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An engineer's observations on Web3 and its possibilities

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Re: An engineer's observations on Web3 and its possibilities

#311

Post by city17 »

Whenever I read about Web3 I always get the idea the feeling it's an entirely self-interested idea or movement, and there is nothing idealistic about it. Instead of control being with a single corporation, control will be with an exclusive limited group of founders who got in cheap, and to which access is sold at a significant premium.

It pretends to democratize things, but rather moves from a monopoly to an oligarchy, which works great for the 'in' group but not necessarily for those outside it.

Re: An engineer's observations on Web3 and its possibilities

#312

Post by lui8906 »

undefuser wrote: post #308
lui8906 wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Solana’s consensus protocol isn’t responsible for its performance, it’s the fact that they mandate higher performing machine SKUs and at least 500Mbs (recommending 1Gbs) internet speeds. While it's true that Solana nodes have higher requirements than Ethereum full nodes (though not sure about validators?) I think it's incorrect to say that Solana's consensus protocol is not responsible for the high performance perf…

Could you provide some pointers to resources that explain clearly how Solana's consensus protocol and its Proof of History work? I read the whitepaper, watched a couple of videos but still find it unclear. As some other people said, it is not different from Bitcoin's mechanism with difficulty of zero.

I have found these two to be useful:

> https://github.com/lsmod/proof-of-history-explained

> https://www.shinobi-systems.com/primer.html

> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKGhbC6Uync

(I know I know it's an hour long, but honestly watching 3 geeks having a good natured session contrasting their systems in real time is a joy)

Re: An engineer's observations on Web3 and its possibilities

#313

Post by strogonoff »

practice9 wrote: post #226
strogonoff wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lack of human support in the old Web 2.0 is bad, but going full zero-trust in response seems more like throwing a fit instead of improving things (e.g., banning the exploitative ‘free’ ad-supported business models). A world in which you lose some magic alphanumeric combination (or a thief pinches your hardware key, etc.) and you are literally locked out of your identity (together with access to your eternal blockchai…

It's just that by relying so much on centralized corporations we give them powers of a country/dictatorship: - issue an ID - create a policy - ban if you break the ambiguous rules or trip some fraud algorithm - not ban some people or orgs even if they break the rules, because they bring too much value to platform (= almost a bribe in some sense) - and you can't really emigrate and take your belongings with you. Can y…

This won’t solve the problem with maliciuos actors in positions of power, and if we take care of malicious intent (which is really the only way forward) there is no need for technology that essentially exists to avoid having people to trust each other.

Re: An engineer's observations on Web3 and its possibilities

#314

Post by DreamWalker1 »

skybrian wrote: post #272
DreamWalker1 wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually you can do it for cryptocurrencies as well. There are a lot of aggregators that execute or split your order across different exchanges. As you said yourself, brokers may offer somehow better prices. My point is just, it is not possible to interact directly with the exchange, even if it maybe for some people more convenient to use a broker. There is no free lunch, more third parties means in my opinion worse…

You'd think that, but apparently retail customers get better prices because market makers are more likely to lose money trading against a professional who knows something is coming, and the smaller spread from lower risk for them is enough to pay for the business model. They still make money on the spread but it's lower. It's a bit weird that it works that way, but there is a logic to it. Price discrimination can wor…

Got it. Sounds interesting. Just one remark about it, europe seems to be banning practices related selling the order flow. As you said it sounds a bit weird. Lets say non transparent. So maybe you don't always get a good deal.

PS: Crypto isn't always better in this regard since, there are some frontrunners and so on. The difference is that it is completely transparent.

Re: An engineer's observations on Web3 and its possibilities

#315

Post by TimJRobinson »

kelnos wrote: post #213
viksit wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a great point. Some ways I'm seeing this addressed are in the form of, - Credit ratings from the real world being moved on chain, both by startups and by established companies (see Fitch report from Oct 21, pay-to-access only). - Credit ratings across and on chains ( https://www.credprotocol.com/ ) to make sure that a defi OG on eth can have access to collateral on other chains. - Chainlink and others are wor…

Why would anyone want their credit history on a public blockchain? Besides, credit histories often have incorrect information that needs to be corrected, and often creditors will cut you a deal or just be nice ("goodwill adjustments"). Blockchain history is immutable, so how do you handle this? Sure, you can write something to the blockchain that amends an existing entry, but the existing entry is still there to see,…

With zero knowledge proofs you can prove that you have a specific credit rating or above to anyone who needs to know, without having to reveal what your credit rating is.

Re: An engineer's observations on Web3 and its possibilities

#316

Post by TimJRobinson »

skybrian wrote: post #146
DreamWalker1 wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean 24-7 comes for free. Security comes in some way for free as well. Large amount: its relative, so even for 10k USD you would pay 100 USD as fee. You get similar fees for purchasing stocks and many have more then 100k in equity. So it isn't really a small niche. Rather a huge market that may get more simple and cheap through DeFi.

The major brokerages have let you buy and sell stocks for free for a couple years now. (Not just Robinhood, though they started it.)

This is still mostly restricted to those living in the USA. It's also only a fraction of the investment market too, to invest in higher risk things such as startups you need to already have a net worth of $2M or make $250k/year+ which is only the top 1% of people. I'd like to see a lot more democratization of finance than that.

Re: An engineer's observations on Web3 and its possibilities

#317

Post by strogonoff »

mannanj wrote: post #202
paul_f wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does not even require hacker, a thief could show up at your house and demand your keys.

How would this be any different from a thief breaking in anyways and taking your valuables at gunpoint?

Because your money are in a bank (which is generally a bit more difficult to break into), and if the thief takes some of the shiny toys you are still left with your identity at least.

Re: An engineer's observations on Web3 and its possibilities

#318

Post by jerrygoyal »

kall wrote: post #100
hervature wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, I'm not going to allow people to rewrite history and claim torrents are Web3. The technology is 20 years old and the most dominant protocol for file sharing.

Arguably the most successful decentralized protocol so far. They where just 20 years ahead of the scene.

sorry for misinfo. torrents are not at all web3. web3 usually means decentralized plus backed by blockchain. DTube and Steemit are some products built on web3.

Re: An engineer's observations on Web3 and its possibilities

#319

Post by sharemywin »

toolz wrote: post #33
sharemywin wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that's what's interesting about "blockchains" versus on specific chain. 1. polygon is a cheap(as in transaction fees) knock off of Ethereum, competition good. bad from the perspective of capture value in the protocol. 2. as far as I can tell as long as one oracle doesn't become dominate that provides competition 3. Defi is enabling users value across other networks. uniswap, etc. 4. On a side note, not sure w…

because it's not a real problem. The same way you can buy a mona lisa t-shirt in the gift shop and that doesn't steal any of the value away from the owner. What you describe could be rather easily implemented, but why would anyone build or use that?

I guess was thinking like a CDN/istockphoto type marketplace.
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