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Ethereum Isn't Fun Anymore

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Re: Ethereum Isn't Fun Anymore

#211

Post by anonymoushn »

samtheprogram wrote: post #115
anonymoushn wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a thriving ecosystem because you are forced to use it. Do you think there wouldn't be a thriving perl ecosystem if perl was the only language you could use to execute code in a web browser?

Very likely; although JavaScript became much more popular after it was available outside the browser, that probably was a factor. It doesn’t affect my argument that it is a thriving ecosystem that has made it worth much more than the negative sentiment it has received in the past, and that it is not a bad choice.

While the ecosystem contributes value for many use cases, I don't think you can make use of such things when writing smart contracts that run on a very slow and very expensive computer.

Re: Ethereum Isn't Fun Anymore

#212

Post by the_snooze »

probably_wrong wrote: post #176
dgellow wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about a voting system? That's the only application of a public, decentralized ledger that can kind of makes sense to me. I'm from Switzerland, every few months we have a public voting for various changes to the federal or cantonal laws. I currently do not have a way to be certain that my vote is taken in account. With a public ledger I can check and be sure that my vote is correct. I'm generally opposed to softw…

The main problem as I see it is that such a system would be completely inaccessible to anyone who is not a software developer. With a paper-based system, all you need to understand is that your paper goes into a box and someone counts it later on. Everyone understands every step, including the steps required to secure that box. But once you require people to understand blockchain you are putting the intregrity of the…

It's sad so many technically-minded people fail to account for this when it comes to trust, especially in the context of voting. You can't get people to trust a system by cloaking it in cryptographic black magic. It has to be scrutable to the people participating in it, especially the voters and volunteer poll workers who most closely interact with it.

Re: Ethereum Isn't Fun Anymore

#213

Post by robjan »

Gatsky wrote: post #127
martin_a wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After all those years, there's still not a single useful blockchain application around. These days I see lots companies telling me, they put their "supply chain on blockchain" and while I understand what they probably want to tell me ("you can't tamper with where our stuff comes from") I don't see the point in that. If you've got trust issues with your subcontractors you should fix those and not "seal" the willingly…

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-bhp-ironore-blockchain-id...

The problem is that the purpose of the Blockchain is to achieve distributed trustless consensus. Any time the Blockchain interacts with the physical world you need to introduce a centralised trusted entity (the oracle problem)

Re: Ethereum Isn't Fun Anymore

#215

Post by Tepix »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #161
martin_a wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After all those years, there's still not a single useful blockchain application around. These days I see lots companies telling me, they put their "supply chain on blockchain" and while I understand what they probably want to tell me ("you can't tamper with where our stuff comes from") I don't see the point in that. If you've got trust issues with your subcontractors you should fix those and not "seal" the willingly…

Cryptokitties is actually great

They left Ethereum due to the high gas prices, didn't they? How many MAU do they have?

Re: Ethereum Isn't Fun Anymore

#216

Post by joshspankit »

dgellow wrote: post #126
Traubenfuchs wrote: post #56

Building something useful on something that is primarily used as highly volatile financial speculation instrument always rubbed me the wrong way. The whole crypto scene is just about making quick dough with a technology, that for some reason remains hyped through and wrapped in mysticism. Face it, there is no sexy killer app for the masses. Wait. There is one: Crypto trading to... make quick dough. And the cryptonerd…

What about a voting system? That's the only application of a public, decentralized ledger that can kind of makes sense to me. I'm from Switzerland, every few months we have a public voting for various changes to the federal or cantonal laws. I currently do not have a way to be certain that my vote is taken in account. With a public ledger I can check and be sure that my vote is correct. I'm generally opposed to softw…

What about government spending? All the way from taking taxes to paying vendors. Including the spending of all politicians. (Minus a reasonable “dark fund” for military and whatnot simply because it can be important to hide your cards from other countries)

If citizens can see exactly where their dollars go it could make corruption very difficult and lead citizens to be far more engaged in their democracies.

Re: Ethereum Isn't Fun Anymore

#217

Post by mytherin »

dgellow wrote: post #187
jlokier wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> With a public ledger I can check and be sure that my vote is correct Any voting system with a public ledger where you can later check your vote is a disaster for election integrity. It's probably surprising, and certainly counter-intuitive, but that's a vector for fraud. That's why we have a long history of secret ballots. And no cameras in the voting booth. From a comment a few weeks ago ( https://news.ycombinator…

Isn't that already a risk though? I vote remotely by mail, you could coerce me to vote for something specific and even send the mail yourself if you want to be sure.

There is a difference between active coercion (someone goes to your house and forces you with a gun to vote their way) and passive coercion (if you vote for X in 20 years time your vote might be considered inappropriate and you will be fired from your job).

Re: Ethereum Isn't Fun Anymore

#218

Post by afiori »

gh55 wrote: post #199
audunw wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> At the end of the day, crypto is mountain you can't ignore anymore Is it really? Is there anyone that can say that a company has suffered because it didn't adopt crypto? It seems like it's perfectly safe to ignore crypto completely. You could gain a bit of advantage. You can use it as a marketing tool, or to attract certain kinds of investors, by cashing in on the blockchain hype. But I haven't seen that there's an…

> The real problem in lending is to ensure that the borrower can afford the loan and uses the money on what he says he will. So the lender pays the money into a multisignature 2-of-3 wallet, gives 1 key to the borrower, and if when the borrower signs a transaction with that key to spend the funds is buying what they are authorised to buy, countersigns, else does not. And then you wrap this up in a smart contract, cal…

While it is interesting that you can implement this on block-chain this is a perfect example of how block-chain does not provide more than just being trustless.

(personally I like having trusted third parties)

Re: Ethereum Isn't Fun Anymore

#219

Post by lopatin »

dgellow wrote: post #141
lopatin wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Largely agree. It's what makes Bitcoin different. Bitcoin's killer app is the network itself. The fact that you can send money/transfer wealth instantly without a bank to tell you what you can and can't do IS the value of Bitcoin and why it's not some purely speculative ponzhi scheme. As far as I understand, you can't reaaally use Ethereum for the same purpose because of high fees.

That's one of the point that makes little sense to me. The government/bank regulation kicks in when you try to convert to your local currency. They now have your full history of transactions and can decide to refuse your bitcoins or find you guilty of fraud or whatever illegal thing you tried to hide. Regulations will always be present at the edge.

I didn't say that it has to be for illegal things or avoiding regulation. I said it's a trust-less global payment infrastructure. Say I need to send $500k to a relative in a third world country at 12AM on a Sunday. A completely legal transfer of money that I plan to disclose to the government. 100% regulated. But I need the transaction to go through very quickly. What are my options? Chase? Paypal? Western Union? What if Paypal decides this transaction is fraudulent and says "no". What if Western Union decides to limit my account? What if Chase wire transfer to third world bank takes 5 days? With Bitcoin, you can just send the money, legally, but without a private third party as a middleman. There is value in that.

Re: Ethereum Isn't Fun Anymore

#220

Post by tekkk »

audunw wrote: post #173
5350-uiop-1130 wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "that is primarily used as highly volatile financial speculation instrument " How is that different from any other asset; stocks, land, property. It's all speculation nowadays. From what I've read there are pretty much three use cases: 1. store of value akin to gold (bitcoin) 2. decentralised privacy money (monero etc, to avoid taxes?) 3. a platform on which to build decentralised technologies (ethereum, ada, thorc…

> At the end of the day, crypto is mountain you can't ignore anymore Is it really? Is there anyone that can say that a company has suffered because it didn't adopt crypto? It seems like it's perfectly safe to ignore crypto completely. You could gain a bit of advantage. You can use it as a marketing tool, or to attract certain kinds of investors, by cashing in on the blockchain hype. But I haven't seen that there's an…

A part of what was not mentioned is that it is used as a gambling chip. Plain and simple. Sure, not the cheapest lottery ticket you can find but hey, your chances of making money are probably higher with crypto than the average lottery.

Is gambling useful to the society as whole? Probably not. But it does make things interesting and alas, Bitcoin (and other cryptos) intersect in a most curious way where you are gambling but also have a very easy method to move those assets around.

And I think cryptos do save money when making larger transactions between entities. So there is something real there, although it's not very tangible. For the average Joe, I agree. I don't think they really provide that much value except your average thrill at the casino (with better odds, sure).

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