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The blockchain paradox: Why DLTs may do little to transform the economy

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Re: The blockchain paradox: Why DLTs may do little to transform the economy

#271

Post by woah »

rockmeamedee wrote: post #85

I agree with this article. Proponents of blockchain tech argue its revolutionary quality is its ability to act as a decentralized and trustless database. But I don't ever hear them sort through the issue of how to agree on the schema for this trustless database. For a group of people to use a decentralized DB, they have to agree as to what to store in it, and how to store it. They need to form consensus about how the…

What? So you're saying that since Cisco and Juniper both standardize protocols at the IETF, they should just merge their companies because they are already in one room anyway?

Re: The blockchain paradox: Why DLTs may do little to transform the economy

#272

Post by contingencies »

nullstyle wrote: post #230
rockmeamedee wrote: post #85

I agree with this article. Proponents of blockchain tech argue its revolutionary quality is its ability to act as a decentralized and trustless database. But I don't ever hear them sort through the issue of how to agree on the schema for this trustless database. For a group of people to use a decentralized DB, they have to agree as to what to store in it, and how to store it. They need to form consensus about how the…

Trustless isn't the only option. https://www.stellar.org/papers/stellar-consensus-protocol.pd... The reason I believe in our model for consensus is that it more closely resembles trust in the real world. We're more explicit than meatspace, which could be a drawback, but I think it's a better model than trustless. Disclosure: I work for stellar.org

Didn't read the paper (got crypto burnout after 4 years at Kraken) but it occurs to me that the problem with explicit trust is that it is usually a one size fits all approach or someone has to tediously specify it in specific terms, neither of which work well at scale in the real world.

Re: The blockchain paradox: Why DLTs may do little to transform the economy

#273

Post by russdpale »

patrickk wrote: post #236
jakewins wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If the poor of the world can understand the social mobility that crypto currency affords them Can you expand on how crypto currencies relate to positive social mobility? Off-handedly it seems to me it would be the opposite, although I'm admittedly fuzzy on this.. In theory crypto currencies reduce rent-seeking from intermediaries; since much financial rent seeking is established as percentages of an exchange (like…

> Can you expand on how crypto currencies relate to positive social mobility? Bringing those who are unbanked into the global financial system is a powerful way to help lift people out of poverty. In many cases, banks are unwilling or unable to serve the poor, so cryptocurrencies could potentially fill the gap. I don't think any current cryptocurrencies will achieve this, but there is some research being done on "sta…

Cryptocurrency is already doing this, I don't have the names offhand, butt, (Ill eave the typo, hehe) there are several regions in Africa where bitcoin is a primary currency being traded.

Re: The blockchain paradox: Why DLTs may do little to transform the economy

#274

Post by Animats »

thisjepisje wrote: post #246
Animats wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Turing complete contracts" were a terrible idea, as the DAO debacle and subsequent fork demonstrated. If the people behind the DAO hadn't been the same people as the people behind Etherium, they would have been screwed. Machine-readable contracts need to be much simpler and much clearer to work. I've suggested decision tables as a format; those are declarative, guaranteed to terminate, and have a simple chart form t…

You can implement decision tables on top of a turing-complete language.

You can't be sure they're implemented properly. Or what if they run out of "fuel"? Like the DAO's code.

It's not enough that contracts execute. They have to be amenable to audit.

Re: The blockchain paradox: Why DLTs may do little to transform the economy

#276

Post by flylib »

root_axis wrote: post #112
nemo44x wrote: post #98

If I had a Bitcoin for every skeptic that posts a blog on why it can't work... This may just be my general observation but I feel like Silicon Valley hegemony has a grudge against crypto currencies and I'm not sure why. For an industry that has constantly tried new things and saw potential where no one else did, I just don't see the love for the potential of smart contracts, DApps, etc. And how this is just the begin…

The source of the distaste is obvious: breathless hyperbole without much substance to show for it. Posts like yours are a great example of it. In this very comment you write: > leading the charge on what could be the next major technical revolution Unsubstantiated hype. Where is the revolution? A common thread among cryptocurrency enthusiasts is that the revolution is coming... except it never does. When you talk abo…

they didn't flush any money down the toilet, 21.co mined a lot more then 120 million in bitcoin, they mined at least 75,000+ BTC

Re: The blockchain paradox: Why DLTs may do little to transform the economy

#277

Post by bo1024 »

runeks wrote: post #158
hdhzy wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder what's the energy consumption of an average credit card transaction (including keeping the infrastructure, charge backs etc.)...

The more important point is that VISA is broken by design. Every day hackers steal credit card info and leech millions from the system, which is included in the fee you pay. The only reason it keeps working is because hackers aren't sufficiently sophisticated yet. The solution, of course, is to store a private key on a hardware device, not have the private key be 16+3 decimal digits and an expiration date.

I agree with you, but this is in principle a separate issue. We would like to aim for a system that has both the security of Bitcoin AND the "efficiency" of, in this example, VISA.

Re: The blockchain paradox: Why DLTs may do little to transform the economy

#278

Post by bo1024 »

qznc wrote: post #64

I don't understand why "competition" should not work? Switching currencies is easier than switching citizenship. There are plenty of alternative cryptocurrencies with different rules. User can switch to different ones (and Ethereum is quite a challenger at the moment). The network effects are great, because otherwise everything would explode into a million different currencies.

Right now it is true that there are a variety of cryptocurrencies, but I think the authors' point is valid that, due to network effects, in the future competition will be harder as existing players become more entrenched (no matter how flawed they may be).

Re: The blockchain paradox: Why DLTs may do little to transform the economy

#279

Post by yanivleven »

I do not believe that a deregulated system can catch to massive economic scale because there is a trust involved with currency.

The minute a currency is distributed with no regulation it can be monopolized and its price shifted up and down by the power of the monopoly.

Re: The blockchain paradox: Why DLTs may do little to transform the economy

#280

Post by nemo44x »

rjeli wrote: post #245
nemo44x wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right now probably not. However, Etherum has sharding, as well as other features to help scale, as a feature for the future. It isn't like we are stuck with the current implementations.

Is sharding a realistic goal for Ethereum? How would it be implemented?

I am not an Ethereum developer or expert on the codebase or technical capabilities. In fact I've read very little on how this sharding would be implemented. I have a lot of experience in distributed systems so I understand the benefits but I don't know how this would work for blockchain technologies.

However, it is a known issue and there are proposals and I'm sure more to come. Sharding is a leading proposal and it has been described. However, I cannot personally comment on the viability.

But I'm an optimist and believe it will be solved. Maybe not with Ethereum but eventually with something.

The one fallacy to be aware of is a lot of people it appears think that blockchain technologies are static. As if they can't evolve and change and iterate. They can and if history is any indicator they will so long as there is interest and outlandish people see potential.

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