The Merge • Hacker News Board

Re: The Merge

#101

Post by kranke155 » Sat, Aug 20, 2022, 5:53 PM UTC

Kbelicius wrote: post #90

kranke155 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure what you mean. NFTs allow for a market for digital art, in that there's an immutable ledger where artists can say "I am selling 10 'signed artworks' of this piece". Because the ledger is known to be immutable, and it allows for transactions between users, you have a market where there wasn't one before. The problem of authenticating art before this, for a digital artist, was that you HAD to have a gallery do…

> Does that answer your question? No it doesn't. Your claim was that NFTs make authenticating art easier. What you wrote has nothing to do with art authentication. Basically I can take some digital art made by somebody else and be the first to release an NFT of it. What now? How does an NFT help us here?

It doesn’t. It just allow for a market of digital signatures for digital art. but technical solutions to the problems you’re talking about are conceivable.

Re: The Merge

#102

Post by dale_glass » Sat, Aug 20, 2022, 5:54 PM UTC

wanderingbort wrote: post #89

dale_glass wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The problem of authenticating art before this, for a digital artist, was that you HAD to have a gallery do it with you in order for it to work. No one trusted anyone, not even the artist, to say that there would only be "10 copies" of that digital artwork, since they couldn't do any follow through if the artist decided to say there were ten copies but sold 10 000. This was an issue with digital art that was previou…

You are correct. NFTs do not prevent counterfeiting. One could argue that it makes counterfeiting easier due to their open nature. However, it also makes detecting counterfeits trivial. So trivial that the consumer can detect it using their own devices and freely available wallet software. No need for special skills or trust anchors like appraisers (other than the public blockchain and public standards). This isn’t a…

> However, it also makes detecting counterfeits trivial. So trivial that the consumer can detect it using their own devices and freely available wallet software.

Only so long that the authentic source is present. You can detect the authentic BAYC because BAYC has a large presence and everyone knows their wallet ID.

Now let's say I take a photo, and you find a NFT for it on OpenSea. How do you know if it's authentic?

Re: The Merge

#103

Post by 0x64 » Sat, Aug 20, 2022, 5:54 PM UTC

randomran01234 wrote: post #74

0x64 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are wrong about the majority of validators having to approve a certain transaction for them to be included. Even if 80 % of the network were censoring, those transactions would, on average, make it into every fifth block.

Can you point to any sources? I would like to read about how this will be accepted even if the majority is against inclusion.

Because not attesting is against the network's fork-choice rules. If that censoring majority chooses to avoid said block, because it contains transactions that should be censored, they will perform an illegal re-org around the block. Sure, it won't be "illegal" as a majority of the network follows said re-org.

It's an extremely nuanced topic, and it was extensively discussed in the last core-developer call on Thursday. Every single operator has been warned that going against the fork-choice rules could, and ultimately will, result in social mitigations against spec-deviating behavior.

This could be set of socially executed slashings of validators that don't respect the fork-choice rules, or an honest-minority executed hard-fork that effectively causes misbehaving validators to bleed until they start respecting the protocol's rules.

I could be wrong on multiple counts, especially regarding re-orgs, but this is how I've understood the issue.

Re: The Merge

#104

Post by kranke155 » Sat, Aug 20, 2022, 5:54 PM UTC

dale_glass wrote: post #62

kranke155 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

people are making millions of dollars from NFTs, but sure. You're the determiner for what has value in the world.

The NFT market has been briefly popular and since then has cratered. Also there's a huge amount of wash trading, so most of that activity isn't even real.

Throwing the baby with the bath water. The baby is small and there is a lot of water, but the baby is there.

Re: The Merge

#105

Post by cowtools » Sat, Aug 20, 2022, 5:59 PM UTC

paulgb wrote: post #95

rufusroflpunch wrote: post #93

The idea that Proof of Stake is more secure against attack is beyond absurd, frankly. However you feel about the energy usage of proof of work consensus mechanisms, they are far more resistant to attack and centralization.

I agree that it's absurd today, but how many bitcoin halvings until it isn't? When people talk about the security of bitcoin, there's a tendency to pretend that the network's security isn't 98% subsidized by a diminishing pool of unminted bitcoin.

There are cryptocurrencies like monero that have implemented a constant "tail emission" block reward to fight off selfish mining attacks. So that leads me to believe that's a threat specific to bitcoin's tokenomics and not PoW cryptocurrencies in general.

Re: The Merge

#106

Post by wanderingbort » Sat, Aug 20, 2022, 6:00 PM UTC

dale_glass wrote: post #102

wanderingbort wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are correct. NFTs do not prevent counterfeiting. One could argue that it makes counterfeiting easier due to their open nature. However, it also makes detecting counterfeits trivial. So trivial that the consumer can detect it using their own devices and freely available wallet software. No need for special skills or trust anchors like appraisers (other than the public blockchain and public standards). This isn’t a…

> However, it also makes detecting counterfeits trivial. So trivial that the consumer can detect it using their own devices and freely available wallet software. Only so long that the authentic source is present. You can detect the authentic BAYC because BAYC has a large presence and everyone knows their wallet ID. Now let's say I take a photo, and you find a NFT for it on OpenSea. How do you know if it's authentic?

If you (the artist) have no presence in NFTs, it’s fake.

If you do, then I can trivially verify that you are the minter.

Crucially, the person that has the incentive to mint (the artist) also has all they need to establish the provenance of the photo.

No 3rd parties, no specialized tools/skills.

Re: The Merge

#107

Post by etaioinshrdlu » Sat, Aug 20, 2022, 6:00 PM UTC

rufusroflpunch wrote: post #94

etaioinshrdlu wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where is the evidence that a validator signing transactions invites the wrath if OFAC?

Do you really think they wouldn’t turn they screw when the time came?

They might, but speculating on what the Gov might do is tough. I was very convinced that Bitcoin and all derivatives would be outright illegal just a few years after they went mainstream, and that has definitely not happened. In a sense every self-hosted bitcoin wallet could be seen as violating payments laws.

Re: The Merge

#108

Post by dale_glass » Sat, Aug 20, 2022, 6:16 PM UTC

kranke155 wrote: post #104

dale_glass wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The NFT market has been briefly popular and since then has cratered. Also there's a huge amount of wash trading, so most of that activity isn't even real.

Throwing the baby with the bath water. The baby is small and there is a lot of water, but the baby is there.

I'm not sure how this comment answers what I said

Re: The Merge

#109

Post by dale_glass » Sat, Aug 20, 2022, 6:19 PM UTC

wanderingbort wrote: post #106

dale_glass wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> However, it also makes detecting counterfeits trivial. So trivial that the consumer can detect it using their own devices and freely available wallet software. Only so long that the authentic source is present. You can detect the authentic BAYC because BAYC has a large presence and everyone knows their wallet ID. Now let's say I take a photo, and you find a NFT for it on OpenSea. How do you know if it's authentic?

If you (the artist) have no presence in NFTs, it’s fake. If you do, then I can trivially verify that you are the minter. Crucially, the person that has the incentive to mint (the artist) also has all they need to establish the provenance of the photo. No 3rd parties, no specialized tools/skills.

Okay, and how do you know whether I have a presence in NFTs? Go and check, and do tell me how you figure it out.

Re: The Merge

#110

Post by mypastself » Sat, Aug 20, 2022, 6:32 PM UTC

Can someone clarify the point about expected price action changes for ETH/USD and other pairs?

Presumably the author believes a smaller proportion of Ether will be regularly traded than on the PoW system, but will the total staked (i.e. held) amount be sufficient to impact prices significantly? Also, why would we expect stakers to not take their profits on a regular basis?

What’s the meaning (and reasoning behind) the following statement:

> Ethereum will move from a system that has roughly $20mm a day of structural outflows to a system that has roughly a half a million dollars a day of structural inflows.