linux people can't decide whether they want to be nerd hobbyists or the future of server computing" while pointing out the seeming contradiction between Red Hat Linux and Hannah Montana Linux, both produced by the same "group" of "those Linux people".

Or it's as if I compared a unicycle to a fighter jet, both made by "those vehicle people".

> If you want to be HAM radio, then fine, nobody except your club needs to understand or care what you're talking about.

It doesn't matter much what I want it to be. It just is.

I find it unorthodox to compare a software standard to a "club". I'm imagining someone refer to the worldwide group of Linux users as a "club". Much like Linux, I don't need to explain to the world how cryptocurrency works in order for it to be useful to me, nor do I consider myself part of a club for using it. It's just there and I use it. As Andreessen Horowitz said many years ago, "It’s becoming like air or water. It just is, like it or hate it. It just is."

> If you think you're going to upend the world economy and force all the rest of us to use your bullshit, then you better expect the rest of us to demand explanations in plain English.

I don't know where you're getting this adversarial tone from. Nobody was or is "forced" to do anything. This is not "me vs you". We're commenting on a post about a piece of software.

It seems to me like you're trying to defend something or express some deeper frustration, and I'd be curious to know what it is. To you it's not just a piece of accounting software, is it? This software must represent some ideological point that is dear to you.

> I could tell my grandma what TCP/IP is and why it's important. Cryptocurrency proponents have been trying (and failing) to do the same to me for over a decade now.

This really seems to me like it goes far beyond jargon. Are you perhaps frustrated that cryptocurrency's continued adoption conflicts with your world view that it is unimportant? That's not necessarily something I can help with, beyond saying something trite like "each individual person has their own reasons for adopting a technology" or "there's some kind of social aspect that nobody has really been able to properly measure" or simply "protocols can be sticky".

Re: Ethereum has blobs. Where do we go from here?

#479

Post by chrispeel »

zachmu wrote: post #443
chrispeel wrote: post #441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where did you get that number? Vitalik gave goals of 1.33 MB per second in blob space, and a compressed tx size of 25 bytes. This gives around 50,000 transactions per second, which seems like a worthy goal.

I would have sworn I read it in the linked article, but it's sure not there when I read it again. And it's not in the oldest archive.org copy either. I can only conclude I hallucinated it, which makes me uncomfortable.

Thanks for responding

Re: Ethereum has blobs. Where do we go from here?

#480

Post by leashless »

Shawnj2 wrote: post #475
leashless wrote: post #474

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the argument is twofold. 1) governments didn’t get to print money at will until they went off the gold standard, and the financial regime we have now is worse than the gold era. (Highly dubious, I don’t buy this entirely) 2) blockchain done right gives hub-and-spoke efficiency without creating hegemons like VISA, SWIFT and PayPal to boss around their users with impunity. This I believe entirely.

There are still significant fees doing transactions over blockchain and those giant hegemonies are what allow things like charge backs and fraud detection while if somone hacks your wallet and steals all your crypto, it’s gone forever. It’s great if you’re trying to launder money or pay for sketchy things but I still don’t get the draw for the average person, just decentralization is not that valuable

Think in terms of antimonopoly — VISA charges outrageous fees for decades because they’re the hub through which all payments go.
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