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Ethereum Is a Dark Forest

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Re: Ethereum Is a Dark Forest

#161

Post by api »

ballenf wrote: post #102

Have a friend who lost more than $12k in the process of buying a house. Scammers sent the wiring instructions a few hours before the legit closing attorney sent the real instructions. The email looked exactly right except for a minor change to the domain name from address. After one hour, wire transfers sent in error are no more recoverable than crypto. How the thieves knew so much about the process and timing is sup…

Is it just me or is there fantastically more fraud these days than a decade or two ago? Any transaction feels like walking around in northern Canada during black fly season.

I receive several cold scam calls per day and I’ve known people who have done things like purchase a home and been inundated by fake calls from “the underwriter” and other scams.

Is there no mail and telemarketing fraud enforcement any more?

Re: Ethereum Is a Dark Forest

#163

Post by est31 »

ballenf wrote: post #102

Have a friend who lost more than $12k in the process of buying a house. Scammers sent the wiring instructions a few hours before the legit closing attorney sent the real instructions. The email looked exactly right except for a minor change to the domain name from address. After one hour, wire transfers sent in error are no more recoverable than crypto. How the thieves knew so much about the process and timing is sup…

> After one hour, wire transfers sent in error are no more recoverable than crypto.

The receiver account can still be seized by government institutions though, something much harder with cryptocurrencies.

Re: Ethereum Is a Dark Forest

#164

Post by Sargos »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #126
TeMPOraL wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have it too. I'm not entirely sure where it comes from, but some significant factors are: 1) Proof-of-work systems are pure, unadulterated energy waste (and an ecological disaster as long as we depend on fossil fuels). They cannot, ever, be allowed to become significant in the economy, lest our future will be building a Dyson sphere around the Sun just to power everyone's ability to pay for a hot dog on their way t…

> 1) Proof-of-work systems are pure, unadulterated energy waste (and an ecological disaster as long as we depend on fossil fuels). They cannot, ever, be allowed to become significant in the economy, lest our future will be building a Dyson sphere around the Sun just to power everyone's ability to pay for a hot dog on their way to work. > 3) The main users of cryptocurrencies are (AFAIK) criminals and amateur financia…

Proof of Work is on its way out already. Ethereum will be running on Proof of Stake soon which uses very little power.

I'm not sure the traditional financial system would ever out-compete the cryptocurrency ecosystem even if you removed the KYC etc as crypto is permissionless which is a breeding ground for innovation and efficiency. It would be impossible for the banks to keep up.

Re: Ethereum Is a Dark Forest

#165

Post by TeMPOraL »

ak_111 wrote: post #156
TeMPOraL wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have it too. I'm not entirely sure where it comes from, but some significant factors are: 1) Proof-of-work systems are pure, unadulterated energy waste (and an ecological disaster as long as we depend on fossil fuels). They cannot, ever, be allowed to become significant in the economy, lest our future will be building a Dyson sphere around the Sun just to power everyone's ability to pay for a hot dog on their way t…

This is a well-articulated list, and captures a lot of my negativity towards crypto. But as I like to keep an open mind about new tech, I always wonder if something like this could have been said about the early days of Linux: 1) Open-source is pure unadulterated theft of other peoples' work. This model cannot ever be allowed to become significant in the software economy. 2) That people who are into open source have…

I'll concede that points 2) and 3) could plausibly be raised in the early days of Linux. Point 1) - I don't think so. Nobody is stealing anything; people are voluntarily giving it up for free, for the benefit of the community. What could be argued is that "open source is literally communism" (therefore bad) - and I believe it was argued at some point.

> one can argue that that is its way of showing that it will be a paradigm shift of something in finance.

Judging by the recent interest of large financial institutions and corporations, I agree - there will be ripple effects of this, one way or another.

> I realise that one can argue that within a decade the market valuation of bitcoin (whatever that means) reached $200B which is a spectacular achievement

I've been on HN long enough to catch the cynicism which tells me that tech market valuations are pure bullcrap, so I'm not reading much from that number :).

Re: Ethereum Is a Dark Forest

#166

Post by iSnow »

rkayg wrote: post #127
Twisell wrote: post #91

Nothing in this article seem to make any sense, does the gibberish pseudo-code actually mean something for anyone? I feel like the dumbest of all (and maybe it's normal it's far away from my area of expertise). But seriously this sound more like a sci-fi plot that actual engineering.

I'm glad someone else feels like this. One of my friends is in the space, and I don't understand anything he says. I wonder if this community has created a whole language / framework to give a feeling of value to what they are doing. It's kind of like gamers talking about KDA, meta, etc.

My god, have you tried to explain React code so someone outside of coding? Every field with any kind of intellectual depth invariable has to create an own set of terms to describe what they are doing.

Stop talking down on people just because you don't understand their jargon. Either keep quiet and learn or don't judge at all.

Re: Ethereum Is a Dark Forest

#167

Post by StavrosK »

jamesonhodge wrote: post #140
StavrosK wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm, only sometimes? Doesn't the name imply otherwise?

There are varying levels of decentralization an application can take on, e.g. the back end (often Ethereum for financial applications), the front end (hosting on a peer-to-peer database like IPFS or Sia), and governance (by a DAO (decentralized autonomous organization) or some voting mechanism). Many DApps are founded with certain parts being decentralized and other parts centralized, and transition to a more/fully d…

I see, thanks, that's helpful.

Re: Ethereum Is a Dark Forest

#168

Post by TeMPOraL »

Sargos wrote: post #164
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 1) Proof-of-work systems are pure, unadulterated energy waste (and an ecological disaster as long as we depend on fossil fuels). They cannot, ever, be allowed to become significant in the economy, lest our future will be building a Dyson sphere around the Sun just to power everyone's ability to pay for a hot dog on their way to work. > 3) The main users of cryptocurrencies are (AFAIK) criminals and amateur financia…

Proof of Work is on its way out already. Ethereum will be running on Proof of Stake soon which uses very little power. I'm not sure the traditional financial system would ever out-compete the cryptocurrency ecosystem even if you removed the KYC etc as crypto is permissionless which is a breeding ground for innovation and efficiency. It would be impossible for the banks to keep up.

"Breeding ground for innovation and efficiency" also means breeding ground for various scams. The traditional banks have a good value proposition here, should they choose to take it: they can copy the innovations that work, bolt them on top of their product, and offer something that is both innovative and is secured by men with guns.

Re: Ethereum Is a Dark Forest

#169

Post by hbosch »

ballenf wrote: post #102

Have a friend who lost more than $12k in the process of buying a house. Scammers sent the wiring instructions a few hours before the legit closing attorney sent the real instructions. The email looked exactly right except for a minor change to the domain name from address. After one hour, wire transfers sent in error are no more recoverable than crypto. How the thieves knew so much about the process and timing is sup…

When we bought our house last year, the packet came with a big, bright red page (as well as a verbal warning from our loan officer) to look out for these scams.
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