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Unfortunately, most people don't understand what a blockchain is, including many people working on altcoins. This causes them to make buzzwordy statements which

Unfortunately, most people don't understand what a blockchain is, including many people working on altcoins. This causes them to make buzzwordy statements which are, to everyone else, nonsensical. "Code is law" being one of them. "Property on the blockchain" being another.

simias 9y ago
The lack of technical knowledge in the cryptocurrency community is staggering. It's obvious that a huge number of people are attracted by the "get rich quick" aspect of it all and they lack the basics to really understand the trade-offs and the subtleties of the various blockchain "flavors" and tweaks. So it turns into dumb cargo culting like "Proof of Stake is 100% proven not to work", "Proof of Stake is 100% proven to work", "Lightning Network is going to fix everything and bring world peace", "Lightning Network is going to ruin everything and bring WW3" etc... And you can't have any constructive discussion because if you try to argue for or against a certain technical proposal you'll immediately be called a "paid shill" or a "troll" regardless of your arguments. I've been lurking in the bitcoin subreddits lately and it's really one of the least helpful and constructive communities around. And it's a bit sad because on the technical side the blockchain is pretty damn interesting.
- nicksdjohnson 9y ago
  In all seriousness, you should lurk in the Ethereum subreddit instead. We have our share of cheerleaders who take the black and white "this good, that bad" position without evidence, but they're not dominant, and we have a far larger proportion of developers who are interested in building cool technology and are able to look objectively at the problems involved.
  - vertex-four 9y ago
    Ehh... I have quite similar issues with the Ethereum crowd. Nobody understands in which situations they need distributed consensus on some state, and what the other available solutions to various similar problems are. Blockchains solve a very niche (but previously difficult-to-solve!) problem, and given that they literally cost money to use, it's good to use other tools to solve problems when you can.
nawitus 9y ago
Why is property on the blockchain nonsensical?
- vertex-four 9y ago
  Property only exists insofar as someone enforces it. Whether that's yourself, your Government, or your local militia that you pay. If you can't prevent someone from taking it, it's not your property. So... why put notice that you own a piece of property on the blockchain, if you're already putting trust in someone to enforce your property? Why not just ask them to publish notice that you own the property?
  - cdoxsey 9y ago
    Yes but if you've ever purchased property the titling process can be really expensive. A block chain provides a way "to publish notice" that's indelible so could lower costs. In countries with poor property rights it could also help bootstrap the system.
    - jacobush 9y ago
      Yes but never forget the $5 wrench solution to crypto problems.
    - vertex-four 9y ago
      You can "publish notice" by putting a sign outside your front door. The reason the titling process is expensive is because your Government requires it, not because publishing notice in some reasonable manner is inherently expensive. (We publish notice of a lot of things just by sticking an ad in the paper as it is, property is a weird one.) What issues is the titling process solving that cannot be solved in any way without a blockchain?
      - kaibr 9y ago
        You called property "weird" so I wonder whether you are aware that property is weird exactly because of the double spending problem. A land title registry gives you double spend protection, not just irrevocable publication. Your point of course stands, since you're trusting someone with enforcement, you might as well trust them with double spend protection. I'd say decentralized irrevocable publication (e.g. certificate transparency) is much cheaper than decentralized double spend protection.
xorcist 9y ago
This is the dot com age of the blockchain. It is hard, close to impossible, to conduct business in this space because at all times are you surrounded by questionable upstarts and outright scams who compete by screaming incoherent buzzwords the loudest. All these have valuations far above what a serious upstart could ever achieve. People make outlandish promises that no person of average intelligence could ever take seriously taking up all the air, keynoting conferences and generally diverting discourse from what really needs to be done in order for this technology to be useful. I think we have to wait for all the ICOs and rich statefullness flim-flam to subside before we see any real benefits from this space.
- vertex-four 9y ago
  Very likely true, but the question is... what benefits are there to be found? I think we found most of the useful spaces for a blockchain quite early on - aside from currency, there's squaring Zooko's Triangle (identity/nameservices), trustless gambling, and simple mechanisms for agreeing where to send money. I think the next set of services (once we've solved scalability+transaction fee problems) will revolve around figuring out what to do now that we have a currency that is very easy to send to anyone over the Internet, rather than trying to develop blockchain technology itself further. Even just getting it into people's hands and developing the user experience further is going to result in the currency gaining far more utility. (I'll note that we still have no reasonable protocol for implementing subscription payments etc.) There was a short period of time, between bitcoin entering the public consciousness and its technology becoming a platform for investment in thin air, an ability for me to buy a whole lot of things with it. With just a little effort, I could've survived with no traditional currency at all. And then that vanished, quickly, as it became obvious that its teething problems were not being solved.

simias 9y ago

The lack of technical knowledge in the cryptocurrency community is staggering. It's obvious that a huge number of people are attracted by the "get rich quick" aspect of it all and they lack the basics to really understand the trade-offs and the subtleties of the various blockchain "flavors" and tweaks. So it turns into dumb cargo culting like "Proof of Stake is 100% proven not to work", "Proof of Stake is 100% proven to work", "Lightning Network is going to fix everything and bring world peace", "Lightning Network is going to ruin everything and bring WW3" etc... And you can't have any constructive discussion because if you try to argue for or against a certain technical proposal you'll immediately be called a "paid shill" or a "troll" regardless of your arguments. I've been lurking in the bitcoin subreddits lately and it's really one of the least helpful and constructive communities around. And it's a bit sad because on the technical side the blockchain is pretty damn interesting.

nicksdjohnson 9y ago
In all seriousness, you should lurk in the Ethereum subreddit instead. We have our share of cheerleaders who take the black and white "this good, that bad" position without evidence, but they're not dominant, and we have a far larger proportion of developers who are interested in building cool technology and are able to look objectively at the problems involved.
- vertex-four 9y ago
  Ehh... I have quite similar issues with the Ethereum crowd. Nobody understands in which situations they need distributed consensus on some state, and what the other available solutions to various similar problems are. Blockchains solve a very niche (but previously difficult-to-solve!) problem, and given that they literally cost money to use, it's good to use other tools to solve problems when you can.

nawitus 9y ago

Why is property on the blockchain nonsensical?

vertex-four 9y ago
Property only exists insofar as someone enforces it. Whether that's yourself, your Government, or your local militia that you pay. If you can't prevent someone from taking it, it's not your property. So... why put notice that you own a piece of property on the blockchain, if you're already putting trust in someone to enforce your property? Why not just ask them to publish notice that you own the property?
- cdoxsey 9y ago
  Yes but if you've ever purchased property the titling process can be really expensive. A block chain provides a way "to publish notice" that's indelible so could lower costs. In countries with poor property rights it could also help bootstrap the system.
  - jacobush 9y ago
    Yes but never forget the $5 wrench solution to crypto problems.
  - vertex-four 9y ago
    You can "publish notice" by putting a sign outside your front door. The reason the titling process is expensive is because your Government requires it, not because publishing notice in some reasonable manner is inherently expensive. (We publish notice of a lot of things just by sticking an ad in the paper as it is, property is a weird one.) What issues is the titling process solving that cannot be solved in any way without a blockchain?
    - kaibr 9y ago
      You called property "weird" so I wonder whether you are aware that property is weird exactly because of the double spending problem. A land title registry gives you double spend protection, not just irrevocable publication. Your point of course stands, since you're trusting someone with enforcement, you might as well trust them with double spend protection. I'd say decentralized irrevocable publication (e.g. certificate transparency) is much cheaper than decentralized double spend protection.

xorcist 9y ago

This is the dot com age of the blockchain. It is hard, close to impossible, to conduct business in this space because at all times are you surrounded by questionable upstarts and outright scams who compete by screaming incoherent buzzwords the loudest. All these have valuations far above what a serious upstart could ever achieve. People make outlandish promises that no person of average intelligence could ever take seriously taking up all the air, keynoting conferences and generally diverting discourse from what really needs to be done in order for this technology to be useful. I think we have to wait for all the ICOs and rich statefullness flim-flam to subside before we see any real benefits from this space.

vertex-four 9y ago
Very likely true, but the question is... what benefits are there to be found? I think we found most of the useful spaces for a blockchain quite early on - aside from currency, there's squaring Zooko's Triangle (identity/nameservices), trustless gambling, and simple mechanisms for agreeing where to send money. I think the next set of services (once we've solved scalability+transaction fee problems) will revolve around figuring out what to do now that we have a currency that is very easy to send to anyone over the Internet, rather than trying to develop blockchain technology itself further. Even just getting it into people's hands and developing the user experience further is going to result in the currency gaining far more utility. (I'll note that we still have no reasonable protocol for implementing subscription payments etc.) There was a short period of time, between bitcoin entering the public consciousness and its technology becoming a platform for investment in thin air, an ability for me to buy a whole lot of things with it. With just a little effort, I could've survived with no traditional currency at all. And then that vanished, quickly, as it became obvious that its teething problems were not being solved.