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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

#281

Post by rmtech »

acdha wrote: post #278
rmtech wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think this is an important distinction. In both cases there mere existence of the technology helps both good and bad parties to achieve their aims, that is all that matters.

You should think about it from a legal perspective: if you use GPG, will the FBI show up at your house just because the local drug dealer also does even though they never send you a message? Now, suppose that there’s a transaction chain which involves you – say said local dealer buying from one of the few other people using it — and how you’d prove that you weren’t a knowing participant in some sort of laundering sch…

> This is why tumblers aren’t likely to be used by most people

I think that the ZK (ZCash, AZTEC, etc) technology will solve this problem and we will be back to the case where the government wants to make the technology itself go away.

Re: Hard Problems in Cryptocurrency: Five Years Later

#282

Post by seibelj »

dunkelheit wrote: post #268
seibelj wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I am not a libertarian so I don’t think that laws are just a useless form of violence. Libertarians aren’t anti-law, they are pro-constitution. Libertarians are against the drug war, pro-marijuana legalization, against civil asset forfeiture, and trying to end the endless wars waged in the Middle East. You will not find a better friend than a libertarian if you ever find yourself arrested or sued for any reason. Ju…

Yes, "libertarian" is probably not the right term - a quick skim of wikipedia shows that it is very broad with a varied attitude towards legitimacy of state power. What I specifically meant is that I don't see all restrictions on financial activity as a priori bad. That said, why is the emphasis on constitution (BTW, do you mean any constitution or US constitution in particular)? Constitution is just a special kind o…

I am specifically speaking about the USA as I am a libertarian from the USA, but the libertarian ideology is universal. It has a rich history of thinkers and writers if you want to explore more. Basically libertarians begin with the idea that the rights of the individual are the most important, and government should be restricted from infringing on individuals.

In the USA we have the Bill of Rights that protects each person from government overreach, such as the 1st amendment which protects freedom of speech, and the 5th amendment against testifying against yourself.

The government however often passes laws that violate these rights, and then the courts have to overturn laws that are unconstitutional because they violate our rights.

I am of the opinion that the government is a very dangerous entity with unlimited power and ability to harm citizens, so we should always be skeptical of all laws passed and work as much as possible to limit the power of government.

Re: Hard Problems in Cryptocurrency: Five Years Later

#283

Post by dunkelheit »

stale2002 wrote: post #211
dunkelheit wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm struggling to understand if uncensorable transactions are a good thing (note: struggling not in a sense of "I actually think it is evil but let's hear your bullshit arguments so that I can easily debunk them", but in a sense of really being undecided). I am not a libertarian so I don't think that laws are just a useless form of violence. So how can uncensorable transactions be useful for a law-abiding citizen? On…

Donations to WikiLeaks were blocked, even though they were never charged with any crime. So, this is an example of where a fully law abiding citizen, had their transactions blocked, but the crypto payments weren't. The legal Bitcoin payments weren't blocked, but the bank transactions were.

Yes, wikileaks is a good example.

Re: Hard Problems in Cryptocurrency: Five Years Later

#284

Post by olivermarks »

The hardest problem of all is getting consensus to put in front of regulators whose legal frameworks are stuck in the early 90's. SEC Securities law is the 800 pound gorilla on the globe and the workarounds 'offshore' of the SEC (Malta EU framework etc) are pea shooters against this reality. I've been involved in a european utility token against a real asset (Beer) which is live but it has been very time consuming and difficult to navigate the regulatory maze.

Re: Hard Problems in Cryptocurrency: Five Years Later

#285

Post by crispyporkbites »

davidmurdoch wrote: post #183
elamje wrote: post #57

Can some people from the crypto space give a quick tl;dr of what’s going on in the space that’s of note? Seems like I hardly hear about interesting stuff after the bubble burst (kind of at least). Are there any people using crypto to actually do work for clients and solve fiat currency based businesses problems? I am curious if the crypto start up space is mostly filled with crypto-to-crypto services or if there are…

I build blockchain development tools at Truffle (a for-profit company). Most of our efforts are on Ethereum tooling, but not all, we are building some tools for enterprise blockchain tech as well as other public chains. I think most of us here believe we are building tools that will have had a role in the long-term future of (decentralized) finance. https://trufflesuite.com/

How does truffle make money?

Re: Hard Problems in Cryptocurrency: Five Years Later

#286

Post by dunkelheit »

green1 wrote: post #115
lawn wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are 1.7 billion adults in the world who are unbanked. 420 million of them have internet access. You can find them in countries all over the world. For example USA have 18 million and France have 3 million who don't have a bank account. It's not just poor people in countries without banks who have these problems. Even rich porn stars have had their bank accounts closed (for being porn stars) and people in the ma…

From that page: > There is no KYC process. How does an unbanked put their paper money into their cryptocurrency account without a KYC process? (Please don't say trust a random third party stranger in a pub offering cryptocurrency at an exorbitant markup.) > There are no fees for opening or having an account I've never paid a fee to open or have a bank account, but how does an unbanked put their paper money into their…

> How does an unbanked put their paper money into their cryptocurrency account without a KYC process? (Please don't say trust a random third party stranger in a pub offering cryptocurrency at an exorbitant markup.)

One possibility is that they can receive their income directly in cryptocurrencies.

Re: Hard Problems in Cryptocurrency: Five Years Later

#287

Post by regisg »

capableweb wrote: post #143
regisg wrote: post #99

It's funny to write such a blog post without even mentioning Cardano...

It's even more funny to leave a comment like this without even elaborating on the argument and not contributing to the overall discussion. Why would this blog post mention Cardano?

Yes, you're right. Sorry.

Re: Hard Problems in Cryptocurrency: Five Years Later

#288

Post by ativzzz »

dorgo wrote: post #238
green1 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From that page: > There is no KYC process. How does an unbanked put their paper money into their cryptocurrency account without a KYC process? (Please don't say trust a random third party stranger in a pub offering cryptocurrency at an exorbitant markup.) > There are no fees for opening or having an account I've never paid a fee to open or have a bank account, but how does an unbanked put their paper money into their…

>How does an unbanked get their paper money into their cryptocurrency account without trusting a third party? Mining perhaps?

How do you expect someone who doesn't have access to banking to set be able to set up a mining rig?

I'm not saying having a bank account is necessary, but the life conditions that prevent bank access (poverty, homelessness, addictions, abuse, violence, etc) will certainly prevent anyone from mining/

Re: Hard Problems in Cryptocurrency: Five Years Later

#289

Post by _7fvc »

I consider myself fairly knowledgable with cryptocurrency. I create and run a crypto project myself. I read this post and maybe understand 10% of it. This is probably the rate of things I read from Vitalik. Either Vitalik is extremely smart or he just doesn't know what he's talking about. Overall, his opinions are just confusing and distracting like the whole Ethereum ecosystem.

A warning for those who think getting a degree is useless. At least, it will force you to think deep about some problems. I hope Vitalik will find his focus and really solve a concrete problem.

For those who think I'm 10 times less smart than Vitalik. Here's my take on Ethereum and its prospect.

https://bitflate.org/post/2019/11/16/ethereum-and-computer-l...

Re: Hard Problems in Cryptocurrency: Five Years Later

#290

Post by Nursie »

jki275 wrote: post #263
notahacker wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are 0 adults in the world who are unbanked but have access to a mining rig or card payments to buy cryptoassets. By an interesting coincidence, 0 is also the number of unbanked people who should risk the money they need to eat on unregulated, complicated and easily stolen intangible financial assets which wealthy foreigners invented to print themselves money.

You'd be surprised by the existence of m-pesa then, which has revolutionized finance among the unbanked in Africa. m-pesa isn't a cryptocurrency in the same mold that bitcoin is, but it's electronic money for the unbanked that you're arguing can't exist.

m-pesa fits virtually none of what the parent said about cryptocurrency.
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