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Fundamentals are firmly behind Bitcoin. Ethereum is proven to be essentially more centralized and essentially less immutable ledger. That being said the experim

Fundamentals are firmly behind Bitcoin. Ethereum is proven to be essentially more centralized and essentially less immutable ledger. That being said the experiments carried out by the Ethereum community are extremely valuable and I am keeping my fingers crossed for them.

sanswork 9y ago
I think one problem a lot of people in the cryptocurrency world have is overvaluing immutability/expecting most people to demand it. Most people don't want immutable payments. If you're the consumer it is never a good deal and most people are consumers.
- Jabanga 9y ago
  You can build a mutable payment system on top of an immutable blockchain but you can't build an immutable payment system on top of a mutable blockchain. Without immutability, the blockchain will eventually lose all of its differentiating features, and have no value proposition. But I think the parent comment is wrong about Ethereum being 'less immutable'. Either a blockchain is immutable, or it isn't. A year ago, for one moment, Ethereum was mutable. But that was a unique situation that Ethereum will never find itself in again: It will never be that small of a community, and have that little happening on the blockchain. It will never be that young. Ethereum's leaders will never fail to that degree to properly warn people about smart contract security. The Ethereum community will never be that inexperienced with smart contracts, both in terms of their security properties and their economic properties (the DAO was the very first smart contract of its kind, and had a goal of attracting $500,000 worth of ETH, and instead $150 million worth was deposited). Now that the community has gotten a lesson in how smart contracts work, there will be much less sympathy for anyone who loses ETH they deposit into one. It's buyer beware at this point. So the likelihood of another hard fork happening to reverse a hack of a third party Dapp is extremely low in my opinion. Ethereum is for all intents and purposes immutable right now.
  - sanswork 9y ago
    >You can build a mutable payment system on top of an immutable blockchain Can you do this without centralization? >Without immutability, the blockchain will eventually lose all of its differentiating features, and have no value proposition. Right my point is though that for most people immutability ISN'T actually a value proposition. It's a risk.
    - Jabanga 9y ago
      >Can you do this without centralization? No, this is a service of centralized parties, which are free to use the blockchain. My point is that an immutable blockchain can have both mutable and immutable services, while a mutable blockchain can only have mutable services. The immutable blockchain therefore has a major competitive advantage over the mutable one. With respect to immutability, it is important for some critical applications, like money in countries that restrict economic rights. If you live in Venezuela for example, you will not want your wealth in the form of a digital currency that's stored on the servers of a company in another country, because that server could eventually be shutdown, or have its ledger altered by the trusted third party running it. Your government is a powerful organization after all, and could lobby the government of the country where the server is held to force the company to restrict people from your country from using its banking services. Or that country may try to punish your country's government, by sanctioning all Venezuelan nationals, which again would lead to you losing access to the ledger. You want you wealth in the form of a digital currency sitting in a decentralized network that maintains an immutable ledger.
      - sanswork 9y ago
        If you're building a service on top that is centralized why bother with the overhead of a decentralized service below? If you live in a country like Venezuela couldn't they just shut down the internet and make your savings worthless overnight?
        Jabanga 9y ago
        In many cases you wouldn't bother with the overhead, you're right. I imagine there will be situations where having some elements of the business on the blockchain, and having some off-chain and centralized would be optimal. Regarding Venezuela, there may be situations where the government is willing to shut down your bank account or prohibit meatspace financial institutions from letting you as the client use other currencies, but isn't willing to go as far as shutting down the internet. So in that scenario, an immutable ledger would have value. Also while the Venezuelan government may be able to prevent you from accessing the rest of the global internet, it can't shut the global internet down. So as soon as you leave Venezuela, you can regain access to your savings.
- nileshtrivedi 9y ago
  Nothing stops people from building centralized organizations ( "banks") providing _reversible_ transactions on top of an immutable payment platform.
  - Retric 9y ago
    Banks can't survive on immutable currency. They get out competed by those who take more risks, until the risk takers fail. And FDIC style insurance does not work with a fixed currency, so you don't want to use these banks.
  - sanswork 9y ago
    If you're going to build a central organization on top why bother with the overhead of a distributed immutable ledger below that?
- vbezhenar 9y ago
  I value immutability, when I'm talking about my savings. I'm storing my savings in cash, because I don't trust central banks, but cash isn't ideal either. US might collapse tomorrow and their dollars will become paper, I've seen that many times with other currencies. Bitcoin would be an ideal solution. But for everyday transactions I would certainly use bank card or similar technology, just because even if my bank would bankrupt, I won't lose more than 50 bucks and it's acceptable risk for convenience.
  - sanswork 9y ago
    >I value immutability, when I'm talking about my savings. What about if someone steals your savings? How much do you value immutability then?
    - vbezhenar 9y ago
      This means that I did something wrong and immutability is not a problem. Immutability helps me to protect my savings. So I wouldn't value it less.
      - sanswork 9y ago
        But your life savings are gone either way. You want to risk your life savings on your having perfect computer security?
        vbezhenar 9y ago
        My life savings are more likely to gone because of bank goes bankrupt or country seizing my money or corrupted bank clerk stealing my money or hundred other reasons which is not my failure at all. I prefer to be responsible for important things in my live and not trust others if possible.

sanswork 9y ago

I think one problem a lot of people in the cryptocurrency world have is overvaluing immutability/expecting most people to demand it. Most people don't want immutable payments. If you're the consumer it is never a good deal and most people are consumers.

Jabanga 9y ago
You can build a mutable payment system on top of an immutable blockchain but you can't build an immutable payment system on top of a mutable blockchain. Without immutability, the blockchain will eventually lose all of its differentiating features, and have no value proposition. But I think the parent comment is wrong about Ethereum being 'less immutable'. Either a blockchain is immutable, or it isn't. A year ago, for one moment, Ethereum was mutable. But that was a unique situation that Ethereum will never find itself in again: It will never be that small of a community, and have that little happening on the blockchain. It will never be that young. Ethereum's leaders will never fail to that degree to properly warn people about smart contract security. The Ethereum community will never be that inexperienced with smart contracts, both in terms of their security properties and their economic properties (the DAO was the very first smart contract of its kind, and had a goal of attracting $500,000 worth of ETH, and instead $150 million worth was deposited). Now that the community has gotten a lesson in how smart contracts work, there will be much less sympathy for anyone who loses ETH they deposit into one. It's buyer beware at this point. So the likelihood of another hard fork happening to reverse a hack of a third party Dapp is extremely low in my opinion. Ethereum is for all intents and purposes immutable right now.
- sanswork 9y ago
  >You can build a mutable payment system on top of an immutable blockchain Can you do this without centralization? >Without immutability, the blockchain will eventually lose all of its differentiating features, and have no value proposition. Right my point is though that for most people immutability ISN'T actually a value proposition. It's a risk.
  - Jabanga 9y ago
    >Can you do this without centralization? No, this is a service of centralized parties, which are free to use the blockchain. My point is that an immutable blockchain can have both mutable and immutable services, while a mutable blockchain can only have mutable services. The immutable blockchain therefore has a major competitive advantage over the mutable one. With respect to immutability, it is important for some critical applications, like money in countries that restrict economic rights. If you live in Venezuela for example, you will not want your wealth in the form of a digital currency that's stored on the servers of a company in another country, because that server could eventually be shutdown, or have its ledger altered by the trusted third party running it. Your government is a powerful organization after all, and could lobby the government of the country where the server is held to force the company to restrict people from your country from using its banking services. Or that country may try to punish your country's government, by sanctioning all Venezuelan nationals, which again would lead to you losing access to the ledger. You want you wealth in the form of a digital currency sitting in a decentralized network that maintains an immutable ledger.
    - sanswork 9y ago
      If you're building a service on top that is centralized why bother with the overhead of a decentralized service below? If you live in a country like Venezuela couldn't they just shut down the internet and make your savings worthless overnight?
      - Jabanga 9y ago
        In many cases you wouldn't bother with the overhead, you're right. I imagine there will be situations where having some elements of the business on the blockchain, and having some off-chain and centralized would be optimal. Regarding Venezuela, there may be situations where the government is willing to shut down your bank account or prohibit meatspace financial institutions from letting you as the client use other currencies, but isn't willing to go as far as shutting down the internet. So in that scenario, an immutable ledger would have value. Also while the Venezuelan government may be able to prevent you from accessing the rest of the global internet, it can't shut the global internet down. So as soon as you leave Venezuela, you can regain access to your savings.
nileshtrivedi 9y ago
Nothing stops people from building centralized organizations ( "banks") providing _reversible_ transactions on top of an immutable payment platform.
- Retric 9y ago
  Banks can't survive on immutable currency. They get out competed by those who take more risks, until the risk takers fail. And FDIC style insurance does not work with a fixed currency, so you don't want to use these banks.
- sanswork 9y ago
  If you're going to build a central organization on top why bother with the overhead of a distributed immutable ledger below that?
vbezhenar 9y ago
I value immutability, when I'm talking about my savings. I'm storing my savings in cash, because I don't trust central banks, but cash isn't ideal either. US might collapse tomorrow and their dollars will become paper, I've seen that many times with other currencies. Bitcoin would be an ideal solution. But for everyday transactions I would certainly use bank card or similar technology, just because even if my bank would bankrupt, I won't lose more than 50 bucks and it's acceptable risk for convenience.
- sanswork 9y ago
  >I value immutability, when I'm talking about my savings. What about if someone steals your savings? How much do you value immutability then?
  - vbezhenar 9y ago
    This means that I did something wrong and immutability is not a problem. Immutability helps me to protect my savings. So I wouldn't value it less.
    - sanswork 9y ago
      But your life savings are gone either way. You want to risk your life savings on your having perfect computer security?
      - vbezhenar 9y ago
        My life savings are more likely to gone because of bank goes bankrupt or country seizing my money or corrupted bank clerk stealing my money or hundred other reasons which is not my failure at all. I prefer to be responsible for important things in my live and not trust others if possible.