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Cryptocurrencies, and especially Ethereum, are truly novel innovations in computer science that cross many academic disciplines. The linked example is a great w

Cryptocurrencies, and especially Ethereum, are truly novel innovations in computer science that cross many academic disciplines. The linked example is a great write-up. It’s sad that there is a vocal group, especially on HN, that knee-jerk hates everything blockchain related and wishes with their entire being for it to fail. However, I think smart contracts are fascinating and wish more people would keep an open mind.

tdb7893 8y ago
I personally thought I had an open mind about it but it keeps over promising and under delivering (the most extreme example is the rhetoric surrounding the DAO on the ethereum platform). It's undoubtedly a cool technology but at a certain point it's hard to muster any excitement anymore.
- nowarninglabel 8y ago
  That's true of just about any technological innovation though. Even look at recent examples with space, self-driving cars, etc. I'd posture that we are currently somewhere in the Trough of Disillusionment [0] and that it'll another year or two before there's more mass use/adoption. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hype_cycle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hype_cycle
  - lifthrasiir 8y ago
    Hype cycle suffers from a survivor bias. You cannot use hype cycle to determine if the "innovation" will be eventually successful, as failed "innovations" may also follow the first half of the hype cycle and then fall off.
elvinyung 8y ago
I definitely agree with you about the anti-blockchain bubble that's formed, but I think that there are a few unanswered questions about non-technological factors (shameless self-promotion: [1]) that will unfortunately limit them to be little more than interesting technologies for now. [1] https://www.notion.so/Yet-Another-Rant-About-Blockchains-ece6657d0a3b491bb39dd8002055a5af https://www.notion.so/Yet-Another-Rant-About-Blockchains-ece...
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
ProfBernardo 8y ago
Agreed. I left HN after I realized how stupid the people here were and migrated to a troll account. It's amazing how abrasive the vocal group is. I ditched my real life identity (which I use everywhere else) just so I could feel a little freer in expressing my true opinion on this forum. +1 for downvotes. Oh wait, you can't. At least, not the average user... I think admins can, though, right?
- ProfBernardo 8y ago
  Down voted. I love the double standard on Hacker News. Beautifully transparent, super-class of readers, who can downvote.
  - erikpukinskis 8y ago
    I downvoted you mostly because I can. But also because this comment violates the rules.
empath75 8y ago
I think it’s more a reaction to the con artists that infested the whole industry than the technology itself.
- Marazan 8y ago
  No, it is a reaction against the terrible technology.
LeoPanthera 8y ago
I don't want to be anti-blockchain, but I have yet to come across any problems that are solved better with a blockchain than with any other traditional technology - except for the original one, a distributed electronic currency.
- erikpukinskis 8y ago
  I don’t understand why you would be anti- something so new at all. To me it’s preposterous that you would evaluate a new technology based on how many problems it and only it can solve. Don’t you get that new technology has an incubation period where its fundamental challenges must be overcome? What problem could early steam powered cars solve that horses couldn’t solve better? I doubt the earliest ones performed better than the animal based solutions for ANY specific use. Yet writing off automobiles at that stage would’ve been a mistake only obvious in retrospect. Especially for something as truly bizarre as Ethereum, why write it off at this early stage?
  - chickenfries 8y ago
    There are so many advantages to early cars, are you kidding me? They don’t eat hay and shit for one. Is there anything that your argument wouldn’t work for? Do you truly have to wait a decade before making any judgements about the hype around a technology? When will we be able to say if smart contracts have been overhyped?
    - pfisch 8y ago
      They eat coal/gasoline which is probably more expensive. Also they worked on almost no terrain at all compared to horses and constantly broke down. The only reason they would even make sense to pursue would be because of how successful the train was. Similar to how this bitcoin stuff makes more sense when you look at the success of the internet/paypal/amazon.
      - arcticbull 8y ago
        You know you can research this stuff right? Gasoline was a waste product in the refining of crude oil (specifically, into Kerosene [itself a replacement for whale oil] they were making anyways). It used to be considered garbage. [1] It really only became valuable once they realized they could power cars with it. They used to dump it in rivers, making them catch fire. [2] In what - concrete - way is bitcoin related to the success of Amazon or the internet? Please be specific and don't hand-wave if you're going to make such bold claims. [1] https://knowledgenuts.com/2014/02/24/gasoline-used-to-be-considered-garbage/ https://knowledgenuts.com/2014/02/24/gasoline-used-to-be-con... [2] http://www.attendly.com/rockefellers-unconventional-approach-to-getting-rid-of-waste/ http://www.attendly.com/rockefellers-unconventional-approach...
nosuchthing 8y ago
The term “Smart contracts” (Ethereum/EOS/hyperledger) is often used with wild claims for supply chains and cross border business deals, but why would any real business want to use a public blockchain? Smart contracts can’t even do anything interesting without a trusted source of data input. The threat model and legal questions of smart contracts are another huge deterrent for most businesses. Latency, throughput, security threats, and cost are all fairly understood with normal databases, yet with blockchain software all of these are measurably worse. Where are the completed successful smart contracts deployed? Why would any person or business want/need to use an existing blockchain when some bug or mining operator might cause a catastrophe of that system, who would they sue for damages? A single user who spent less than $5000 crashed the entire market for Ethereum last summer. Most of the supply of ETH, XMR, BTC and other crypto tokens are owned by a very small population of crypto-oligarchs. It all seems like a marketing scheme to sell cyber beanie babies to people who are unfamiliar with the engineering flaws in distributing computing and the marketing lies from “investors” who need to pump the price on their magic beans.
- bonestamp2 8y ago
  > why would any real business want to use a public blockchain? I think it is only important for a business when public trust is important. For example, a news agency could publish its articles in a public blockchain so the original article and any updates to that article would forever be auditable from that blockchain.
  - chickenfries 8y ago
    Why? News sites don’t even care about maintaining an edit history. They just make minor fixes and leave editors notes when they fix things. News on the block chain is not something anyone wants.
    - simonsaidit 8y ago
      I do. Censorship resistance and removing the ability to rewrite history would be good. even if current media practice is different doesn’t mean it can’t change in the future.
Nursie 8y ago
What's sad is the spectacle that has arisen around this novel area over the last several years, the breathless enthusiasm, the handwaving away of concerns, the absolute mindless utopianism that has surrounded this stuff. Are Smart Contracts interesting? Sure. But they don't address all areas of contract law very well, and they certainly seem like they could well be misused as a way to circumvent a lot of the protections we currently have in place. Are cryptocurrencies interesting? Again yes, but they don't actually appear to be a very good fit for anything in particular, and they do seem to have a lot of poor economic ideas baked in. So while blockchains are an interesting set of data structures, a lot of the hate and disparagement comes from the (almost 10) years of relentless hype coupled with the complete failure for any of the great promises to appear. Instead we see exactly what was predictable - hoarding and speculation, scams and fraud.
simias 8y ago
You're making a strawman argument here. People who have speculated money in blockchains have a financial incentive to be vocal and overhype the technology while minimizing the many drawbacks it has. So I think a bit of "knee-jerk" skepticism is warranted around anything related to cryptocurrencies. So maybe instead of building strawmen you could tell us what you find so fascinating about smart contracts? Who knows, you might end up convincing some of us haters. Not me though, I'm too busy wishing with my entire being for it to fail. It's better than running for cardio.
- jsutton 8y ago
  How would you like useful, open source tools that can be deployed once and only once (for everyone), and used freely (minus processing fees) forever without having to worry about (a) deploying an instance of it on your own environment or (b) the service going down because the owner lost interest? Because smart contracts can do that. Pretty neat, huh?
Fnoord 8y ago
> However, I think smart contracts are fascinating and wish more people would keep an open mind. Does it occur to you someone might've had an open mind, and made up their mind? Your comment assumes such isn't possible, yet your comment polarises the discussion (aka "flamebait") which isn't about the linked article at all. The amount of comments which are on-topic in this thread is zero with a large amount spawning from your initial post. Yet, the linked article is fascinating? Well, I'd love to read the on-topic discussion on it to read about it further.
fuck_bitcoin_ 8y ago
kill yourself you stupid faggot
tomp 8y ago
I love the idea behind blockchains and smart contracts, but: 1) I don't think smart contracts should be programmed in JavaScript, 2) it would be better if smart contracts were actually treated as law, 3) most problems that are currently being hyped/solved with blockchain would better be solved with a public signed git repository, and 4) blockchains, as currently implemented, are immensely wasteful (I'm hoping this changes with more research).
beefield 8y ago
> It’s sad that there is a vocal group, especially on HN, that knee-jerk hates everything blockchain related and wishes with their entire being for it to fail. Given the generally high level of comments here at HN, I wonder if it has ever crossed your mind that it might, just might, not actually be knee-jerk hate but you simply being wrong in the novelty and general awesomeness of cryptocurrencies?

tdb7893 8y ago

I personally thought I had an open mind about it but it keeps over promising and under delivering (the most extreme example is the rhetoric surrounding the DAO on the ethereum platform). It's undoubtedly a cool technology but at a certain point it's hard to muster any excitement anymore.

nowarninglabel 8y ago
That's true of just about any technological innovation though. Even look at recent examples with space, self-driving cars, etc. I'd posture that we are currently somewhere in the Trough of Disillusionment [0] and that it'll another year or two before there's more mass use/adoption. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hype_cycle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hype_cycle
- lifthrasiir 8y ago
  Hype cycle suffers from a survivor bias. You cannot use hype cycle to determine if the "innovation" will be eventually successful, as failed "innovations" may also follow the first half of the hype cycle and then fall off.

elvinyung 8y ago

I definitely agree with you about the anti-blockchain bubble that's formed, but I think that there are a few unanswered questions about non-technological factors (shameless self-promotion: [1]) that will unfortunately limit them to be little more than interesting technologies for now. [1] https://www.notion.so/Yet-Another-Rant-About-Blockchains-ece6657d0a3b491bb39dd8002055a5af https://www.notion.so/Yet-Another-Rant-About-Blockchains-ece...

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

ProfBernardo 8y ago

Agreed. I left HN after I realized how stupid the people here were and migrated to a troll account. It's amazing how abrasive the vocal group is. I ditched my real life identity (which I use everywhere else) just so I could feel a little freer in expressing my true opinion on this forum. +1 for downvotes. Oh wait, you can't. At least, not the average user... I think admins can, though, right?

ProfBernardo 8y ago
Down voted. I love the double standard on Hacker News. Beautifully transparent, super-class of readers, who can downvote.
- erikpukinskis 8y ago
  I downvoted you mostly because I can. But also because this comment violates the rules.

empath75 8y ago

I think it’s more a reaction to the con artists that infested the whole industry than the technology itself.

Marazan 8y ago
No, it is a reaction against the terrible technology.

LeoPanthera 8y ago

I don't want to be anti-blockchain, but I have yet to come across any problems that are solved better with a blockchain than with any other traditional technology - except for the original one, a distributed electronic currency.

erikpukinskis 8y ago
I don’t understand why you would be anti- something so new at all. To me it’s preposterous that you would evaluate a new technology based on how many problems it and only it can solve. Don’t you get that new technology has an incubation period where its fundamental challenges must be overcome? What problem could early steam powered cars solve that horses couldn’t solve better? I doubt the earliest ones performed better than the animal based solutions for ANY specific use. Yet writing off automobiles at that stage would’ve been a mistake only obvious in retrospect. Especially for something as truly bizarre as Ethereum, why write it off at this early stage?
- chickenfries 8y ago
  There are so many advantages to early cars, are you kidding me? They don’t eat hay and shit for one. Is there anything that your argument wouldn’t work for? Do you truly have to wait a decade before making any judgements about the hype around a technology? When will we be able to say if smart contracts have been overhyped?
  - pfisch 8y ago
    They eat coal/gasoline which is probably more expensive. Also they worked on almost no terrain at all compared to horses and constantly broke down. The only reason they would even make sense to pursue would be because of how successful the train was. Similar to how this bitcoin stuff makes more sense when you look at the success of the internet/paypal/amazon.
    - arcticbull 8y ago
      You know you can research this stuff right? Gasoline was a waste product in the refining of crude oil (specifically, into Kerosene [itself a replacement for whale oil] they were making anyways). It used to be considered garbage. [1] It really only became valuable once they realized they could power cars with it. They used to dump it in rivers, making them catch fire. [2] In what - concrete - way is bitcoin related to the success of Amazon or the internet? Please be specific and don't hand-wave if you're going to make such bold claims. [1] https://knowledgenuts.com/2014/02/24/gasoline-used-to-be-considered-garbage/ https://knowledgenuts.com/2014/02/24/gasoline-used-to-be-con... [2] http://www.attendly.com/rockefellers-unconventional-approach-to-getting-rid-of-waste/ http://www.attendly.com/rockefellers-unconventional-approach...

nosuchthing 8y ago

The term “Smart contracts” (Ethereum/EOS/hyperledger) is often used with wild claims for supply chains and cross border business deals, but why would any real business want to use a public blockchain? Smart contracts can’t even do anything interesting without a trusted source of data input. The threat model and legal questions of smart contracts are another huge deterrent for most businesses. Latency, throughput, security threats, and cost are all fairly understood with normal databases, yet with blockchain software all of these are measurably worse. Where are the completed successful smart contracts deployed? Why would any person or business want/need to use an existing blockchain when some bug or mining operator might cause a catastrophe of that system, who would they sue for damages? A single user who spent less than $5000 crashed the entire market for Ethereum last summer. Most of the supply of ETH, XMR, BTC and other crypto tokens are owned by a very small population of crypto-oligarchs. It all seems like a marketing scheme to sell cyber beanie babies to people who are unfamiliar with the engineering flaws in distributing computing and the marketing lies from “investors” who need to pump the price on their magic beans.

bonestamp2 8y ago
> why would any real business want to use a public blockchain? I think it is only important for a business when public trust is important. For example, a news agency could publish its articles in a public blockchain so the original article and any updates to that article would forever be auditable from that blockchain.
- chickenfries 8y ago
  Why? News sites don’t even care about maintaining an edit history. They just make minor fixes and leave editors notes when they fix things. News on the block chain is not something anyone wants.
  - simonsaidit 8y ago
    I do. Censorship resistance and removing the ability to rewrite history would be good. even if current media practice is different doesn’t mean it can’t change in the future.

Nursie 8y ago

What's sad is the spectacle that has arisen around this novel area over the last several years, the breathless enthusiasm, the handwaving away of concerns, the absolute mindless utopianism that has surrounded this stuff. Are Smart Contracts interesting? Sure. But they don't address all areas of contract law very well, and they certainly seem like they could well be misused as a way to circumvent a lot of the protections we currently have in place. Are cryptocurrencies interesting? Again yes, but they don't actually appear to be a very good fit for anything in particular, and they do seem to have a lot of poor economic ideas baked in. So while blockchains are an interesting set of data structures, a lot of the hate and disparagement comes from the (almost 10) years of relentless hype coupled with the complete failure for any of the great promises to appear. Instead we see exactly what was predictable - hoarding and speculation, scams and fraud.

simias 8y ago

You're making a strawman argument here. People who have speculated money in blockchains have a financial incentive to be vocal and overhype the technology while minimizing the many drawbacks it has. So I think a bit of "knee-jerk" skepticism is warranted around anything related to cryptocurrencies. So maybe instead of building strawmen you could tell us what you find so fascinating about smart contracts? Who knows, you might end up convincing some of us haters. Not me though, I'm too busy wishing with my entire being for it to fail. It's better than running for cardio.

jsutton 8y ago
How would you like useful, open source tools that can be deployed once and only once (for everyone), and used freely (minus processing fees) forever without having to worry about (a) deploying an instance of it on your own environment or (b) the service going down because the owner lost interest? Because smart contracts can do that. Pretty neat, huh?

Fnoord 8y ago

> However, I think smart contracts are fascinating and wish more people would keep an open mind. Does it occur to you someone might've had an open mind, and made up their mind? Your comment assumes such isn't possible, yet your comment polarises the discussion (aka "flamebait") which isn't about the linked article at all. The amount of comments which are on-topic in this thread is zero with a large amount spawning from your initial post. Yet, the linked article is fascinating? Well, I'd love to read the on-topic discussion on it to read about it further.

fuck_bitcoin_ 8y ago

kill yourself you stupid faggot

tomp 8y ago

I love the idea behind blockchains and smart contracts, but: 1) I don't think smart contracts should be programmed in JavaScript, 2) it would be better if smart contracts were actually treated as law, 3) most problems that are currently being hyped/solved with blockchain would better be solved with a public signed git repository, and 4) blockchains, as currently implemented, are immensely wasteful (I'm hoping this changes with more research).

beefield 8y ago

> It’s sad that there is a vocal group, especially on HN, that knee-jerk hates everything blockchain related and wishes with their entire being for it to fail. Given the generally high level of comments here at HN, I wonder if it has ever crossed your mind that it might, just might, not actually be knee-jerk hate but you simply being wrong in the novelty and general awesomeness of cryptocurrencies?