Live data from Hacker News

It’s not still the early days of blockchain

blog.mollywhite.net

121–130 of 1001 posts

Re: It’s not still the early days of blockchain

#121
post #91

I'm increasingly seeing "web 3.0" as basically a two headed beast: 1) a way to part greater fools from their money until the hype has died out 2) a hot topic to drive clicks and discussions for nerds and, increasingly, the tech press, from other more pressing issues that exist in terms of tech and culture and finance In other words, its a bullshit scam, can we please move on already?

It's a way to authenticate yourself without a centralized authority. So right now it's being used to create exclusive communities, access to which theoretically has some value. In the future, there may be application ecosystems which operate solely against your wallet information, no need for registration. Maybe that has some value too - time will tell. I don't follow the details of the web3 market closely, so not sp…

> It's a way to authenticate yourself without a centralized authority

PGP did that 31 years ago though, faster and more efficient and without all the downsides?

Re: It’s not still the early days of blockchain

#122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right. And bitcoiners have been saying this from the very beginning of the crypto madness. A global, government agnostic money like bitcoin that no group of insiders and early adopters have unassailable control over, seems like the only likely candidate for something that needs a truly decentralized and trustless blockchain. The rest is hype.

I believe this characterization fails to engage with what money actually is and does. It sounds good in print but fails in practice. Except for bitcoin's current "monetary" uses, like money laundering and tax evasion.

I personally prefer a money that isn't explicitly designed to encourage hyper consumption and short term thinking.

Better for the planet.

But what do I know? I'm just a dumb ape.

Re: It’s not still the early days of blockchain

#123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe check out DYDX L2.

Great pointer, thanks. This is a protocol that rolls up ETH transactions and executes them in batch, in an attempt to alleviate scalability concerns. I can't really speak to the side/unintended effects of transaction rollups on a blockchain, but I'm interested in learning. This excerpt from the FAQ > It is worth noting that anyone can become a relayer so long as they have staked the required bond in the smart contrac…

The censorability of rollup relayers bothers me too. As you mentioned, the fact that US persons are blocked from the protocol shows this is a real problem.

I think this is a problem with technological solutions (perhaps anonymous and redundant relayers, or private rollup transactions so that the relayer does not know the content of transactions in a block but can produce a valid output state) that will be worked on in the next couple years now that the base technology (rollups) exists.

Re: It’s not still the early days of blockchain

#124
post #95
post #82

If there would be a legal framework in place that can tie a DAO to basically be legally binding bylaws of an actual org. and the smart contract lang. is expressive enough for this to work this would be extremely valuable. Outside of this most of web3 looks like hype.

Can you elaborate on what you mean by this ? Do you have any examples of what this could look like in practice ?

a very narrow example you are nonprofit in charge of .org TLD the DAO managing bylaws of that org have no provision for you to be able to sell .org TLD to a third party. You don't have to constantly worry that some ahole will take over the org and do this, because there is no way to do it.

Re: It’s not still the early days of blockchain

#125

I'm still very opposed to the idea of taking a technology and then searching a problem for it. Why? Back in 2017 during the first hype cycle, blockchain companies raised hundreds of millions with ICOs. I became very interested in the technology too, and some friends still work in this space. 4 years later in the web3 era, there is not a single product aside from trading/finance that got traction. Use cases like stori…

> Back in 2017 during the first hype cycle, blockchain companies raised hundreds of millions with ICOs.

Yes. Those scams have been put an end to by regulations by the SEC, as unregistered ICOs are now illegal since 2017. [0]

> there is not a single product aside from trading/finance that got traction.

So what is wrong with using blockchain domain names like ENS for identity, or sign in use cases? Are we going to look back at this in 10 years time and we will see this sort of adoption? [1]

[0] https://www.investor.gov/introduction-investing/general-reso...

[1] https://www.skiff.org/updates/skiff-ens

Re: It’s not still the early days of blockchain

#126

I'm not long on anything blockchain related. But I don't understand why people get so invested in it being a scam or failure. Maybe it is, and it'll all die. That's fine. Why do people spend so much time insisting that it's the inevitable outcome. Let it do its thing, find something better to do.

Imagine all your friends were really into MLM schemes and even quitting their job to join Amway and Herbalife. Sure you can just ignore it, but you can understand it’s tempting to ask them what the hell.

Re: It’s not still the early days of blockchain

#127
post #82

If there would be a legal framework in place that can tie a DAO to basically be legally binding bylaws of an actual org. and the smart contract lang. is expressive enough for this to work this would be extremely valuable. Outside of this most of web3 looks like hype.

If there was a legal framework, it wouldn't be decentralised! ...and hence, it's pointless, since you could recreate it at much lower expense without the blockchain and associated speculative coins.

This has 0 to do with coins. Going through court systems can cost 10s of millions of dollars and someone actually has to actually bring the action to court.

Re: It’s not still the early days of blockchain

#128
post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We need more precision in the scale and performance targets you’re seeking prior to discussing blockchain analogs. It’s tough to respond when “serious financial application” or “revolutionary technology backing all finance” aren’t well-defined.

Sorry, thought my last paragraph covered that. Can any blockchain-backed tech handle the number of transactions per second that current major credit card/payment networks do? One benchmark is 1,700 tps for VISA. https://phemex.com/blogs/what-is-transactions-per-second-tps If not, why not? Especially after 10+ years of development and intense VC funding (as is the parent article's point).

Solana’s on the same order of magnitude as Visa. Some people dispute the exact figure, but it’s basically there: https://www.benzinga.com/amp/content/25031541

Next long term target is speed and energy efficiency of a Google search.

Edit: Avalanche says they’re around 4.5k tps: https://support.avax.network/en/articles/5325146-what-is-tra...

Re: It’s not still the early days of blockchain

#129
post #91

I'm increasingly seeing "web 3.0" as basically a two headed beast: 1) a way to part greater fools from their money until the hype has died out 2) a hot topic to drive clicks and discussions for nerds and, increasingly, the tech press, from other more pressing issues that exist in terms of tech and culture and finance In other words, its a bullshit scam, can we please move on already?

It's a way to authenticate yourself without a centralized authority. So right now it's being used to create exclusive communities, access to which theoretically has some value. In the future, there may be application ecosystems which operate solely against your wallet information, no need for registration. Maybe that has some value too - time will tell. I don't follow the details of the web3 market closely, so not sp…

We've had "auth without centralized authority" for decades, and 99% of people don't care and won't deal with the hassle involved. see PGP, encrypted email, OpenID, etc etc..

The exclusive communities you mention only have value because of the hype and FOMO and high dollar amounts that people see being made on sales of "exclusive" NFTs or some such. Same as many of the many crypto pumps, same as the dotcom bubble, same as tulips. Same as it ever was.

Re: It’s not still the early days of blockchain

#130
post #54

How's this any different than the typical technology hype and adoption cycle? Perhaps we are just at the "peak of inflated expectations" right now, and are about to dive into the "trough of disillusionment". https://setandbma.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/technology-ado... This certainly happened with AI at least twice... remember the AI summers of 1970 and 2010 and the AI winters in between...before certain applicatio…

> My wife recently suggested one: NFTs minted by your university as proof of your diploma. Or perhaps your academic transcript. No way to forge a fake diploma again. This is once again better served by a database. Diplomas are inherently centralized and issued by a trusted authority. Guess we gotta keep brainstorming for use cases -- that's how technology development works, right?

> Guess we gotta keep brainstorming for use cases -- that's how technology development works, right?

Unironically, yes.

Post reply on HN