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Back in the day there was a website where you could fill in a few details and it would create a bitcoin clone including downloadable source. What value do bitc

Back in the day there was a website where you could fill in a few details and it would create a bitcoin clone including downloadable source. What value do bitcoin alts offer? Hardly anything. Your position is just absurd to say that Ethereum and what is buildable on top of it are valueless. This comment, at the top of a hn thread is a great example of slashdoting of the hn community. It's both weird and educational to watch it happen.

hudon 9y ago
Your comment is just one big ad hominem so I'm going to guess what your position is: tokens on the blockchain are great to bootstrap users. (correct me if I'm wrong) Given my assumption, can you explain why I can't do this: 1- Have a great idea for a decentralized marketplace app (think OpenBazaar) 2- Store 21 million BazaarCoin in a MySQL database and give these coins some purpose in my app (eg. used to buy stuff) 3- Setup APIs so people can easily trade them (use public-key crypto to track ownership) 4- Make all my code open source and also provide read-only APIs so anyone anywhere can quickly audit the database of coins. 5- Have various exchanges setup USD/BazaarCoin trading pairs 6- Explain all this in a white paper and organize an initial-bazaarcoin-offering to "bootstrap the network" Where does the blockchain fit in to add value?
- avsa 9y ago
  Your site can be taken offline either because it can't handle too much traffic, because authorities seized your servers or simply because you decided you didn't want to play anymore. If that doesn't happen and your site becomes very popular, you might be tempted to create a bunch of coins on your own mysql database to pay yourself. Blockchain prevents all that: your code is committed and public
  - hudon 9y ago
    > because it can't handle too much traffic The two most popular blockchains, Ethereum and Bitcoin, can't "handle too much traffic". They both suffer from severe congestion the moment people start using them actively. Distributed databases that have existed for a while scale much more efficiently. Blockchains do not prevent this. > you decided you didn't want to play anymore If the coins have value, users are incentivized to keep the app running to preserve their wealth and to preserve the value of having a network of users participating in the decentralized app. Because all the code is open source and all the data is readily available, I can easily sell off the write keys to the highest bidder. There will be bidders because the BazaarCoins and userbase has value. If it does not have value, then there is nothing lost in me burning the write keys. The blockchain does not add value here. > you might be tempted to create a bunch of coins on your own mysql database to pay yourself I cannot do this without hurting the network. The data is all readable so people will know. If I'm lying about the data being available, I will be sued or worse: arrested for fraud (because I'm selling something that is not in the contract). The blockchain does not prevent this either, by the way. If anything, it is worse: for example, the Ethereum Foundation broke their promise of honoring "code is law" by reverting transactions on the blockchain and paying people who should not have been paid. In the real world, this is fraud. > because authorities seized your servers Bingo! I agree with this argument. The blockchain allows anyone to use the app and disregard authority.
jaredklewis 9y ago
Where does he say Ethereum is valueless? He just explains that ethereum made launching a coin easier (a point you dispute) and, as a result, more crap coins are popping up. That most alt coins are crap is, I think, common sense. Such agresssive investment into something with such limited present-day value (i.e. The PE ratio, as it were) smells off. If cryptos are like other markets, they'll need to show more short term value soon, or crash.
wyldfire 9y ago
> What value do bitcoin alts offer? Hardly anything. Agreed, if taken by count. But there's a few that offer real distinctiveness IMO: Litecoin (scrypt, segwit), Monero (cryptonight, ring ct), Myriad (multi-PoW), Peercoin (PoS), CounterParty (colored coins/tokens). I'm not super up-to-date so there are bound to be more modern ones too. We all heard Litecoin loud and clear win the race to segwit and it lit a fire under Bitcoin. In fact, many of these coins serve as inspiration for features included or considered for inclusion in bitcoin. So if nothing else they offer real world testing grounds (not merely testnet) for cryptocoin features. > Your position is just absurd to say that Ethereum and what is buildable on top of it are valueless. As noted elsewhere, I don't think Ethereum is worthless. But there are a lot of junk assets on there. Are there more junk Ethereum assets than there are junk altcoins? Well, IMO, the only investment altcoins solicit is computational capacity of PoW to secure their blockchain. Some altcoins do a premine and in general I think those are often as shady as some of the junk Ethereum assets.

hudon 9y ago

Your comment is just one big ad hominem so I'm going to guess what your position is: tokens on the blockchain are great to bootstrap users. (correct me if I'm wrong) Given my assumption, can you explain why I can't do this: 1- Have a great idea for a decentralized marketplace app (think OpenBazaar) 2- Store 21 million BazaarCoin in a MySQL database and give these coins some purpose in my app (eg. used to buy stuff) 3- Setup APIs so people can easily trade them (use public-key crypto to track ownership) 4- Make all my code open source and also provide read-only APIs so anyone anywhere can quickly audit the database of coins. 5- Have various exchanges setup USD/BazaarCoin trading pairs 6- Explain all this in a white paper and organize an initial-bazaarcoin-offering to "bootstrap the network" Where does the blockchain fit in to add value?

avsa 9y ago
Your site can be taken offline either because it can't handle too much traffic, because authorities seized your servers or simply because you decided you didn't want to play anymore. If that doesn't happen and your site becomes very popular, you might be tempted to create a bunch of coins on your own mysql database to pay yourself. Blockchain prevents all that: your code is committed and public
- hudon 9y ago
  > because it can't handle too much traffic The two most popular blockchains, Ethereum and Bitcoin, can't "handle too much traffic". They both suffer from severe congestion the moment people start using them actively. Distributed databases that have existed for a while scale much more efficiently. Blockchains do not prevent this. > you decided you didn't want to play anymore If the coins have value, users are incentivized to keep the app running to preserve their wealth and to preserve the value of having a network of users participating in the decentralized app. Because all the code is open source and all the data is readily available, I can easily sell off the write keys to the highest bidder. There will be bidders because the BazaarCoins and userbase has value. If it does not have value, then there is nothing lost in me burning the write keys. The blockchain does not add value here. > you might be tempted to create a bunch of coins on your own mysql database to pay yourself I cannot do this without hurting the network. The data is all readable so people will know. If I'm lying about the data being available, I will be sued or worse: arrested for fraud (because I'm selling something that is not in the contract). The blockchain does not prevent this either, by the way. If anything, it is worse: for example, the Ethereum Foundation broke their promise of honoring "code is law" by reverting transactions on the blockchain and paying people who should not have been paid. In the real world, this is fraud. > because authorities seized your servers Bingo! I agree with this argument. The blockchain allows anyone to use the app and disregard authority.

jaredklewis 9y ago

Where does he say Ethereum is valueless? He just explains that ethereum made launching a coin easier (a point you dispute) and, as a result, more crap coins are popping up. That most alt coins are crap is, I think, common sense. Such agresssive investment into something with such limited present-day value (i.e. The PE ratio, as it were) smells off. If cryptos are like other markets, they'll need to show more short term value soon, or crash.

wyldfire 9y ago

> What value do bitcoin alts offer? Hardly anything. Agreed, if taken by count. But there's a few that offer real distinctiveness IMO: Litecoin (scrypt, segwit), Monero (cryptonight, ring ct), Myriad (multi-PoW), Peercoin (PoS), CounterParty (colored coins/tokens). I'm not super up-to-date so there are bound to be more modern ones too. We all heard Litecoin loud and clear win the race to segwit and it lit a fire under Bitcoin. In fact, many of these coins serve as inspiration for features included or considered for inclusion in bitcoin. So if nothing else they offer real world testing grounds (not merely testnet) for cryptocoin features. > Your position is just absurd to say that Ethereum and what is buildable on top of it are valueless. As noted elsewhere, I don't think Ethereum is worthless. But there are a lot of junk assets on there. Are there more junk Ethereum assets than there are junk altcoins? Well, IMO, the only investment altcoins solicit is computational capacity of PoW to secure their blockchain. Some altcoins do a premine and in general I think those are often as shady as some of the junk Ethereum assets.