Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why aren’t distributed systems engineers working on blockchain technology?

eng.paxos.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 204 posts

Re: Why aren’t distributed systems engineers working on blockchain technology?

#161

Post by andrewstuart2 »

lordnacho wrote: post #133
andrewstuart2 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Centralized authority. With the obvious tradeoffs. :-/ Maybe there's a happy medium where trustworthiness of central authorities is appropriately distributed, but common operations are quicker and less wasteful.

The happy medium has been found already. Would people trust Visa and MasterCard if they allowed double spending? I'm guessing not. So by virtue of having a very large investment in their corporate brands, the old economy already came up with a solution to the trust problem. Heck, everywhere you look there's a solution to the trust problem; it's fundamental to human interactions. - There are courts. If you try to scre…

True, and funny too how technology "disrupts" only to eventually repeat history.

    What has been will be again,
    what has been done will be done again;
    there is nothing new under the sun.

Re: Why aren’t distributed systems engineers working on blockchain technology?

#163

Post by Obi_Juan_Kenobi »

KirinDave wrote: post #116
ty_a wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most mining is hydro powered.

Please cite your sources. Beyond this: https://www.coindesk.com/carbon-footprint-bitcoin/ Which is sort of unvalidated and points to one or two actors in the space suggesting that they want to move to non-fossil fuels and one that miiiiight be.

Not the parent commentor, but this is certainly true to some degree. To what extent is very hard to say, but China has built several large hydroelectric projects in remote areas where electricity is very inexpensive. Many miners have taken advantage of this.

http://technode.com/2017/02/27/bitcoin-mining-sichuan-cheap-... https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/in-chinas-...

Of course, there is also cheap coal power in China, so the environmental impact may be very significant.

Going forward, I anticipate the rise of solar mining in some favorable areas. Possibly geothermal as well. Since Bitcoin mining can be done anywhere with decent internet access, it seems natural that it should gravitate toward renewables over time. Fossil fuels continue to get more expensive, while renewables get cheaper. Of course, building e.g. solar panels isn't without environmental impact, either.

Re: Why aren’t distributed systems engineers working on blockchain technology?

#164

Post by tylersmith »

edge17 wrote: post #127
aphextron wrote: post #3

>The blockchain community is immature and historically unwelcoming. >It feels like a get rich quick scheme - https://twitter.com/naval/status/878018839044161536 This is what it comes down to IMO. Anything cryptocurrency related is just surrounded by a cloud of shady characters and scammers, even though the tech is legit. You just can't trust anyone, nor their intentions. Living your life and working in a constant sta…

I've spent a decent amount of time understanding blockchain at this point. Am I wrong in saying that it's really just a data structure for solving a problem (like a tree or array), but a lot of the hype seems to be people trying to find commercial applications to use the specific data structure? I mean, no one says 'lets go find a good use for an array,' you sort of pick the array after you have an idea

Yes the blockchain is just a data structure. A fancy tree. The more interesting part of cryptocurrencies are the dynamic membership multiparty signature schemes they implement, but those don't make for as nice of soundbites.

Re: Why aren’t distributed systems engineers working on blockchain technology?

#165

Post by darawk »

jethro_tell wrote: post #150
darawk wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not designed to be inefficient. It's designed to solve the distributed consensus problem in an adversarial environment. There are other now proposed mechanisms of doing that (e.g. PoS) that are quite efficient. Working on those would be extremely beneficial to the cause of environmental efficiency.

Evironmental efficiently solving a problem I don't have is still inefficient. I still can't think of a mojor user for proof of work in a destributed system. I have trouble thinking of a distributed system that someone would pay for to not be centrally trusted, usually by the benefactor of employment? We always hear what a great solution blockchain is. Even if that's true, I never hear the actual problem it solves. Su…

> Name a problem that would best be solved with blockchain.

Money. E.g. Bitcoin.

Re: Why aren’t distributed systems engineers working on blockchain technology?

#166

Post by indigochill »

tekromancr wrote: post #120
indigochill wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ethereum has not shown a particularly strong track record when it comes to security, so I think the comment stands until they address that or get replaced by the next hotness.

I think that statement is a little disingenuous. There haven't been any attacks that target Etherium proper, only bugs in smart contracts riding on top of Eth.

I don't mean that I have concerns about Ethereum itself, just the fact that it's currently too easy to write insecure contracts. And there has been some low-hanging fruit in remedying that, such as the whole "functions are public unless otherwise specified" thing.

Re: Why aren’t distributed systems engineers working on blockchain technology?

#167

Post by KingMob »

jethro_tell wrote: post #150
darawk wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not designed to be inefficient. It's designed to solve the distributed consensus problem in an adversarial environment. There are other now proposed mechanisms of doing that (e.g. PoS) that are quite efficient. Working on those would be extremely beneficial to the cause of environmental efficiency.

Evironmental efficiently solving a problem I don't have is still inefficient. I still can't think of a mojor user for proof of work in a destributed system. I have trouble thinking of a distributed system that someone would pay for to not be centrally trusted, usually by the benefactor of employment? We always hear what a great solution blockchain is. Even if that's true, I never hear the actual problem it solves. Su…

Any time you require 1) a distributed database 2) in the face of adversarial participants, which truthfully, is less common than the blockchain obsessives would think.

A centralized organization (.com or .gov) that can achieve consensus amongst participants can do just fine with Postgres and a REST API.

Adversarial participants are common, but typically that's solved with a third-party overseer that administers the system. Finding use cases that demand decentralization are harder.

Bitcoin was created to remove central banks/govts from the money creation process, but in most cases, if you don't trust the central authority, you just don't participate. With cash, you can't easily get around dealing with the govt.

Re: Why aren’t distributed systems engineers working on blockchain technology?

#168

Post by fredcy »

Taek wrote: post #54
darawk wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are solutions to that though, like Proof of Stake. If distributed systems really cared about that, then that's exactly why they ought to be working on blockchains, to make them more efficient.

Most of the bitcoin researchers have thoroughly convinced themselves that Proof of Stake is not achievable with acceptable levels of security, and for good reason. The reason you don't see more active research on Proof-of-Stake is that it is thought to only lead to dead ends.

Tezos will use Proof of Stake. They have a development version working now and there is good reason to expect a production version within a year.

Re: Why aren’t distributed systems engineers working on blockchain technology?

#169

Post by dogecoinbase »

darawk wrote: post #165
jethro_tell wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Evironmental efficiently solving a problem I don't have is still inefficient. I still can't think of a mojor user for proof of work in a destributed system. I have trouble thinking of a distributed system that someone would pay for to not be centrally trusted, usually by the benefactor of employment? We always hear what a great solution blockchain is. Even if that's true, I never hear the actual problem it solves. Su…

> Name a problem that would best be solved with blockchain. Money. E.g. Bitcoin.

Bitcoin as money has all the worst properties of both credit cards (traceable, non-anonymous) and cash (irreversible, theft-prone).

Re: Why aren’t distributed systems engineers working on blockchain technology?

#170

Post by root_axis »

jimktrains2 wrote: post #76
root_axis wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what? That's a totally meaningless comparison because the ubiquity of cryptocurrencies would not obviate the need for financial services. Besides, market forces incentivize businesses to use as little power as possible because it costs them money, PoW incentivizes miners to use as much power as possible because that is a necessary requirement for increasing hash output.

> So what? That's a totally meaningless comparison because the ubiquity of cryptocurrencies would not obviate the need for financial services. The person I replied to compalined about "wasting" power to run the bitcoin network. It's only a valid comparison when compared against current usage, as our current system also "wastes" power to run the current system. > PoW incentivizes miners to use as much power as possibl…

> It's only a valid comparison when compared against current usage, as our current system also "wastes" power to run the current system.

No, even if "the current system" was an apt comparison, there is still a fundamental difference between PoW and everything else. The power consumed in the process of facilitating a bank or any type of business is incidental to the useful work being performed. Power is burned so there are lights for people to see, power is burned so computers can perform calculations so that employees can get their jobs done faster, power is burned so that people can go back home after their shift is over; all this is incidental, the power is expended to make the business process more efficient, but the business could still run (though much less efficiently) without spending power on lights, computers and transportation. On the other hand, PoW is literally a waste of work because the nature of the work itself does not matter, the only thing that matters is that the unbounded cost of wasting energy keeps everyone honest.

> I'm just saying it's meaningless to complain that bitcoin uses power, it only matters how it compares to the current system.

The comparison is meaningless because "the current system" continues to exist regardless of any developments in bitcoin, if anything ubiquitous bitcoin would almost certainly increase the power impact of the finance industry.

Post reply on HN