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Hard Problems in Cryptocurrency: Five Years Later

vitalik.ca

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Re: Hard Problems in Cryptocurrency: Five Years Later

#201

Post by koheripbal »

beefield wrote: post #49

Funny. Article discussing hard problems of crypto and ignoring the elephants in the room. There is still no actual and relevant use case for crypto outside illegal transactions and gambli^H^H^H^H^Hinvestment purposes. The second elephant is that it brings monetary policy back to medieval times. Third is that in practice the whole concept of credit and ots role in money creation is ignored.

As long as coins are designed as a store of value rather than an actual currency, they will have limited use-cases.

People need to get over the concept of inflation. Inflation is GOOD.

Re: Hard Problems in Cryptocurrency: Five Years Later

#202

Post by drcode »

arcticbull wrote: post #152
emsimot wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. I don't know if it will work, but the idea is Proof of Stake (ETH2 in Ethereum-land) 2. You can't -- this is a cultural problem, not a technological one 3. There's no such thing as money laundering 4. Peer-to-peer, transparent finance infrastructure 5. User-money as a layer on top of cryptocurrency

> 1. Proof of stake. This has yet to be proven, and as you say, there’s reasons why it has yet to land. I give this one vitaliks sideways smiley face. > 2. You can't -- this is a cultural problem, not a technological one Uh, one that doesn’t exist in the current financial system. I’m sure y’all will find a way. As I said, it’s a prerequisite. > 3. There’s no such thing as money laundering. Hilarious. I see someone ne…

Proof is stake has been running fine in production for a long time as part of the tendermint project.

Re: Hard Problems in Cryptocurrency: Five Years Later

#203

Post by CaptainZapp »

emsimot wrote: post #148
arcticbull wrote: post #141

None of these are the actual hard problems in cryptocurrency and the fact this is the focus speaks volumes. The real hard problems are: 1. How do we stop using more power than Switzerland to process 4 transactions per second (lol) 2. How do we stop payments to international terrorists and rogue states. 3. How do we stop money laundering. 4. How do we stop price manipulation by fraudulent actors. 5. How do we allow pe…

1. I don't know if it will work, but the idea is Proof of Stake (ETH2 in Ethereum-land) 2. You can't -- this is a cultural problem, not a technological one 3. There's no such thing as money laundering 4. Peer-to-peer, transparent finance infrastructure 5. User-money as a layer on top of cryptocurrency

There's no such thing as money laundering

This, on its face, is a pretty outrageous assertion.

I think if you throw a statement like this into the discussion I'm sure you don't mind if I demand that you prove it.

Re: Hard Problems in Cryptocurrency: Five Years Later

#204

Post by drcode »

3fe9a03ccd14ca5 wrote: post #45
sincerely wrote: post #7

In a space absolutely filled with hucksters and scam artists, vitalik is legit. Good read.

Except let's not forget the DAO hack, where everything was forked because too many rich people lost their money.

If by "everything" you mean "the balance in one address was moved to one other address" then that would be a correct statement.

Re: Hard Problems in Cryptocurrency: Five Years Later

#205

Post by metacritic12 »

arcticbull wrote: post #141

None of these are the actual hard problems in cryptocurrency and the fact this is the focus speaks volumes. The real hard problems are: 1. How do we stop using more power than Switzerland to process 4 transactions per second (lol) 2. How do we stop payments to international terrorists and rogue states. 3. How do we stop money laundering. 4. How do we stop price manipulation by fraudulent actors. 5. How do we allow pe…

Serious question, is this list specifically designed to troll crypto? It literally lists the exact items the technology is designed against, with little good faith to recognize the problems crypto is actually solving.

An analogous for "Hard Problems for PC Work Processors [vs Pen and Paper]" would be:

1. How to record a single essay without the price a hundred reams of paper?

2. How to function when there is no electrical power whatsoever? And not contribute to rising technological inequality in developing countries.

3. How to allow governments to still do handwriting analysis on printed word docs to thwart bad actors, ransom note writers, etc?

4. How to stop international terrorists and rogue states from printing multiple pieces of propaganda to recruit?

5. How do we allow people a closer sense of connection to the writer of a word processed doc when handwriting is missing.

[bonus] how do we ensure jobs are not destroyed in the lumber industry? how do we ensure manufacturing of these so-called PCs to not contribute to environmental destruction / leeching of toxic chemicals if/when they become popular?

Re: Hard Problems in Cryptocurrency: Five Years Later

#206

Post by Terretta »

arcticbull wrote: post #141

None of these are the actual hard problems in cryptocurrency and the fact this is the focus speaks volumes. The real hard problems are: 1. How do we stop using more power than Switzerland to process 4 transactions per second (lol) 2. How do we stop payments to international terrorists and rogue states. 3. How do we stop money laundering. 4. How do we stop price manipulation by fraudulent actors. 5. How do we allow pe…

> These are the actual hard problems of cryptocurrency and until solved it will never, and I mean never, reach mass adoption...

Let's look at these for cash, which has some level of mass adoption.

> 2. How do we stop payments to international terrorists and rogue states.

Both of these are amply funded today, so between cash and banking system, this isn't really a thing. Whatever form does work, isn't hampering adoption.

> 3. How do we stop money laundering.

(a) This is an invented problem. Just because it's propagandized in compliance training doesn't make it real, and it's unfortunate banks are having to spend time and money obliging local governments so politicians can pretend they're having an effect. (b) Neither cash nor banking system succeed at stopping it today, yet both enjoy mass adoption.

> 4. How do we stop price manipulation by fraudulent actors.

Mass adoption? See pink sheets versus mainstream stocks. Chicken and egg problem, granted.

> 5. How do we allow people who lost access to their money by negligence, fraud, theft, act of god or otherwise, access to their money again.

A friend once tossed a $100 bill from her birthday into the wood stove with birthday wrapping paper. There was no expectation this form of currency could recover access by negligence, fraud, theft, acts of god, or otherwise, yet she was thrilled to mass-adopt that $100 until it turned into ash.

> You know, the “currency” problems and not the “crypto” problems.

It doesn't seem as though these are real problems for the adopters of currency. It seems as though they're problems for authorities who wish their jobs were easier.

Re: Hard Problems in Cryptocurrency: Five Years Later

#207

Post by acdha »

rmtech wrote: post #166
arcticbull wrote: post #141

None of these are the actual hard problems in cryptocurrency and the fact this is the focus speaks volumes. The real hard problems are: 1. How do we stop using more power than Switzerland to process 4 transactions per second (lol) 2. How do we stop payments to international terrorists and rogue states. 3. How do we stop money laundering. 4. How do we stop price manipulation by fraudulent actors. 5. How do we allow pe…

> 2. How do we stop payments to international terrorists and rogue states. We should definitely build a technical system that stops payments to terrorists but allows payments to freedom fighters; that stops payments to rogue states but allows payments to states that stand up to bullying by tyrannical regional powers. /s Seriously I think these kinds of questions need un-asking rather than answering.

> Seriously I think these kinds of questions need un-asking rather than answering.

That’s equivalent to conceding that the concept cannot work and giving up. No matter your personal views on a particular issue, this is really just asking how to comply with legal obligations: governments don’t care if your system is broken by design and makes compliance hard, and that’ll deter most legitimate users.

Re: Hard Problems in Cryptocurrency: Five Years Later

#208

Post by Nursie »

jstanley wrote: post #192
arcticbull wrote: post #141

None of these are the actual hard problems in cryptocurrency and the fact this is the focus speaks volumes. The real hard problems are: 1. How do we stop using more power than Switzerland to process 4 transactions per second (lol) 2. How do we stop payments to international terrorists and rogue states. 3. How do we stop money laundering. 4. How do we stop price manipulation by fraudulent actors. 5. How do we allow pe…

Points 2, 3, and 5 are essentially "how do we give the government the authority to block or reverse payments even when the sender possesses the relevant private key, or send payments even without the relevant private key". I'm not saying that's not a fine thing to want, but if that is what you want, then you don't want cryptocurrency. Cryptocurrency is purposefully antithetical to that goal.

And as a result will stay irrelevant :/

Re: Hard Problems in Cryptocurrency: Five Years Later

#209

Post by rmtech »

acdha wrote: post #207
rmtech wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 2. How do we stop payments to international terrorists and rogue states. We should definitely build a technical system that stops payments to terrorists but allows payments to freedom fighters; that stops payments to rogue states but allows payments to states that stand up to bullying by tyrannical regional powers. /s Seriously I think these kinds of questions need un-asking rather than answering.

> Seriously I think these kinds of questions need un-asking rather than answering. That’s equivalent to conceding that the concept cannot work and giving up. No matter your personal views on a particular issue, this is really just asking how to comply with legal obligations: governments don’t care if your system is broken by design and makes compliance hard, and that’ll deter most legitimate users.

By pretty much the same argument strong encryption cannot work because governments would prefer it not to exist; terrorists and rogue states can use encryption, and it is not technically possible to build encryption that "only works for the good guys".

In reality there is an ongoing battle over encryption where various governments try to ban it, people fight back, etc. I suspect that we will see the same thing play out over cryptocurrency.

In any case I don't see anyone on hacker news asking how we can design an encryption algorithm that prevents all and only the bad uses of encryption. It is generally understood to be a dumb question because good and bad are complicated enough that we cannot hope to formalize them right now, and ad-hoc attempts to make a technology only work for the good guys have been repeatedly shown to help the bad guys (e.g. backdoors etc)

Re: Hard Problems in Cryptocurrency: Five Years Later

#210

Post by stale2002 »

wlesieutre wrote: post #56
hodder wrote: post #8

The biggest problem is actual uptake for real transactions, as opposed to speculation and black markets. The 2 biggest barriers to be solved are: -lack of trust/ease of use for the layman -volatility These problems may or may not sort themselves out with time.

Even if I could use it for regular transactions, I’d still need a reason to want to. If the justification is “you don’t need to pay credit processing fees” then things would have to be priced cheaper. But I think you’d have to pay me more than the credit card fee to give up the ability to do chargebacks for a lot of online transactions. Maybe I’d use it for making donations where I’m not expecting anything back from…

Sure, let me give an example of a problem that it solves.

Censorship resistant transactions.

Back in 2010, for example, banks blocked all transactions being sent to WikiLeaks, even though they broke no laws, and we're never charged with a crime.

So even though, these were not illegal transactions, banks blocked them anyway. But the crypto transactions weren't!

So, this is an example where perfectly legal bank transactions were blocked, but the crypto payments weren't.

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