Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Binance founder 'CZ' leaves prison on Friday

fortune.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 121 posts

Re: Binance founder 'CZ' leaves prison on Friday

#31

Post by tromp »

matrix2003 wrote: post #13
startupsfail wrote: post #5

Bitcoins are clearly negative sum game (resources used, GPUs burned, CO2 emitted, money changed hands). Wish we could do less of it.

I’m just curious - if you were to try making a decentralized currency as a fun project, what mechanism would you use instead? I’m someone who doesn’t really use it, but was fascinated with it before “blockchain” became a buzzword. edit: proof-of-work. I have been out of the loop for years :) My next question is are there downsides to proof-of-stake, and why has bitcoin not moved towards it?

I would change the emission so as to deter speculation and instead make it fair across generations: fix the block reward. I would make it as simple as possible so as to better stand the test of time.

Re: Binance founder 'CZ' leaves prison on Friday

#34

Post by tromp »

pants2 wrote: post #28
jsheard wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least the broader crypto ecosystem mostly moved over to proof-of-stake, even if Bitcoin will probably always be proof-of-work, so at least most of their Ponzi schemes aren't boiling the oceans in the process anymore. Small victories.

Bitcoin can't always be proof-of-work. Given the capped supply, the mining rewards will eventually diminish to the point that the network is no longer secure. It will have to transition to proof-of-stake or some other mechanism long before that happens.

It intends to rely on fees, i.e. to have a constant backlog of high fee paying transactions. We'll see how that plays out within a few decades as the block subsidy becomes insignificant.

Re: Binance founder 'CZ' leaves prison on Friday

#35

Post by pants2 »

tromp wrote: post #34
pants2 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bitcoin can't always be proof-of-work. Given the capped supply, the mining rewards will eventually diminish to the point that the network is no longer secure. It will have to transition to proof-of-stake or some other mechanism long before that happens.

It intends to rely on fees, i.e. to have a constant backlog of high fee paying transactions. We'll see how that plays out within a few decades as the block subsidy becomes insignificant.

Transaction volume goes up and down. Just look at ETH gas prices - varying between 1 and 1000 month-to-month. BTC holders aren't going to be OK with a temporary lull in transactions leading to a double-spend attack etc.

Re: Binance founder 'CZ' leaves prison on Friday

#36

Post by _heimdall »

woodrowbarlow wrote: post #18
_heimdall wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've also been fascinated by bitcoin but never made the leap. The problem I always come back to is that it isn't a currency, a store of value, private, and I disagree with bitcoin's approach to decentralization. (A long list, I know. Every couple years I get the itch then rediscover all my complaints). Attempting to create a decentralized currency based on anything other than a supply-constrained natural resource is…

but most national currencies have long since abandoned of the idea of being backed by physical resources, and have shifted towards promises, belief, and trust. are you saying that de-centralization introduces unique aspects that make physical backing a necessity?

Exactly. State currencies have their issues, but they do at least accept that a currency built only on faith and trust must be centralized.

I am proposing that making a currency decentralized creates certain limitations. Without a central authority its extremely unlikely that a monetary system built on faith will last long. For bitcoin the claim is that the network is what you must have faith in, not a central authority. I don't find that compelling personally, mainly because I haven't found the protocol to be so bulletproof that I only need to trust it and can believe that the network will hold regardless of how many bad actors may attempt to corrupt it (not saying that is happening today, only that it is inevitable with time).

Re: Binance founder 'CZ' leaves prison on Friday

#38

Post by rvz »

startupsfail wrote: post #5

Bitcoins are clearly negative sum game (resources used, GPUs burned, CO2 emitted, money changed hands). Wish we could do less of it.

At least they don't take people's jobs away or threaten / replace them. Unlike AI, which also burns GPUs, emits CO2 and the money is all evaporated into inference and training costs with little to no efficient alternatives to reduce it and also wasting tons of water.

Cryptocurrencies at least have alternative efficient methods of consensus, such as proof-of-stake making it possible to reduce the said resources as much as 95%.

AI (Deep Learning) still does not have practical efficient and viable greener alternatives to neither inference or training in production.

Re: Binance founder 'CZ' leaves prison on Friday

#40

Post by s1artibartfast »

nativeit wrote: post #21
slavboj wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All currencies are negative sum when you only consider minting and transaction costs.

So where’s the productive output?

This is correct, All currencies have transaction costs, but compete on having lower transaction cost than the alternative. The theoretical maximum is zero transaction cost for a transaction. It cant go positive. Components of transaction cost are triangulation, transfer, and trust. Currencies attempt to lower the cost of the transfer and trust components.

Any positive value a currency claims to have as method for settling transactions is just a differential with another method.

There is a cost to going to an ATM and carrying USD cash, but it is lower than carrying around 100lbs of cabbages to barter with.

Post reply on HN