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Man Who Introduced Millions to Bitcoin Says Blockchain Is a Bust

21 points by virtualwhys 10y ago

cloudjacker 10y ago
Interesting how influential some people are. What should have been an offhanded reddit comment is an article on Bloomberg.
wyldfire 10y ago
> “In a blockchain like ethereum, everyone has to think the same,” he said. He plugs Ripple’s Interledger Protocol at the end, describing it as a more flexible and individualized way to send or receive payments. It's a quid-pro-quo. Journalist gets their headline, Thomas gets his asset pumped.
- Angostura 10y ago
  You seem to be suggesting that his core argument is only worthy as headline-bait. I thought it was quite an interesting critique.
smaps 10y ago
> “Blockchains are a pain to work with,” wrote Thomas, the chief technology officer of Ripple Labs. One thing to note is that he works for Ripple Labs, which created another protocol that is similar to Bitcoin/anything blockchain based... so it's pretty much a competitor calling their competition a bust.
- throwaway1974 10y ago
  Its worse than that he scammed many people with Ripple in past, then he proceeded to rebrand as Stellar (and somehow suckered in the guys from Stripe who are being very qiuet about it now) and is repeating the same steps as before.
  - vhpoet 10y ago
    talking about a wrong dude :)
TazeTSchnitzel 10y ago
> “Blockchain, the ledger software that makes the digital currency possible” Huh? The blockchain is a name for a feature of the Bitcoin protocol. It's not a piece of software and it's not a proper noun. But you'd be forgiven for not knowing that, given the constant hype about “blockchains” these days and their use as a hammer to try and hit every imagined nail. There's also a company named after it, which is a proper noun. The blockchain, incidentally, is not mentioned in the Bitcoin white paper,[0] which refers to a “proof-of-work chain”. “Blockchain”, as a word, was merely internal jargon to refer to Bitcoin's specific implementation of this concept. [0] https://www.bitcoin.com/bitcoin.pdf https://www.bitcoin.com/bitcoin.pdf
dikaiosune 10y ago
I hear echoes of https://whispersystems.org/blog/the-ecosystem-is-moving/ https://whispersystems.org/blog/the-ecosystem-is-moving/. The argument that open protocols become effectively static after adoption is compelling, but I wonder if perhaps we can do better.
kyledrake 10y ago
I'm already seeing people pile in here to call Stefan Thomas a business scammer and "a competitor calling his competition a bust" and whatever, so it's worth mentioning here that Stefan pioneered using Bitcoin with Javascript, and the most popular wallets in the world still use what he helped create today: http://bitcoinjs.org http://bitcoinjs.org Please have respect for the idea that his opinions on Blockchains aren't just biased in connection with his work and possessing of no technocratic merit. If you don't at least give him that, he will have received neither money nor respect for his hard work that definitely improved the Bitcoin space (because he sure wasn't getting paid to work on BitcoinJS).
- smaps 10y ago
  That is a good point to add! With my comment "a competitor calling his competition a bust" I just wanted to make sure people took what he said with a grain of salt. If you hadn't read up on Bitcoin/blockchains/Ripple before it could be easily overlooked.
xyzzy4 10y ago
Blockchains are only useful when you need a decentralized system where nobody trusts anyone else, and where different actors need to be pseudonymous. Otherwise there are far simpler solutions.
- catalinbraescu 10y ago
  Could you please give a few examples of such simpler solutions?
  - xyzzy4 10y ago
    Server - client architecture, using IP addresses instead of using public/private keys, etc.
    - catalinbraescu 10y ago
      Then the own employees can change the ledger (for example). I thought your claim was serious.
karma_vaccum123 10y ago
Blockchains are so far really only effective at attracting venture capital to startups. We're at the end of the mobile tech cycle, people are desperate for a new investment theme. IoT and blockchain are showing up everywhere but it feels like a contrived attempt to start another cycle. Remember "push" technology and B2B exchanges? Two other keywords that popped up in contrived efforts to start new tech cycles after the first .com implosion.

21 points by virtualwhys 10y ago

Interesting how influential some people are. What should have been an offhanded reddit comment is an article on Bloomberg.

wyldfire 10y ago

> “In a blockchain like ethereum, everyone has to think the same,” he said. He plugs Ripple’s Interledger Protocol at the end, describing it as a more flexible and individualized way to send or receive payments. It's a quid-pro-quo. Journalist gets their headline, Thomas gets his asset pumped.

Angostura 10y ago
You seem to be suggesting that his core argument is only worthy as headline-bait. I thought it was quite an interesting critique.

smaps 10y ago

> “Blockchains are a pain to work with,” wrote Thomas, the chief technology officer of Ripple Labs. One thing to note is that he works for Ripple Labs, which created another protocol that is similar to Bitcoin/anything blockchain based... so it's pretty much a competitor calling their competition a bust.

throwaway1974 10y ago
Its worse than that he scammed many people with Ripple in past, then he proceeded to rebrand as Stellar (and somehow suckered in the guys from Stripe who are being very qiuet about it now) and is repeating the same steps as before.
- vhpoet 10y ago
  talking about a wrong dude :)

TazeTSchnitzel 10y ago

> “Blockchain, the ledger software that makes the digital currency possible” Huh? The blockchain is a name for a feature of the Bitcoin protocol. It's not a piece of software and it's not a proper noun. But you'd be forgiven for not knowing that, given the constant hype about “blockchains” these days and their use as a hammer to try and hit every imagined nail. There's also a company named after it, which is a proper noun. The blockchain, incidentally, is not mentioned in the Bitcoin white paper,[0] which refers to a “proof-of-work chain”. “Blockchain”, as a word, was merely internal jargon to refer to Bitcoin's specific implementation of this concept. [0] https://www.bitcoin.com/bitcoin.pdf https://www.bitcoin.com/bitcoin.pdf

dikaiosune 10y ago

I hear echoes of https://whispersystems.org/blog/the-ecosystem-is-moving/ https://whispersystems.org/blog/the-ecosystem-is-moving/. The argument that open protocols become effectively static after adoption is compelling, but I wonder if perhaps we can do better.

kyledrake 10y ago

I'm already seeing people pile in here to call Stefan Thomas a business scammer and "a competitor calling his competition a bust" and whatever, so it's worth mentioning here that Stefan pioneered using Bitcoin with Javascript, and the most popular wallets in the world still use what he helped create today: http://bitcoinjs.org http://bitcoinjs.org Please have respect for the idea that his opinions on Blockchains aren't just biased in connection with his work and possessing of no technocratic merit. If you don't at least give him that, he will have received neither money nor respect for his hard work that definitely improved the Bitcoin space (because he sure wasn't getting paid to work on BitcoinJS).

smaps 10y ago
That is a good point to add! With my comment "a competitor calling his competition a bust" I just wanted to make sure people took what he said with a grain of salt. If you hadn't read up on Bitcoin/blockchains/Ripple before it could be easily overlooked.

xyzzy4 10y ago

Blockchains are only useful when you need a decentralized system where nobody trusts anyone else, and where different actors need to be pseudonymous. Otherwise there are far simpler solutions.

catalinbraescu 10y ago
Could you please give a few examples of such simpler solutions?
- xyzzy4 10y ago
  Server - client architecture, using IP addresses instead of using public/private keys, etc.
  - catalinbraescu 10y ago
    Then the own employees can change the ledger (for example). I thought your claim was serious.

karma_vaccum123 10y ago

Blockchains are so far really only effective at attracting venture capital to startups. We're at the end of the mobile tech cycle, people are desperate for a new investment theme. IoT and blockchain are showing up everywhere but it feels like a contrived attempt to start another cycle. Remember "push" technology and B2B exchanges? Two other keywords that popped up in contrived efforts to start new tech cycles after the first .com implosion.