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Ethereum as infrastructure is also a dicey proposition. It works, slowly, but it doesn’t seem like there’s a lot of demand for “dapps” outside ICO tokens, gambl

Ethereum as infrastructure is also a dicey proposition. It works, slowly, but it doesn’t seem like there’s a lot of demand for “dapps” outside ICO tokens, gambling, and the odd Ponzi scheme. The smart contract revolution at this point is complete vapor ware.

DennisP 7y ago
Other popular smart contracts right now: an ETH-backed token that uses a derivative to maintain a fairly stable value, the Uniswap decentralized exchange, and games with non-fungible tokens for player assets.
- dangero 7y ago
  “popular”
  - DennisP 7y ago
    At its peak the stablecoin contract held $2 billion, I'd say that's reasonably popular. None of this stuff is ready for the mass market because scaling is so limited, but that's on track to get about 1000X better over the next two years.
RexetBlell 7y ago
Ethereum is currently being used for decentralized finance. It's not vaporware at all: https://defipulse.com/ https://defipulse.com/
- dangero 7y ago
  This market is not validated by anything close to mainstream.
monsterbash506 7y ago
Too bad the coolest Ethereum projects never get featured on HN. Let me list some. Loans - Compound Finance, Dharma Derivatives - Augur, Veil, Synthetix Exchange - 0x, Kyber AMM model "exchange" (always liquid markets) - Bancor and UniSwap. And at the center of all of this is Maker and it's Dai stablecoin which is backed by Ethereum.
CryptoPunk 7y ago
A lot of the building blocks for mainstream use don't exist, but could conceivably emerge in time given Ethereum is Turing Complete. There are projects with a very high potential to provide those building blocks in development right now, like Matter Labs' use of zero-knowledge proofs to scale Ethereum: https://matterlabs.dev/ https://matterlabs.dev/ But yea it's all very speculative right now. I speculate it will work, but it'll depend on what the various players in the industy actually accomplish.
kaicianflone 7y ago
I will try to not laugh at this the next time I pay escrow and other closing fees. We are in Web 1.0 in terms of the technological application of programmable consensus.
- abalone 7y ago
  One, don’t mock people on HN. Two, you’re going to need to cite real examples to support your claim, not just spout a bunch of buzzwords. Quick search of “ethereum escrow” returns no real implementations that avoid fees or human intermediaries. Every single blog post I’ve read that tries to sketch an alternative is incredibly poorly thought through and still vulnerable to fraud. That is why they are just blog posts and not real, not because it’s “still early days.” I think it’s fair to say trustless escrow is vaporware.
  - kaicianflone 7y ago
    I'm not going to argue against ignorance. One can simply google the technology and see for themselves instead of drinking the Kool-aid from others. There's a reason for the large push against crypto; an agenda. Programmable consensus and smart contracts are easy to learn concepts. https://medium.com/coinmonks/escrow-service-as-a-smart-contract-the-business-logic-5b678ebe1955 https://medium.com/coinmonks/escrow-service-as-a-smart-contr... *Also one should know it is offensive to call another's work vaporware. Especially, when one is relying on anecdotes. Next I'm going to be told IBM and Google are wasting their time and shareholder money on blockchain.
    - abalone 7y ago
      That's for posting an actual citation. The author of that blog post explicitly states in a follow up comment: "I totally agree that it makes no business sense" and that his objective is merely "to explain how a smart contract implements the terms of a contract." So yes, fair to say it's vapor i.e. not a real thing. That may be harsh but it is a fair and supported criticism, whereas your prior comment merely engaged in unsupported mockery.

DennisP 7y ago

Other popular smart contracts right now: an ETH-backed token that uses a derivative to maintain a fairly stable value, the Uniswap decentralized exchange, and games with non-fungible tokens for player assets.

dangero 7y ago
“popular”
- DennisP 7y ago
  At its peak the stablecoin contract held $2 billion, I'd say that's reasonably popular. None of this stuff is ready for the mass market because scaling is so limited, but that's on track to get about 1000X better over the next two years.

RexetBlell 7y ago

Ethereum is currently being used for decentralized finance. It's not vaporware at all: https://defipulse.com/ https://defipulse.com/

dangero 7y ago
This market is not validated by anything close to mainstream.

monsterbash506 7y ago

Too bad the coolest Ethereum projects never get featured on HN. Let me list some. Loans - Compound Finance, Dharma Derivatives - Augur, Veil, Synthetix Exchange - 0x, Kyber AMM model "exchange" (always liquid markets) - Bancor and UniSwap. And at the center of all of this is Maker and it's Dai stablecoin which is backed by Ethereum.

CryptoPunk 7y ago

A lot of the building blocks for mainstream use don't exist, but could conceivably emerge in time given Ethereum is Turing Complete. There are projects with a very high potential to provide those building blocks in development right now, like Matter Labs' use of zero-knowledge proofs to scale Ethereum: https://matterlabs.dev/ https://matterlabs.dev/ But yea it's all very speculative right now. I speculate it will work, but it'll depend on what the various players in the industy actually accomplish.

kaicianflone 7y ago

I will try to not laugh at this the next time I pay escrow and other closing fees. We are in Web 1.0 in terms of the technological application of programmable consensus.

abalone 7y ago
One, don’t mock people on HN. Two, you’re going to need to cite real examples to support your claim, not just spout a bunch of buzzwords. Quick search of “ethereum escrow” returns no real implementations that avoid fees or human intermediaries. Every single blog post I’ve read that tries to sketch an alternative is incredibly poorly thought through and still vulnerable to fraud. That is why they are just blog posts and not real, not because it’s “still early days.” I think it’s fair to say trustless escrow is vaporware.
- kaicianflone 7y ago
  I'm not going to argue against ignorance. One can simply google the technology and see for themselves instead of drinking the Kool-aid from others. There's a reason for the large push against crypto; an agenda. Programmable consensus and smart contracts are easy to learn concepts. https://medium.com/coinmonks/escrow-service-as-a-smart-contract-the-business-logic-5b678ebe1955 https://medium.com/coinmonks/escrow-service-as-a-smart-contr... *Also one should know it is offensive to call another's work vaporware. Especially, when one is relying on anecdotes. Next I'm going to be told IBM and Google are wasting their time and shareholder money on blockchain.
  - abalone 7y ago
    That's for posting an actual citation. The author of that blog post explicitly states in a follow up comment: "I totally agree that it makes no business sense" and that his objective is merely "to explain how a smart contract implements the terms of a contract." So yes, fair to say it's vapor i.e. not a real thing. That may be harsh but it is a fair and supported criticism, whereas your prior comment merely engaged in unsupported mockery.