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Hard Problems in Cryptocurrency: Five Years Later

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Re: Hard Problems in Cryptocurrency: Five Years Later

#311

Post by bdcravens »

jasonzemos wrote: post #300
_7fvc wrote: post #289

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…

> 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. Vitalik started out years ago with writings consisting entirely of self-citing the Ethereum echo-chamber. Judging by the citations here he's starting to understand the value in the works of the established institutions, tenured university prof…

> Vitalik started out years ago with writings consisting entirely of self-citing the Ethereum echo-chamber

He was involved in crypto prior to Ethereum; he was a co-founder of Bitcoin Magazine.

Re: Hard Problems in Cryptocurrency: Five Years Later

#312

Post by lawfulcactus »

DennisP wrote: post #175
gerikson wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

32 ETH is ~$4,800 at today's price of $151.07[1]. What's the expected "payout" for this stake? [1] CoinMarketCap used as source.

Expected payout depends on the total amount staked. With a large amount staked it's only a couple percent annually; with a small amount it's up to 18% annually. The idea is an equilibrium will be reached in the middle somewhere.

How are participants prevented from simply splitting up their stakes?

Re: Hard Problems in Cryptocurrency: Five Years Later

#313

Post by camdenlock »

buboard wrote: post #100
camdenlock wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I understand it, all that matters is the logic of the smart contract code, and possession of private keys. Humans are removed completely from the process. If you own the private key involved in a transaction, then that is the guarantee you’re looking for. All that’s left is to examine the smart contract code in order to figure out what sort of contract to which you’re now a cryptographically-guaranteed part…

> Humans are removed completely from the process Do you have an example of an organization that works this way, 100% automated? It's hard to think of a system that can be 100% foolproof, there is always someone somewhere that has to trigger something manually, and that 's the weak spot.

Nope, I don’t. And I’m not a particular proponent of this approach. This is just how I understand it.

I think the ultimate goal is to have smart contracts which don’t require any of the human intervention you’re mentioning. How that’ll be possible remains to be seen...

Re: Hard Problems in Cryptocurrency: Five Years Later

#314

Post by dboreham »

_7fvc wrote: post #289

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…

Hmm. As an outsider, having spent a year learning about this space, I was able to skim the article and recognize all the "problems" and I suppose "understand" them in that I could stand at whiteboard and explain what the problem is about. But these are mostly problems in the sense of Hilbert's problems: things that folk muse about for decades. They're not "engineering problems" as in something to be figured out and built in short order.

In general the blockchain space does have this syndrome where issues that boil down to "trans light speed travel?, discuss.." are conflated with things that are like "how to do trans sonic flight without breaking apart". This could be intentional as a way to get investors fired up.

For an analog in regular tech see: self driving cars.

Re: Hard Problems in Cryptocurrency: Five Years Later

#316

Post by DennisP »

lawfulcactus wrote: post #312
DennisP wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Expected payout depends on the total amount staked. With a large amount staked it's only a couple percent annually; with a small amount it's up to 18% annually. The idea is an equilibrium will be reached in the middle somewhere.

How are participants prevented from simply splitting up their stakes?

The return isn't based on how much you stake. It's based on how much everybody stakes. It's targeting an approximate amount of total ETH staked and doesn't really care how much is staked by each individual.

Re: Hard Problems in Cryptocurrency: Five Years Later

#317

Post by ShorsHammer »

Nextgrid wrote: post #239
Hendrikto wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I‘d rather put my trust in an open source community than in centralized banks.

Just wondering, unless you’re doing something illegal or are targeted by the government and your money is at risk of seizure, why would you keep it in crypto with all its associated risks instead of in a bank? Banks are highly regulated and so can’t just run away with your money.

> Banks are highly regulated and so can’t just run away with your money.

It's not your money in a bank. The bank barely has $1 or two for every $100 you put in. There's plenty of people who have philosophic disagreement with fractional reserve and some who couldn't care less about ethical matters and just there preparing for the worst as good evolutionary diversity dictates they should.

It's easy to sit in a country that hasn't ever suffered these things and think it's all silly, but there's plenty of people who don't have those luxuries. How do you think someone in Cyprus, Zimbabwe or Venezuela would feel about your statement saying to trust the banks? Venezuela was one of the richest countries in the world for a very long time. They still have enormous amounts of mineral wealth and yet people are buying their groceries with wheelbarrows full of money.

I doubt crypto is the solution to these problems that are fundamentally burnt into modern economies now but make no mistake crypto was born out of these problems by a lone developer who virtually everyone ignored. It's easy to criticise until you've walked in those boots for a year suffering at the hands of central banksters.

Re: Hard Problems in Cryptocurrency: Five Years Later

#318

Post by [deleted] »

_7fvc wrote: post #289

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…

[deleted]

Re: Hard Problems in Cryptocurrency: Five Years Later

#320

Post by stoops »

hodder wrote: post #8

The biggest problem is actual uptake for real transactions, as opposed to speculation and black markets. The 2 biggest barriers to be solved are: -lack of trust/ease of use for the layman -volatility These problems may or may not sort themselves out with time.

I would say remembering to pay capital gains tax on a coffee transaction is pretty shitty too.
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