7 ms·

Show HN: The Billboard, a fully decentralised billboard stored in Ethereum

43 points by dbuidl 5y ago

Egidius 5y ago
“Fully decentralized” Domainname: vervel.app Vervel has centralized control to shut your app down. This is not decentralized.
- tromp 5y ago
  It's not much of a billboard either. A billboard is something that tons of people can't help but notice. This requires installing a bunch of software, identifying peers on the Ethererum mainnet, asking them for their idea of the latest block, determining the most-worked-branch, validating its entire history, looking up a particular contract, determining its state at that block, extracting some text from it, and then somehow displaying it, for one person to see. At least that would be the somewhat trustless and decentralized way to do it.
  - askmike 5y ago
    > A billboard is something that tons of people can't help but notice. That's an interesting definition of a billboard. So if there is a billboard next to a road, and the road goes under construction for weeks/months it ceases to be a billboard for that time? Or if most people leave a village and it empties out. > This requires installing a bunch of software, identifying peers on the Ethererum mainnet, asking them for their idea of the latest block, determining the most-worked-branch, validating its entire history, looking up a particular contract, determining its state at that block, extracting some text from it, and then somehow displaying it, for one person to see. At least that would be the somewhat trustless and decentralized way to do it. Trustless and decentralized are not the same thing. I agree that would be "somewhat" trustless (Do you trust your OS? Do you trust your compile toolchain? How deep does trustless need to go?) Instead, this is a webapp with a link to a blockchain explorer. It's trivial to check another blockchain explorer or your own node if you want.
    - mypastself 5y ago
      Since it no longer serves to advertise to the public, its utility as a billboard ceases. So yes, it stops being a billboard.
    - Gys 5y ago
      > So if there is a billboard next to a road, and the road goes under construction for weeks/months it ceases to be a billboard for that time? You could still call it a billboard but I am pretty sure the company paying for the ad on it will pause their payments. Maybe even sue if they were not given any notice in advance.
    - shlant 5y ago
      > So if there is a billboard next to a road, and the road goes under construction for weeks/months it ceases to be a billboard for that time? Or if most people leave a village and it empties out. If a tree falls in a forest... :D
- dbuidl 5y ago
  The billboard lives in the blockchain, it also generates its metadata in it. For example, this is the current metadata being generated right now when someone calls the "tokenURI(1)" method: data:application/json;base64,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
qeternity 5y ago
“Fully decentralized experiment to see how much money strangers will give me.”
prepend 5y ago
So it looks like the transaction price to update the billboard is “ 0.009975466857533094 Ether ($32.79)” This is what makes me think Etherium is just for speculators as there are no use cases where a $32 transaction fee makes sense. This is ending up like Ticketmaster with the completely useless fees. It costs less to trade on CharlesSchwab than Eth. Otherwise seems like a fun project, but too expensive to be fun.
- askmike 5y ago
  I updated it: ad price was <$0.01, gas fee was $6.83 EDIT: I got outbid, I didn't post any NFT ad
- JimWestergren 5y ago
  I remember when the transaction fee was $800 ... I had to wait for next day when it was back to around $120.
  - capableweb 5y ago
    When was this exactly? https://ycharts.com/indicators/ethereum_average_gas_price https://ycharts.com/indicators/ethereum_average_gas_price shows the peak to have been 939 Gwei in late 2016, which would be around 0.0027 EUR. Are you sure you're not talking about a call to a contract rather than the fee to just make a transaction?
    - mszcz 5y ago
      It all depends on the complexity of the method of the contract being called. I can surely imagine an $800 fee in peak times for a complex multihop swap on Sushiswap or something ;)
    - JimWestergren 5y ago
      Yeah, it must have been a call to a contract. My son wanted to buy an NFT on opensea for the first time. Initiating his wallet or something like that.
- 5y ago
infruset 5y ago
I had this exact idea some time ago, I'm happy someone made it :-) Inadvertently it highlights the fee problem of Ethereum, but I'm sure someone will pay for it. I was about to enter a haiku from Roland Barthes' "Préparation du roman": Les citadins Rameaux d’érable dans les mains Train du retour but Metamask wanted me to pay 17$ for it.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
herbst 5y ago
I did the exact same thing some years ago with 3 ads. The top one reached above 1 ETH :) However ETH was way cheaper and my ads would display on more than just the one site. Good luck!
okdjnfweonfe 5y ago
I was waiting for someone to rip-off the one from last month and just lower the fee and pretty much nothing else https://sagivo.com/2021/09/13/Crypto-Billboard.html https://sagivo.com/2021/09/13/Crypto-Billboard.html
JimWestergren 5y ago
Nice and I just tried it with the amount 0,003. But first and third line disappeared :( https://etherscan.io/tx/0x3c4ba696cc0996a9fa2bc12d3c4b04cebf50f7b8b4c7458db8db45f48213bb66#eventlog https://etherscan.io/tx/0x3c4ba696cc0996a9fa2bc12d3c4b04cebf... It was supposed to be: TheSpaceWar.com New fast-paced strategic 2 player card game No pay-to-win game - all cards included! -- Can it be fixed please? I am using Firefox with uBlock Origin.
- bwood 5y ago
  Seems like there's a 50 character limit, it may have truncated your message to fit.
  - JimWestergren 5y ago
    Well, the website says: "Each line has a limit of 50 bytes (50 standard characters). "
- dbuidl 5y ago
  Hey Jim! I answered you on Twitter https://twitter.com/dbuidl/status/1444281093000159233?s=21 https://twitter.com/dbuidl/status/1444281093000159233?s=21 There might be a bug in the form, but you can see the current one being displayed has also 3 lines and a pretty long ones.
- bruce343434 5y ago
  > Can it be fixed please? Lol, did you really just dive into this without knowing that blockchains can not be changed after they are published?
BiteCode_dev 5y ago
So, the million dollars home page, crypto edition? I really should fire up archive.org to dig those old projects that worked in the 2000. Sticking a blockchain on them seems to be a nice way to make some bucks.
- simias 5y ago
  It's visually a lot less interesting than the million dollar home page though.
- ObamaBinSpying 5y ago
  One red paper clip is up next? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_red_paperclip https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_red_paperclip
  - joshuakelly 5y ago
    Already exists - see PaperclipDAO https://clip.mirror.xyz/mOCENLvP1aYXOBOPiLoLjBlSTvJWBqccfkn4gTPJ8qM https://clip.mirror.xyz/mOCENLvP1aYXOBOPiLoLjBlSTvJWBqccfkn4...
- bastijn 5y ago
  No, that one was already claimed. https://thousandetherhomepage.com/ https://thousandetherhomepage.com/
- clubdorothe 5y ago
  something similar posted few weeks ago: https://project-memento.com https://project-memento.com
newswasboring 5y ago
An upvote purchase site is marketed there. It specifically says get to the top of Hacker news. I find that a bit disturbing
zkldi 5y ago
Amusing that one of the things on the billboard is > https://<SITENAME>.club https://<SITENAME>.club Marketing that actually works. (like getting posts on HN's main page) 0.000000100000000011Ξ
doctorhandshake 5y ago
I don’t want to click on it myself to find out but a friend to whom I shared the link to the page the HN post link landed on said it took him through a whole bunch of redirects and landed on a shopping page of some kind. Was the page perhaps compromised?

43 points by dbuidl 5y ago

“Fully decentralized” Domainname: vervel.app Vervel has centralized control to shut your app down. This is not decentralized.

tromp 5y ago
It's not much of a billboard either. A billboard is something that tons of people can't help but notice. This requires installing a bunch of software, identifying peers on the Ethererum mainnet, asking them for their idea of the latest block, determining the most-worked-branch, validating its entire history, looking up a particular contract, determining its state at that block, extracting some text from it, and then somehow displaying it, for one person to see. At least that would be the somewhat trustless and decentralized way to do it.
- askmike 5y ago
  > A billboard is something that tons of people can't help but notice. That's an interesting definition of a billboard. So if there is a billboard next to a road, and the road goes under construction for weeks/months it ceases to be a billboard for that time? Or if most people leave a village and it empties out. > This requires installing a bunch of software, identifying peers on the Ethererum mainnet, asking them for their idea of the latest block, determining the most-worked-branch, validating its entire history, looking up a particular contract, determining its state at that block, extracting some text from it, and then somehow displaying it, for one person to see. At least that would be the somewhat trustless and decentralized way to do it. Trustless and decentralized are not the same thing. I agree that would be "somewhat" trustless (Do you trust your OS? Do you trust your compile toolchain? How deep does trustless need to go?) Instead, this is a webapp with a link to a blockchain explorer. It's trivial to check another blockchain explorer or your own node if you want.
  - mypastself 5y ago
    Since it no longer serves to advertise to the public, its utility as a billboard ceases. So yes, it stops being a billboard.
  - Gys 5y ago
    > So if there is a billboard next to a road, and the road goes under construction for weeks/months it ceases to be a billboard for that time? You could still call it a billboard but I am pretty sure the company paying for the ad on it will pause their payments. Maybe even sue if they were not given any notice in advance.
  - shlant 5y ago
    > So if there is a billboard next to a road, and the road goes under construction for weeks/months it ceases to be a billboard for that time? Or if most people leave a village and it empties out. If a tree falls in a forest... :D
dbuidl 5y ago
The billboard lives in the blockchain, it also generates its metadata in it. For example, this is the current metadata being generated right now when someone calls the "tokenURI(1)" method: data:application/json;base64,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

qeternity 5y ago

“Fully decentralized experiment to see how much money strangers will give me.”

prepend 5y ago

So it looks like the transaction price to update the billboard is “ 0.009975466857533094 Ether ($32.79)” This is what makes me think Etherium is just for speculators as there are no use cases where a $32 transaction fee makes sense. This is ending up like Ticketmaster with the completely useless fees. It costs less to trade on CharlesSchwab than Eth. Otherwise seems like a fun project, but too expensive to be fun.

askmike 5y ago
I updated it: ad price was <$0.01, gas fee was $6.83 EDIT: I got outbid, I didn't post any NFT ad
JimWestergren 5y ago
I remember when the transaction fee was $800 ... I had to wait for next day when it was back to around $120.
- capableweb 5y ago
  When was this exactly? https://ycharts.com/indicators/ethereum_average_gas_price https://ycharts.com/indicators/ethereum_average_gas_price shows the peak to have been 939 Gwei in late 2016, which would be around 0.0027 EUR. Are you sure you're not talking about a call to a contract rather than the fee to just make a transaction?
  - mszcz 5y ago
    It all depends on the complexity of the method of the contract being called. I can surely imagine an $800 fee in peak times for a complex multihop swap on Sushiswap or something ;)
  - JimWestergren 5y ago
    Yeah, it must have been a call to a contract. My son wanted to buy an NFT on opensea for the first time. Initiating his wallet or something like that.
5y ago

infruset 5y ago

I had this exact idea some time ago, I'm happy someone made it :-) Inadvertently it highlights the fee problem of Ethereum, but I'm sure someone will pay for it. I was about to enter a haiku from Roland Barthes' "Préparation du roman": Les citadins Rameaux d’érable dans les mains Train du retour but Metamask wanted me to pay 17$ for it.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

herbst 5y ago

I did the exact same thing some years ago with 3 ads. The top one reached above 1 ETH :) However ETH was way cheaper and my ads would display on more than just the one site. Good luck!

okdjnfweonfe 5y ago

I was waiting for someone to rip-off the one from last month and just lower the fee and pretty much nothing else https://sagivo.com/2021/09/13/Crypto-Billboard.html https://sagivo.com/2021/09/13/Crypto-Billboard.html

JimWestergren 5y ago

Nice and I just tried it with the amount 0,003. But first and third line disappeared :( https://etherscan.io/tx/0x3c4ba696cc0996a9fa2bc12d3c4b04cebf50f7b8b4c7458db8db45f48213bb66#eventlog https://etherscan.io/tx/0x3c4ba696cc0996a9fa2bc12d3c4b04cebf... It was supposed to be: TheSpaceWar.com New fast-paced strategic 2 player card game No pay-to-win game - all cards included! -- Can it be fixed please? I am using Firefox with uBlock Origin.

bwood 5y ago
Seems like there's a 50 character limit, it may have truncated your message to fit.
- JimWestergren 5y ago
  Well, the website says: "Each line has a limit of 50 bytes (50 standard characters). "
dbuidl 5y ago
Hey Jim! I answered you on Twitter https://twitter.com/dbuidl/status/1444281093000159233?s=21 https://twitter.com/dbuidl/status/1444281093000159233?s=21 There might be a bug in the form, but you can see the current one being displayed has also 3 lines and a pretty long ones.
bruce343434 5y ago
> Can it be fixed please? Lol, did you really just dive into this without knowing that blockchains can not be changed after they are published?

BiteCode_dev 5y ago

So, the million dollars home page, crypto edition? I really should fire up archive.org to dig those old projects that worked in the 2000. Sticking a blockchain on them seems to be a nice way to make some bucks.

simias 5y ago
It's visually a lot less interesting than the million dollar home page though.
ObamaBinSpying 5y ago
One red paper clip is up next? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_red_paperclip https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_red_paperclip
- joshuakelly 5y ago
  Already exists - see PaperclipDAO https://clip.mirror.xyz/mOCENLvP1aYXOBOPiLoLjBlSTvJWBqccfkn4gTPJ8qM https://clip.mirror.xyz/mOCENLvP1aYXOBOPiLoLjBlSTvJWBqccfkn4...
bastijn 5y ago
No, that one was already claimed. https://thousandetherhomepage.com/ https://thousandetherhomepage.com/
clubdorothe 5y ago
something similar posted few weeks ago: https://project-memento.com https://project-memento.com

newswasboring 5y ago

An upvote purchase site is marketed there. It specifically says get to the top of Hacker news. I find that a bit disturbing

zkldi 5y ago

Amusing that one of the things on the billboard is > https://<SITENAME>.club https://<SITENAME>.club Marketing that actually works. (like getting posts on HN's main page) 0.000000100000000011Ξ

doctorhandshake 5y ago

I don’t want to click on it myself to find out but a friend to whom I shared the link to the page the HN post link landed on said it took him through a whole bunch of redirects and landed on a shopping page of some kind. Was the page perhaps compromised?