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Ask HN: Am I going insane or is there genuinely no value in blockchain tech?

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Re: Ask HN: Am I going insane or is there genuinely no value in blockchain tech?

#281

Post by gregwebs »

invalidname wrote: post #237
gregwebs wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'd say that BTC + ETC use up about 1% of world electricity Where did you get that figure? If you read the researched article I linked, the estimate is around 0.1%. > would go up dramatically if BTC went up dramatically Not as dramatically as you think: if BTC goes up to 1 million per coin it will still be using less than 1% of global energy consumption (again relying on the article I previously cited as my source)…

Despite all the hype. Very few people use Crypto. It doesn't matter if it's "just" 0.1% what matters is how much do all the banking and credit card systems in the world consume by comparison. I would bet it's less than that. So it's not tenable as a currency. It's also not very valuable as a commodity since it fluctuates too much and has no intrinsic value. It has no value to "disconnect from the banks/government" si…

> So it's not tenable as a currency.

Did you read the article that I linked to? It's helpful also to read this one about Bitcoin: https://www.lynalden.com/gold-and-bitcoin/

Bitcoin's usage is not as currency, but as money (read this article about what money is: https://www.lynalden.com/what-is-money/. So Bitcoin is useful as a store of value, rather than a currency. The ability to transact like a currency is being built in layers on top of it (Lightning Network, etc), somewhat similar to how currencies used to be backed by gold.

Re: Ask HN: Am I going insane or is there genuinely no value in blockchain tech?

#282

Post by e-dt »

kimi wrote: post #197
dr_dshiv wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Without a single trusted party. You're trading trust for one entity for trust for many entities. The notion of “single” entities in society is, I think, flawed. A bank is not a single entity, for instance—they are not just a single actor—they are governed by a board and bylaws and shareholders and government regulations and judges, etc. If something goes wrong, which is expected and built into the system process ,t…

> I think that much of the philosophy around blockchain comes from the lack of faith in human governance—which is to say, a certain kind of misanthropy. So the blockchain gets two things right: avoiding double-spending and an honest assessment on human nature.

Replacing trust in humanity with trust in an algorithm created by humanity doesn't really get you anywhere. Like it or not, you are human, I am human, and we live a society of humans! Everything in society is created and run by humans! The blockchain cannot change this fundamental fact, it can only obscure it.

Re: Ask HN: Am I going insane or is there genuinely no value in blockchain tech?

#283

Post by nl »

swalsh wrote: post #145
strken wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is it a different experience? How is it actually amazing? I don't want you to enumerate the ways crypto is useful, I want you to give me one or two concrete use cases that aren't money laundering or buying illegal things.

I won't attempt to enumerate the ways that crypto is useful. But i'll tell you how I want to use it. But first, it's important to understand this. The actual foundations for what crypto can enable is still being built, so if you're expecting me to show you some "killer app"... i'm not going to show you a working version today. Is that because Crypto is vaporware? No, i'm seeing important stuff deployed all the time.…

> But unlike open source development, it's not done by "good will". You can pay people for their contributions in a trustless way that allows ANYONE to contribute and earn.

You can pay people for open source work now. You can even pay them in crypto.

A DAO doesn't make any of the hard work of developing a system (eg, specifying what you need, arguing if it has or hasn't been developed correctly) any easier.

Re: Ask HN: Am I going insane or is there genuinely no value in blockchain tech?

#284

Post by somenewaccount1 »

unsupp0rted wrote: post #245
svara wrote: post #217

This is not a debate that has to be had in the abstract anymore. It's been more than 10 years. Where's the cool stuff that those supposed technology breakthroughs enabled? I think we all know what the proponents would point to. Are we really impressed by any of that?

The stock answer to this question from Crypto proponents is that the internet also took decades to bring about societal changes. Initially the internet was bulletin boards and poor quality online versions of print shopping catalogues, news articles with no images or low-res images, etc. It took a while for internet-enabled capabilities to noticeably surpass things you could do by dialing an 800-number or mailing a ch…

It took decades because people couldn't afford computers, nor could they manufacture at today's modem scale, that's what took long.

In terms of adaptation, once someone had access to a computer, with few exception people found some utility in their daily lives for it.

IMHO, folks who have access to crypto are not finding any immediate use for it in their daily lives. And further, it doesn't seem to scale very well. Sure, enough coins exist, but they can't be transacted without massive fees. Ergo, doesn't scale currently.

If some breakthrough solves the scaling problem while retaining it's decentralized nature, it may gain some utility.

Re: Ask HN: Am I going insane or is there genuinely no value in blockchain tech?

#285

Post by [deleted] »

TekMol wrote: post #5

The value of blockchains seem so obvious to me, that I wonder if OP can be genuine. ask_111: How can having a public log that is extremely tamper resistant not have value? Let's look at a concrete example: Bitcoin. You can write something into the Bitcoin blockchain and be very sure that the information you wrote into it will stay there pretty much forever. Is that enough, or do we also have to discuss why having suc…

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Am I going insane or is there genuinely no value in blockchain tech?

#286

Post by goodpoint »

tern wrote: post #31

It's all in Timothy May's email signature from the cypherpunks mailing list: Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero knowledge, reputations, information markets, black markets, collapse of governments. The key concept is: sovereignty. In the end, this will reshape the nation state.

> this will reshape the nation state

In a worse way, especially if it enables tax evasion.

Re: Ask HN: Am I going insane or is there genuinely no value in blockchain tech?

#287

Post by dmantis »

yashg wrote: post #43

Blockchain has no use other than to store tokens for speculative gambling. Take a look at this presentation - https://bit.ly/3OB5G18 Proof-of-work - the USP of blockchain makes it slow and expensive and planet destroying at scale. But it's not a bug, it's a feature. You take it out and the blockchain is neither public not permission-less. A private, trusted, permissioned blockchain is pointless. The whole blockchain,…

I moved the whole fortune out of Russia with that "speculative gambling tokens", while both Putin's regime and outside world tried to cut out russians of the possibility to move their money out of dictatorship control (almost any payment systems are now banned for russians).

Maybe that's not that obvious from some first-world countries perspective, but money with enforced property right over any governments decisions is pretty much important.

Some people gambling in NFTs, sitting in developed countries. Others try to save their life's work from thiefs, wars, inflation and other things. Your view depends on what you crowd in.

Re: Ask HN: Am I going insane or is there genuinely no value in blockchain tech?

#288

Post by gravitycorn »

davidguetta wrote: post #142

There's two value for me: - the possibility to hide some transactions out of the traditional system (monero / zcash). I mean you may disagree, it's mostly ideological for some honest people and practical to some dishonest / drug dealers / evaders. - the fact they are decentralised currencies that are now an actual alternative to people's national currency. this may look silly to you if you live in europe / usa, but a…

But do you really access them in a decentralised fashion?

Imagine a pariah state where you want to evade heavy inflation by acquiring some trusted and agreed upon “store of value”, let’s say btc.

Assuming you don’t want to run massive covert mining rigs converting your local energy to btc you need an exchange, which can be regulated in the same way the dollar exchanges are regulated.

You could argue that you can onboard people to btc by illegal barter, but for that you need major gatekeepers aquiring the btc or running said mining rigs in the first place. Maybe ransomware extortion might be an alternative. They then have to be willing to distribute those deflationary btc to the people by exchange against goods or inflationary cash without adding a big premium on top.

Of course I am oversimplifying, but it’s not as easy as one would think.

And we haven’t even touched on what a dystopian place this country will be when a completely public and auditable database of cash flows will be the ledger of choice in an autocratic (or any) country.

Also, a question always worth asking when talking about blockchain: Where would you store your unrecoverable password to your life savings-account? Does your hair-dresser might know the amount of your life savings because you paid your last haircut with btc?

Re: Ask HN: Am I going insane or is there genuinely no value in blockchain tech?

#289

Post by Helitioo »

pcthrowaway wrote: post #127
mypastself wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve read several technical, non-fluff books on the topic, and I’ve developed smart contracts on Ethereum for decent hourly wage (paid out in fiat). And I’ve still come to roughly the same conclusion as you. Either my reading comprehension is poor, or there is little actual value in the vast majority of blockchain applications. Digital cash, as defined in the Bitcoin whitepaper, still seems like the only real use cas…

If you've developed smart contracts, I'm surprised you don't consider the capability of trustless financial instruments (peer-to-peer lending and pooled lending, for example) to be pretty useful as well

Your smart contract is only smart inside your Blockchain.

As soon as you use it for anything outside of it, you have the same issue.

How do I proof to someone else that I did what I should have done to get paid? By trust. Your smart contract can't verify that I did my part of the contract if it is outside of the Blockchain.

So what did you win?

Nothing.

Now you can work up a network of trust but you know this concept is much older than crypto and doesn't need a Blockchain.

And certain blockchains are looking for trust worthy entities to decentralize their own blockchains.

Now you even splitting up your trust in independent trust areas.

Do you know what trust system already exist? Which unites a lot of people? And is based on PoS?

Our current fiat and geopolitical system. Is it perfect? No. But we develop this system for a long time now

Re: Ask HN: Am I going insane or is there genuinely no value in blockchain tech?

#290

Post by bobthechef »

vasco wrote: post #132
soulofmischief wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That is most accurate description of blockchain I have read. It might interest you to know then that the short, digestible 8 page whitepaper on Bitcoin, which originally described the blockchain, specifically used this definition. It's the most accurate because it is what a blockchain was designed for. I recommend giving it a read and ignoring any project which doesn't follow its core tenants. https://bitcoin.org/b…

Tenets! Tenants pay rent.

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