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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?

#61

Post by Danihan »

cperciva wrote: post #52
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.

Completely agree. A true crypto-currency would not be "quasi-anonymous". Bitcoin is a government's wet dream, a near-complete map of every dark web transaction globally.

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

#62

Post by EdSharkey »

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…

Why is so much compute needed for the blockchain? Couldn't a proof-of-work system be developed that consumes VISA-network levels of power? How costly the computation should be (and how much the cost has scaled up) seems like it was an arbitrary design decision.

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

#63

Post by duxup »

nihonde wrote: post #27
aphextron wrote: post #3

>The blockchain community is immature and historically unwelcoming. >It feels like a get rich quick scheme - https://twitter.com/naval/status/878018839044161536 This is what it comes down to IMO. Anything cryptocurrency related is just surrounded by a cloud of shady characters and scammers, even though the tech is legit. You just can't trust anyone, nor their intentions. Living your life and working in a constant sta…

I guess it's not surprising that untrustworthy people would flock to technologies that eliminate the need for trust.

Anonymous and irreversible transactions help too.

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

#64

Post by billmalarky »

Taek wrote: post #54
darawk wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The Ethereum team is serious about proof of stake.

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

#65

Post by devrandomguy »

xyzzyz wrote: post #25
DINKDINK wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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/

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.

Or, you could fund nuclear fusion research. That has better odds of success.

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

#66

Post by notzorbo3 »

bradleyjg wrote: post #21
tostitos1979 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very good points. In complex financial transactions (at least within regulatory domains), my understanding is that rollbacks can and do happen. I initially thought across borders/regulatory domains, blockchain will shine. I haven't seen a killer application just yet. It is a bit frustrating because the tech is indeed interesting .. we just don't have multi-billion dollar real (as opposed to imagined) use-cases beyond…

"I initially thought across borders/regulatory domains, blockchain will shine." Massive institutions with billions of dollars at stake would rather have a predictable and stable regulatory regime to conduct transactions in the shadow of then to rely on a technical solution that supposedly obviates the need for one. Things come up -- bugs, acts of god, internal fraud, hacking, flash crashes, and so forth and so on. Th…

A few years ago, a substantial amount of money was accidentally wired to my bank account. After about a month, I got a letter from the bank if I agreed on that money being wired back to the sender. I agreed, because I knew the implications.

With a technology like bitcoin, where receivers are pseudononymous, that would have never been possible.

Noone except for those who wish to remain pseudononymous will ever use bitcoin for any real-world scenarios. The costs are higher, the risks are higher, it doesn't scale, there are no checks and balances.

I don't want bitcoin for the same reason I don't want an AI to run national defenses.

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

#67

Post by jimktrains2 »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #34
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…

> 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. But is it more or less than the equivalent amount of power it would take for Bitcoin (or something like it) to scale to Visa, MC, AMEX, etc. global levels?

That's what I don't have good numbers on, I was just pointing out that talking about bitcoins using a lot of energy isn't a good argument unless you're comparing it against the current system, which also uses a substantial amount of power. The big question is what you're asking: How do they compare?

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

#68

Post by srdev »

devrandomguy wrote: post #59
random023987 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

On a per-transaction basis? No.

Those costs specifically end up being reified in the fee those processors charge to their customers, so we can determine an upper limit to how much is spent on energy in that way.

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

#69

Post by devrandomguy »

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…

If by "real production" you mean "implemented profitably by classic corporations", then you're not really getting the crypto-anarchist philosophy that espouses the view that blockchains are a generally useful tool. The long-term crypo-anarchist plan (lol) is to replace corporations with ephemeral networks of strangers who, as a group, accomplish the tasks traditionally handled by corporations and governments.

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

#70

Post by akvadrako »

ntrepid8 wrote: post #55
darawk wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

That correct and why PoS probably will not be secure anytime soon.
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