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I genuinely think HN is subject to what Clay Christensen put as "disruptive innovation" when it comes to Blockchain and friends (strange to say that for a commu

I genuinely think HN is subject to what Clay Christensen put as "disruptive innovation" when it comes to Blockchain and friends (strange to say that for a community as opposed to a company). I understand that many on HN think of the many ICOs as Ponzi schemes, and other tech (like identity, DBs, VPNs, apps, or even alternate WWW) built on top as smokes and mirrors; but the industry being built around it is very real even if niche. There's a lot going on (including research) and it seems to me like, one fine day, like how ARM sneaked up on x86, Blockchain is going to take HN by surprise. And then, the disruption would have truly arrived. It isn't like the best sounding tech wins anyways.

cblconfederate 6y ago
Would be nice to have a decentralized HN . I m sure it exists
loceng 6y ago
That is speculation at the moment, a lovely fantasy to imagine to come to fruition for any technology; a market cap that has reached $1 trillion including price manipulation, I'm unsure it warrants that valuation - and arguably it's not simply that high due to price manipulation. I do believe blockchain could help us solve some fundamental problems - but only if it's tied to real trust and democratic processes. Bitcoin is a blockchain that's been structured to inherently be an MLM, and if you think through to the conclusion - say once 50% of the population has bought into Bitcoin, and now a growing majority require the remaining society to adopt Bitcoin to realize their gains - to unnecessarily, unreasonably transfer wealth from later adopters weighted towards earlier adopters - then you can how conflict will occur when the remaining 50% of society don't want to be left holding the bag, with no one else to then buy more Bitcoin for the last adopters to get wealth transferred to them; and this is why it also mimics a Ponzi scheme - it's just that there isn't a single controller liker Madoff, but instead it's controlled via a global, decentralized system that anyone can participate in.
- selestify 6y ago
  It’s not a Ponzi scheme any more than any other investment is a Ponzi scheme. Once 50% of society buys gold, who’s going to realize their gains? Except for gold speculators, the point isn’t necessarily to just realize gains, the point is to own an asset whose value is guaranteed not to disappear, even if it fluctuates. Granted, gold has a stronger guarantee than Bitcoin as of now. But that doesn’t make Bitcoin a Ponzi scheme.
canoebuilder 6y ago
>but the industry being built around it is very real even if niche. There's a lot going on (including research) What are some concrete examples? I think most of us who are critical are still interested, because we do see things that are going on, and we ask ourselves, are we missing something? But we seem to run into the same road blocks again and again. “Solutions” seem to come from people subtly or transparently “talking their book,” that is, they have an undisclosed vested interest in you not thinking too much about those roadblocks. What is some fruitful research being done in the areas of well known roadblocks? What are some application areas with a genuine pathway to viability and no better non-blockchain alternative?
- spopejoy 6y ago
  I think smart contracts are actually extremely novel in the form they take in Ethereum EVM, Tezos, Cardano, DAML and Pact (I'm author of the latter). TBH I'm a little frustrated with the evolution of smart contract langs post-2017, as I think Ethereum's dominance has made most engs/projects uninterested in innovating. If you look around, it's actually very hard to find a genuinely small language you can embed in your runtime, and offer to users. Lua is a common suggestion, but Lua doesn't let you lock down IO, or code loading (that is, without writing your own interpreter and changing semantics -- what's the point?). A truly pure smart contract language gives the containing app full control over the entire runtime. Smart contracts to me are a modern stored-procedure language that you embed directly into your app, and give you a 100% deterministic way to store long-term state, including code. "Application DBs" like sqlite don't scratch this itch (for instance sqlite doesn't have SPs). Plus, smart contracts are metered (usually), which allows for a cost-model and prevents against DOS. This plus the turing-incomplete angle makes them reasonable to open up to the world. Erlang and lambdas come to mind, and I can argue why they're different too. But this is already too long :)
  - canoebuilder 6y ago
    >But this is already too long :) Not at all, I appreciate the info. Cardano I believe uses PoS of some sort. What is the thinking about what keeps these distributed application servers running? Is it still mainly the mining reward model? What sort of applications most excite you? Are there places the distributed model works better than the traditional? Are there applications the distributed model enables that the traditional does not? And vice versa, what are the limitations of the distributed model? What things just aren't feasible? Could you build Twitter or YouTube like systems?
space_rock 6y ago
An ICO is a framework for a criminal conspiracy to defraud. As outlined in the evidence gathered by the SEC on Ripple. Make some outrageous sales pitch that experts in technology would describe as vaporware Sell your utility tokens. A worthless type of token Buy some fake articles and pump the price. Dump on the suckers that bought your tokens Pay for a exchange listing on a junk exchange. Pump the token and dump on the suckers that bought it Exits, rinse and repeat
- hanniabu 6y ago
  By your logic the stock market a scam because of penny stocks.
  - space_rock 6y ago
    Penny stock is a utility token redeemable for an unproduced good?
    - selestify 6y ago
      Penny stock is a utility token representing governance in a company as well as the privilege of taking its profits — much like crypto governance tokens are.
      - space_rock 6y ago
        Wrong. Utility token gives you no equity. It's a gift card voucher to use a network
        selestify 6y ago
        Ah, my bad. I didn't realize those were different from governance tokens, which are more directly analogous to stock. That being said, just because something is commonly used for fraud doesn't make it illegitimate. There are fraudulent companies in real life, though usually there's more legal recourse to go after them.

cblconfederate 6y ago

Would be nice to have a decentralized HN . I m sure it exists

loceng 6y ago

That is speculation at the moment, a lovely fantasy to imagine to come to fruition for any technology; a market cap that has reached $1 trillion including price manipulation, I'm unsure it warrants that valuation - and arguably it's not simply that high due to price manipulation. I do believe blockchain could help us solve some fundamental problems - but only if it's tied to real trust and democratic processes. Bitcoin is a blockchain that's been structured to inherently be an MLM, and if you think through to the conclusion - say once 50% of the population has bought into Bitcoin, and now a growing majority require the remaining society to adopt Bitcoin to realize their gains - to unnecessarily, unreasonably transfer wealth from later adopters weighted towards earlier adopters - then you can how conflict will occur when the remaining 50% of society don't want to be left holding the bag, with no one else to then buy more Bitcoin for the last adopters to get wealth transferred to them; and this is why it also mimics a Ponzi scheme - it's just that there isn't a single controller liker Madoff, but instead it's controlled via a global, decentralized system that anyone can participate in.

selestify 6y ago
It’s not a Ponzi scheme any more than any other investment is a Ponzi scheme. Once 50% of society buys gold, who’s going to realize their gains? Except for gold speculators, the point isn’t necessarily to just realize gains, the point is to own an asset whose value is guaranteed not to disappear, even if it fluctuates. Granted, gold has a stronger guarantee than Bitcoin as of now. But that doesn’t make Bitcoin a Ponzi scheme.

canoebuilder 6y ago

>but the industry being built around it is very real even if niche. There's a lot going on (including research) What are some concrete examples? I think most of us who are critical are still interested, because we do see things that are going on, and we ask ourselves, are we missing something? But we seem to run into the same road blocks again and again. “Solutions” seem to come from people subtly or transparently “talking their book,” that is, they have an undisclosed vested interest in you not thinking too much about those roadblocks. What is some fruitful research being done in the areas of well known roadblocks? What are some application areas with a genuine pathway to viability and no better non-blockchain alternative?

spopejoy 6y ago
I think smart contracts are actually extremely novel in the form they take in Ethereum EVM, Tezos, Cardano, DAML and Pact (I'm author of the latter). TBH I'm a little frustrated with the evolution of smart contract langs post-2017, as I think Ethereum's dominance has made most engs/projects uninterested in innovating. If you look around, it's actually very hard to find a genuinely small language you can embed in your runtime, and offer to users. Lua is a common suggestion, but Lua doesn't let you lock down IO, or code loading (that is, without writing your own interpreter and changing semantics -- what's the point?). A truly pure smart contract language gives the containing app full control over the entire runtime. Smart contracts to me are a modern stored-procedure language that you embed directly into your app, and give you a 100% deterministic way to store long-term state, including code. "Application DBs" like sqlite don't scratch this itch (for instance sqlite doesn't have SPs). Plus, smart contracts are metered (usually), which allows for a cost-model and prevents against DOS. This plus the turing-incomplete angle makes them reasonable to open up to the world. Erlang and lambdas come to mind, and I can argue why they're different too. But this is already too long :)
- canoebuilder 6y ago
  >But this is already too long :) Not at all, I appreciate the info. Cardano I believe uses PoS of some sort. What is the thinking about what keeps these distributed application servers running? Is it still mainly the mining reward model? What sort of applications most excite you? Are there places the distributed model works better than the traditional? Are there applications the distributed model enables that the traditional does not? And vice versa, what are the limitations of the distributed model? What things just aren't feasible? Could you build Twitter or YouTube like systems?

space_rock 6y ago

An ICO is a framework for a criminal conspiracy to defraud. As outlined in the evidence gathered by the SEC on Ripple. Make some outrageous sales pitch that experts in technology would describe as vaporware Sell your utility tokens. A worthless type of token Buy some fake articles and pump the price. Dump on the suckers that bought your tokens Pay for a exchange listing on a junk exchange. Pump the token and dump on the suckers that bought it Exits, rinse and repeat

hanniabu 6y ago
By your logic the stock market a scam because of penny stocks.
- space_rock 6y ago
  Penny stock is a utility token redeemable for an unproduced good?
  - selestify 6y ago
    Penny stock is a utility token representing governance in a company as well as the privilege of taking its profits — much like crypto governance tokens are.
    - space_rock 6y ago
      Wrong. Utility token gives you no equity. It's a gift card voucher to use a network
      - selestify 6y ago
        Ah, my bad. I didn't realize those were different from governance tokens, which are more directly analogous to stock. That being said, just because something is commonly used for fraud doesn't make it illegitimate. There are fraudulent companies in real life, though usually there's more legal recourse to go after them.