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Ethereum Has Issues

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Re: Ethereum Has Issues

#341

Post by mw888 »

tootie wrote: post #61
bulbosaur123 wrote: post #28

What useful has Ethereum created apart from providing an ever-bloating platform for generation of infinite digital-only tokens? As of 2022 the oracle problem still hasn't been solved, so actual decentralized, objective real life object-to-blockchain interaction is impossible. Monero added fully anonymous crypto that is used by most of the dark web. USDT, USDC provided stablecoins that can circumvent what fiat can't.…

Reading this blog post kinda flies in the face of crypto being more transparent than fiat. The raw data may be transparent, but the misuse/abuse are incredibly cryptic. And can only be rectified the goodwill of open source code contributors.

You are equating Ethereum to crypto, and you are assuming Ethereum’s problems are unsolvable. Please educate yourself or be more specific.

Re: Ethereum Has Issues

#342

Post by mw888 »

tootie wrote: post #334
zer01 wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you understand how a spark plug works or how a hardware interrupt works within the Linux kernel? I don’t, but people who have specialized in those specific disciplines and spent their time thinking about how these things work have lead to usable cars and usable/better operating systems as a result. USB is a spec that I don’t care how it works, just that it does. I think crypto concepts like BFT, MEV, consensus, et…

Like I said, crypto was sold on transparency and it isn't. Secondly when it comes to fiat currency (or cars or medical equipment or other complicated things) there's mountains of regulations and regulators explaining how the complicated pieces need to work to be safe and how to mandate compliance. In the crypto space we are 100% dependent on the goodwill of unaccountable and frequently anonymous coders.

Wrong. How do you think open source works? Did you read your Linux source code before trusting it? Probably not, and people do not need to because it takes one canary to notify and get the word out when something is wrong.

Ethereum is an experiment and has never not been in development. You saying that crypto can never work or that it’s transparency is pointless because an experimental project has an issue you don’t understand is extreme cherry picking combined with unrealistic expectations on a developing space. Progress is being made all the time and Ethereum is far from the only game in town. I do not understand why those ignorant, even those like yourself who admit just how ignorant you are, attempt to make poignant decelerations about the state of crypto.

Re: Ethereum Has Issues

#343

Post by FabHK »

fleddr wrote: post #320
FabHK wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not only that it's risky. It's that by construction it can't work for everyone. You can only get rich at the expense of someone else.

I didn't say it works for everyone, I explained why people take the risk, what the macro backdrop is for this behavior. It's quite disappointing that nobody engages with that point. Further, getting rich at somebody's expense is business as usual for any asset, be they stocks, housing, metals, anything. It's a false morality to think that this is a behavior that "good" people widely reject. Absolutely everybody in a…

> Further, getting rich at somebody's expense is business as usual for any asset, be they stocks, housing, metals, anything.

No, see, that's the point I am trying to make and that you are not getting. Housing and the economy as a whole are constructive activities that create value. Crypto is not, as far as I can tell.

Re: Ethereum Has Issues

#344

Post by FabHK »

mw888 wrote: post #336
FabHK wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This blog post is literally "I read a thing from three years ago and have lost faith in something that I never believed in in the first place". No, this blog post is "Look, here, several papers from last month showing there are still massive problems (that were presaged accurately in papers from three years ago)." (and it's not literally that, of course. Why do people use "literally" to mean not literally?) > Still…

And you can’t regulate crypto? How did China do it? Would it somehow be harder when it’s so transparent? Of course not. Anyways you have only a surface level understanding of the post and crypto currencies if you think the way forward is not a technological advancement. People outside the space seem to discover these issues and think that those in it aren’t acutely aware and working on them, which they are.

Yeah, you can regulate crypto. But then, what's the point? Just have a permissioned regulated blockchain, without all that Proof of Waste nonsense.

Re: Ethereum Has Issues

#345

Post by AlexandrB »

lottin wrote: post #315
ricochet11 wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nearly all defi loans are overcollateralized. I deposit $100 of eth, borrow $50 of eth, convert to usdc and send to my bank. Six months later if the price of eth has gone up i need to buy more the $50 worth to repay my debt, if the price of eth goes down i can pay back less than $50 of eth. If it goes up by a lot then i can borrow more against my initial deposit, if it goes down by a lot and i dont close my position…

> I deposit $100 of eth, borrow $50 of eth I could be missing something, but it seems you're lending $50 worth of eth, rather than borrowing. Your net debt position is <0.

I think the reason crypto investors are excited about this is that it allows them to maintain a position in a crypto coin while still extracting some liquidity - possibly to invest in other coins.

So, say you own 5 BTC and don't want to sell it because it's going "to the moon". You stake it as 200% collateral on a DeFi loan and get 2.5 BTC of liquidity you can use to buy some ETH.

What's interesting about this is that it allows the demand for coins (and therefore their value) to increase without introducing new (fiat) money into the system. I haven't done the research, but I'd be curious to know what portion of crypto trading is funded by these kinds of DeFi loans as opposed to "new" money.

Re: Ethereum Has Issues

#346

Post by wpietri »

orzig wrote: post #238
wpietri wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is beautiful and perfect: > the essence of the American Dream: by getting rich by doing nothing while lauding how smart you are over other people Thanks for sharing it.

But is it true? Any nation of 330M will have some loud arrogant people, but is “getting rich by doing nothing” uniquely American in aspiration or reality? I’d argue no - our aspiration is that we’re farmer cowboys, our rich all the more so. Our reality is more complicated, but (for its many flaws) different than alleged here.

I don't think any one thing sums up America. But having lived on 4 continents, I'd say the "get rich by doing nothing" thing is unusually common and unusually accepted in America. Historian Walter McDougall wrote a whole book on the American duality of "hustle", meaning both an energy for making things happen and scamming somebody. And he wrote that well before the recent rise of "hustle culture".

You could also look at American pyramid scheme pioneers like Amway and Herbalife, both of which I consider scams. Or our huge manipulation culture of the sort potrayed in Glengarry Glen Ross or Mad Men. Or the way that scammer/marketing energy merged with Protestantism to create both the tent revival and now the megachurch.

Re: Ethereum Has Issues

#347

Post by whymauri »

thallium205 wrote: post #297
whymauri wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This might get me crucified on HN, since many here are from developed countries, but I would argue we're just cresting the hill of late stage adoption for the Internet. Like, 40% of the world still does not have Internet!

Those folks aren't going to push the needle in any meaningful way.

I disagree. This will be one of Silicon Valley's missed opportunities. Anyone who unlocks the potential of those users and of developing economies has the potential to create immense value.

By the way, my point is not that they will contribute to crypto, but rather that their integration into the Internet ecosystem will require new technologies, new platforms, and new solutions to social problems so far divorced from what SV is used to dealing with... that there will be a market and a need for platforms and technology in those regions/demographics. To ignore that is to ignore billions, potentially trillions, of dollars of value.

Re: Ethereum Has Issues

#348

Post by nurettin »

px43 wrote: post #70

Ha, Flash Boys 2.0 was from 2019. This blog post is literally "I read a thing from three years ago and have lost faith in something that I never believed in in the first place". As someone who knows and has worked with all the people involved with the write-ups referenced in this blog post, I can pretty confidently say that the author is way way behind here. There have been some insane advancements in recent years th…

> This gets really interesting in the blockchain space, because Miners (Validators) decide the order of transactions

Traders use exchanges. I always thought *coin transactions are too slow to execute at trading speeds, so exchanges somehow buffer transactions using their own pools without ever sending your request to the network at large.

Re: Ethereum Has Issues

#349

Post by Etherlord87 »

fleddr wrote: post #321
yunohn wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I guess growing your money is popular, who would figure that. But… how is /everyone/ getting rich? Crypto is provably negative sum. Someone has to lose money for you to make money. And miners, exchanges, etc are all middle layers that extract large %s of fees. Where is the extra value generated to be able to make everyone a profit?

How do you get the idea that everyone is getting rich? That's not the case in any market.

A market enables you to trade more easily. And trade enables you to exchange something you value less for something you value more. That's the value gained. If instead of making a series of barter exchanges like a chain of quests in an RPG game, you can simply sell stuff you produce for money, and buy stuff you want for money, you gain time. Of course markets have their pathologies like speculation, and, it seems to me, unfortunately cryptos are mostly speculation.

Re: Ethereum Has Issues

#350

Post by nicbou »

mw888 wrote: post #342
tootie wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like I said, crypto was sold on transparency and it isn't. Secondly when it comes to fiat currency (or cars or medical equipment or other complicated things) there's mountains of regulations and regulators explaining how the complicated pieces need to work to be safe and how to mandate compliance. In the crypto space we are 100% dependent on the goodwill of unaccountable and frequently anonymous coders.

Wrong. How do you think open source works? Did you read your Linux source code before trusting it? Probably not, and people do not need to because it takes one canary to notify and get the word out when something is wrong. Ethereum is an experiment and has never not been in development. You saying that crypto can never work or that it’s transparency is pointless because an experimental project has an issue you don’t…

I can use open source without understanding the internals. I don't even understand the end user bits of cryptocurrency. That's quite a difference.
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