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The Problem with Ethereum

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Re: The Problem with Ethereum

#311

Post by CuriousCosmic »

iSnow wrote: post #203
CuriousCosmic wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd recommend looking at Project Catalyst out of the Cardano ecosystem. Of course the proposals are still heavily focused on internal/ecosystem development but there's an increasing focus on building platforms for people in developing regions as well. There has generally been a heavy focus on improving connectivity and access to affordable financial services within the African continent however recently there's been…

Come on. I wish ADA well, but Charles is one self-centered person and the community has erected a cult around him and is super toxic against other projects. After BTC maxis, ADA has the most religious maximalists I would say.

I agree that Charles is self-centred and that there is a cult of personality around him to a certain degree but it really depends on which part of the community you are in as to whether it's "this is an influential person in the space so let's listen" or "our god king is speaking".

The Project Catalyst community, the official IOG developer discord, and even the Cardano subreddits (r/Cardano, r/Cardano_ELI5, r/CardanoDevelopers, etc) to a less extent aren't caught up in this cult mentality so much. When Charles says something stupid, innapropriate, or unbecoming, people are not afraid to address it in these spaces. On r/CryptoCurrency or on twitter it's a different story but Twitter is a cesspool (especially for any cryptocurrency) and while we try to call out the zealots on r/CC, it's not particularly easy.

In those dedicated Cardano spaces though, there is a marked effort to avoid the cult mentality and redirect that energy towards focusing on actual projects.

Very few people (in these communities) have the belief that somehow Cardano is going to be the dominant cryptocurrency or is going to "take over the world" so to speak. There is a strong belief that the project will be successful and a strong ecosystem is forming around it but not that it renders other chains irrelevant or that it must grow at any cost including via the minimisation or attacking of other networks. The general consensus is that it will make a strong showing and settle into a reasonably solid position in the greater financial ecosystem where it'll be intertwined with and coexisting with legacy financial systems and the other major cryptocurrency networks.

TLDR: Every topic/space has zealots unfortunately but looking at their core communities I've found Cardano to be generally fairly resistant to this behaviour. It's not a perfect community by any means but out of all the communities I'm involved in, I've seen more people in the Cardano ecosystem go out of their way to walk others away from maximalist behaviour or zealotry than any other community. I've been around for quite a while and I've seen how the different communities have evolved so I like to believe I've gotten a reasonably comprehensive view of the communities but no person can see everything and in the end this is all anecdotal experiences.

Re: The Problem with Ethereum

#312

Post by CuriousCosmic »

yunohn wrote: post #221
CuriousCosmic wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd recommend looking at Project Catalyst out of the Cardano ecosystem. Of course the proposals are still heavily focused on internal/ecosystem development but there's an increasing focus on building platforms for people in developing regions as well. There has generally been a heavy focus on improving connectivity and access to affordable financial services within the African continent however recently there's been…

> I'd recommend looking at Project Catalyst out of the Cardano ecosystem. Could you maybe provide some examples of these /real/ problems they want to focus on? No DYOR, since you seem to be actually involved in the project. Providing banking services for under-banked regions is yet again, for the crypto. Avoiding KYC is not a feature; I would argue that developing countries need robust infrastructure that incorporate…

Fair request. I'll pull the ones off the top of my head.

Catalyst just recently funded a proposal for a decentralised pharmaceuticals project that is initially basing out of Southern(?) African nations (primarily SA atm I believe). Initially I believe it is focused on aggregating the information and technology necessary for some common life saving medications. The end goal is to provide easy access to process knowledge so as to reduce the barriers of entry for local organisations to start (or improve) production of and access to medications. This project is definitely a bit of a long shot and it'll need more funding than what it got so far but provided their regular reporting looks good, odds are they'll be able to come back for additional funding rounds until they can ramp up to a sustainable model. IDK if it'll work but I wish them the best.

Another proposal was funded to attempt rolling out food traceability solutions in I think Western Africa to help farmers get easier access to global markets (rather than being stuck selling to a megacorp that then resells for much higher).

Additionally, the next funding round has a category dedicated to projects that are focused on micro-finance on the African continent (think Kiva loans) which has the potential to significantly improve the lives of farmers and people starting small businesses.

I would go into the other Project Catalyst projects more but Catalyst is still in it's early stages (scaling up is happening but it won't be at 100% until the end of the year) so there aren't a tonne of funded projects overall yet. There were some other projects that didn't get funded but they generally had issues that need to be resolved before they are really even worth discussing. We are still ironing out some of the issues with the whole process so it's been a bit of a bumpy road so far.

Also of note is World Mobile. They are in the same space and are rolling out a decentralised ISP network in Tanzania focused on providing at least basic wifi connectivity to rural villages.

Of course all of these projects are generally aiming to produce some kind of income at the end of the day but that's not inherently a bad thing as it promotes making the projects sustainable (rather than relying on outside funding). Additionally one of the goals with these projects is to try and jump start or otherwise stimulate the economies they are targetting so approaching from a business approach rather than a purely altruistic approach could potentially yield better results.

Also they all generally use cryptocurrency/decentralised tech in some capacity but it's not like the cryptocurrency itself is the focus. The community has a cryptocurrency focus so it's common to see people approach the solutions from that perspective.

---

> I would argue that developing countries need robust infrastructure that incorporates societal laws, for positive outcomes.

I agree and generally that's been the consensus in the community as well. The overwhelming theme has been to try and be as non-disruptive (in a negative sense) as possible. Progress is slow if it's to be successful in most cases and the last thing you want to do is to cause upset in the local communities. As an anecdote, at least in the Catalyst community all the projects I've seen that are "boots on the ground" type projects have had a strong focus on doing things by the books and not accidentally stepping on any toes along the way.

---

I hope that addresses everything. If you have any questions let me know. I'm a bit strapped on time so I may not be on HN for a day or two but I'll eventually be around and I'll respond when I can.

Re: The Problem with Ethereum

#313

Post by birdyrooster »

elevenoh wrote: post #190
birdyrooster wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only reason Michael Saylor is telling people to mortgage their house and sell their stonks to buy BTC is because he and a bunch of other whales are gunning to make BTC the world reserve currency. You see this mentality everywhere and it is the only way these coins are going to go to the moon. Not to mention a lot of these people are libertarians who see this as their way to “fix” the problems of central banks. Ce…

>but crypto is subject to the same politics only with a much smaller pool of voters Anyone can change the crypto you use if you don't like the mechanisms or decisions. Most can't change their choice of government/monetary policy. Market selection pressure works very well historically. We don't have this without crypto. >The mechanisms of distributing crypto clients will betray the interests of the common citizen. The…

> Most can't change their choice of government/monetary policy.

> Anyone can change the crypto you use if you don't like the mechanisms or decisions.

> Market selection pressure works very well historically. We don't have this without crypto.

Even with Crypto you don't have this. Crypto is not legal tender, no one has to accept your dogecoin for debts and the only way you can use it is by traversing exchanges with sufficient volume. Network effect is the strongest power here and corporations will coalesce around a handful of coins and all other coins that don't benefit their political interests will be subject to exchange fees which is a non-trivial headwind. Your proclamation about market selection pressure works great in a vacuum, but ignores the reality of our laws and how cartels work.

> I'm not sure what you're getting at here. Unclear.

51% attack without any overt subterfuge. A slow boil of legally bribing and buying the means to define the policy of and to distribute client code which benefits the cartel of exchanges, brokers and miners over the retail user. Once the cartel has sufficient dominance, they can tighten the screws and extract wealth from the retail user.

>Are you aware of the nature of inflation? Of where new money supply 1st hits? of the set of special interests aware of & open-market-front-running impending inflation before it's unanimously decided on? Doesn't seem like it.

Yes. Yes. Can you ask that again in words I might understand?

Re: The Problem with Ethereum

#314

Post by moomin »

ridaj wrote: post #137
DenseComet wrote: post #6

Seems like one of the core arguments of this is that the the core devs have pushed the difficulty bomb multiple times because they've missed their original timelines for switching to PoS without any repercussions. It seems to me that this is actually the correct thing to do. I'd rather the core devs take their time and iron out the issues instead of being incentivized to play fast and loose with a system that manages…

Why have this fake deadline at all then? That sounds like it is playing fast and loose with the system, since it practically requires a nontrivial action to postpone.

For the same reason congress keeps passing appropriation bills without fixing the problem that makes them keep on having to pass appropriation bills.

Re: The Problem with Ethereum

#315

Post by namlem »

inter_netuser wrote: post #304
namlem wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except nuclear fusion isn't 30 years away anymore. A ton of progress has been made in plasma physics. There's a good chance we'll see an energy-positive reactor by the end of this decade.

HB11?

Also SPARC, ITER, whatever Lockheed is working on, and probably others.

Re: The Problem with Ethereum

#316

Post by NiloCK »

yunohn wrote: post #231
NiloCK wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The connection here is that sybil-proofing is a (the?) major bottleneck to cryptoeconomic UBI schemes.

That’s like saying SSN (or other gov issued ID) solves poverty.

Some people believe that government issued ID in conjunction with a government that implemented a UBI scheme would indeed improve poverty. Andrew Yang wrote a reasonable book about the idea.

sybil-proofing in blockchain systems opens the possibility for any person or community to take a shot at implementing UBI. Could someone succeed in creating a token that retains some level of value long term and also consistently tops up at some rate in everyone's wallet? Beats me. But sybil-proofing is absolutely blocking issue on that front.

Re: The Problem with Ethereum

#317

Post by NiloCK »

lottin wrote: post #254
NiloCK wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The connection here is that sybil-proofing is a (the?) major bottleneck to cryptoeconomic UBI schemes.

Are you serious?

I am serious that it is straightforward to create a token where everyone on earth gets X/day in a sybil proof system.

Making this token retain some sort of value is of course an entirely different problem, and I don't have strong opinions on whether someone might pull it off.

Re: The Problem with Ethereum

#318

Post by landemva »

CuriousCosmic wrote: post #312
yunohn wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'd recommend looking at Project Catalyst out of the Cardano ecosystem. Could you maybe provide some examples of these /real/ problems they want to focus on? No DYOR, since you seem to be actually involved in the project. Providing banking services for under-banked regions is yet again, for the crypto. Avoiding KYC is not a feature; I would argue that developing countries need robust infrastructure that incorporate…

Fair request. I'll pull the ones off the top of my head. Catalyst just recently funded a proposal for a decentralised pharmaceuticals project that is initially basing out of Southern(?) African nations (primarily SA atm I believe). Initially I believe it is focused on aggregating the information and technology necessary for some common life saving medications. The end goal is to provide easy access to process knowled…

"decentralised pharmaceuticals project that is initially basing out of"

This sound like a worthwhile project which could be run by a group of passionate supporters. Why does it need a blockchain?

Re: The Problem with Ethereum

#319

Post by meowface »

revnode wrote: post #309
meowface wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Bitcoin Cash, Bitcoin Gold, Bitcoin Satoshi Vision. Take off the rose-coloured glasses, "your community" isn't sunshine and roses either. I think this is unfair. These are splinter communities. It's like critiquing Ethereum's community by pointing at Ethereum Classic and Binance Smart Chain. >Personally, I think PoW may be what brings Bitcoin down in the long-term. I pretty much agree with this part. I think it'll p…

> It's like critiquing Ethereum's community by pointing at Ethereum Classic That's exactly what the article did.

Don't get me wrong; I think the article is very unfair and awful in many ways. I just thought that particular counter-argument wasn't valid. I think their point about ETC can't really be compared to the Bitcoin community splinters, since the point is about the DAO hack rollback. The block size debates were very controversial and heated, but not to the degree of the DAO hack incident.

Ethereum is the cryptocurrency I personally like the most, but I do find supporters tend to downplay just how controversial that incident was.

Re: The Problem with Ethereum

#320

Post by johnpanny342 »

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