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He’s criticizing Eth for being a “ science experiment”? The entire crypto ecosystem is just an experiment, including bitcoin. It’s all immature and unstable.

gumby 8y ago
You're agreeing with him. He's responding to people saying "hey, why are you criticising ETH, don't you like this stuff?" And he's saying that even the "blue chip" cryptocurrency projects are still very experimental phases and he takes them seriously enough to criticize them.
- berberous 8y ago
  Except he seems to give BTC a pass. I'm not familiar with this guy and just skimmed his tweetstorm, but he seems to be part of a group that thinks BTC >>>> ETH.
  - jarfil 8y ago
    ETH is theoretically better than BTC, while BTC is practically better than ETH. Depending on whether you want something cool to experiment with, or something to actually use, one is far better than the other.
    - joshschreuder 8y ago
      For some definition of "actually use". How would you define that?
    - Semaphor 8y ago
      I got more practical use out of ETH than I did out of BTC. In my case, the use was small-ish donations. ETH was cheaper and way faster.
    - h1d 8y ago
      Those are apple and orange. You don't necessarily say HTTP is better than TCP or JavaScript is better than HTML.
- duskwuff 8y ago
  I think the disagreement is on other cryptocurrencies. The author of the original Twitter thread has positive views of Bitcoin, e.g. this post which he linked in the thread: https://medium.com/@tuurdemeester/why-im-short-ethereum-and-long-bitcoin-aee5b1c198fd https://medium.com/@tuurdemeester/why-im-short-ethereum-and-...
  - tim333 8y ago
    ETH/BTC went up 7 fold after he wrote that, though it's back down a bit now. He seems a little biased against ETH.
j1vms 8y ago
There are a lot of valid arguments to be made, but it's not clear that being an experiment is a sufficient one. One need only think of the "Great Experiment" [0], to realize that immaturity and instability might not be too much of a hindrance if purpose and mindshare can be ultimately established. [0] https://www.themorgan.org/exhibitions/the-great-experiment https://www.themorgan.org/exhibitions/the-great-experiment
stillbourne 8y ago
I've always tried to tell people that ask me about crypto currencies that not only do they not have any intrinsic value, but the only positive value that they have is entropy. I explained it like this over Christmas dinner, lets say I wanted to start a new commodity, for arguments sake lets say that this new commodity is based on matches. Matches have a value, you light them and they produce a certain amount of energy. You can use them to light candles, clean out that odor from the previous occupant of the toilet, you could even combine a match with a small sterling engine to create motive power. But my commodity isn't the matches, its the energy used as the match is burnt. In my novelty commodity I only trade in matches that have been used, its proof that the match performed work in that it burned a fractional number of BTUs. This proves that the matches are sound. Furthermore, I, as a processor of used match commodities, can charge a nominal transaction fee when people trade spent matches on my Matchchain(TM) platform. Also, while this is a commodity I will call it a currency regardless of the fact that it has no debt instruments, lacks liquidity and is completely unregulated and prone to theft. Would you care to invest? Now replace spent matches with spent compute.
- hackernudes 8y ago
  The "valuable" matches would have to do something statistically rare, like make a pattern of Jesus's face or something. And somehow be resistant to counterfeit matches. Then your analogy almost makes sense.
  - TazeTSchnitzel 8y ago
    Every match head burnt is required to be slightly larger in diameter than the first, so eventually you're burning massive purpose-built “matches”.
  - stillbourne 8y ago
    Do crypto coins make patterns of Jesus's face? Man there is something I would never have guessed. Also is counterfeit money really that big of a problem that its debasing the value of the dollar enough that we have to abandon all notions of fiat currency and replace it with an entropic commodity that burns energy to no other end? I mean I get, that the "valuable matches" are the ones that "make a coin" of whatever the jargon is but the problem is to make a "coin" takes 215 kWh to create, lets put that back into match terms, assuming one matchstick has one BTU and we convert BTU to kWh that comes to about 733610 matches at a conversion rate of 0.000293071 kWh per BTU that comes to about 2445 boxes of 300 count matches. Amazon sells a 3 pack of 300 count matches for 6.75 which comes out to about $5501.25 for 733610 count of matches. Now be aware that I'm pulling these number out of my ass, butt every match I burn has a 1 in 733610 chance of being a "Jesus Match" that means that I can burn more than that and still not end up with a match that is a Jesus Match because its a statistical argument much like the lottery. In the end what do I have to show for all of this? A huge fucking pile of used matches, and a real sense that maybe just maybe the Emperor's New Currency has value.
knowThySelfx 8y ago
Do we even think a person called Satoshi Nakomoto exists?
keymone 8y ago
What’s unstable about bitcoin apart from the price obviously?
- h1d 8y ago
  Fact that without off chain transactions, it's not ready for any more transaction volume and Lightning is still very much alpha at this point. You don't see the instability, it's just people can't use it much more with the current implementation. Unstable future perhaps the parent meant.
  - keymone 8y ago
    > without off chain transactions, it's not ready for any more transaction volume and Lightning is still very much alpha at this point. that's a pretty stable thing you're describing. and lightning is actually in beta now and has grown quite a bit. > Unstable future perhaps the parent meant the only stable thing about future is heat death of the universe. and even that is possibly up for debate. shifting goalposts much?
    - h1d 8y ago
      This link is only 6 months ago. I don't know yesterday's state but I also don't know your definition of beta. I thought it meant quite ready for production use, just getting rid of corner cases. https://thenextweb.com/hardfork/2018/06/26/lighting-network-transactions/ https://thenextweb.com/hardfork/2018/06/26/lighting-network-...
      - Klathmon 8y ago
        Yes, trying to send a transaction which is at or near the limit will result in it failing. But that article doesn't mention that the limit is artificially imposed so that people aren't risking too much money on unproven code. As the system is shown to be stable, that limit will be raised and eventually removed, and the issue here will no longer exist. Plus, failure in this case means "using the blockchain", and for larger amounts of money the fees are generally a fraction of the amount transferred, even during times of high mempool.

gumby 8y ago

You're agreeing with him. He's responding to people saying "hey, why are you criticising ETH, don't you like this stuff?" And he's saying that even the "blue chip" cryptocurrency projects are still very experimental phases and he takes them seriously enough to criticize them.

berberous 8y ago
Except he seems to give BTC a pass. I'm not familiar with this guy and just skimmed his tweetstorm, but he seems to be part of a group that thinks BTC >>>> ETH.
- jarfil 8y ago
  ETH is theoretically better than BTC, while BTC is practically better than ETH. Depending on whether you want something cool to experiment with, or something to actually use, one is far better than the other.
  - joshschreuder 8y ago
    For some definition of "actually use". How would you define that?
  - Semaphor 8y ago
    I got more practical use out of ETH than I did out of BTC. In my case, the use was small-ish donations. ETH was cheaper and way faster.
  - h1d 8y ago
    Those are apple and orange. You don't necessarily say HTTP is better than TCP or JavaScript is better than HTML.
duskwuff 8y ago
I think the disagreement is on other cryptocurrencies. The author of the original Twitter thread has positive views of Bitcoin, e.g. this post which he linked in the thread: https://medium.com/@tuurdemeester/why-im-short-ethereum-and-long-bitcoin-aee5b1c198fd https://medium.com/@tuurdemeester/why-im-short-ethereum-and-...
- tim333 8y ago
  ETH/BTC went up 7 fold after he wrote that, though it's back down a bit now. He seems a little biased against ETH.

j1vms 8y ago

There are a lot of valid arguments to be made, but it's not clear that being an experiment is a sufficient one. One need only think of the "Great Experiment" [0], to realize that immaturity and instability might not be too much of a hindrance if purpose and mindshare can be ultimately established. [0] https://www.themorgan.org/exhibitions/the-great-experiment https://www.themorgan.org/exhibitions/the-great-experiment

stillbourne 8y ago

I've always tried to tell people that ask me about crypto currencies that not only do they not have any intrinsic value, but the only positive value that they have is entropy. I explained it like this over Christmas dinner, lets say I wanted to start a new commodity, for arguments sake lets say that this new commodity is based on matches. Matches have a value, you light them and they produce a certain amount of energy. You can use them to light candles, clean out that odor from the previous occupant of the toilet, you could even combine a match with a small sterling engine to create motive power. But my commodity isn't the matches, its the energy used as the match is burnt. In my novelty commodity I only trade in matches that have been used, its proof that the match performed work in that it burned a fractional number of BTUs. This proves that the matches are sound. Furthermore, I, as a processor of used match commodities, can charge a nominal transaction fee when people trade spent matches on my Matchchain(TM) platform. Also, while this is a commodity I will call it a currency regardless of the fact that it has no debt instruments, lacks liquidity and is completely unregulated and prone to theft. Would you care to invest? Now replace spent matches with spent compute.

hackernudes 8y ago
The "valuable" matches would have to do something statistically rare, like make a pattern of Jesus's face or something. And somehow be resistant to counterfeit matches. Then your analogy almost makes sense.
- TazeTSchnitzel 8y ago
  Every match head burnt is required to be slightly larger in diameter than the first, so eventually you're burning massive purpose-built “matches”.
- stillbourne 8y ago
  Do crypto coins make patterns of Jesus's face? Man there is something I would never have guessed. Also is counterfeit money really that big of a problem that its debasing the value of the dollar enough that we have to abandon all notions of fiat currency and replace it with an entropic commodity that burns energy to no other end? I mean I get, that the "valuable matches" are the ones that "make a coin" of whatever the jargon is but the problem is to make a "coin" takes 215 kWh to create, lets put that back into match terms, assuming one matchstick has one BTU and we convert BTU to kWh that comes to about 733610 matches at a conversion rate of 0.000293071 kWh per BTU that comes to about 2445 boxes of 300 count matches. Amazon sells a 3 pack of 300 count matches for 6.75 which comes out to about $5501.25 for 733610 count of matches. Now be aware that I'm pulling these number out of my ass, butt every match I burn has a 1 in 733610 chance of being a "Jesus Match" that means that I can burn more than that and still not end up with a match that is a Jesus Match because its a statistical argument much like the lottery. In the end what do I have to show for all of this? A huge fucking pile of used matches, and a real sense that maybe just maybe the Emperor's New Currency has value.

knowThySelfx 8y ago

Do we even think a person called Satoshi Nakomoto exists?

keymone 8y ago

What’s unstable about bitcoin apart from the price obviously?

h1d 8y ago
Fact that without off chain transactions, it's not ready for any more transaction volume and Lightning is still very much alpha at this point. You don't see the instability, it's just people can't use it much more with the current implementation. Unstable future perhaps the parent meant.
- keymone 8y ago
  > without off chain transactions, it's not ready for any more transaction volume and Lightning is still very much alpha at this point. that's a pretty stable thing you're describing. and lightning is actually in beta now and has grown quite a bit. > Unstable future perhaps the parent meant the only stable thing about future is heat death of the universe. and even that is possibly up for debate. shifting goalposts much?
  - h1d 8y ago
    This link is only 6 months ago. I don't know yesterday's state but I also don't know your definition of beta. I thought it meant quite ready for production use, just getting rid of corner cases. https://thenextweb.com/hardfork/2018/06/26/lighting-network-transactions/ https://thenextweb.com/hardfork/2018/06/26/lighting-network-...
    - Klathmon 8y ago
      Yes, trying to send a transaction which is at or near the limit will result in it failing. But that article doesn't mention that the limit is artificially imposed so that people aren't risking too much money on unproven code. As the system is shown to be stable, that limit will be raised and eventually removed, and the issue here will no longer exist. Plus, failure in this case means "using the blockchain", and for larger amounts of money the fees are generally a fraction of the amount transferred, even during times of high mempool.