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Ethereum Is a Dark Forest

medium.com

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Re: Ethereum Is a Dark Forest

#71

Post by emrehan »

josh2600 wrote: post #10

I really think that all of this DeFi stuff is playing with fire. If these tools scale large enough, it's easy to imagine breaking the right link in the system at the right time to cause catastrophic failures. Remember that all complex systems operate in a degraded state. If there's ever a way that only part of a complicated swap executes correctly the trade can get really far out of position. People in Ethereum land…

Good point but it won’t stop DeFi’s growth. In my opinion, such risks shouldn’t stop DeFi’s growth neither. Similar risks have been present in conventional finance and economy too. Relevant: https://youtu.be/ed2FWNWwE3I

Instead of fearing from the risks we should quantify and analyze them.

Re: Ethereum Is a Dark Forest

#72

Post by d33lio »

IMO this is why anyone dumb enough to spend time building trading algos for crypto should really just use that time looking for vulnerable smart-contracts / projects if they actually want to see returns LMAO.

I used to work in the space in the blockchain tracing space - I helped build one of the first intelligent tracing systems that could handle tokenized assets on ETH.

I have zero regrets leaving the space...

Re: Ethereum Is a Dark Forest

#73

Post by robbomacrae »

emerged wrote: post #52

Writing this sort of bot seems like a legitimately fun and interesting thing to work on, but somehow I have less than zero interest in actually doing it. There's just something intrinsically repulsive about the entire blockchain world to me where I just don't want to touch it. I don't mean to offend people who do love blockchain tech, in many ways I don't blame you. But is this feeling I have somewhat common? I'm not…

The feeling is common and here is a justification for you. The bitcoin network now takes 7 nuclear power plants to run [1]. Last year it was responsible for 0.21% of the worlds supply of energy [2]. Whatever benefits it brings (are there any?) I don't think it justifies the environmental cost even if some of the energy used is renewable and close to the source.

Also think what all those engineers could do with all that effort.

[1]: https://news.bitcoin.com/the-bitcoin-network-now-consumes-7-... [2]: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-48853230

Re: Ethereum Is a Dark Forest

#74

Post by gus_massa »

DevX101 wrote: post #36

Did the author get permission for this attempted Good Samaritan deed? Or did he go out on his own and screw up the implementation without the contract owner's knowledge? If it's the latter, that's kind of a shit move.

He didn't need permission: "Code Is Law"

Re: Ethereum Is a Dark Forest

#75

Post by woah »

zdkl wrote: post #22

I have dabbled extensively in the "traditional" *coin scene, but always shied from eth and the associated ecosystem. Stories like this are the reason why. While I could articulate -and genuinely believe in- a raison d'être for the alt-finance tools created by blockchain systems, the premise and concrete value of the exceedingly sophisticated mechanisms in ethereum continue to elude me. Given the primitives of account…

A lot of this DeFi stuff is about people getting returns by providing liquidity to financial instruments that would have been done by centralized exchanges otherwise. So, still speculation driven ultimately, but not totally useless.

Re: Ethereum Is a Dark Forest

#76

Post by marta_morena_25 »

emerged wrote: post #52

Writing this sort of bot seems like a legitimately fun and interesting thing to work on, but somehow I have less than zero interest in actually doing it. There's just something intrinsically repulsive about the entire blockchain world to me where I just don't want to touch it. I don't mean to offend people who do love blockchain tech, in many ways I don't blame you. But is this feeling I have somewhat common? I'm not…

I would say its a measure of maturity as a developer if you have no interest in touching something that has no use and is 99% hype. I would not have a problem of working on a useful blockchain in my job, however it remains to be seen if there is such a thing.

Blockchain is like a solution without a problem. The only thing that can be done with blockchain that can't be done without (i.e. decentralization) is something that mostly has no application in the real world. And there is no need for it because the technology for that exists since over 2000 years. If it was needed, someone would have done it already long ago.

But who knows, perhaps at some point in the future a use case will emerge.

Re: Ethereum Is a Dark Forest

#78

Post by bsenftner »

emerged wrote: post #52

Writing this sort of bot seems like a legitimately fun and interesting thing to work on, but somehow I have less than zero interest in actually doing it. There's just something intrinsically repulsive about the entire blockchain world to me where I just don't want to touch it. I don't mean to offend people who do love blockchain tech, in many ways I don't blame you. But is this feeling I have somewhat common? I'm not…

It's a logic trap: an intellectually complex toy with the promise of access to untold riches to those "smart enough". It's a trap.

Re: Ethereum Is a Dark Forest

#79

Post by nurettin »

emerged wrote: post #52

Writing this sort of bot seems like a legitimately fun and interesting thing to work on, but somehow I have less than zero interest in actually doing it. There's just something intrinsically repulsive about the entire blockchain world to me where I just don't want to touch it. I don't mean to offend people who do love blockchain tech, in many ways I don't blame you. But is this feeling I have somewhat common? I'm not…

It is pretty common, and substantiated by the scam networks that surround "coins" based on ethereum contracts, the fact that anyone with enough computers and bandwidth can have a majority of votes in any publically available block chain and that contract authors are fallible.

Re: Ethereum Is a Dark Forest

#80

Post by dawkins »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #69
emerged wrote: post #52

Writing this sort of bot seems like a legitimately fun and interesting thing to work on, but somehow I have less than zero interest in actually doing it. There's just something intrinsically repulsive about the entire blockchain world to me where I just don't want to touch it. I don't mean to offend people who do love blockchain tech, in many ways I don't blame you. But is this feeling I have somewhat common? I'm not…

I have it too. I'm not entirely sure where it comes from, but some significant factors are: 1) Proof-of-work systems are pure, unadulterated energy waste (and an ecological disaster as long as we depend on fossil fuels). They cannot, ever, be allowed to become significant in the economy, lest our future will be building a Dyson sphere around the Sun just to power everyone's ability to pay for a hot dog on their way t…

> Proof-of-work systems are pure, unadulterated energy waste

The more you pollute, the richer you get. I can't understand why nobody talks about this.

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