3 ms·

> As a “hard fork” looms, which looks set to split Bitcoin into two separate currencies that will have to fight for custody of the Bitcoin moniker This already

> As a “hard fork” looms, which looks set to split Bitcoin into two separate currencies that will have to fight for custody of the Bitcoin moniker This already happened to eth when the creators hard forked the chain in an effort to roll back operations of an eth application that was used in a way that the creators did not anticipate. If this didn't kill ethereum why would it be a problem for bitcoin? Fortunately for bitcoin, there isn't a highly influential and transparently self-interested creator lording over the project. > Bitcoin transactions can take anywhere from tens of minutes to several hours, depending on how busy the network is. An unsolved growth problem for the reining incumbent that remains unsolved by ethereum. Transactions take a long time because decentralized proof of work verification is slow. A lot of people will say "proof of stake is coming!!!" but it's essentially vaporware and all signs point to the conclusion that it will remain that way for the foreseeable future. Yeah, people are working on it, like all vaporware. > Ethereum is actually a platform for new kinds of decentralized (often financial) applications (dApps) that run on a peer-to-peer network of computers Except this isn't actually happening in practice. I am yet to see any "new kinds of decentralized applications", just toy applications that have no practical purpose besides internet roulette > TL;DR: Bitcoin’s dominance is slipping because its utility is limited and weakening versus other more recently developed, less politicized cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin's dominance is not slipping because it's utility was marginal to begin with and eth certainly doesn't offer much in the way of compelling improvements over bitcoin.

aaron-lebo 9y ago
Indeed, it's interesting that existing applications are never cited, it's always future potential. Sounds like a great way to kick the can down the road. Invest now! Someday the network is gonna be really useful. You'll see!
- 52-6F-62 9y ago
  Skepticism in this realm is certainly warranted and undoubtedly healthy. However, I think I should share this because the above two comments seem to have not caught wind of it. A number of enterprise-level organizations both within and without this org are working on projects and experiments both utilizing the public blockchain and private chains using the technology. I think there is some validity to the project that is simply not yet mainstream yet. https://entethalliance.org/members/ https://entethalliance.org/members/
hackinthebochs 9y ago
> If this didn't kill ethereum why would it be a problem for bitcoin? The situations simply aren't analogous. At the time ethereum was still seen as speculative and didn't have another project nipping at its heals for dominance in the turing complete contracts space. But now, ethereum is nipping at the heels of bitcoin to be the dominant blockchain currency. If bitcoin falters and money starts flowing out of bitcoin and into ethereum, there is no reason to be confident that it'll retain dominance.
drcode 9y ago
> it's essentially vaporware and all signs point to the conclusion that it will remain that way for the foreseeable future. Here's the ethereum proof of stake code that will go live on ethereum sometime this year: https://github.com/ethereum/research/blob/master/casper4/simple_casper.v.py https://github.com/ethereum/research/blob/master/casper4/sim... This is the actual production code (though of course still in draft form, under review) > just toy applications that have no practical purpose The UN uses an ethereum app to send aid to Syrian refugees via vouchers: http://www.coindesk.com/united-nations-sends-aid-to-10000-syrian-refugees-using-ethereum-blockchain/ http://www.coindesk.com/united-nations-sends-aid-to-10000-sy...
- root_axis 9y ago
  > Here's the ethereum proof of stake code that will go live on ethereum sometime this year Until it goes live, it's vaporware. The issue isn't "can proof of stake code be written" the question is "will eth continue to function safely and correctly using a proof of stake system"? We'll talk when it hits production. > The UN uses an ethereum app to send aid to Syrian refugees via vouchers: The details are not really clear from the article. How does this work? Why was this possible with eth but not with bitcoin or dogecoin or any other cryptotoken? How do displaced Syrian refugees accept, manage, and spend digital currency? I am highly skeptical of this without lots of details.
  - drcode 9y ago
    > Until it goes live, it's vaporware. That's a ridiculous definition. So nobody can advertise that they plan to add a novel feature to a piece of software, even if the code already exists in draft form, without being labeled a vaporware peddler?
    - root_axis 9y ago
      The standards are higher for the cryptocurrency sphere which is notorious for extreme hyperbole, tons of hype, and poor results to match it, especially when you're talking about code that is supposed to solve the single most difficult problem of blockchain currencies.
tscs37 9y ago
On a technical note; the transaction(s) in question have not been rolled back, rather, the faulty contract was deprived of it's funds and the money was put into a new contract that distributed the funds to the original investors. It's not a rollback since the original contract is still on chain, just without money. If you fuel it with some money you can use it.
mquander 9y ago
Except this isn't actually happening in practice. I am yet to see any "new kinds of decentralized applications", just toy applications that have no practical purpose besides internet roulette So, uh, how about all those ERC20 ICOs? I admit that you may wish to classify them as "Internet roulette."
- root_axis 9y ago
  What do they actually do? I understand the purported significance of ERC20, but it is not clear why these tokens are actually useful. Literally anyone can mint them... in fact that's the point.
  - mquander 9y ago
    Sure, the idea is that now it's easy to mint your own currency to do stuff with. That wasn't so easy before! So Kik is minting a currency to serve as Weird Premium Kik Points, and GameCredits is minting a currency that you get by playing Candy Crush or whatever, and BAT is minting a currency that represents attention you paid to ads, and Augur is minting a currency that makes an incentive structure for reporting prediction market results, and so on. This is plausibly better than if they had just rolled it by hand outside of Ethereum for a few reasons, e.g. - You automatically have a way for users to trade real value for your currency via ETH. (This is probably easier for devs than setting up Paypal or Stripe integration, but harder today for users.) - The currencies are something you have that's more tangible and auditable than an entry in some company's bespoke centralized database. Everyone can see it and believe in it. - Users can easily send the currency to each other by default without all the transactions having to go through you. (I don't actually know whether this is a pro or a con for many use cases.) - It's trivial to make interoperable software that accepts or holds or sends these currencies, like exchanges and wallets. - The above facts probably mean that there is something like an open liquid market for your currency, if anyone cares about it. That means people can perform mutually beneficial trades! Mutually beneficial trades are mutually beneficial. As to whether it's useful to have a bunch of currencies for different things, I think so? I mean, there already are a ton of things like this in software which behave as de facto currencies -- free-to-play games and MMOs are a good example -- and those seem like they would be well-suited to be ERC20-style tokens. And as someone who believes in incentive structures, I'm excited about the prospect of quantifying more things which are currently vagaries ("attention", "reputation", "compute time") into currencies with a market. Augur's design is a good example of this.
zefman 9y ago
> Ethereum is actually a platform for new kinds of decentralized (often financial) applications (dApps) that run on a peer-to-peer network of computers There are a few very interesting things in the pipeline. Here are a few: https://golem.network/ https://golem.network/ https://status.im/ https://status.im/ https://gnosis.pm/ https://gnosis.pm/ https://basicattentiontoken.org/ https://basicattentiontoken.org/ https://augur.net/ https://augur.net/
- root_axis 9y ago
  > in the pipeline And that's the crux of it. As I said, I'm yet to see anything that's actually useful. There are a lot of claims about all the amazing things that will be possible at some point in the future, but besides internet gambling, I've yet to see a demonstration or even a coherent explanation of something useful that these systems are capable of that isn't already possible and less complex with existing systems. (Just so you know, I was already aware of status and augur, but I examined your other links as well before responding)
  - problems 9y ago
    Indeed, most of the things created on the Ethereum platform are just shittier versions of things that exist - while decentralization can be a huge boon to some things it needs to combat its inherent complexity increase for users. Ethereum does not lend itself well to that, as such almost everyone is there for a get-rich-quick scheme, not for the higher applications on its platform. Wait for the hype to run out, then look at it again when it's not at a peak value.
  - Kiro 9y ago
    You could have said the same thing about many things that in the end resulted in a technological paradigm shift. Ethereum is only a couple of years old.
    - root_axis 9y ago
      This is a pointless observation because you could have also said the same thing about all the useless crap that never amounted to anything.
lossolo 9y ago
> just toy applications that have no practical purpose What? Look at all the ICOs: https://mona.co/ https://mona.co/ and this: http://www.coindesk.com/150-million-tim-draper-backed-bancor-completes-largest-ever-ico/ http://www.coindesk.com/150-million-tim-draper-backed-bancor... and here more: https://www.coingecko.com/ico?locale=en https://www.coingecko.com/ico?locale=en
- root_axis 9y ago
  > https://mona.co https://mona.co Sound great, like most cryptocurrency marketing hype... where is the product? How do I get my hands on it? Let me guess "coming soon". > http://www.coindesk.com/150-million-tim-draper-backed-bancor-completes-largest-ever-ico http://www.coindesk.com/150-million-tim-draper-backed-bancor... Ok, so a bunch of people spent their money on eth internet tokens... what exactly is the practical use case here? > https://www.coingecko.com/ico?locale=en https://www.coingecko.com/ico?locale=en So you've linked to a huge list of projects begging for donations. If you don't mind, can you pick just one project out of that list that actually has a product or service I can use today and explain to me why this wasn't already possible without cryptocurrencies?
  - lossolo 9y ago
    > Ok, so a bunch of people spent their money on eth internet tokens... what exactly is the practical use case here? Use case here is that there is smart contract that guarantees you that you are the owner of those specific tokens. How you want to solve that with bitcoin?

aaron-lebo 9y ago

Indeed, it's interesting that existing applications are never cited, it's always future potential. Sounds like a great way to kick the can down the road. Invest now! Someday the network is gonna be really useful. You'll see!

52-6F-62 9y ago
Skepticism in this realm is certainly warranted and undoubtedly healthy. However, I think I should share this because the above two comments seem to have not caught wind of it. A number of enterprise-level organizations both within and without this org are working on projects and experiments both utilizing the public blockchain and private chains using the technology. I think there is some validity to the project that is simply not yet mainstream yet. https://entethalliance.org/members/ https://entethalliance.org/members/

hackinthebochs 9y ago

> If this didn't kill ethereum why would it be a problem for bitcoin? The situations simply aren't analogous. At the time ethereum was still seen as speculative and didn't have another project nipping at its heals for dominance in the turing complete contracts space. But now, ethereum is nipping at the heels of bitcoin to be the dominant blockchain currency. If bitcoin falters and money starts flowing out of bitcoin and into ethereum, there is no reason to be confident that it'll retain dominance.

drcode 9y ago

> it's essentially vaporware and all signs point to the conclusion that it will remain that way for the foreseeable future. Here's the ethereum proof of stake code that will go live on ethereum sometime this year: https://github.com/ethereum/research/blob/master/casper4/simple_casper.v.py https://github.com/ethereum/research/blob/master/casper4/sim... This is the actual production code (though of course still in draft form, under review) > just toy applications that have no practical purpose The UN uses an ethereum app to send aid to Syrian refugees via vouchers: http://www.coindesk.com/united-nations-sends-aid-to-10000-syrian-refugees-using-ethereum-blockchain/ http://www.coindesk.com/united-nations-sends-aid-to-10000-sy...

root_axis 9y ago
> Here's the ethereum proof of stake code that will go live on ethereum sometime this year Until it goes live, it's vaporware. The issue isn't "can proof of stake code be written" the question is "will eth continue to function safely and correctly using a proof of stake system"? We'll talk when it hits production. > The UN uses an ethereum app to send aid to Syrian refugees via vouchers: The details are not really clear from the article. How does this work? Why was this possible with eth but not with bitcoin or dogecoin or any other cryptotoken? How do displaced Syrian refugees accept, manage, and spend digital currency? I am highly skeptical of this without lots of details.
- drcode 9y ago
  > Until it goes live, it's vaporware. That's a ridiculous definition. So nobody can advertise that they plan to add a novel feature to a piece of software, even if the code already exists in draft form, without being labeled a vaporware peddler?
  - root_axis 9y ago
    The standards are higher for the cryptocurrency sphere which is notorious for extreme hyperbole, tons of hype, and poor results to match it, especially when you're talking about code that is supposed to solve the single most difficult problem of blockchain currencies.

tscs37 9y ago

On a technical note; the transaction(s) in question have not been rolled back, rather, the faulty contract was deprived of it's funds and the money was put into a new contract that distributed the funds to the original investors. It's not a rollback since the original contract is still on chain, just without money. If you fuel it with some money you can use it.

mquander 9y ago

Except this isn't actually happening in practice. I am yet to see any "new kinds of decentralized applications", just toy applications that have no practical purpose besides internet roulette So, uh, how about all those ERC20 ICOs? I admit that you may wish to classify them as "Internet roulette."

root_axis 9y ago
What do they actually do? I understand the purported significance of ERC20, but it is not clear why these tokens are actually useful. Literally anyone can mint them... in fact that's the point.
- mquander 9y ago
  Sure, the idea is that now it's easy to mint your own currency to do stuff with. That wasn't so easy before! So Kik is minting a currency to serve as Weird Premium Kik Points, and GameCredits is minting a currency that you get by playing Candy Crush or whatever, and BAT is minting a currency that represents attention you paid to ads, and Augur is minting a currency that makes an incentive structure for reporting prediction market results, and so on. This is plausibly better than if they had just rolled it by hand outside of Ethereum for a few reasons, e.g. - You automatically have a way for users to trade real value for your currency via ETH. (This is probably easier for devs than setting up Paypal or Stripe integration, but harder today for users.) - The currencies are something you have that's more tangible and auditable than an entry in some company's bespoke centralized database. Everyone can see it and believe in it. - Users can easily send the currency to each other by default without all the transactions having to go through you. (I don't actually know whether this is a pro or a con for many use cases.) - It's trivial to make interoperable software that accepts or holds or sends these currencies, like exchanges and wallets. - The above facts probably mean that there is something like an open liquid market for your currency, if anyone cares about it. That means people can perform mutually beneficial trades! Mutually beneficial trades are mutually beneficial. As to whether it's useful to have a bunch of currencies for different things, I think so? I mean, there already are a ton of things like this in software which behave as de facto currencies -- free-to-play games and MMOs are a good example -- and those seem like they would be well-suited to be ERC20-style tokens. And as someone who believes in incentive structures, I'm excited about the prospect of quantifying more things which are currently vagaries ("attention", "reputation", "compute time") into currencies with a market. Augur's design is a good example of this.

zefman 9y ago

> Ethereum is actually a platform for new kinds of decentralized (often financial) applications (dApps) that run on a peer-to-peer network of computers There are a few very interesting things in the pipeline. Here are a few: https://golem.network/ https://golem.network/ https://status.im/ https://status.im/ https://gnosis.pm/ https://gnosis.pm/ https://basicattentiontoken.org/ https://basicattentiontoken.org/ https://augur.net/ https://augur.net/

root_axis 9y ago
> in the pipeline And that's the crux of it. As I said, I'm yet to see anything that's actually useful. There are a lot of claims about all the amazing things that will be possible at some point in the future, but besides internet gambling, I've yet to see a demonstration or even a coherent explanation of something useful that these systems are capable of that isn't already possible and less complex with existing systems. (Just so you know, I was already aware of status and augur, but I examined your other links as well before responding)
- problems 9y ago
  Indeed, most of the things created on the Ethereum platform are just shittier versions of things that exist - while decentralization can be a huge boon to some things it needs to combat its inherent complexity increase for users. Ethereum does not lend itself well to that, as such almost everyone is there for a get-rich-quick scheme, not for the higher applications on its platform. Wait for the hype to run out, then look at it again when it's not at a peak value.
- Kiro 9y ago
  You could have said the same thing about many things that in the end resulted in a technological paradigm shift. Ethereum is only a couple of years old.
  - root_axis 9y ago
    This is a pointless observation because you could have also said the same thing about all the useless crap that never amounted to anything.

lossolo 9y ago

> just toy applications that have no practical purpose What? Look at all the ICOs: https://mona.co/ https://mona.co/ and this: http://www.coindesk.com/150-million-tim-draper-backed-bancor-completes-largest-ever-ico/ http://www.coindesk.com/150-million-tim-draper-backed-bancor... and here more: https://www.coingecko.com/ico?locale=en https://www.coingecko.com/ico?locale=en

root_axis 9y ago
> https://mona.co https://mona.co Sound great, like most cryptocurrency marketing hype... where is the product? How do I get my hands on it? Let me guess "coming soon". > http://www.coindesk.com/150-million-tim-draper-backed-bancor-completes-largest-ever-ico http://www.coindesk.com/150-million-tim-draper-backed-bancor... Ok, so a bunch of people spent their money on eth internet tokens... what exactly is the practical use case here? > https://www.coingecko.com/ico?locale=en https://www.coingecko.com/ico?locale=en So you've linked to a huge list of projects begging for donations. If you don't mind, can you pick just one project out of that list that actually has a product or service I can use today and explain to me why this wasn't already possible without cryptocurrencies?
- lossolo 9y ago
  > Ok, so a bunch of people spent their money on eth internet tokens... what exactly is the practical use case here? Use case here is that there is smart contract that guarantees you that you are the owner of those specific tokens. How you want to solve that with bitcoin?