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1. What if we put "beginning" as in "before it was even called the Internet"? Indeed, ARPANET, which came online in 1969, saw fast growth in the United States i

by hudon 8y ago

1. What if we put "beginning" as in "before it was even called the Internet"? Indeed, ARPANET, which came online in 1969, saw fast growth in the United States in the 70s. Nodes came online to use it, not to make a quick buck. The government subsidized it because its potential use was obvious. Email started being used in 1972, FTP in 1973. To compare these world-changing technologies that were invented and used merely 5 years after ARPANET came online to CryptoKitties, which is the most useful thing to come out of a decade of work on blockchains, is a joke! And it's barely funny! 2. Of course the effect on the environment will continue to be pointed out: Ethereum's energy consumption is growing and the use cases are nowhere to be seen. So far, "plans" in the cryptocurrency space never go as expected. Satoshi didn't expect persistent forks and altcoins, for example. Vitalik advertised Ethereum as a "world computer" but it can barely stand when only 14k users are trading cartoon kitties on it. He also said Ethereum's "code is law", until he changed his mind and forked the network due to a hack. Please excuse skeptics for holding accountable those that do not have a history of consistent and successful results.

JumpCrisscross 8y ago
> Nodes came online to use it, not to make a quick buck Thereby allowing use and feature development to proceed hand in hand. That synergy between makers and users is wholly non-existent in the crytocurrency space, which is primarily focussed on flipping a quick buck.
darawk 8y ago
> What if we put "beginning" as in "before it was even called the Internet"? Indeed, ARPANET, which came online in 1969, saw fast growth in the United States in the 70s. Nodes came online to use it, not to make a quick buck. People use cryptocurrency too. For value transfer, and to a more limited extent, for dapps like Augur. You seem to be criticizing the delta between the lofty hopes for it and it's actual usage. The early internet did not have such lofty hopes, so its growth was more organic. If you take away the pipe dreams from crypto, you have a remnant skeleton that i'd argue very much resembles the early internet. > Of course the effect on the environment will continue to be pointed out: Ethereum's energy consumption is growing and the use cases are nowhere to be seen. So far, "plans" in the cryptocurrency space never go as expected. Satoshi didn't expect persistent forks and altcoins, for example. Vitalik advertised Ethereum as a "world computer" but it can barely stand when only 14k users are trading cartoon kitties on it. He also said Ethereum's "code is law", until he changed his mind and forked the network due to a hack. Please excuse skeptics for holding accountable those that do not have a history of consistent and successful results. So, I said there are plans for solving the energy consumption issue. And your counter-argument is what, exactly? That sometimes people didn't foresee everything that might evolve? Help me understand the argument that you're making here.
- hudon 8y ago
  > People use cryptocurrency too. For value transfer, and to a more limited extent, for dapps like Augur. Soooo, buying drugs and illegal gambling? Sure, I'll give you that one. My argument rephrased: "Because cryptocurrency investors have repeatedly made claims that don't pan out, we can be reasonably skeptical and concerned about their energy consumption until they actually fix it or at the very least provide peer-reviewed scientific analysis on how it will be fixed."
  - darawk 8y ago
    > Soooo, buying drugs and illegal gambling? Sure, I'll give you that one. Yes, although also remittance payments, and some usage in places with unstable currencies like Venezuela. Hard to gauge how much, though. > My argument rephrased: "Because cryptocurrency investors have repeatedly made claims that don't pan out, we can be reasonably skeptical and concerned about their energy consumption until they actually fix it or at the very least provide peer-reviewed scientific analysis on how it will be fixed." While that is, in the abstract, a fair argument I don't think there are actually that many examples of it in practice. Vitalik didn't claim Ethereum would be a world computer right away. He's always been clear and explicit about the scaling roadmap. I don't think the promises of the core devs of Ethereum or Bitcoin have been overstated or unmet. If you believe otherwise though, i'd be happy to listen to your argument.
    - opencl 8y ago
      Bitcoin is a solution to unstable currencies in the same way that gasoline is a fire extinguisher. People in Venezuela that want to actually eat are using USD.
      - arisAlexis 8y ago
        they cannot send or receive usd from abroad. they can do it with bitcoin. you get now the value proposition of a global currency that is not government controlled?
tfha 8y ago
I would definitely argue that blockchain is closer to the arpanet days than it is to the world wide web days. This stuff is so early. A lot of the really enabling infrastructure doesn't exist, and won't exist for years. Most builders have no idea what the true strengths and limitations are. It'll get there, but it's not a 2020 type of get there. Maybe 2025.
- hannasanarion 8y ago
  What? That makes no sense. What infrastructure? What strengths? All you're doing is solving hash puzzles because some people arbitrarily decided that solved hash puzzles have value.
  - tfha 8y ago
    You can tell the ordering of transactions in the absence of a trusted third party. There's an entire body of research dedicated to ordering transactions called Byzantine fault tolerance, but all of them require trusted parties to maintain consensus. Cryptocurrency is the first time we could really escape that. As for infrastructure, things like the lightning network will provide scalability, things like starks and bulletproofs can help both privacy and scalability, decentralized exchanges help accessibility.
- jonhendry18 8y ago
  Blockchain is closer to the early days of spam than anything else.
profalseidol 8y ago
Yet Vitalik also noted that Ethereum is not yet production ready. The roadmap is clear from the start. Proof of Stake and Sharding is in the plans. PoS has release version 0.1. Imo, the most significant work so far is proving that Smart Contracts do work, people are abusing it, but nevertheless, it works as designed. > He also said Ethereum's "code is law", until he changed his mind and forked the network due to a hack. It is ultimately a decision of the miners. They have the power to choose to upgrade or not. As for the decision to fork, it was done via voting. The decision was for the interest of the Ethereum project's success. Being a maximalist and losing sight of the goals is not desirable. But as a miner, you have the choice to not upgrade the Ethereum client you are using. And those who did not now became 'Etherem Classic'. Sure everyone should be a skeptic and hold accountable, but not to the degree of being unreasonable. One should understand why they desired to fork before making conclusions.
- rcxdude 8y ago
  The decision is mostly in the users, i.e. those actually transacting with the currency. It is up to them which set of rules they wish to use when determining if a transaction has been fufilled. Miners are necessary and have some power to disrupt a smaller fork, but they only profit if they are on a chain which people are actually participating in.
  - profalseidol 8y ago
    I agree. It's the users that pay up for gas.

by hudon 8y ago

JumpCrisscross 8y ago

> Nodes came online to use it, not to make a quick buck Thereby allowing use and feature development to proceed hand in hand. That synergy between makers and users is wholly non-existent in the crytocurrency space, which is primarily focussed on flipping a quick buck.

darawk 8y ago

> What if we put "beginning" as in "before it was even called the Internet"? Indeed, ARPANET, which came online in 1969, saw fast growth in the United States in the 70s. Nodes came online to use it, not to make a quick buck. People use cryptocurrency too. For value transfer, and to a more limited extent, for dapps like Augur. You seem to be criticizing the delta between the lofty hopes for it and it's actual usage. The early internet did not have such lofty hopes, so its growth was more organic. If you take away the pipe dreams from crypto, you have a remnant skeleton that i'd argue very much resembles the early internet. > Of course the effect on the environment will continue to be pointed out: Ethereum's energy consumption is growing and the use cases are nowhere to be seen. So far, "plans" in the cryptocurrency space never go as expected. Satoshi didn't expect persistent forks and altcoins, for example. Vitalik advertised Ethereum as a "world computer" but it can barely stand when only 14k users are trading cartoon kitties on it. He also said Ethereum's "code is law", until he changed his mind and forked the network due to a hack. Please excuse skeptics for holding accountable those that do not have a history of consistent and successful results. So, I said there are plans for solving the energy consumption issue. And your counter-argument is what, exactly? That sometimes people didn't foresee everything that might evolve? Help me understand the argument that you're making here.

hudon 8y ago
> People use cryptocurrency too. For value transfer, and to a more limited extent, for dapps like Augur. Soooo, buying drugs and illegal gambling? Sure, I'll give you that one. My argument rephrased: "Because cryptocurrency investors have repeatedly made claims that don't pan out, we can be reasonably skeptical and concerned about their energy consumption until they actually fix it or at the very least provide peer-reviewed scientific analysis on how it will be fixed."
- darawk 8y ago
  > Soooo, buying drugs and illegal gambling? Sure, I'll give you that one. Yes, although also remittance payments, and some usage in places with unstable currencies like Venezuela. Hard to gauge how much, though. > My argument rephrased: "Because cryptocurrency investors have repeatedly made claims that don't pan out, we can be reasonably skeptical and concerned about their energy consumption until they actually fix it or at the very least provide peer-reviewed scientific analysis on how it will be fixed." While that is, in the abstract, a fair argument I don't think there are actually that many examples of it in practice. Vitalik didn't claim Ethereum would be a world computer right away. He's always been clear and explicit about the scaling roadmap. I don't think the promises of the core devs of Ethereum or Bitcoin have been overstated or unmet. If you believe otherwise though, i'd be happy to listen to your argument.
  - opencl 8y ago
    Bitcoin is a solution to unstable currencies in the same way that gasoline is a fire extinguisher. People in Venezuela that want to actually eat are using USD.
    - arisAlexis 8y ago
      they cannot send or receive usd from abroad. they can do it with bitcoin. you get now the value proposition of a global currency that is not government controlled?

tfha 8y ago

I would definitely argue that blockchain is closer to the arpanet days than it is to the world wide web days. This stuff is so early. A lot of the really enabling infrastructure doesn't exist, and won't exist for years. Most builders have no idea what the true strengths and limitations are. It'll get there, but it's not a 2020 type of get there. Maybe 2025.

hannasanarion 8y ago
What? That makes no sense. What infrastructure? What strengths? All you're doing is solving hash puzzles because some people arbitrarily decided that solved hash puzzles have value.
- tfha 8y ago
  You can tell the ordering of transactions in the absence of a trusted third party. There's an entire body of research dedicated to ordering transactions called Byzantine fault tolerance, but all of them require trusted parties to maintain consensus. Cryptocurrency is the first time we could really escape that. As for infrastructure, things like the lightning network will provide scalability, things like starks and bulletproofs can help both privacy and scalability, decentralized exchanges help accessibility.
jonhendry18 8y ago
Blockchain is closer to the early days of spam than anything else.

profalseidol 8y ago

Yet Vitalik also noted that Ethereum is not yet production ready. The roadmap is clear from the start. Proof of Stake and Sharding is in the plans. PoS has release version 0.1. Imo, the most significant work so far is proving that Smart Contracts do work, people are abusing it, but nevertheless, it works as designed. > He also said Ethereum's "code is law", until he changed his mind and forked the network due to a hack. It is ultimately a decision of the miners. They have the power to choose to upgrade or not. As for the decision to fork, it was done via voting. The decision was for the interest of the Ethereum project's success. Being a maximalist and losing sight of the goals is not desirable. But as a miner, you have the choice to not upgrade the Ethereum client you are using. And those who did not now became 'Etherem Classic'. Sure everyone should be a skeptic and hold accountable, but not to the degree of being unreasonable. One should understand why they desired to fork before making conclusions.

rcxdude 8y ago
The decision is mostly in the users, i.e. those actually transacting with the currency. It is up to them which set of rules they wish to use when determining if a transaction has been fufilled. Miners are necessary and have some power to disrupt a smaller fork, but they only profit if they are on a chain which people are actually participating in.
- profalseidol 8y ago
  I agree. It's the users that pay up for gas.