5 ms·

Prediction, sharded blockchains will never take off. With newer blockchain protocols like MimbleWimble, you do not need to store the full transaction details fo

by g45y45 8y ago

Prediction, sharded blockchains will never take off. With newer blockchain protocols like MimbleWimble, you do not need to store the full transaction details for all time. Too many things to go wrong, too brittle... This is a much better scalability technique on a single blockchain -- taking advantage of zk-proofs and EC point encoding. If you want distributed computation also, ala Eth/EOS, you could combine a zk-proof of computation with the MW tx encoding with no loss of generality.

qnsi 8y ago
prediction: blockchain will never take off
- g45y45 8y ago
  sorry, but it already has. Censorship resistant money aka Bitcoin exists and works today!
  - swarnie_ 8y ago
    Bitcoin is something i only ever read about. I work in tech and consider myself quite savvy. Never have i needed to own crypto or to make a transaction using crypto as the exchange media. Explain how its "taken off already"?
    - jacoblambda 8y ago
      Never have I needed to either however I almost always see a way to use some common cryptocurrency whenever I decide to pay for something or make a donation. In that sense I think it has taken off. You don't have to use it for anything however you can for most everything.
  - UncleMeat 8y ago
    PGP exists and works. But hardly anybody uses it. That's not enough to "take off".
  - darkpuma 8y ago
    Bitcoin has taken off like the Spruce Goose.
    - g45y45 8y ago
      I said, HOP IN! https://frinkiac.com/meme/S05E10/1212894.jpg?b64lines=IEhPUCBJTiEgQlVULCBTSVItLSBbCiBHYXNwcyBdIEkgU0FJRCBIT1AgSU4u https://frinkiac.com/meme/S05E10/1212894.jpg?b64lines=IEhPUC...
  - acdha 8y ago
    That's a serious citation needed. There's lots of speculation but if it disappeared tomorrow, almost nobody would be inconvenienced in any way other than having failed to cash out their speculative bets before it happened. Also, “censorship resistant” is the new marketing spin but it's never been true about Bitcoin. Anyone for whom that's valuable will be at risk if they fall for the spin.
    - g45y45 8y ago
      Couple of points in response: Why would it disappear tomorrow -- it wont. Ill always run a full node. Many like me. This makes it valuable. Censorship resistance is not a marketing spin. Its absolutely true about bitcoin! There is no central controller, no government, how can anyone stop a valid private key holder from submitting a valid signature? Sure, we could block 8333/tcp on the great firewall, but thats why we have Satellites now!! As long as you have a communication channel that can reach the Bitcoin p2p network, it cannot die. The 'censorship resistance is marketing' attitude is spoken like a true first worlder. There are many places on this Earth where censorship resistant money is critical. There are many groups that cannot interact with the global banking system due to sanctions. Look around outside the US! and we havent even spoken about how destructive the centralization of banking has become: https://blog.bitmex.com/thetimes/ https://blog.bitmex.com/thetimes/ This blog post explains very clearly how the monetary base of our economy is inflated every day due to lack of diversity in banking.
      - acdha 8y ago
        > Why would it disappear tomorrow -- it wont. Ill always run a full node. Many like me. This makes it valuable. My point was that nobody has a non-ideological reason to use it and there are many alternatives which are cheaper, faster, and safer to use. Saying it's already taken off is hard to justify when there's no particular pull other than speculation. As for “censorship resistance”, you might want to read more about what life is like in a repressive country before giving people dangerous advice. Bitcoin requires you to be on an active network, making your traffic easily visible and the design requires you to leave a permanent public record of every transaction you've ever made — which is great if you're the secret police but not anyone else. Satellite internet connections are expensive, slow, and trackable as soon as they care to make an effort. More importantly, start thinking bout what using it would be like: you need to get a client, hope that it's not compromised or flawed; find someone willing to convert money for you, hoping that they're not working for the police; find someone to buy/sell with, hoping that they're not working for the police; and hope that your devices are never searched. If you ever get any of that wrong, you've left a trail showing that you're interested in hiding something from the authorities — better hope that you can subsequently convince them that you're not hiding something even deeper than what they find…
- candiodari 8y ago
  prediction: (private, not publicly accessible) blockchains will become mandatory for all financial institutions. Easy prediction since to a small extent that is already true: https://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2017/08/10/practical-examples-of-how-blockchains-are-used-in-banking-and-the-financial-services-sector/#2ed8311c1a11 https://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2017/08/10/practica...
  - g45y45 8y ago
    Prediction: Private blockchains will fail, because they offer no advantage over a permissioned database. Public or GTFO
    - candiodari 8y ago
      They do: private blockchains do not require the participants, nor third parties to trust the root permissions on the permissioned database (because there aren't any).
qaq 8y ago
Would you provide a realistic real world use case for either or blockchain in general beyond bitcoin?
- lmpostor 8y ago
  Data Storage Marketplace to answer your question on use case outside of bitcoin. Of course that relies on several assumptions that remain to be seen, first that the user-experience will be acceptable comparative to centralized solutions, 2nd that the cost will be cheaper. But again that is really the answer for any/most use-cases of blockchain, which is really just a socialized way through inflation (production of new tokens) for confirming data to be true (in this case that data is stored in a reliable/accessible manner). So as long as the application itself can meet that standard, there exists financial opportunity.
- candiodari 8y ago
  Providing trustworthy transaction logs that can be shared between multiple organizations that don't trust each other, which is of course the central part of the problem we call "banking". To be more detailed. Currently a lot of banks constantly create third-party companies whose only function is to get transactions from bank A, and transactions from bank B, and just record them, providing the logs when either the banks or the government/court requests them. Or when the banks want them. In some cases this is done by central banks, but central banks also do this amongst themselves. There's 2 problems here: 1) those companies are not always trustworthy 2) the jurisdictions those companies operate under are not always trustworthy (in the central bank cooperation use cases) smaller issues: those companies are usually expensive, and staffed by idiots. So cryptographically provably unchangeable logs (which is what blockchains are, at their core) certainly have their function within the banking system. Lots and lots of these are needed. Plus they're already used for that purpose.
  - qaq 8y ago
    Banking sector is pretty bad example for many reasons, people implementing hyped up tech pure for the purposes of implementing hyped up tech. Top 3-4 banks will have enough compute to subvert it so trustworthy is not really applicable.
baby 8y ago
Can you expend on MimbleWimble? Because in bitcoin you don't need to store the full transaction details, just the root of the merkle tree. The best I've seen in this space is the coda protocol which only gives you a recursive proof of knowledge that the previous block was verified as well as proofs from previous blocks
- g45y45 8y ago
  Only storing the merkle tree is useful for SPV nodes. The actual full nodes need to store the full chain to verify blocks (or else you could double spend). In mimblewibmle, the full nodes has visibility over interactive transactions only while joined of the network. The final artifact is a combined tx that spans the whole block -- ie: you throw away lots of tx detail and use the kernel for validation. The grin wiki explains the basis of MW protocol: https://github.com/mimblewimble/grin/blob/master/doc/intro.md https://github.com/mimblewimble/grin/blob/master/doc/intro.m... The original whitepaper is : https://github.com/mimblewimble/docs/wiki/MimbleWimble-Origin https://github.com/mimblewimble/docs/wiki/MimbleWimble-Origi... Two implementations of this (slightly different) today are: https://grin-tech.org/ https://grin-tech.org/ and https://www.beam.mw/ https://www.beam.mw/
  - baby 8y ago
    Ah I see. I guess you don't need many things besides the transaction hash, the UTXO amount, the timelock, the scriptpubkey

by g45y45 8y ago

qnsi 8y ago

prediction: blockchain will never take off

g45y45 8y ago
sorry, but it already has. Censorship resistant money aka Bitcoin exists and works today!
- swarnie_ 8y ago
  Bitcoin is something i only ever read about. I work in tech and consider myself quite savvy. Never have i needed to own crypto or to make a transaction using crypto as the exchange media. Explain how its "taken off already"?
  - jacoblambda 8y ago
    Never have I needed to either however I almost always see a way to use some common cryptocurrency whenever I decide to pay for something or make a donation. In that sense I think it has taken off. You don't have to use it for anything however you can for most everything.
- UncleMeat 8y ago
  PGP exists and works. But hardly anybody uses it. That's not enough to "take off".
- darkpuma 8y ago
  Bitcoin has taken off like the Spruce Goose.
  - g45y45 8y ago
    I said, HOP IN! https://frinkiac.com/meme/S05E10/1212894.jpg?b64lines=IEhPUCBJTiEgQlVULCBTSVItLSBbCiBHYXNwcyBdIEkgU0FJRCBIT1AgSU4u https://frinkiac.com/meme/S05E10/1212894.jpg?b64lines=IEhPUC...
- acdha 8y ago
  That's a serious citation needed. There's lots of speculation but if it disappeared tomorrow, almost nobody would be inconvenienced in any way other than having failed to cash out their speculative bets before it happened. Also, “censorship resistant” is the new marketing spin but it's never been true about Bitcoin. Anyone for whom that's valuable will be at risk if they fall for the spin.
  - g45y45 8y ago
    Couple of points in response: Why would it disappear tomorrow -- it wont. Ill always run a full node. Many like me. This makes it valuable. Censorship resistance is not a marketing spin. Its absolutely true about bitcoin! There is no central controller, no government, how can anyone stop a valid private key holder from submitting a valid signature? Sure, we could block 8333/tcp on the great firewall, but thats why we have Satellites now!! As long as you have a communication channel that can reach the Bitcoin p2p network, it cannot die. The 'censorship resistance is marketing' attitude is spoken like a true first worlder. There are many places on this Earth where censorship resistant money is critical. There are many groups that cannot interact with the global banking system due to sanctions. Look around outside the US! and we havent even spoken about how destructive the centralization of banking has become: https://blog.bitmex.com/thetimes/ https://blog.bitmex.com/thetimes/ This blog post explains very clearly how the monetary base of our economy is inflated every day due to lack of diversity in banking.
    - acdha 8y ago
      > Why would it disappear tomorrow -- it wont. Ill always run a full node. Many like me. This makes it valuable. My point was that nobody has a non-ideological reason to use it and there are many alternatives which are cheaper, faster, and safer to use. Saying it's already taken off is hard to justify when there's no particular pull other than speculation. As for “censorship resistance”, you might want to read more about what life is like in a repressive country before giving people dangerous advice. Bitcoin requires you to be on an active network, making your traffic easily visible and the design requires you to leave a permanent public record of every transaction you've ever made — which is great if you're the secret police but not anyone else. Satellite internet connections are expensive, slow, and trackable as soon as they care to make an effort. More importantly, start thinking bout what using it would be like: you need to get a client, hope that it's not compromised or flawed; find someone willing to convert money for you, hoping that they're not working for the police; find someone to buy/sell with, hoping that they're not working for the police; and hope that your devices are never searched. If you ever get any of that wrong, you've left a trail showing that you're interested in hiding something from the authorities — better hope that you can subsequently convince them that you're not hiding something even deeper than what they find…
candiodari 8y ago
prediction: (private, not publicly accessible) blockchains will become mandatory for all financial institutions. Easy prediction since to a small extent that is already true: https://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2017/08/10/practical-examples-of-how-blockchains-are-used-in-banking-and-the-financial-services-sector/#2ed8311c1a11 https://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2017/08/10/practica...
- g45y45 8y ago
  Prediction: Private blockchains will fail, because they offer no advantage over a permissioned database. Public or GTFO
  - candiodari 8y ago
    They do: private blockchains do not require the participants, nor third parties to trust the root permissions on the permissioned database (because there aren't any).

qaq 8y ago

Would you provide a realistic real world use case for either or blockchain in general beyond bitcoin?

lmpostor 8y ago
Data Storage Marketplace to answer your question on use case outside of bitcoin. Of course that relies on several assumptions that remain to be seen, first that the user-experience will be acceptable comparative to centralized solutions, 2nd that the cost will be cheaper. But again that is really the answer for any/most use-cases of blockchain, which is really just a socialized way through inflation (production of new tokens) for confirming data to be true (in this case that data is stored in a reliable/accessible manner). So as long as the application itself can meet that standard, there exists financial opportunity.
candiodari 8y ago
Providing trustworthy transaction logs that can be shared between multiple organizations that don't trust each other, which is of course the central part of the problem we call "banking". To be more detailed. Currently a lot of banks constantly create third-party companies whose only function is to get transactions from bank A, and transactions from bank B, and just record them, providing the logs when either the banks or the government/court requests them. Or when the banks want them. In some cases this is done by central banks, but central banks also do this amongst themselves. There's 2 problems here: 1) those companies are not always trustworthy 2) the jurisdictions those companies operate under are not always trustworthy (in the central bank cooperation use cases) smaller issues: those companies are usually expensive, and staffed by idiots. So cryptographically provably unchangeable logs (which is what blockchains are, at their core) certainly have their function within the banking system. Lots and lots of these are needed. Plus they're already used for that purpose.
- qaq 8y ago
  Banking sector is pretty bad example for many reasons, people implementing hyped up tech pure for the purposes of implementing hyped up tech. Top 3-4 banks will have enough compute to subvert it so trustworthy is not really applicable.

baby 8y ago

Can you expend on MimbleWimble? Because in bitcoin you don't need to store the full transaction details, just the root of the merkle tree. The best I've seen in this space is the coda protocol which only gives you a recursive proof of knowledge that the previous block was verified as well as proofs from previous blocks

g45y45 8y ago
Only storing the merkle tree is useful for SPV nodes. The actual full nodes need to store the full chain to verify blocks (or else you could double spend). In mimblewibmle, the full nodes has visibility over interactive transactions only while joined of the network. The final artifact is a combined tx that spans the whole block -- ie: you throw away lots of tx detail and use the kernel for validation. The grin wiki explains the basis of MW protocol: https://github.com/mimblewimble/grin/blob/master/doc/intro.md https://github.com/mimblewimble/grin/blob/master/doc/intro.m... The original whitepaper is : https://github.com/mimblewimble/docs/wiki/MimbleWimble-Origin https://github.com/mimblewimble/docs/wiki/MimbleWimble-Origi... Two implementations of this (slightly different) today are: https://grin-tech.org/ https://grin-tech.org/ and https://www.beam.mw/ https://www.beam.mw/
- baby 8y ago
  Ah I see. I guess you don't need many things besides the transaction hash, the UTXO amount, the timelock, the scriptpubkey