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I think this should be rephrased as: the disagreement is entirely over what happens when you introduce humans (and, even more specifically, human behavior). Th
by sp527 8y ago
I think this should be rephrased as: the disagreement is entirely over what happens when you introduce humans (and, even more specifically, human behavior).
The math is theoretically sound. Anyone disagreeing with that is a fool.
A good example is the argument over network control. The mathematics of blockchain very precisely describe what percentage of accumulated mining power introduces the opportunity to defeat distributed consensus. But it's the fact that there is a human behavioral incentive to try and accumulate that aggregate mining power that might be a real problem, not the math. Granted that's a low likelihood event.
This dichotomy emerges in countless different facets of blockchain, and I think is the simplest way of delineating the line between believers and naysayers.
- asynchrony 8y agoIn my mind the main contention is the difference between assets that exist entirely within the ledger (BTC, ETH, CryptoKitties) and assets that purport to reliably track some physical asset. Mathematical certainties about cryptographic security don't help reconcile the reality of meatspace with the state of the ledger.