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Why aren’t distributed systems engineers working on blockchain technology?

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Re: Why aren’t distributed systems engineers working on blockchain technology?

#51

Post by EnFinlay »

darawk wrote: post #43
matt_wulfeck wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if the tech is "legit" it's encredibly inefficient. We're spewing off tons of CO2 just to verify the block chain, but we have plenty of technologies that can do the same with a minuscule amount of energy. The problem is that they want a system that's trustless and that's simply not what most engineers care about. We want a system that's fast and efficient.

There are solutions to that though, like Proof of Stake. If distributed systems really cared about that, then that's exactly why they ought to be working on blockchains, to make them more efficient.

Just because people care about efficiency doesn't mean they ought to work on something that lacks it.

Re: Why aren’t distributed systems engineers working on blockchain technology?

#52

Post by cperciva »

rafiki6 wrote: post #39

Here's one take DLT and Blockchain: https://hbr.org/2017/01/the-truth-about-blockchain TL;DR, it's gonna take a real long time to make blockchain useful, if it even is. Further, I have yet to see a real production application of blockchain that isn't a crypto-currency. Everyone and their grandmothers has invested in it, or started a company or w/e. But has it actually been used to solve another problem? Blockchain wa…

Blockchain is not the solution to the problem of how to make a crypto currency. Blockchain is the solution to the problem of how to cooperatively timestamp documents.

Re: Why aren’t distributed systems engineers working on blockchain technology?

#53

Post by srdev »

jimktrains2 wrote: post #20
andrewstuart2 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Proof-of-work is simply not sustainable (energy-wise), IMO, for the foundation of a global system. The stability of whole ecosystems is predicated upon those ecosystems being attractive to people who want to make money by competing to solve hard problems by brute force. That's a lot of energy going into a system that can commit a new block of transactions once every 10 minutes on average. It solves a problem in an in…

> Proof-of-work is simply not sustainable (energy-wise), IMO, for the foundation of a global system. Visa, MasterCard, AmEX, &c along with each individual bank, not to mention the intermediaries and gateways all of them use also consume a tremendous amount of power. It's not as if our current system uses a negligible amount of power, not to mention the number of steps and entities a transaction needs in order to be f…

These companies handle orders of magnitude more traffic than Bitcoin and also provide services beyond just processing transactions. The comparison is not useful.

Re: Why aren’t distributed systems engineers working on blockchain technology?

#54

Post by Taek »

darawk wrote: post #43
matt_wulfeck wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if the tech is "legit" it's encredibly inefficient. We're spewing off tons of CO2 just to verify the block chain, but we have plenty of technologies that can do the same with a minuscule amount of energy. The problem is that they want a system that's trustless and that's simply not what most engineers care about. We want a system that's fast and efficient.

There are solutions to that though, like Proof of Stake. If distributed systems really cared about that, then that's exactly why they ought to be working on blockchains, to make them more efficient.

Most of the bitcoin researchers have thoroughly convinced themselves that Proof of Stake is not achievable with acceptable levels of security, and for good reason. The reason you don't see more active research on Proof-of-Stake is that it is thought to only lead to dead ends.

Re: Why aren’t distributed systems engineers working on blockchain technology?

#55

Post by ntrepid8 »

darawk wrote: post #43
matt_wulfeck wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if the tech is "legit" it's encredibly inefficient. We're spewing off tons of CO2 just to verify the block chain, but we have plenty of technologies that can do the same with a minuscule amount of energy. The problem is that they want a system that's trustless and that's simply not what most engineers care about. We want a system that's fast and efficient.

There are solutions to that though, like Proof of Stake. If distributed systems really cared about that, then that's exactly why they ought to be working on blockchains, to make them more efficient.

Doesn't blockchain verification depend on a certain amount of inefficiency? Isn't that what makes forgery difficult?

Re: Why aren’t distributed systems engineers working on blockchain technology?

#56

Post by srdev »

DINKDINK wrote: post #17
andrewstuart2 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Proof-of-work is simply not sustainable (energy-wise), IMO, for the foundation of a global system. The stability of whole ecosystems is predicated upon those ecosystems being attractive to people who want to make money by competing to solve hard problems by brute force. That's a lot of energy going into a system that can commit a new block of transactions once every 10 minutes on average. It solves a problem in an in…

>Proof-of-work is simply not sustainable (energy-wise), IMO, for the foundation of a global system. What have you found that is cheaper to proof-of-work that works on a global system?[1] [1] "Nothing is Cheaper than Proof of Work" http://www.truthcoin.info/blog/pow-cheapest/

You're assuming that a global system must be trustless. This is not really a requirement. Heck, in most cases its not even desirable.

Re: Why aren’t distributed systems engineers working on blockchain technology?

#57

Post by CobrastanJorji »

darawk wrote: post #43
matt_wulfeck wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if the tech is "legit" it's encredibly inefficient. We're spewing off tons of CO2 just to verify the block chain, but we have plenty of technologies that can do the same with a minuscule amount of energy. The problem is that they want a system that's trustless and that's simply not what most engineers care about. We want a system that's fast and efficient.

There are solutions to that though, like Proof of Stake. If distributed systems really cared about that, then that's exactly why they ought to be working on blockchains, to make them more efficient.

So, your argument is: "you say our thing sucks at X, but if you really think so, why aren't you trying to fix it?" Filling in the variables differently, we could construct an argument like "If civil engineers really cared about structural stability, then that's exactly why they ought to be working on my bridge made out of playing cards."

It's not their job to fix someone else's bad idea.

Re: Why aren’t distributed systems engineers working on blockchain technology?

#58

Post by asah »

I had the same observation that the blockchain is "just" a distributed log database with horrific performance overhead...

...but it's not true that nobody's working on it: quietly, Serious Engineers(tm) working for blockchain companies and you can expect big improvements in the next few years.

This rant is nearly isomorphic to the whining in the early 90s by the academics and SunRPC & CORBA fanboys vs HTTP and HTML, which its insane parsing and communications overhead. Serious Engineers(tm) showed up, made the early web work, it took off, and... you don't see many HN job posts asking for CORBA engineers.

As with the web, blockchains are exciting because they're a 'looser' and more open protocol than other systems.

Re: Why aren’t distributed systems engineers working on blockchain technology?

#59

Post by devrandomguy »

random023987 wrote: post #35
jimktrains2 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Proof-of-work is simply not sustainable (energy-wise), IMO, for the foundation of a global system. Visa, MasterCard, AmEX, &c along with each individual bank, not to mention the intermediaries and gateways all of them use also consume a tremendous amount of power. It's not as if our current system uses a negligible amount of power, not to mention the number of steps and entities a transaction needs in order to be f…

> It's not as if our current system uses a negligible amount of power Our current system does in fact use a negligible amount of power. Each $2 latte you put on a credit card uses an amount of electricity so infinitesimal that it can only be measured in the aggregate. The percentage of the power used to generate a single bitcoin block for a single transaction can power an average US household for (approximately) an e…

What if you also include the energy consumed by the employees and facilities of Visa, including their commute-to-work energy? And the energy used to construct their facilities, improve network infrastructure, etc? Now are we getting within an order of magnitude of the energy consumption of an army of ASIC miners, and the people who farm them?

Re: Why aren’t distributed systems engineers working on blockchain technology?

#60

Post by dogecoinbase »

jstanley wrote: post #28
xyzzyz wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If there's nothing cheaper solution to cryptocurrency than proof of work, it seems to me that we just have to ban cryptocurrency altogether at the legislature level.

If you ban it in your country, your country will fall behind. Cryptocurrency is backed entirely by free market incentives. You can fight the market if you want, but you will lose.

Countries won't ban it -- countries love it. It's perfectly traceable non-anonymous currency. What they'll do is centralize it so they get the citizen-control benefits (and, of course, the ability to create and destroy it -- imagine EO6102 where they can remotely seize your gold!) without the unsustainable energy expenditure.
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