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Ask HN: Am I going insane or is there genuinely no value in blockchain tech?

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Re: Ask HN: Am I going insane or is there genuinely no value in blockchain tech?

#111

Post by yashg »

rvz wrote: post #79

So one of YC's finest and most valuable startup, Stripe that needs no introduction here, also thinks there is 'no value' in using it for payments then? Right then why did they announce this then? [0] Also just yesterday, a very low turn out in discussion about it [1], even less when they announced their Stripe Crypto post [2]. Why? Where is the scam? How exactly is Stripe scamming? Or is it because Stripe is spared s…

Crypto is scam. Some people at Stripe are trying to capitalize on the hype. We'll see how it goes.

Something can't be both a currency as well as a speculative asset. Bitcoin was conceived as a currency. It promised fast transaction, low fees and no central trust provider authority like a government or a bank. But it and countless other cryptos have morphed into something people speculate on for gains. There is still very little you can actually buy using crypto. It's useless as a medium of exchange (volatility, high fees, non-reversible, slow etc). The high volatility and lack of any underlying utility whic can give it a value means it is a ponzi scheme and only those who got in early will come out richer. Late entrants will end up holding bags of worthless digital tokens.

Re: Ask HN: Am I going insane or is there genuinely no value in blockchain tech?

#112

Post by ak_111 »

ak_111 wrote: post #59
jph wrote: post #47

Blockchains are excellent for logging that uses trustable peer participation, distributed append, and tamper resistance. For example, each peer can add their own chain links, and also see all the chain links added by other peers, and also be sure that the log hasn't been corrupted by any of the peers. Some examples IMHO are logs of participation (e.g. voting), agreements (e.g. contracts), exchange (e.g. payments), an…

"Blockchains are excellent for logging with peer participation, distributed append, and tamper resistance. For example, each peer can add their own chain links, and also see all the chain links added by other peers, and also be sure that the log hasn't been corrupted by any of the peers." This sounds very close to a git repository, which Linus wrote using only SHA libraries.

Edit: if you are saying blockchain allows non-tech people the benefit of something like a git repo to run there everyday business, then this is a view I sympathetic to but it is arguably failing in this aspect as well since there is no non-tech people using it.

Re: Ask HN: Am I going insane or is there genuinely no value in blockchain tech?

#113

Post by FabHK »

paulsutter wrote: post #80
YetAnotherNick wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Preventing double spending is possible even without trust. A centralised authority could publish the transactions in a signed append only log. Independent verifiers could pull the log with some frequency and verify that no one spent twice.

Good point - blockchain also prevents transaction censorship (your proposal prevents double spend but allows the central authority to block transactions) Central authorities might do wild stuff like block Folks They Don’t Like (certain truck drivers, etc). Some people think that’s really good, others feel the opposite (edited for clarity)

> blockchain also prevents censorship

well... sort of. Naturally, government can regulate and censor the on- and off-ramps [0], exchanges can censor [1a - Coinbase blocking Russian addresses][1b - Coinbase blocking scammer addresses], and developers or "the community", ie other unelected players, can decree a software change if something happens on chain that they don't like [2a - The DAO/ETH/ETC][2b - BTC 0.7/0.8 accidental fork].

[0] https://cryptonews.com/guides/countries-in-which-bitcoin-is-...

[1a] https://decrypt.co/94513/coinbase-blocks-25000-addresses-lin...

[1b] https://beincrypto.com/freedom-vs-protection-should-crypto-e...

[2a] https://www.crypto-news-flash.com/what-is-ethereum-classic-e...

[2b] https://bitcoinmagazine.com/technical/bitcoin-network-shaken...

Re: Ask HN: Am I going insane or is there genuinely no value in blockchain tech?

#114

Post by kayamon »

strken wrote: post #95
swalsh wrote: post #69

You say you've done research, i'm curious how you did the research? The standard go to reference from people who don't like crypto is now is a 2 hour video that makes zero effort to look for any good. It's not alone, there are hundreds of videos that make bad faith effort to "investigate" crypto. On the progressive left, for some reason it is becoming part of their culture to hate crypto (which is ironic considering…

How is it a different experience? How is it actually amazing? I don't want you to enumerate the ways crypto is useful, I want you to give me one or two concrete use cases that aren't money laundering or buying illegal things.

Bitcoin has no unique use cases. It's simply a form of money that's secure, a worldwide trading economy that works.

The reason that's interesting is because as humanity we never had one of those before.

Re: Ask HN: Am I going insane or is there genuinely no value in blockchain tech?

#115

Post by anonu »

I would tend to agree with you. I believe that payments is probably the major driving force here but we have yet to see anything that rivals the Visa network for example.

Having some concept of money that isn't tied to a government is compelling. Take Lebanon for example which has seen 90% inflation in the last 2 years, the worst economic collapse in modern history... People's savings have been wiped out. This may not have been the case had there been a global alternative to keeping your money safe.

Big trading firms now make billions of dollars trading crypto. In some sense they are "keeping the networks alive"...

There's a ton of creativity in the entire space. I think maybe 98% of it goes away and we're left with the few gems that are useful or truly change society. In that sense there's a benefit.

Re: Ask HN: Am I going insane or is there genuinely no value in blockchain tech?

#116

Post by reeeeeeee »

FabHK wrote: post #44
paulsutter wrote: post #19

The sole purpose of blockchain is to prevent double spending without a trusted party Other proposed applications are mostly dumb / misguided, like immutable storage, social network posts, etc, these can be done with hashing or digital signatures alone If you have a better way to avoid double spending than blockchain folks woukd get very excited. Traditional database can’t do that (requires a trusted party)

> The sole purpose of blockchain is to prevent double spending without a trusted party. Yes, and avoiding the trusted party makes it more inefficient by a factor of around 100,000,000 (-ish), if you consider that BTC uses around 23 GW and can do no more (5 transactions a second) than a single trusted PC could do. What are use cases were you actually need this and the high cost is worth it?

Cardano is a cryptocurrency that offers ~250 transactions per second but should soon scale without a layer 2 solution. I mention this as I run a validator on a 8gb raspberry pi with ZRAM swap enabled with no issues consuming ~5W the whole network could run this way if needed. This is lower power due to a mechanism called proof of stake. BTC uses proof of work. Ethereum has been 'trying' to migrate to POS for some time.

As for layer 2's this could partly be the solution to some high costs. But risks sacrificing decentralization.

Re: Ask HN: Am I going insane or is there genuinely no value in blockchain tech?

#117

Post by FabHK »

paulsutter wrote: post #19

The sole purpose of blockchain is to prevent double spending without a trusted party Other proposed applications are mostly dumb / misguided, like immutable storage, social network posts, etc, these can be done with hashing or digital signatures alone If you have a better way to avoid double spending than blockchain folks woukd get very excited. Traditional database can’t do that (requires a trusted party)

(where blockchain here is used in the sense of a public blockchain plus a consensus mechanism such as PoW)

Re: Ask HN: Am I going insane or is there genuinely no value in blockchain tech?

#118

Post by pcthrowaway »

ak_111 wrote: post #59
jph wrote: post #47

Blockchains are excellent for logging that uses trustable peer participation, distributed append, and tamper resistance. For example, each peer can add their own chain links, and also see all the chain links added by other peers, and also be sure that the log hasn't been corrupted by any of the peers. Some examples IMHO are logs of participation (e.g. voting), agreements (e.g. contracts), exchange (e.g. payments), an…

"Blockchains are excellent for logging with peer participation, distributed append, and tamper resistance. For example, each peer can add their own chain links, and also see all the chain links added by other peers, and also be sure that the log hasn't been corrupted by any of the peers." This sounds very close to a git repository, which Linus wrote using only SHA libraries.

Except with git repositories there's no built-in consensus mechanism, and we have the potential for a double spend.

Say we're assuming the git repo includes gpg signing and users can make commits attesting that they've sent some amount of their balance to another user.

John makes a commit saying he sends his entire balance to Alice.

John pushes that to a central repository, and Alice gives him her house in return.

John then pushes another commit with an older date saying he actually sent his entire balance to Bob.

Which commit does the network trust?

Aside from that, there are also smart contracts which (to my knowledge) are the first example of code that can be run in an open distributed manner with verifiable source.

It's pretty interesting stuff.

Re: Ask HN: Am I going insane or is there genuinely no value in blockchain tech?

#119

Post by yashg »

soulofmischief wrote: post #98
yashg wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The sole purpose of blockchain is to prevent double spending without a trusted party That is most accurate description of blockchain I have read. Unfortunately, the mechanism for that (Proof-of-work) is slow, expensive and planet destroying at scale. And while we may remove a trust provider third party, we aren't getting rid of centralization with blockchain anyway.

> That is most accurate description of blockchain I have read. It might interest you to know then that the short, digestible 8 page whitepaper on Bitcoin, which originally described the blockchain, specifically used this definition. It's the most accurate because it is what a blockchain was designed for. I recommend giving it a read and ignoring any project which doesn't follow its core tenants. https://bitcoin.org/b…

I have read that whitepaper. That was the first think I read when I started researching about the whole crypto and blockchain space. And this is the culmination of my research https://bit.ly/3OB5G18

Re: Ask HN: Am I going insane or is there genuinely no value in blockchain tech?

#120

Post by TekMol »

ak_111 wrote: post #6
TekMol wrote: post #5

The value of blockchains seem so obvious to me, that I wonder if OP can be genuine. ask_111: How can having a public log that is extremely tamper resistant not have value? Let's look at a concrete example: Bitcoin. You can write something into the Bitcoin blockchain and be very sure that the information you wrote into it will stay there pretty much forever. Is that enough, or do we also have to discuss why having suc…

I do agree that tamper proof log is very useful, but I don't believe that it is something you can't achieve using traditional database tech. I have a question for you that can short-circuit our discussion. You claim that the value is "so obvious" to you, why then one decade in there isn't one serious application of blockchain in the real world (not even in the dark web with early adpaters)? I mean a workflow that has…

You can only create "tamper proofness" aka security with social coordination.

Your bankaccount is somewhat secure due to layers and layers of agreements and interdependencies of people. Bitcoin works the same way, but in a much more modern way and achieves much better security.

The git repo you mention elsewhere is something completely different. There is no security baked into git. A git repo is just a bunch of files.

No workflows have been transformed in a decade because workflows do not change that fast. TCP/IP and and the rest of the internet protocol suite was developed the 60s. It started to disrupted workflows 40 years later.

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