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Why blockchain is not yet working (2018)

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Re: Why blockchain is not yet working (2018)

#31

Post by bildung »

RurouniK wrote: post #22
aylmao wrote: post #5

To the scalability issues section I'd add the environmental aspect. It has already been reported that by some estimates Bitcoin today consumes more energy than Argentina, and that's with an estimated 1 million active wallets per day. Argentina is home to about 50 million people. This means that in order to have Bitcoin serve as the daily currency for all of Argentina's 50 million people would at least 50-tuple its en…

"This means that in order to have Bitcoin serve as the daily currency for all of Argentina's 50 million people would at least 50-tuple its energy consumption." This comment is beyond dumb and just showcases that you have no clue whatsoever about how bitcoin works. Bitcoin's power consumption doesn't go up when more people use it. It goes up when more people COMPETE for the production of the next block, meaning when t…

No, it isn't dumb. The monetary base currently provided by bitcoin is tiny. If an economy would switch to bitcoin as it's currency, the amount of BTC in circulation would need to gain multiple zeroes. As bitcoin has a fixed cap, that would mean the price would rise. And that, in consequence, would make mining way more profitable, with newcomers entering the field and established organizations to employ more resources. And that increases the power needed.

Re: Why blockchain is not yet working (2018)

#32

Post by [deleted] »

RurouniK wrote: post #29

Bitcoin has been running non-stop for the past 12 years, used by tens of millions of people,has a market cap of 1 Trillion and all that while protecting the human rights around the world: https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/ldyy7s/bitcoin_is_... But even if you are clueless enough to think that Bitcoin and blockchain isn't working at least you should appreciate all the breakthroughs in cryptography like Zero Kn…

[deleted]

Re: Why blockchain is not yet working (2018)

#33

Post by lima »

tromp wrote: post #27
lima wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone (except Bitcoin) agree that Proof of Stake is the way to move forward. Even Ethereum is migrating to pure PoS consensus. This solves the environmental aspect, thankfully.

Hundreds of PoW altcoins disagree. PoS is not a coin distribution method either.

Hundreds of PoW altcoins are doomed: https://www.crypto51.app

Re: Why blockchain is not yet working (2018)

#34

Post by RurouniK »

prof-dr-ir wrote: post #6

The "lack of intuitive private key management" is worth expanding on. Would it not be nice if you could, maybe for a small fee, have some trusted entity store your private key for you? One could perhaps imagine storing a printout of the private key in some kind of physical "safe deposit" box, to be maintained by such an entity? But maybe that is to cumbersome and we can do so entirely digitally? In that case I guess…

How is private key management a problem when there are so many battle tested hardware wallets used by millions of people?

Re: Why blockchain is not yet working (2018)

#35

Post by logifail »

rorykoehler wrote: post #17
gjulianm wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that's their point. There's a lot of discussion that 'banks will become obsolete with crypto' that forgets that banks are not the currency, they just manage it. If crypto becomes widespread banks will keep on existing, they'll just move to manage cryptocurrencies.

Banks are not just managing money. They are distributors of newly minted money via loans. They are not distributors of crypto and the Fed are not involved (or at least necessary) for the creation of new crypto.

> Banks are not just managing money. They are distributors of newly minted money via loans. They are not distributors of crypto and the Fed are not involved (or at least necessary) for the creation of new crypto.

So in the brave new post-Fiat world we're thinking of, how does getting a mortgage work, exactly?

The house I'm in was financed by my wife and I purchasing a plot of land, for cash, then offering that land as security to a bank, who then created a loan for a fairly sizable chunk of cash with which we paid a builder to construct the house.

In the all-cryptocurrency world, who creates the crypto in the getting-a-mortgage process?

Re: Why blockchain is not yet working (2018)

#36

Post by infofarmer »

prof-dr-ir wrote: post #6

The "lack of intuitive private key management" is worth expanding on. Would it not be nice if you could, maybe for a small fee, have some trusted entity store your private key for you? One could perhaps imagine storing a printout of the private key in some kind of physical "safe deposit" box, to be maintained by such an entity? But maybe that is to cumbersome and we can do so entirely digitally? In that case I guess…

Smart contracts were supposed to make that easier, but this got blocked by the scalability issues. The current hope is for MPC which might get consumer-usable products without a SPOF: you have private keys on personal hardware, but if you lose them, there's a recovery procedure with multiple independent authentication channels — e.g. 3 out of 5 notaries from separate jurisdictions must recognize you and sign their parts. Plus a lot of friendly logic like time-outs etc.

Re: Why blockchain is not yet working (2018)

#37

Post by floo »

RurouniK wrote: post #29

Bitcoin has been running non-stop for the past 12 years, used by tens of millions of people,has a market cap of 1 Trillion and all that while protecting the human rights around the world: https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/ldyy7s/bitcoin_is_... But even if you are clueless enough to think that Bitcoin and blockchain isn't working at least you should appreciate all the breakthroughs in cryptography like Zero Kn…

Bitcoin has all of the problems listed in the article and is, arguably, not yet providing the social value that blockchain could.

Not sure how a high market cap is a counter argument to that.

Re: Why blockchain is not yet working (2018)

#38

Post by bildung »

Erlich_Bachman wrote: post #21
aylmao wrote: post #5

To the scalability issues section I'd add the environmental aspect. It has already been reported that by some estimates Bitcoin today consumes more energy than Argentina, and that's with an estimated 1 million active wallets per day. Argentina is home to about 50 million people. This means that in order to have Bitcoin serve as the daily currency for all of Argentina's 50 million people would at least 50-tuple its en…

> This means that in order to have Bitcoin serve as the daily currency for all of Argentina's 50 million people would at least 50-tuple its energy consumption. That's not how Bitcoin or any PoW works. The amount of energy used is not a direct function of number of wallets. It is not either a direct function of number of transactions.

The only intermediate step is the fact that the amount of currency in circulation needs to raise. As that isn't possible with bitcoin, the price has to rise. And that increases the incentive for throwing more recourses into mining.

Re: Why blockchain is not yet working (2018)

#39

Post by rullelito »

RurouniK wrote: post #29

Bitcoin has been running non-stop for the past 12 years, used by tens of millions of people,has a market cap of 1 Trillion and all that while protecting the human rights around the world: https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/ldyy7s/bitcoin_is_... But even if you are clueless enough to think that Bitcoin and blockchain isn't working at least you should appreciate all the breakthroughs in cryptography like Zero Kn…

Maybe you should try to read the linked page.

Re: Why blockchain is not yet working (2018)

#40

Post by smartties »

RurouniK wrote: post #22
aylmao wrote: post #5

To the scalability issues section I'd add the environmental aspect. It has already been reported that by some estimates Bitcoin today consumes more energy than Argentina, and that's with an estimated 1 million active wallets per day. Argentina is home to about 50 million people. This means that in order to have Bitcoin serve as the daily currency for all of Argentina's 50 million people would at least 50-tuple its en…

"This means that in order to have Bitcoin serve as the daily currency for all of Argentina's 50 million people would at least 50-tuple its energy consumption." This comment is beyond dumb and just showcases that you have no clue whatsoever about how bitcoin works. Bitcoin's power consumption doesn't go up when more people use it. It goes up when more people COMPETE for the production of the next block, meaning when t…

> Also more than 50% of bitcoin's power consumption already comes from renewable sources.

You are tweaking numbers here. The only source I've found, It says 39% and it's from a shady crypto website that make a living promoting cryptocurrencies [0]. And if you look deeper in the source [1] they quoted it says "A total of 280 entities from over 50 countries across various regions responded to the surveys.". So this study is based on surveys they sent to companies... Without anyway to verify their answer. This study has 0 value.

Renewable energy is way more expensive and not reliable.

https://cointelegraph.com/news/report-76-crypto-miners-use-r...

https://www.jbs.cam.ac.uk/faculty-research/centres/alternati...

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