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The Problem with Ethereum

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Re: The Problem with Ethereum

#121

Post by imtringued »

swayson wrote: post #56

Human greed is the problem. How much of promising tech, starts out so innocent till big money becomes aware of it or those who want to make a quick dime, tarnish principled thinking and action.

Cryptocurrencies are just as bad as the fiat they replace. The problem with fiat is that people use it as a high score to measure their own status/rank.

But it is also needed to pay people. But people only work if they get paid. You run into the money shortage problem that caused so much trouble in 2008.

Re: The Problem with Ethereum

#122

Post by kristofferR »

CuriousCosmic wrote: post #118
yunohn wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> some cryptos like Tezos are governed quite decentralized in many ways. Whenever crypto enthusiasts tell me about DeFi governance, I get excited about the possibilities. Then, I actually take a look at some of the group decisions, and literally all of them are crypto/coin-related, and don’t deal with any /real/ or human problems…

I'd recommend looking at Project Catalyst out of the Cardano ecosystem. Of course the proposals are still heavily focused on internal/ecosystem development but there's an increasing focus on building platforms for people in developing regions as well. There has generally been a heavy focus on improving connectivity and access to affordable financial services within the African continent however recently there's been…

Thanks for that comment, looks like a really interesting project, I'll read more about it!

Re: The Problem with Ethereum

#123

Post by csomar »

> Excuses are made and explanations are given as to why in this particular case an exception needs to be made to the “Code is Law” promise

I really wonder what Ethereum investors think of this. A "precedent" was made. Crypto has yet to come to the real test with governments, courts and the physical laws of humans. With Bitcoin, it can be stipulated that changing the network is impossible or unheard of; but that's not the case for Ethereum.

It doesn't help, also, that the network is being "processed" by a few elites (or pools of wealth) that could be, potentially, identified and made to obey the "government/s".

This is not the case of Bitcoin where the introduction of KYC for mining will require a hard-fork. Bitcoin (the core chain) has never undertook a hard-fork (which is why a lot of Bitcoin forks are out there).

Re: The Problem with Ethereum

#124

Post by whitepaint »

javert wrote: post #106
BLKNSLVR wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From what I've read and heard of Vitalik Buterin, he seems most unlikely to have "cronies". The reason Charles Hoskinson left the Ethereum Foundation is that Vitalik wanted it to be non-profit, whilst Charles wanted it to be commercial / for-profit. Most of what I've heard of Vitalik paints him as having a saint-like aura (my own admittedly hyperbolic description). But then maybe we'd all appear that way if we had $b…

Vitalik is a saint in comparison to Hoskinson, but that doesn't mean Ethereum is sound money. It is what it is; lots of good innovation there, but sound money, it is not.

None of the cryptos are sound money ("money not liable to sudden appreciation or depreciation in value") except stablecoins on Ethereum. Bitcoin can easily lose 80% of its value in a month and no one would be surprised. Bitcoin is the biggest speculative bubble of all time. It absolutely has no utility (imagine if Bitcoin disappeared now - what would the world lose?).

The actual real exciting stuff regarding the cryptos is here: https://ethereum.org/en/dapps/

Re: The Problem with Ethereum

#125

Post by ddeyar »

yunohn wrote: post #67
kristofferR wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(b) is why Bitcoin core development has stagnated[*]. And that's fine if people just want it to be like gold, however Ethereum doesn't aspire to not evolve. (c) I actually disagree with. Decentralized governance is a very interesting subject, and some cryptos like Tezos are governed quite decentralized in many ways. Right now I'm really confident in how Ethereum is governed, with the "old-fashioned" open-source devel…

> some cryptos like Tezos are governed quite decentralized in many ways. Whenever crypto enthusiasts tell me about DeFi governance, I get excited about the possibilities. Then, I actually take a look at some of the group decisions, and literally all of them are crypto/coin-related, and don’t deal with any /real/ or human problems…

Tezos for example has the problem of missing liquidity. So they voted for protocol level liquidity called liquidity baking. A little bit of inflation is used to incentivise liquidity providing. It's an experiment but it shows the power of governance. See https://liquidity-baking.com/ for current liquidity.

For sure it will always be voted on something that is good for the chain or for the token. When its good publicity for a chain to vote for charity-baking you could solve human problems.

Re: The Problem with Ethereum

#126

Post by Dylan16807 »

h0l0cube wrote: post #120
AgentME wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The way that's written like Ethereum owes the miners a job strange. Ethereum isn't a work program for miners to manage mining hardware. Ethereum functions on proof-of-work and needs some people to sell their compute time and electricity. Miners aren't doing a generous service that would be useful outside of Ethereum that should be encouraged any further than Ethereum's specific needs. With PoS, the pay for miners is…

> The way that's written like Ethereum owes the miners a job strange I think it's fair that if you've purchased specialized mining equipment, you expect the ROI you were promised. Doesn't seem strange. > Ethereum functions on proof-of-work and needs some people to sell their compute time and electricity So compensation for work. If not 'workers', you could call them 'investors', or perhaps 'sole traders', or 'merchan…

> I think it's fair that if you've purchased specialized mining equipment, you expect the ROI you were promised. Doesn't seem strange.

* It uses GPUs.

* ROI in terms of ethereum is basically irrelevant. Real ROI depends on the bouncy crazy chart.

* Was there not enough warning before the changes?

Re: The Problem with Ethereum

#127

Post by mypastself »

If nearly half the text is bolded, what’s the purpose of the boldface? I feel like there’s a 51% font attack brewing within the article.

Regarding the content, the class allegory itself can go the other way as well: the core developers can be thought of as the workers, the miners are the owners of means of production etc.

The one point that’s relevant is the rule-making: the DAO hack hard fork has proven that Ethereum’s boasts of decentralization are dubious at best.

Re: The Problem with Ethereum

#128

Post by whitepaint »

csomar wrote: post #123

> Excuses are made and explanations are given as to why in this particular case an exception needs to be made to the “Code is Law” promise I really wonder what Ethereum investors think of this. A "precedent" was made. Crypto has yet to come to the real test with governments, courts and the physical laws of humans. With Bitcoin, it can be stipulated that changing the network is impossible or unheard of; but that's not…

Majority should decide. Majority decided. Majority will decide. I completely agree with this.

Re: The Problem with Ethereum

#129

Post by throw3434053 »

denton-scratch wrote: post #103
silasdavis wrote: post #92

There's plenty wrong with Ethereum, but casting miners as 'the working class' is a flawed analogy. The mercantile class would be closer to the mark. Notably, their hashing power is based in real world economic power and they extract an annuity from capital expenditure on mining operations and hardware. I also question whether miners are really providing the labour power, as you might expect the working class to do. T…

> There's plenty wrong with Ethereum, but casting miners as 'the working class' is a flawed analogy. Agreed. Marx's working class consists of those who do not own means of production, and are therefore compelled to sell their labour. Miners do not lack means of production; they operate expensive mining machinery. That machinery continues to run, and earn money for the miner, even while the miner sits on the beach. Se…

Of course this is kind of reductive and silly but I see the analogy as taking Ethereum as Money (abstracted labour power), there are those who have to put said labour power into the system, and those who don't. This too: "But the ruling class now feels that’s too much because it amounts to a lot of value for the work. So the ruling class changes the rule of 5 Eth per block to 4 Eth per block.", mirrors the contradiction of wages and surplus value in the capitalist mode of production. The thing is regardless of the form of abstracted labour power, those who hold large sums of a commodity are free to buy lots and make an easy turnover in the market world, resulting in easy power in most societies as well.

Re: The Problem with Ethereum

#130

Post by tromp »

FeepingCreature wrote: post #18
dash2 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you saying you would like to purchase and use such a currency? Or would you like other people to purchase and use it?

No, I would like to mine it. Imagine: a network where the only gains you get are from spending your money quickly. The anti-hodl. It would be completely worthless as a store of value or investment vehicle. Its only conceivable use would be as a fast and efficient transaction ledger. Which is what I wanted out of blockchain to begin with! I'd be happy to support a network like that, even if my income was rapidly vanis…

The most anti-hold coin would be Grin with its 1 Grin per second forever emission. About 2.5 years old, it has only reached 2.5% of its soft total supply [1].

[1] https://john-tromp.medium.com/a-case-for-using-soft-total-su...

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