4 ms·

> We need to drum up interest for a solution. There is already massive interest in finding more efficient ways to solve the problem. It's a difficult problem t

by Taek 5y ago

> We need to drum up interest for a solution. There is already massive interest in finding more efficient ways to solve the problem. It's a difficult problem to solve (as Elon Musk will likely learn in the coming year). The cost of proof of work is paid in two forms. The first is in the form of inflation. Merely holding onto Bitcoin means eating dilution as new Bitcoins are printed to fund the mining ecosystem. And the second cost is in terms of transaction fees. At times, it can cost $20+ to send a transaction over the Bitcoin network, and a more efficient / higher throughput system could significantly reduce these fees. The users of Bitcoin are already themselves naturally incentivized to look for better solutions, even completely absent any care about the environment.

reader_mode 5y ago
>The users of Bitcoin are already themselves naturally incentivized to look for better solutions This would imply the users of Bitcoin use it for anything more than speculative investment.
skybrian 5y ago
Holders of Bitcoin want to see the price go up, which makes the problem worse. So the primary incentive is very bad and that's how we got here. More enlightened self-interest would be to want to see the price go up without using more electricity, but this is secondary to the primary incentive. To get action from enlightened self-interest, there needs to be leadership for making changes. (Ethereum seems to have this?)
- atweiden 5y ago
  > To get action from enlightened self-interest, there needs to be leadership for making changes. (Ethereum seems to have this?) Knowledge preceedes enlightenment. For example, Git is also green-friendly, and shares a virtually identical consensus model to pure PoS consensus designs. It’s just that “green-friendliness” wasn’t a design goal of cryptocurrency — creating a lasting store of value sans institutions, exchangeable pseudonymously over the internet, was. As it were, pure PoS consensus suffers from the misfeature of not even having a quantitative fork ranking protocol — i.e. it lacks a way to objectively compare the truthfulness of divergent blockchains [1]. In PoW networks, cumulative hashing power can be simply and easily mathematically compared to produce cold, quantitative consensus. In PoS networks, there is no hashing power, and human intervention is required — just like Git. Which begs the question, why do PoS networks even need a blockchain? I think we all know the reason for that, though — Git doesn’t have a hype train. Git just isn’t good enough at separating the general public from their hard-earned money. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27144921 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27144921
  - skybrian 5y ago
    Saying "just use git" seems simplistic. But I could imagine a Debian-like organization that chooses a pool of trusted servers run by independent organizations in multiple countries, where they all have to agree, and with a full transparency log like DNS.
  - nine_k 5y ago
    Bitcoin is trustless, it is designed to withstand quite serious attempts at committing fraud (haha, a pun). Git was designed for cooperative work, and critically depends on trust (commit access). Merkle trees are easy, scalable schemes of trustless consensus, less so :(

by Taek 5y ago

reader_mode 5y ago

>The users of Bitcoin are already themselves naturally incentivized to look for better solutions This would imply the users of Bitcoin use it for anything more than speculative investment.

skybrian 5y ago

Holders of Bitcoin want to see the price go up, which makes the problem worse. So the primary incentive is very bad and that's how we got here. More enlightened self-interest would be to want to see the price go up without using more electricity, but this is secondary to the primary incentive. To get action from enlightened self-interest, there needs to be leadership for making changes. (Ethereum seems to have this?)

atweiden 5y ago
> To get action from enlightened self-interest, there needs to be leadership for making changes. (Ethereum seems to have this?) Knowledge preceedes enlightenment. For example, Git is also green-friendly, and shares a virtually identical consensus model to pure PoS consensus designs. It’s just that “green-friendliness” wasn’t a design goal of cryptocurrency — creating a lasting store of value sans institutions, exchangeable pseudonymously over the internet, was. As it were, pure PoS consensus suffers from the misfeature of not even having a quantitative fork ranking protocol — i.e. it lacks a way to objectively compare the truthfulness of divergent blockchains [1]. In PoW networks, cumulative hashing power can be simply and easily mathematically compared to produce cold, quantitative consensus. In PoS networks, there is no hashing power, and human intervention is required — just like Git. Which begs the question, why do PoS networks even need a blockchain? I think we all know the reason for that, though — Git doesn’t have a hype train. Git just isn’t good enough at separating the general public from their hard-earned money. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27144921 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27144921
- skybrian 5y ago
  Saying "just use git" seems simplistic. But I could imagine a Debian-like organization that chooses a pool of trusted servers run by independent organizations in multiple countries, where they all have to agree, and with a full transparency log like DNS.
- nine_k 5y ago
  Bitcoin is trustless, it is designed to withstand quite serious attempts at committing fraud (haha, a pun). Git was designed for cooperative work, and critically depends on trust (commit access). Merkle trees are easy, scalable schemes of trustless consensus, less so :(