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In defense of cryptocurrency
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Re: In defense of cryptocurrency
#342This article doesn’t address the main objection I have about the practical value of cryptocurrency, namely, why I can’t take such an application, replace the distributed ledger with a SQL database, and get a solution that’s better in every way. As soon as you have a trusted central authority (monitoring and reversing payment transactions, interacting with government agencies to execute real estate transaction, etc.)…
"I suspect that legacy industry and regulators have smothered two generations of technological improvement, largely (I suspect) by building a (mostly) closed and permissioned financial system."
It's technically possible to replace any blockchain with a database but where are you going to host it and who is the trusted central authority?
Blockchain might not the solution but it shows us an alternative to trusting some middlemen that have too much power, instead we trust code that is emotionless, non-judgemental and consistent.
A distributed ledger is more than just a database, it's a technology that can orchestrated trust online without a central authority. That's a huge deal, compared to a sql database that is owned by someone, who is the singularity that administrates the whole thing.
Re: In defense of cryptocurrency
#343It's always interesting to see opinions about crypto currencies by people that actually have no clue where it is about. Just wait until a few years from now when cash money will be phased out and replaced by CBDC's. That's when suddenly all those critics will wake up in horror and realize that money as we know it ceases to exist. What money is CBDC's than? Well, it's credits, social credits to be more precise, contro…
I like this. It's quaint in how they mix and match different dystopias without basis in reality except for what their cryptobros came up with (they can't even tell if 561 is prime or not)
"Smart contracts" okay, the cryptobros can't even make smart contracts for bored monkey pictures without shooting themselves in the foot 10 times, why do you think a government will suddenly need one of those to do anything?
Why do you think the government needs an immutable ledger powered by inneficient computations to keep track of transactions when current DBs work just fine? The cryptobros can't even make lightning scale to the size of a small ecommerce site and want us to believe that somehow that's the future?
But to be fair crypto has its uses: speculation and separating fools from their money
Re: In defense of cryptocurrency
#344Earlier quoted context omitted.
Or maybe Nakamoto was simply full of crap, like people talking up their cryptocurrency schemes tend to be?
I just don't understand why crypto discussions seems to draw out so many rude comments. If satoshi wanted fame and fortune he could have both easily, but there are a ton of early bitcoins that haven't moved - so obviously he wasn't in it for the money or he would've used those coins.
If he wanted to make clear his intention to never ever cash out, he could have burned those bitcoins.
Re: In defense of cryptocurrency
#345I really don't want to be a downer but all I read in pro cryptocurrency posts are: It's still new! It needs time! You need to follow the latest developments! It has a lot of potential! It's time already that someone shows some of that potential and it better not be something like NFTs!
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Hilariously sad to see this, where crypto has gone from an idea of economic freedom to economic handcuffs. Imagine the even more nightmarish world where a person on welfare has their entire economic life controlled by a completely faceless, heartless algorithm.
Re: In defense of cryptocurrency
#346Earlier quoted context omitted.
Indeed they don't, but even running two database servers (let alone more for e.g. geographic redundancy) is already more resource intensive than running a full node for a proof-of-stake blockchain. You might as well just run that node and get that resiliency basically for free. Not every usecase requires that sort of resiliency, of course, nor does every use case prioritize it above latency and throughput; nobody exc…
> running a full node for a proof-of-stake blockchain Are there any extant proof-of-stake blockchains that achieve the security guarantees necessary to make a currency viable? Last I heard proof-of-stake was still a hypothetical idea, not something that someone had actually managed to make a working currency with, and that all of the cryptocurrencies in common use were still using proof-of-work (which is of course mu…
Proof-of-stake is possible, but requires an honest majority of stakers continuously online.
If you want to eliminate Sybil attacks in PoS, there is no way of externally validating which branch of a split chain is legitimate. Each of them has a majority of stake backing it.
As for PoW however, you can just look at the total work proven.
Re: In defense of cryptocurrency
#347I did not see any real pro crypto argument in this text. Nothing is really proven in practice and everything is in ideas. Meanwhile scammers are taking money from enthusiasts and existing blockchains are burning up a huge amount of energy.
I defense of those existing blockchains: the annual worldwide energy usage of blockchain technology is roughly equal to the annual US energy waste from machines plugged in while in standby mode. It is also significantly lower than the annual worldwide usage of Christmas lights, and wash dryers.
Re: In defense of cryptocurrency
#348Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's how you end up with Google, Apple, and Facebook, Twitter, etc. They may start out as providing a service that works, but over time as they get bigger the incentive structure pushes them towards monetizing your data, locking you in, building boundaries around who can access what (e.g.Twitter APIs), and sharing data with parties you don't want to share it with. One way to avoid this lock-in is to change the unde…
The other way of changing the underlying incentive structure is have the centralised service provided publicly by a government rather than privately by a corporation. That's what traditional currencies do, and there's no reason that this model couldn't work for digitalised currencies too.
And which government has not abused its power? Fiat currency is a prime example.
Re: In defense of cryptocurrency
#349"transaction reversibility is not about the ledger, but rather about the transaction rules that a currency uses. A reversible currency requires that someone anoint this trusted party (or trusted parties) and that they use their powers to freeze/burn/transact currency in ways that are at odds with the recorded owners’ intentions. And indeed, this is a capability that many tokens now possess" I think this is arguing th…
Bitcoin is a base-layer solution. Do you not want to transact on the base layer because of lack of reversibility or fees? Move to a higher layer solution that sacrifices some characteristic of Bitcoin to enable something new. Want to do lots of (micro)transactions? Use LN where this is made possible by sacrificing the ability to be secure offline.
Do you want to use DeFi-like solutions with smart contracts? Use RSK.
I don't see what the problem is with moving things up one layer if you retain the option to delve back into the base layer.
Re: In defense of cryptocurrency
#350"transaction reversibility is not about the ledger, but rather about the transaction rules that a currency uses. A reversible currency requires that someone anoint this trusted party (or trusted parties) and that they use their powers to freeze/burn/transact currency in ways that are at odds with the recorded owners’ intentions. And indeed, this is a capability that many tokens now possess" I think this is arguing th…
The missing piece crypto lacks is an opt-in decentralized justice system for resolving disputes.