5 ms·

Overview of top cryptocurrencies

66 points by kilimchoi 9y ago

gruez 9y ago
Ethereum cons: smart contracts get hacked
- DennisP 9y ago
  A lot less often now that best practices are better understood, and people insist on public security audits.
- arcaster 9y ago
  Developer Cons: Some write shitty smart contracts.
- pikzen 9y ago
  Ethereum cons: when smart contracts do inevitably get hacked, founders pretty much force the community's hand when it comes to forking because they just lost their VC money. Code is law, except when it's not practical for them.
  - hsod 9y ago
    Why is "hacking a smart contract" OK but "hard forking in response" is not?
    - pikzen 9y ago
      Because it is a matter of original message. The Ethereum devs have had one mantra from the start: code is law. What is written in the code is what the developer means. There's no room for interpretation. But, somehow, when someone did something allowed by the code, it turns out it wasn't in the spirit of the law, and so should be forked.
      - hsod 9y ago
        Isn't the blockchain, and therefore the hard-forking mechanism, also code?
      - splintercell 9y ago
        > The Ethereum devs have had one mantra from the start: code is law. Oh great, now I can actually say something to my ethereum loving brother in law, btw do you have a source for this? Because when I try to search for any resource on the internet from before 2016 where Ethereum developers said that "code is law" I can't find it.
        knopkop 9y ago
        "applications that run exactly as programmed without any possibility of downtime, censorship, fraud or third party interference." https://www.ethereum.org/ https://www.ethereum.org/
- desdiv 9y ago
  Ethereum pros: security researchers who find bugs in smart contracts are rewarded handsomely and instantly
  - AstralStorm 9y ago
    And if they reward themselves too much, the blockchain is forked again?
DennisP 9y ago
Nice! A few comments... I think XRP is down to about 60% founder control, they've been giving it away to strategic partners. Ethereum Classic doesn't have anything to do with Cryptonote. It's a straight fork of Ethereum. I don't think Golem or Augur are actually in production yet, they're just tokens on Ethereum that will play a role in the actual systems once those are live.
- arcaster 9y ago
  Yeah, XRP doesn't have much utility for the average user. Also noticed the gaping error citing that Ethereum Classic implements crypto-note. If you want to look at a token that's about as close to a complete scam as tokenly possible, look no further than Gnosis. The GNO token doesn't actually directly translate to an asset that can be used on their prediction market come launch. Even more, investors only control 4.5% of the GNO tokens in existence, granted this was all done AFTER Gnosys had more than enough existing funding. Cash grab, plain and simple.
  - kilimchoi 9y ago
    So did the investors sell their GNO tokens?
    - simonebrunozzi 9y ago
      AFAIK, they can't for the first 12 months after the ICO sale (which happened a couple of weeks ago).
- kilimchoi 9y ago
  Thanks for the correction. I updated it. Feel free to make a pr if you see anything else that should be added or removed.
  - Jenya_ 9y ago
    About instant transactions in Dash. They did not implement yet a critical feature which would make instant transactions useful for merchants. Currently a merchant is not able to declare his receiving Dash address as "Instant transactions only". Without this feature merchant is forced to trust that his customers would always use instant transactions. https://www.dash.org/forum/threads/we-need-merchants-using-dash.11308/page-6 https://www.dash.org/forum/threads/we-need-merchants-using-d...
arcaster 9y ago
You should consider differentiating "tokens" from crypto-currencies backed by their own unique blockchain implementation. For example, Golem is a token built on Ethereum, however, it's not really a true "crypto-currency", rather a payment layer for Golem's "fog" computing platform.
avenoir 9y ago
This is just an FYI for anyone thinking about using Coinbase for their trades. Coinbase makes you periodically re-verify your identity. This process used to be manual. It is 100% automated now and it rarely works (look at Coinbase community forums for more on this). I've had a support ticket open regarding this issue for 3 weeks now and the only response I've gotten so far is "As we experience rapid growth, we are also experiencing a high volume of support requests and we regret not being able to answer your inquiry in a reasonable amount of time." I don't have any serious money tied up in Coinbase, but if i did I would be freaking the fuck out right now with this appalling support service.
- droidist2 9y ago
  Periodically re-verify your identity? For what purpose?
- justinclift 9y ago
  As a data point, this seem to be the discussion area mentioned by avenoir: https://community.coinbase.com/c/coinbase/id-verification https://community.coinbase.com/c/coinbase/id-verification
gnarcoregrizz 9y ago
A comment regarding bytecoin: it was exploited with a double spend bug which allowed the unlimited minting of new coins, a lot of which I'm sure were dumped on poloniex. See some details here: https://getmonero.org/2017/05/17/disclosure-of-a-major-bug-in-cryptonote-based-currencies.html https://getmonero.org/2017/05/17/disclosure-of-a-major-bug-i... I'm surprised polo still has it listed
- kilimchoi 9y ago
  wow. Dashcoin seems to be affected too
flipp3r 9y ago
> Stellar Lumens Cons: "No mining available. 95% of Lumens were given out" 95% were given out? Maybe I'm misreading this but only 9.66B/102.94B XLM has been given out. (To people who own BTC or XRP. It's basically a living advertisement for XRP.) The creators still own 93.28B XLM. They own approx. 90% of all XLM.
- kilimchoi 9y ago
  Feel free to make a pr correcting this. I was going off what they said on the website.
  - flipp3r 9y ago
    The stats are from their own website btw; https://dashboard.stellar.org/ https://dashboard.stellar.org/
dang 9y ago
This is not a Show HN. Please read the rules: https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html
fdik 9y ago
None of them can solve the micropayment problem. GNU Taler can.
kilimchoi 9y ago
OP here, feel free to make a pr to correct any errors or if you want to add any new information.
brentis 9y ago
Fascinated by Golem (GNT) when coupled with an orchestration layer http://blog.streamr.com/2017/05/golem-plus-streamr-equals-heart/ http://blog.streamr.com/2017/05/golem-plus-streamr-equals-he...

66 points by kilimchoi 9y ago

gruez 9y ago

Ethereum cons: smart contracts get hacked

DennisP 9y ago
A lot less often now that best practices are better understood, and people insist on public security audits.
arcaster 9y ago
Developer Cons: Some write shitty smart contracts.
pikzen 9y ago
Ethereum cons: when smart contracts do inevitably get hacked, founders pretty much force the community's hand when it comes to forking because they just lost their VC money. Code is law, except when it's not practical for them.
- hsod 9y ago
  Why is "hacking a smart contract" OK but "hard forking in response" is not?
  - pikzen 9y ago
    Because it is a matter of original message. The Ethereum devs have had one mantra from the start: code is law. What is written in the code is what the developer means. There's no room for interpretation. But, somehow, when someone did something allowed by the code, it turns out it wasn't in the spirit of the law, and so should be forked.
    - hsod 9y ago
      Isn't the blockchain, and therefore the hard-forking mechanism, also code?
    - splintercell 9y ago
      > The Ethereum devs have had one mantra from the start: code is law. Oh great, now I can actually say something to my ethereum loving brother in law, btw do you have a source for this? Because when I try to search for any resource on the internet from before 2016 where Ethereum developers said that "code is law" I can't find it.
      - knopkop 9y ago
        "applications that run exactly as programmed without any possibility of downtime, censorship, fraud or third party interference." https://www.ethereum.org/ https://www.ethereum.org/
desdiv 9y ago
Ethereum pros: security researchers who find bugs in smart contracts are rewarded handsomely and instantly
- AstralStorm 9y ago
  And if they reward themselves too much, the blockchain is forked again?

DennisP 9y ago

Nice! A few comments... I think XRP is down to about 60% founder control, they've been giving it away to strategic partners. Ethereum Classic doesn't have anything to do with Cryptonote. It's a straight fork of Ethereum. I don't think Golem or Augur are actually in production yet, they're just tokens on Ethereum that will play a role in the actual systems once those are live.

arcaster 9y ago
Yeah, XRP doesn't have much utility for the average user. Also noticed the gaping error citing that Ethereum Classic implements crypto-note. If you want to look at a token that's about as close to a complete scam as tokenly possible, look no further than Gnosis. The GNO token doesn't actually directly translate to an asset that can be used on their prediction market come launch. Even more, investors only control 4.5% of the GNO tokens in existence, granted this was all done AFTER Gnosys had more than enough existing funding. Cash grab, plain and simple.
- kilimchoi 9y ago
  So did the investors sell their GNO tokens?
  - simonebrunozzi 9y ago
    AFAIK, they can't for the first 12 months after the ICO sale (which happened a couple of weeks ago).
kilimchoi 9y ago
Thanks for the correction. I updated it. Feel free to make a pr if you see anything else that should be added or removed.
- Jenya_ 9y ago
  About instant transactions in Dash. They did not implement yet a critical feature which would make instant transactions useful for merchants. Currently a merchant is not able to declare his receiving Dash address as "Instant transactions only". Without this feature merchant is forced to trust that his customers would always use instant transactions. https://www.dash.org/forum/threads/we-need-merchants-using-dash.11308/page-6 https://www.dash.org/forum/threads/we-need-merchants-using-d...

arcaster 9y ago

You should consider differentiating "tokens" from crypto-currencies backed by their own unique blockchain implementation. For example, Golem is a token built on Ethereum, however, it's not really a true "crypto-currency", rather a payment layer for Golem's "fog" computing platform.

avenoir 9y ago

This is just an FYI for anyone thinking about using Coinbase for their trades. Coinbase makes you periodically re-verify your identity. This process used to be manual. It is 100% automated now and it rarely works (look at Coinbase community forums for more on this). I've had a support ticket open regarding this issue for 3 weeks now and the only response I've gotten so far is "As we experience rapid growth, we are also experiencing a high volume of support requests and we regret not being able to answer your inquiry in a reasonable amount of time." I don't have any serious money tied up in Coinbase, but if i did I would be freaking the fuck out right now with this appalling support service.

droidist2 9y ago
Periodically re-verify your identity? For what purpose?
justinclift 9y ago
As a data point, this seem to be the discussion area mentioned by avenoir: https://community.coinbase.com/c/coinbase/id-verification https://community.coinbase.com/c/coinbase/id-verification

gnarcoregrizz 9y ago

A comment regarding bytecoin: it was exploited with a double spend bug which allowed the unlimited minting of new coins, a lot of which I'm sure were dumped on poloniex. See some details here: https://getmonero.org/2017/05/17/disclosure-of-a-major-bug-in-cryptonote-based-currencies.html https://getmonero.org/2017/05/17/disclosure-of-a-major-bug-i... I'm surprised polo still has it listed

kilimchoi 9y ago
wow. Dashcoin seems to be affected too

flipp3r 9y ago

> Stellar Lumens Cons: "No mining available. 95% of Lumens were given out" 95% were given out? Maybe I'm misreading this but only 9.66B/102.94B XLM has been given out. (To people who own BTC or XRP. It's basically a living advertisement for XRP.) The creators still own 93.28B XLM. They own approx. 90% of all XLM.

kilimchoi 9y ago
Feel free to make a pr correcting this. I was going off what they said on the website.
- flipp3r 9y ago
  The stats are from their own website btw; https://dashboard.stellar.org/ https://dashboard.stellar.org/

dang 9y ago

This is not a Show HN. Please read the rules: https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html

fdik 9y ago

None of them can solve the micropayment problem. GNU Taler can.

kilimchoi 9y ago

OP here, feel free to make a pr to correct any errors or if you want to add any new information.

brentis 9y ago

Fascinated by Golem (GNT) when coupled with an orchestration layer http://blog.streamr.com/2017/05/golem-plus-streamr-equals-heart/ http://blog.streamr.com/2017/05/golem-plus-streamr-equals-he...