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> Drug/Darknet markets, for one. Ransomware for another. These are stress-tests for any currency and prove that crypto can work to exchange value in a real mark

> Drug/Darknet markets, for one. Ransomware for another. These are stress-tests for any currency and prove that crypto can work to exchange value in a real market setting. Those aren't real market environments by a long shot and far from stress tests. These markets have transactions that are low-volume but high-value. Me, what I'm looking for is something along the lines of "How many grocery transactions globally can crypto do per second?", i.e., high-volume, low-value. Now _that's_ a stress test. Quick Google survey tells me that BTC can do 10 transactions per second _tops_. That's far from a workable state of affairs. It's not even "promising tech".

xvector 5y ago
> Those aren't real market environments by a long shot and far from stress tests. They are definitely real markets. You buy something at a free market price and get something in return. They are definitely stress tests in that they prove that crypto can be used as digital cash. You can not buy drugs safely with a PayPal, Zelle, wire transfer, or ACH, but you can with Monero. This fulfills the original vision of cryptocurrency: decentralized, uncensored exchange of value without being at the mercy of another. There is not really a more difficult stress test that tests the ideal and purpose of cryptocurrency. > Me, what I'm looking for is something along the lines of "How many grocery transactions globally can crypto do per second?" Again, why does HN expect crypto to be perfect today? It will improve over time. For what it’s worth, today, - NANO transactions confirm instantly. The network can handle over 7000 TPS, more than Visa’s peak of 4000 TPS. Nano TPS scales with the size of the network. - XMR transactions confirm in <2 minutes. XMR can max out at about 1700 TPS, which is much more than what is actually needed. XMR TPS will scale with the capabilities of XMR nodes (mainly network speed). In the coming years, - ETH2 with Optimistic Rollups can scale to 100,000 TPS. - Lightning on BTC will enable millions of TPS. Again, this is a technology in its infancy. I do not understand the disappointment - Rome wasn’t built in a day. Replicating the concept of exchange of cash digitally, in a global, decentralized, trustless manner is no small feat. If it works, we free will users of digital currency from the mercy of banks, and give them back their financial privacy.
- skytreader 5y ago
  > NANO transactions confirm instantly. > XMR transactions confirm in <2 minutes. > ETH2 with Optimistic Rollups can scale to 100,000 TPS. Do you have figures for how much compute power they need for those too? I could write an ACID-compliant DB that could do 1M TPS but if to achieve that I had to buy a gaming rig or two, run it at basically full capacity, then it all sounds less impressive. > Again, this is a technology in its infancy. But when will it stop being in its infancy? At what point do we cut our losses and say this approach isn't working (if I may add, a question every scientific experiment should reckon with)? > I do not understand the disappointment - Rome wasn’t built in a day. But we move at a faster pace than the Romans now and if a technology hasn't matured after 11 years, then that's reasonable grounds for disappointment don't you think?
  - xvector 5y ago
    > Do you have figures for how much compute power they need for those too? NANO uses around 0.112 Wh. Barely any energy at all. At its peak, NANO might consume about as much as energy as a single shopping mall. XMR is about 60 Gwh. Such is the price of truly anonymous electronic payments, at least until more cryptographers work on XMR to figure out how we can increase efficiency. Energy consumption is an issue, but it’s overblown. There are trivial things that have a far greater climate impact than crypto, but provide less potential value to humanity. If people spent half as much time worrying about the climate impact of their own choices, our crisis would be all but solved. Finger-pointing is easy, changing yourself is hard. Still, most cryptos are rapidly moving to reducing their energy consumption by a factor of 100-1000 by moving to proof of stake. > I could write an ACID-compliant DB that could do 1M TPS Your system is neither distributed nor trustless. Users will be at your mercy. Hardly the ideal system for humanity. Try designing a similar system that works across hundreds of thousands of disparate nodes, many of which may be malicious or differently configured and in poor network environments. You will very quickly arrive at a similar model to modern cryptocurrencies. > At what point do we cut our losses and say this approach isn't working Certainly not when development speed has been rapidly increasing over time? These are early stage projects. A few years for a volunteer-designed global electronic financial system that frees humanity from the mercy of banks and financial censorship is not bad. Especially when you can’t take an Agile “move fast and break things” approach. > But we move at a faster pace than the Romans now and if a technology hasn't matured after 11 years Why do you keep saying the technology hasn’t matured after 11 years? I feel like you barely read my reply - how are NANO, XMR, and ETH/ETH2 not massive indicators of the improvement in the crypto sphere? Each alone represents a significant generational stride beyond BTC as it was originally defined. NANO brought us fast transactions, XMR brought us anonymity and censorship resistance, and ETH brought us smart contracts.

xvector 5y ago

> Those aren't real market environments by a long shot and far from stress tests. They are definitely real markets. You buy something at a free market price and get something in return. They are definitely stress tests in that they prove that crypto can be used as digital cash. You can not buy drugs safely with a PayPal, Zelle, wire transfer, or ACH, but you can with Monero. This fulfills the original vision of cryptocurrency: decentralized, uncensored exchange of value without being at the mercy of another. There is not really a more difficult stress test that tests the ideal and purpose of cryptocurrency. > Me, what I'm looking for is something along the lines of "How many grocery transactions globally can crypto do per second?" Again, why does HN expect crypto to be perfect today? It will improve over time. For what it’s worth, today, - NANO transactions confirm instantly. The network can handle over 7000 TPS, more than Visa’s peak of 4000 TPS. Nano TPS scales with the size of the network. - XMR transactions confirm in <2 minutes. XMR can max out at about 1700 TPS, which is much more than what is actually needed. XMR TPS will scale with the capabilities of XMR nodes (mainly network speed). In the coming years, - ETH2 with Optimistic Rollups can scale to 100,000 TPS. - Lightning on BTC will enable millions of TPS. Again, this is a technology in its infancy. I do not understand the disappointment - Rome wasn’t built in a day. Replicating the concept of exchange of cash digitally, in a global, decentralized, trustless manner is no small feat. If it works, we free will users of digital currency from the mercy of banks, and give them back their financial privacy.

skytreader 5y ago
> NANO transactions confirm instantly. > XMR transactions confirm in <2 minutes. > ETH2 with Optimistic Rollups can scale to 100,000 TPS. Do you have figures for how much compute power they need for those too? I could write an ACID-compliant DB that could do 1M TPS but if to achieve that I had to buy a gaming rig or two, run it at basically full capacity, then it all sounds less impressive. > Again, this is a technology in its infancy. But when will it stop being in its infancy? At what point do we cut our losses and say this approach isn't working (if I may add, a question every scientific experiment should reckon with)? > I do not understand the disappointment - Rome wasn’t built in a day. But we move at a faster pace than the Romans now and if a technology hasn't matured after 11 years, then that's reasonable grounds for disappointment don't you think?
- xvector 5y ago
  > Do you have figures for how much compute power they need for those too? NANO uses around 0.112 Wh. Barely any energy at all. At its peak, NANO might consume about as much as energy as a single shopping mall. XMR is about 60 Gwh. Such is the price of truly anonymous electronic payments, at least until more cryptographers work on XMR to figure out how we can increase efficiency. Energy consumption is an issue, but it’s overblown. There are trivial things that have a far greater climate impact than crypto, but provide less potential value to humanity. If people spent half as much time worrying about the climate impact of their own choices, our crisis would be all but solved. Finger-pointing is easy, changing yourself is hard. Still, most cryptos are rapidly moving to reducing their energy consumption by a factor of 100-1000 by moving to proof of stake. > I could write an ACID-compliant DB that could do 1M TPS Your system is neither distributed nor trustless. Users will be at your mercy. Hardly the ideal system for humanity. Try designing a similar system that works across hundreds of thousands of disparate nodes, many of which may be malicious or differently configured and in poor network environments. You will very quickly arrive at a similar model to modern cryptocurrencies. > At what point do we cut our losses and say this approach isn't working Certainly not when development speed has been rapidly increasing over time? These are early stage projects. A few years for a volunteer-designed global electronic financial system that frees humanity from the mercy of banks and financial censorship is not bad. Especially when you can’t take an Agile “move fast and break things” approach. > But we move at a faster pace than the Romans now and if a technology hasn't matured after 11 years Why do you keep saying the technology hasn’t matured after 11 years? I feel like you barely read my reply - how are NANO, XMR, and ETH/ETH2 not massive indicators of the improvement in the crypto sphere? Each alone represents a significant generational stride beyond BTC as it was originally defined. NANO brought us fast transactions, XMR brought us anonymity and censorship resistance, and ETH brought us smart contracts.