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Why “blockchain” is BS in 4 slides

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Re: Why “blockchain” is BS in 4 slides

#61

Post by wellboy »

Slide 1: Obviously you need to convert from and to Fiat since crypto isn't used by the majority of people duh.

Slide 2 & 3: Yes, 1st generation blockchains are slow and have high fees. That's why Bitcoin has just implemented the Lightning Network and there are 3rd generation blockchains like Nano and IOTA that have zero fees and instant transactions. Duh.

Slide 4: False dichotomy. Yes, there are a couple of scams in the crypto sphere, even 5% of the top 100 are scams, e.g. Eos, Verge, Veritaseum. Is 5% 100%? No. Duh + Facepalm.

Re: Why “blockchain” is BS in 4 slides

#63

Post by wellboy »

logicallee wrote: post #46

That's not why blockchain is bs. Let me tell you a little story you might want to remember, so you can tell your grandchildren. This is how you might tell them: "You think algorithms are hard, little children? You don't want to stay up to date? Well gather round, gather round, let gramps give you a sense of human folly and just how far we have come. Maybe that will let you appreciate how lucky you have it. "Way back…

Blockchains are moving away from PoW to PoS, which requires a millionth of the energy use, so that's not really an argument.

Re: Why “blockchain” is BS in 4 slides

#64

Post by wellboy »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #20
CyberDildonics wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you read through it? I don't think any amount of explanation is going to take arguments that have been thoroughly debunked for year and suddenly make them a reality. If you want to be specific about anything he or I said, feel free.

> arguments that have been thoroughly debunked Could you give one example of an argument made in the deck which has been "thoroughly debunked"?

High fees are only a problem of PoW blockchains, not of PoS blockchains which are becoming the majority right now.

Re: Why “blockchain” is BS in 4 slides

#65

Post by [deleted] »

fruitzome wrote: post #51
cglace wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is bitcoin really important? I think most people have no practical use for it.

2B+ people do not have access to banking or trade. They are poor because we do not trade with them. I couldn't pay someone in South Africa rural area for something worth $2 without bitcoin. Many other people are censored. Billions more have their wealth devalued via inflation. Bitcoin is a way for people to be free without any state taking their money (see Greece)

[deleted]

Re: Why “blockchain” is BS in 4 slides

#66

Post by mannykannot »

TTPrograms wrote: post #59
JeremyBanks wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most are built on reversible foundations. Mind you, Ethereum apparently was too. :P

The important question is if you think it's possible to create impervious functions of ~100 lines of code. I tend to think that with modern formal verification systems this is a feasible goal. Otherwise you have to stick with closed-source security-through-obscurity and rely on legal reversal. This seems pretty weak to me, though - ex, if a stock exchange was hacked, sure you could reverse it legally, but the market…

I am not sure what your position here is: that you can do whatever you want, or at least a lot of useful things, in ~100 lines of code? That if your software is broken down into functions no bigger that ~100 lines of code, and they have each been individually verified, then their composition has also been verified? Or something else?

There is also the matter of verifying the platform itself.

Re: Why “blockchain” is BS in 4 slides

#67

Post by dozzie »

ojr wrote: post #57
dozzie wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are many uses for blockchain other than as a cryptocurrency. Well, yes, but most of them (my pet peeve being voting) are as bullshit as cryptocurrency. Do you have an example that is not a bullshit?

online poker will probably move towards blockchain and you can do things to prevent spam when people pay fees, theres virtually no adoption of blockhain tech, things move slower in an open source project so its understandable

I don't know a thing about poker, so I'll take it at a face value, but the spam prevention idea is bullshit. It's not new, it wasn't new even twenty years ago, from what I remember. It wouldn't fly back then, and nothing substantial changed since then.

Re: Why “blockchain” is BS in 4 slides

#68

Post by dozzie »

cornholio wrote: post #32

There is some truth in the slides but it's well mixed with falsehoods and misunderstandings. * Distributed consensus schemes are not useful only for monetary applications. When they are used as such, there exist mechanisms to commit to a certain fiat price and minimize market exposure to the point where transactions are almost free, in fiat terms. * The disbursement of tokens and the distributed consensus rewards do…

> * Distributed consensus schemes are not useful only for monetary applications.

OK, but blockchain is not a distributed consensus protocol. It's a document timestamping protocol.

Re: Why “blockchain” is BS in 4 slides

#69

Post by Retra »

fruitzome wrote: post #51
cglace wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is bitcoin really important? I think most people have no practical use for it.

2B+ people do not have access to banking or trade. They are poor because we do not trade with them. I couldn't pay someone in South Africa rural area for something worth $2 without bitcoin. Many other people are censored. Billions more have their wealth devalued via inflation. Bitcoin is a way for people to be free without any state taking their money (see Greece)

What are you buying from rural South Africa that's worth $2?
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