An engineer's observations on Web3 and its possibilities • Hacker News Board

Re: An engineer's observations on Web3 and its possibilities

#171

Post by supernovae » Wed, Nov 24, 2021, 5:14 AM UTC

viksit wrote: post #22

v_london wrote: post #16

Thanks for the great article! I wished the section on DeFi addressed the biggest elephant in the room, overcollateralization. A DeFi borrower always needs to lock in more assets as collateral than what they are borrowing, thus defeating the whole purpose for taking a loan aside from financial speculation. And there's no real way to solve it: all mechanisms I've heard of either try to replicate some form of background…

This is a great point. Some ways I'm seeing this addressed are in the form of, - Credit ratings from the real world being moved on chain, both by startups and by established companies (see Fitch report from Oct 21, pay-to-access only). - Credit ratings across and on chains ( https://www.credprotocol.com/ ) to make sure that a defi OG on eth can have access to collateral on other chains. - Chainlink and others are wor…

Bad marks on credit reports fall off after certain amount of time. you can also dispute it in court or settle it for less than owed. None of which translate to a blockchain and which beg the question of privacy when it comes to collections outside of generic consumer transactions.

Re: An engineer's observations on Web3 and its possibilities

#172

Post by phire » Wed, Nov 24, 2021, 5:16 AM UTC

aspenmayer wrote: post #121

ahmedfromtunis wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I totally agree with you. The only Blockchain-first technology I got excited about was a system where people can put their free disk space for rent. They get paid in some coin, and that is how the coin gets generated. Sure, you can do it without the Blockchain, but the tech has some real added value. Alas, for whatever reason, it never got deployed.

It’s possible you’re thinking of Chia, IPFS, or FileCoin, all of which are “live” and “deployed” currently.

IPFS isn't blockchain. and Chia doesn't allow people to rent out storage space, it just lets them mine with HDDs instead of GPUs.

The other one I'm aware of is Sia.

Re: An engineer's observations on Web3 and its possibilities

#173

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Nov 24, 2021, 5:16 AM UTC

aaronax wrote: post #166

necubi wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And that's an improvement how? At least with Google there's a chance you'll be able to get your account back. If it's "decentralized" (which in crypto land is apparently synonymous with "run by a cabal of miners in China") and you lose your private key, you're completely out of luck.

If you lose some cash you are also out of luck, yet cash is still useful and even had some valuable properties.

[deleted]

Re: An engineer's observations on Web3 and its possibilities

#174

Post by ZombiePartie » Wed, Nov 24, 2021, 5:19 AM UTC

luhn wrote: post #111

koboll wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It doesn't help that I personally have yet to see a use for a blockchain which isn't replicating an existing financial instrument while trying to avoid the eyes of the state. I mean, there's a domain name system. There are various games. There was recently a high-profile crowdfunded attempt to buy an artifact at auction. Feel free to be skeptical of all of these, but what's the point of posting that you "haven't see…

> I mean, there's a domain name system. You mean ENS, the .eth domain registrar incorporated in the Cayman Islands? It doesn't matter what the blockchain says, my .eth domain is only good as long as the registrar agrees to honor it. Sounds like GoDaddy with more steps. > There are various games. What's the point of a distribute ledger that can only be used within a game controlled by a centralized company? > There wa…

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Re: An engineer's observations on Web3 and its possibilities

#175

Post by supernovae » Wed, Nov 24, 2021, 5:22 AM UTC

DreamWalker1 wrote: post #151

skybrian wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The major brokerages have let you buy and sell stocks for free for a couple years now. (Not just Robinhood, though they started it.)

Ok maybe in the us. Anyway are you sure it is really free in regards that they don't give you a worse price or won't execute if things move in the wrong direction like Robinhood did...? My point is, its just inconvenient for me to rely on a third party without able to enter the "true" market on myself.

GAS fees are nuts.

Re: An engineer's observations on Web3 and its possibilities

#176

Post by phire » Wed, Nov 24, 2021, 5:29 AM UTC

ahmedfromtunis wrote: post #114

WastingMyTime89 wrote: post #73

Not going to lie, I thought and still think that the whole Web 2.0 thing was clever marketing and window dressing on top of fairly pedestrian but useful technologies. It was actually less of seismic shock than mobile first which despite being a bigger shift didn't actually get a number. As far as I'm concerned, Web3 is beyond this. It's what happen when you let Ponzi schemers write the marketing material. I can't for…

I totally agree with you. The only Blockchain-first technology I got excited about was a system where people can put their free disk space for rent. They get paid in some coin, and that is how the coin gets generated. Sure, you can do it without the Blockchain, but the tech has some real added value. Alas, for whatever reason, it never got deployed.

The biggest problem with this idea is proving data replication and guaranteed retrievability to the users in a trustless manner.

With a traditional cloud provider, you trust them, upload your data and they deal with the rest, backing it up internally and guaranteeing retrievability with their reputation.

But with blockchain p2p storage, it's really hard to provide the same guarantees. If you only upload the file once and let the blockchain replicate it, then a malicious (or greedy) entity can manipulate the blockchain and control all replicas (backed by a single disk copy). So your software must encrypt multiple copies of your data and upload seperate replicas with different encryption keys.

But that still leaves you open to a very malicious entity going out of it's way to track all uploads from a node, and monopolising control over them, then deleting them when you try to download them. To actually provide the same guarantees that a cloud provider does in a trustless way, your local software will also have to continually download chunks to make sure they are still retrievable, and you might also need to use the tor network for all accesses.

With all that extra complexity, there is a lot to go wrong, and a traditional cloud provider might end up being the cheapest option. I used to agree with you, but after trying to design such a system with these trustless guarantees myself, I've come to the conclusion that there is no good use case for blockchain, outside of exchanging value.

Re: An engineer's observations on Web3 and its possibilities

#177

Post by acjohnson55 » Wed, Nov 24, 2021, 5:30 AM UTC

davepeck wrote: post #6

Hi all — I wrote these notes with my colleagues at PSL while trying to wrap our heads around the madness that is Web3/Crypto. I’m an engineer by background and sort of a skeptic by nature; I think of this piece as a collection of loosely connected, hopefully pragmatic opinions from a builder’s perspective.

This is truly fantastic work. This is going to be my new recommendation for anyone who wants to seriously grapple with the space. I'm a crypto skeptic, but I think you make a strong point that crypto doesn't have to win the future on technical terms, it may be the place where new products emerge simply because it inspires people.

Re: An engineer's observations on Web3 and its possibilities

#178

Post by 1270018080 » Wed, Nov 24, 2021, 5:31 AM UTC

1ark wrote: post #164

euske wrote: post #148

Every time I read about decentralization, I remember this episode from NPR Planet Money (one of the best podcasts, btw). It's about Libertarian Summer Camp where they tried to spend a day without fiat money. Gold standard everything. Turned out it's actually pretty hard because you have to get gold, and make sure the gold isn't fake, all by yourself. You bought a hotdog with the gold and now you have to worry about i…

Can't crypto exchanges provide the same safety, security and trust as banks today? Everyone can choose to be their own custodian or not.

Yeah a centralized and regulated market to exchange funds would definitely make it easier to use crypto as anything more than a scam or buying drugs.

Re: An engineer's observations on Web3 and its possibilities

#179

Post by abeaclark » Wed, Nov 24, 2021, 5:33 AM UTC

jude- wrote: post #15

> At the same time, smart contracts have some deeply problematic constraints: > Smart contracts can’t be upgraded. Smart contracts are deployed once and run forever; their code cannot be changed. The software development industry has literally zero experience with such a deployment model. I stopped reading here. First, this is factually wrong -- the software industry has tons of experience dealing with software that…

Isn’t the proxy setup on ethereum a loophole in this tho? You just deploy a new contract and redirect the proxy

Re: An engineer's observations on Web3 and its possibilities

#180

Post by outside1234 » Wed, Nov 24, 2021, 5:40 AM UTC

wpietri wrote: post #122

KallDrexx wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you explain how web3 solves any of your bullets? If you are trying to say that web3 will prevent platform holders from banning you from their platform, then good luck with that. Any platform can and will ban you and have complete control over their platform. Thinking web3 is going to prevent that is naive for many many reasons. If Facebook bans me then web3 isn't going to allow me to post on Facebook still. Same…

This is always my issue with things in this space. There's a list of bad things to be fixed or good things to achieve. And then there's a technology like [jazz hands] blockchain . But when you ask how they relate, it gets very handwavey. When I was at Code for America in 2015, somebody dropped by one of our events to buttonhole me about [jazz hands] blockchain for governments. I listened politely for a while and then…

To be fair - it probably has revolutionized money laundering and government bribes.