8 ms·

Behind the scenes with Tezos, a new blockchain upstart

87 points by janober 9y ago

laxatives 9y ago
All the complaints about the uncapped ICO aside, the biggest concern for me is the compensation structure. Breitmans et al make out big immediately. So much so that they have relatively small incentive to ensure the success of their coin. They have also demonstrated that they are both toxic PR people and incapable of responding to even the most innocuous line of questioning without going into personal attacks or sarcasm. Its too bad. I first heard about Tezos when one of their devs posted an amazing interview question here on ycombinator that spun up an enormous discussion that was being refreshed all day in my browser. But their leadership is suspect. Their statements regarding their employment timelines (fulltime vs parttime dev work, 1 year vs 4 years) doesn't really add up either. Hopefully they prove the FUD wrong, but I avoided the ICO because I can't accept that kind of risk.
- vikiomega9 9y ago
  Do you have a link to the question?
  - boxfish 9y ago
    Had the same question and did some digging. It appears to be this one by user murbard2: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12940675 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12940675
Animats 9y ago
Tezos isn't even a tradeable altcoin yet.[1] Do they even have a public blockchain? Right now, it just seems to be a site where you send them money and they give you a receipt. What could possibly go wrong? [1] https://coinmarketcap.com/ https://coinmarketcap.com/
- beaner 9y ago
  Lots could go wrong, but Ethereum launched the same way and it's now got a market cap of ~$20 billion.
  - dekz 9y ago
    Ethereum had multiple Proof of Concepts before their ICO.
    - kbody 9y ago
      Not advocating for either shitcoins, but Tezos has code and testnet https://github.com/tezos/tezos https://github.com/tezos/tezos
      - wheelerwj 9y ago
        "either shitcoins?"
        kbody 9y ago
        Ethereum or Tezos
        wheelerwj 9y ago
        as much as im a bitcoiner, calling ethereum a shitcoin or even hit ing that its in the same ballpark as Texos is a gross injustice to ethereums accomplishments this far and a massive embellishment of what tezos currently is.
        kbody 9y ago
        Not if you include all the puppeteering done by Joe Lubin and Consensys on Ethereum "Foundation" and organized bumping with ICOs coordination. Business aside, the tech is full of shortcuts and snakeoil. So far they haven't done anything that wasn't debated by the cypherpunks of the 90s and deemed insecure and irresponsible. Of course, many will claim that they did something, but with that mentality, Bitcoin wouldn't still be alive and running till now.
blueside 9y ago
An uncapped fundraiser for yet another cryptocurrency? This reminds me a lot of pump and dump penny stocks.
- dmichulke 9y ago
  I have the same feeling. However, keep in mind we're still far away from DotCom dimensions. NASDAQ back then was some 3 trillion around the top, all cryptocurrencies together are now 85 bn. So if you ask me, there will be a ~50x increase and many more ridiculous ICOs until this thing comes crushing down.
cryptotothemax 9y ago
$200 million worth of cryptocurrency has been sent to the tax haven of Guernsey. A foundation set up in Switzerland manages the funds. Founders immediately take a cut of 8.5% of the donations received. https://tezos.ch/pages/contribution-terms.html#contribution-terms https://tezos.ch/pages/contribution-terms.html#contribution-...
- skrebbel 9y ago
  I'm totally outside the cryptocurrency world. Can anyone explain to me why anyone would invest in an organization like this? If what you say is true then the thing is so clearly set up to just be a money grab and nothing else that I'm baffled it works. I don't understand why scams seem to work better with cryptocurrencies than with "normal" money. A scam is still a scam right? What am I missing? In practice, what kind of people invest in these kinds of things? Are they VCs? Pension funds? Mobsters who need to whitewash?
  - whiskers08xmt 9y ago
    I think it might be because their are precendent for ICOs delivering amazing returns. Everyon wants to get in on "the next Ethereum", without realizing how rare opportunities like that are.
    - smokeyj 9y ago
      I think it's people who already made a bunch of money on crypto that can't easily liquidate and are looking to hedge their risk no matter how stupid the coin.
  - davidgerard 9y ago
    Chinese speculators. People in the anglosphere keep forgetting it, but almost all crypto action is in China. All western usage is a sideshow. So basically, they're buying this stuff as pure speculation, of the sort indistinguishable from gambling.
    - 9y ago
shishy 9y ago
Another related article was posted a while ago here on HN, but I wanted to re-share it here since it's relevant to the problem that this company tries to solve (and, in case someone missed it): https://www.oii.ox.ac.uk/blog/the-blockchain-paradox-why-distributed-ledger-technologies-may-do-little-to-transform-the-economy/ https://www.oii.ox.ac.uk/blog/the-blockchain-paradox-why-dis... The governance paradox was something I was thinking about (after reading the article): though blockchain replaces these third-party enforces by decentralizing the process, it doesn't fully remove the human element.
patrickk 9y ago
Here's the ETH contract address: https://etherscan.io/address/0xb56d622ddf60ec532b5f43b4ff9b0e7b1ff92db3 https://etherscan.io/address/0xb56d622ddf60ec532b5f43b4ff9b0... over 20,000 transactions in Ether alone.
DonbunEf7 9y ago
Fixing the governance model is well and fine, but is the smart-contract language up to the task as well? We are mainly looking for fixes to the recursive-call plan interference bugs from Ethereum. It's not clear how to create closely-held values either. https://www.tezos.com/static/papers/language.pdf https://www.tezos.com/static/papers/language.pdf
murbard2 9y ago
Original hn thread (2014) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8134182 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8134182
spectrum1234 9y ago
I feel I must nitpick and point out something many don't understand about decentralization. "...an event that would result in two separate bitcoins. The players in this drama all have incentives to reach a consensus" - Not true. Because of competition from OTHER blockchains two separate bitcoins can be an optimal play. The fact that bitcoin may NOT have consensus is a feature not a bug. This is similar to open source.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
Cieplak 9y ago
I wonder who will be the first to posess a computer with enough quibits to properly implement Shor's algorithm and steal all the bitcoin.

87 points by janober 9y ago

All the complaints about the uncapped ICO aside, the biggest concern for me is the compensation structure. Breitmans et al make out big immediately. So much so that they have relatively small incentive to ensure the success of their coin. They have also demonstrated that they are both toxic PR people and incapable of responding to even the most innocuous line of questioning without going into personal attacks or sarcasm. Its too bad. I first heard about Tezos when one of their devs posted an amazing interview question here on ycombinator that spun up an enormous discussion that was being refreshed all day in my browser. But their leadership is suspect. Their statements regarding their employment timelines (fulltime vs parttime dev work, 1 year vs 4 years) doesn't really add up either. Hopefully they prove the FUD wrong, but I avoided the ICO because I can't accept that kind of risk.

vikiomega9 9y ago
Do you have a link to the question?
- boxfish 9y ago
  Had the same question and did some digging. It appears to be this one by user murbard2: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12940675 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12940675

Animats 9y ago

Tezos isn't even a tradeable altcoin yet.[1] Do they even have a public blockchain? Right now, it just seems to be a site where you send them money and they give you a receipt. What could possibly go wrong? [1] https://coinmarketcap.com/ https://coinmarketcap.com/

beaner 9y ago
Lots could go wrong, but Ethereum launched the same way and it's now got a market cap of ~$20 billion.
- dekz 9y ago
  Ethereum had multiple Proof of Concepts before their ICO.
  - kbody 9y ago
    Not advocating for either shitcoins, but Tezos has code and testnet https://github.com/tezos/tezos https://github.com/tezos/tezos
    - wheelerwj 9y ago
      "either shitcoins?"
      - kbody 9y ago
        Ethereum or Tezos
        wheelerwj 9y ago
        as much as im a bitcoiner, calling ethereum a shitcoin or even hit ing that its in the same ballpark as Texos is a gross injustice to ethereums accomplishments this far and a massive embellishment of what tezos currently is.
        kbody 9y ago
        Not if you include all the puppeteering done by Joe Lubin and Consensys on Ethereum "Foundation" and organized bumping with ICOs coordination. Business aside, the tech is full of shortcuts and snakeoil. So far they haven't done anything that wasn't debated by the cypherpunks of the 90s and deemed insecure and irresponsible. Of course, many will claim that they did something, but with that mentality, Bitcoin wouldn't still be alive and running till now.

blueside 9y ago

An uncapped fundraiser for yet another cryptocurrency? This reminds me a lot of pump and dump penny stocks.

dmichulke 9y ago
I have the same feeling. However, keep in mind we're still far away from DotCom dimensions. NASDAQ back then was some 3 trillion around the top, all cryptocurrencies together are now 85 bn. So if you ask me, there will be a ~50x increase and many more ridiculous ICOs until this thing comes crushing down.

cryptotothemax 9y ago

$200 million worth of cryptocurrency has been sent to the tax haven of Guernsey. A foundation set up in Switzerland manages the funds. Founders immediately take a cut of 8.5% of the donations received. https://tezos.ch/pages/contribution-terms.html#contribution-terms https://tezos.ch/pages/contribution-terms.html#contribution-...

skrebbel 9y ago
I'm totally outside the cryptocurrency world. Can anyone explain to me why anyone would invest in an organization like this? If what you say is true then the thing is so clearly set up to just be a money grab and nothing else that I'm baffled it works. I don't understand why scams seem to work better with cryptocurrencies than with "normal" money. A scam is still a scam right? What am I missing? In practice, what kind of people invest in these kinds of things? Are they VCs? Pension funds? Mobsters who need to whitewash?
- whiskers08xmt 9y ago
  I think it might be because their are precendent for ICOs delivering amazing returns. Everyon wants to get in on "the next Ethereum", without realizing how rare opportunities like that are.
  - smokeyj 9y ago
    I think it's people who already made a bunch of money on crypto that can't easily liquidate and are looking to hedge their risk no matter how stupid the coin.
- davidgerard 9y ago
  Chinese speculators. People in the anglosphere keep forgetting it, but almost all crypto action is in China. All western usage is a sideshow. So basically, they're buying this stuff as pure speculation, of the sort indistinguishable from gambling.
  - 9y ago

shishy 9y ago

Another related article was posted a while ago here on HN, but I wanted to re-share it here since it's relevant to the problem that this company tries to solve (and, in case someone missed it): https://www.oii.ox.ac.uk/blog/the-blockchain-paradox-why-distributed-ledger-technologies-may-do-little-to-transform-the-economy/ https://www.oii.ox.ac.uk/blog/the-blockchain-paradox-why-dis... The governance paradox was something I was thinking about (after reading the article): though blockchain replaces these third-party enforces by decentralizing the process, it doesn't fully remove the human element.

patrickk 9y ago

Here's the ETH contract address: https://etherscan.io/address/0xb56d622ddf60ec532b5f43b4ff9b0e7b1ff92db3 https://etherscan.io/address/0xb56d622ddf60ec532b5f43b4ff9b0... over 20,000 transactions in Ether alone.

DonbunEf7 9y ago

Fixing the governance model is well and fine, but is the smart-contract language up to the task as well? We are mainly looking for fixes to the recursive-call plan interference bugs from Ethereum. It's not clear how to create closely-held values either. https://www.tezos.com/static/papers/language.pdf https://www.tezos.com/static/papers/language.pdf

murbard2 9y ago

Original hn thread (2014) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8134182 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8134182

spectrum1234 9y ago

I feel I must nitpick and point out something many don't understand about decentralization. "...an event that would result in two separate bitcoins. The players in this drama all have incentives to reach a consensus" - Not true. Because of competition from OTHER blockchains two separate bitcoins can be an optimal play. The fact that bitcoin may NOT have consensus is a feature not a bug. This is similar to open source.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

Cieplak 9y ago

I wonder who will be the first to posess a computer with enough quibits to properly implement Shor's algorithm and steal all the bitcoin.