I'd love to understand how zcash shielded-address-to-shielded-address transactions work. Any good technical explanations of that algorithm?
The Princeton Coursera class has an entire section on it
Ask HN: A good primer on cryptocurrencies?
71–76 of 76 posts
Re: Ask HN: A good primer on cryptocurrencies?
#72Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not at all like "you don't need privacy if you've got nothing to hide." It's more like "don't install that library, we can just write a 10 line function." Someone who doesn't want to avoid the law is not going to get any of the benefits of using a cryptocurrency. It's a solution where the main use case is enabling people to make currency transactions outside the jurisdiction of banks. I think there are some good…
Do you own a business? Or..have you? Are you familiar with the advantages for legal and ethical businesses from blockchain?
No I am not familiar with any advantages from using cryptocurrency as a business. I only know that you can avoid PayPal fees by using Bitcoin, but this also means that the customer has no protection of you don't deliver the product.
Re: Ask HN: A good primer on cryptocurrencies?
#73I was looking for a good primer and I found the original Bitcoin paper itself to be a pretty good starting point: https://bitcoin.org/en/bitcoin-paper Furthermore, I suggest the Princeton cryptocurrency intro course on coursera [1]. If you have CS background, you can skip the explanations of hashing etc and concentrate on the mechanics and incentives in cryptocurrencies, which are illustrated quite nicely. [1] https:…
I'll second the Princeton course
Re: Ask HN: A good primer on cryptocurrencies?
#74Alec Benzer -- How Bitcoin Works https://blog.alecb.me/how-bitcoin-works-a82bb2cd32ec
Thanks for the shout-out. :)
Re: Ask HN: A good primer on cryptocurrencies?
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The other main reason is that you want to avoid banks and government, which is certainly a smell that you may be a criminal. These benefits aren't for people who are honest. It is saddening that this argument is used even on HN. That's equivalent to the old "You don't need privacy if you got nothing to hide". Examples as in Cyprus [1] prove that you should always be careful when trusting banks or any centralized sy…
It's not at all like "you don't need privacy if you've got nothing to hide." It's more like "don't install that library, we can just write a 10 line function." Someone who doesn't want to avoid the law is not going to get any of the benefits of using a cryptocurrency. It's a solution where the main use case is enabling people to make currency transactions outside the jurisdiction of banks. I think there are some good…
there are many many benefits to blockchains and cryptocurrencies that aren't covered by things being illegal.
For one, when I try to transfer money between banks it takes like a week. When I transfer ether it takes 15 seconds. If you'd like, I'm happy to provide a longer list of more examples, but illegal activities are far from the only reason to use cryptocurrency.
Re: Ask HN: A good primer on cryptocurrencies?
#76While on a similar topic, what would be a good primer on blockchain?
I thought this 45 minute talk by Stefan Tilkov was great: https://youtu.be/li3rfBAP_fE