PayPal Bids $500M to Acquire Crypto Startup Curv • Hacker News Board

Re: PayPal Bids $500M to Acquire Crypto Startup Curv

#141

Post by KallDrexx » Wed, Mar 03, 2021, 7:45 PM UTC

xur17 wrote: post #56

ahelwer wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, so it isn't 3 tx/sec. It's a bit more than that. Not an order of magnitude more, or two orders of magnitude, or the five orders of magnitude more to have the throughput required for everyone on earth to be able to transact once per day, say to buy lunch. You talk about BTC as a settlement layer. A settlement layer for what? The lightning network? Laughable. BTC might have a future as a store of value like gold,…

> Okay, so it isn't 3 tx/sec. It's a bit more than that. Not an order of magnitude more, or two orders of magnitude, or the five orders of magnitude more to have the throughput required for everyone on earth to be able to transact once per day, say to buy lunch. > You talk about BTC as a settlement layer. A settlement layer for what? The lightning network? Laughable. Personal opinion: I think the part you are missing…

> Personal opinion: I think the part you are missing here is that lots of transactions shouldn't be occurring on the base layer. Remember that every transaction that occurs is stored in perpetuity on every node in the Bitcoin network. It should be expensive for a transaction like that to occur, and we should create incentives that limit the creation of these as much as possible.

Serious question because this is something I have had trouble figuring out.

Why should transactions not be on the base layer? Isn't the whole point that the ledger is fully decentralized? How does pushing transactions into side channels (lightning, eth's layer 2) not end up centralizing transaction validation (they might not be completely centralized, but they seem by definition less centralized than the bitcoin base network)?

Re: PayPal Bids $500M to Acquire Crypto Startup Curv

#142

Post by zucker42 » Wed, Mar 03, 2021, 7:47 PM UTC

chillacy wrote: post #130

zucker42 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes inventions improve continuously over time, but sometimes they stop improving and stagnate. You can't just assume away criticism of technology with the assertion that things will improve in the future. I think what a lot of cryptocurrency bears see is that blockchain-based currencies, especially BTC, have fundamental problems. Blockchains are fundamentally not scalable; since the more throughput a blockchain…

I feel like I always read reasonable criticism like this and find myself convinced, and then 5 or 10 years later realize that I've missed out on Amazon, Apple, Tesla, Bitcoin, etc. Granted I've probably also saved myself from investing in stuff that hasn't panned out, but in the past 20 years, it would appear that overall market returns are driven by outliers.

I own a small amount of Ethereum. But I consider it more of a speculative research project that a lot of people believe in, rather than something that you'd be stupid not to own.

In general, I don't know if it's a good idea to inform your choices with FOMO.

Re: PayPal Bids $500M to Acquire Crypto Startup Curv

#143

Post by mikkel » Wed, Mar 03, 2021, 7:50 PM UTC

ahelwer wrote: post #120

mikkel wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you elaborate on the network partition issue that you found with nano? As far as I know nano has been live for years without a doublespend or downtime and thats pretty impressive.

Yeah this is kind of where distributed systems theory comes up against practice, and I think is very interesting. On a theoretical level Nano is just fundamentally flawed, as are all coins which use this "everyone has their own blockchain" eventual consistency concept. The problem is this, as far as I can recall (I looked at this three years ago): imagine a network partition occurs, where two different exchanges are…

Thank you for your writeup. I understand the idea behind the network partition and I've been doing some digging. It looks like there are numerous commits attempting to address this edge case (they call it frontier cementing).

Here is a writeup I found on reddit that further elaborates this: """ There is a (currently hypothetical) edge-case where this could be reversed (not exactly the same as PoW chain reorganization due to forking, but similar.) In this edge-case:

We imagine the Internet has, right now, been carefully split by a malicious attacker into two exact halves

The Internet halves would be carefully contructed to each hold >60m online Nano votes. (This Internet fracture has never actually happened in Nano's lifetime. There are not 2 x 60m votes currently online.)

The attacker double-spends on a coffee (or house) in two of your stores worldwide just now

They then allow the Internet to heal

One of their transactions will be reversed by majority voting.

So while Nano transactions are fully-confirmed, they are not currently immutable.

Since there are not >120m votes currently online, it has not happened and cannot currently happen either. No previous-to-today Nano transactions will ever be reversed. """ -- throwawayLouisa https://www.reddit.com/r/nanocurrency/comments/bgdshq/what_i...

Re: PayPal Bids $500M to Acquire Crypto Startup Curv

#144

Post by grey-area » Wed, Mar 03, 2021, 7:50 PM UTC

xur17 wrote: post #138

grey-area wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It should be expensive for a transaction like that to occur It should not. Current systems manage it fine, because they don't use an insane model which tries to distribute every transaction to everyone, a model you're saying Bitcoin should move away from, at which point, why does Bitcoin exist? I think it's perfectly reasonable to have second and third layer networks that sit on top of Bitcoin acting as transaction n…

> It should not. Current systems manage it fine, because they don't use an insane model which tries to distribute every transaction to everyone, a model you're saying Bitcoin should move away from, at which point, why does Bitcoin exist? I think you missed my entire point.. I am saying that Bitcoin layer 1 should be a settlement layer for other "less distributed" state systems that sit on top of it. > I don't really…

It seems to me you have failed to answer why such a distributed blockchain settlement layer at the bottom is necessary at all? What payoff does it bring except to justify Bitcoin’s existence?

To solve ‘this’, i.e. global payments throw bitcoin away and start again.

Focus on the problems real people have with payments, identity, trust, fees, speed, reliability, reversibility, somewhere reliable to store their money.

Blockchains fix none of that and actively make some of it worse.

Re: PayPal Bids $500M to Acquire Crypto Startup Curv

#145

Post by xur17 » Wed, Mar 03, 2021, 7:51 PM UTC

KallDrexx wrote: post #141

xur17 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Okay, so it isn't 3 tx/sec. It's a bit more than that. Not an order of magnitude more, or two orders of magnitude, or the five orders of magnitude more to have the throughput required for everyone on earth to be able to transact once per day, say to buy lunch. > You talk about BTC as a settlement layer. A settlement layer for what? The lightning network? Laughable. Personal opinion: I think the part you are missing…

> Personal opinion: I think the part you are missing here is that lots of transactions shouldn't be occurring on the base layer. Remember that every transaction that occurs is stored in perpetuity on every node in the Bitcoin network. It should be expensive for a transaction like that to occur, and we should create incentives that limit the creation of these as much as possible. Serious question because this is somet…

Because "every transaction that occurs is stored in perpetuity on every node in the Bitcoin network" means there is naturally a scaling cap. Bitcoin's lightning network doesn't really centralize transaction validation in the way I think you're thinking - it simply allows 2 counterparties to spend money between each other in a way that doesn't have to be finalized on the Bitcoin layer 1 network after every change, but can be if either party tries to cheat or steal from the other. And then the "network" part of lightning allows either party to spend funds to anyone else in the network with these same guarantees.

Re: PayPal Bids $500M to Acquire Crypto Startup Curv

#146

Post by grey-area » Wed, Mar 03, 2021, 7:53 PM UTC

ceilingcorner wrote: post #25

I have no interest in cryptocurrencies and I don’t own a single cent in any of them. But the continual barrage of hostile comments in every single HN article looks mostly like groupthink to me. Clearly cryptocurrency will continue to play a growing role in the future. Denying this seems simply delusional.

Denying this seems simply delusional.

Is this sentiment based on the price or the actual use of it as a currency?

Re: PayPal Bids $500M to Acquire Crypto Startup Curv

#147

Post by xur17 » Wed, Mar 03, 2021, 7:55 PM UTC

grey-area wrote: post #144

xur17 wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It should not. Current systems manage it fine, because they don't use an insane model which tries to distribute every transaction to everyone, a model you're saying Bitcoin should move away from, at which point, why does Bitcoin exist? I think you missed my entire point.. I am saying that Bitcoin layer 1 should be a settlement layer for other "less distributed" state systems that sit on top of it. > I don't really…

It seems to me you have failed to answer why such a distributed blockchain settlement layer at the bottom is necessary at all? What payoff does it bring except to justify Bitcoin’s existence? To solve ‘this’, i.e. global payments throw bitcoin away and start again. Focus on the problems real people have with payments, identity, trust, fees, speed, reliability, reversibility, somewhere reliable to store their money. B…

Cash on the internet. I want to be able to send money to someone else on the internet without trusting a third party, and I want it to settle quickly / in a way that is "cash-like" (no reversibility). It isn't going to solve all problems, but as far as I know there is no other global payment system that solves for what I described.

Re: PayPal Bids $500M to Acquire Crypto Startup Curv

#148

Post by bluecalm » Wed, Mar 03, 2021, 7:55 PM UTC

trident5000 wrote: post #38

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cryptocurrency isn’t going away, but it’s dishonest to pretend that it’s not without major problems such as the energy consumption issues. The popular narrative has also become almost indistinguishable from a pump scheme, where we’re all supposed to buy and home (never sell) until we’re all rich. If cryptocurrency becomes commonplace, it likely won’t look anything like our current crypto infrastructure. The problem i…

I can name 10 other uses of energy that could be categorized as "wasteful" which is completely subjective. From large homes with the AC cranked, to rendering of pointless video on youtube and social apps, to destination aeroplane travel, idle electronics, etc. BTC for many is a way to stop central banks from eroding their lifetime savings which they paid for with their physical labor and time. Thats not a waste of en…

If you want to defend against inflation buy stocks of major companies, land, real estate. Things that you know, are building blocks of our society wealth.

Buying into a token pool hoping you will be able to resell it for a bigger piece to people who want to enter as well is not something people should do in general.

BTC is terrible as currency fit many reasons. It has an advantage of skipping over regulations transactions in other currencies are subject to. How long it lasts is a speculation game. You can win at it but it's anything but "stopping central banks from eroding savings".

Re: PayPal Bids $500M to Acquire Crypto Startup Curv

#149

Post by zucker42 » Wed, Mar 03, 2021, 7:55 PM UTC

G3rn0ti wrote: post #104

zucker42 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you think that proof of stake will take over, do you think that Bitcoin will crash? When will Bitcoin stop having the insane environmental impact it has now? If proof of stake is the future, why is the market cap of BTC so high compared to other cryptocurrencies?

Well, Bitcoin was the first of its kind, it’s time and battle tested and technically it might still be the most reliable of all cryptos. Part of the reason for that is “Bitcoin script” not being Turing complete unlike Ethereum’s virtual machine and less prone to software bugs. People, especially newbies trust it much more than other blockchains. That’s why everybody buys Bitcoin, currently. I believe Bitcoin’s going…

So it seems like to me you are saying that PoW has energy issues but that's not a problem because of PoS, but at the same time PoW (BTC) will continue to exist and consume at least the same amount of energy as it currently does.

It's concerning to me that there's not even a "light at the end of the tunnel" as far as BTC's energy usage goes.

Re: PayPal Bids $500M to Acquire Crypto Startup Curv

#150

Post by bluecalm » Wed, Mar 03, 2021, 8:00 PM UTC

trident5000 wrote: post #44

ahelwer wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's an interesting example of people being too close to something, technically, to really see its totality. I'm a distributed systems person so I basically blew off Bitcoin two bubble-cycles ago because of the 3 tx/sec issue and the obvious deficiencies of the proposed lightning network workaround. I also took an in-depth look at a cryptocurrency with a supposed better protocol (Nano) and was very unimpresse…

Just to be clear, 3 tx/sec is just incorrect and easily disproved by dividing the total transactions per day (readily available online) by the total seconds in a day. Also the btc main layer is a major settlement layer. It doesnt even compare to ACH or wires in frequency. The fees going up if its tried to be used in that way will force it, and that is a good thing. A chain cannot grow so fast with high tx so that it…

BTC supply is not flexible. It means it will never be usable as currency. Settlement layer, first layer, tenth layer. It can't work because by the nature of it it will go up when more people want to use it and thus rewarding rent seeking behavior of holding it. It's well understood basic economy. We had gold standard already, it wasn't workable. If the believers shove it down naive people throats we will just re-learn this lesson and it will be very costly.