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I’ve historically been a huge blockchain skeptic, partially because of the ambient scammy tulip mania, but mostly because the technology demonstrably doesn’t sc

I’ve historically been a huge blockchain skeptic, partially because of the ambient scammy tulip mania, but mostly because the technology demonstrably doesn’t scale (I spent 200 bucks buying 5 bucks of something the other day because I slipped a zero doing the gas math in a hurry, I am not alone). With that said the crypto folks have had some legitimate heavy hitters quietly building another generation of the technology and it’s just now starting to go live. Take a look at the Haskell / distributed systems bench at IO-HK: Standard Chartered would love to employ that group of people. And while it’s still a little early, Substrate is powering Kusama-bonded chains on delegated PoS + finality gadget in the wild, today. The Parity people are also not screwing around. It will be at a minimum interesting to see how mature technology alters the fundamental “crypto” equation. P.S. If you want to point web3.is at a modern chain, Moonriver seems like your best bet right now, but it’s early days.

wmf 5y ago
The problem is that advanced technology (you forgot Avalanche) isn't more profitable during a bubble. It's probably less profitable because the development is slower and more expensive.
hanniabu 5y ago
> the technology demonstrably doesn’t scale Yes it does, look at rollups.
shiohime 5y ago
Check out other chains than Ethereum, this is really only an Ethereum scalability problem. Transactions on Solana for example cost a fraction of a cent and execute much quicker than ETH transactions.
- evv 5y ago
  Solana is a "Proof of Stake" network, a trust model where nodes can only be run by currency holders. There is a predetermined list of trusted identities- aka, centralization. And to your point, centralized services do have better performance. I'm not trying to be a downer- I think centralization can be incredibly valuable for building trusted systems. But they are not to be confused with trustless networks like Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Chia.
  - shiohime 5y ago
    I understand the concern of centralization on the Solana chain, it is a very valid concern. However, I would like to remind you that Ethereum used to be similarly centralized (of course it has been PoW to date so far, however the hashing power early in the project was quite centralized). Ethereum in 2016 had the famous attack where 12 million ETH were stolen, and a rather centralized foundation was able to perform a hard fork to undo the transaction and recover the funds. This of course led to the split of Ethereum and Ethereum Classic. Nowadays, I believe that such a fork would be nearly impossible for Ethereum to pull off, due to the decentralization of the hash rate and the differences in the power the Ethereum Foundation has on the chain, due to the maturity of the chain. Whether or not that is a good thing that it could not roll back such a transaction is almost a philosophical question lol. In my mind, Solana is in a somewhat similar state to how early ETH was in terms of centralized power and control of the chain. It would not surprise me that as time marches on, Solana naturally decentralizes. It's not guaranteed by any means of course, but that is what I am expecting. And to be quite honest, for most applications, I would rather have a degree of centralization than pay > $100 for gas fees. I am aware of the existence of Layer 2 solutions, but I'm not too sure that by making a somewhat complicated layering solution to solve scalability concerns on the network that it can achieve mass long-term adoption. We'll see of course, just wanted to share my opinion on this.
    - casi18 5y ago
      > I am aware of the existence of Layer 2 solutions, but I'm not too sure that by making a somewhat complicated layering solution to solve scalability concerns on the network that it can achieve mass long-term adoption. the base layers always get expensive because of demand for block space. but zkrollups get cheaper as more people use them and the share of the writing to the L1 is split between more parties. solana has the exact same scaling strategy as eth, L2 rollups. but its harder for people to run on their own hardware for the L1. maybe thats something people care about, maybe not. time will tell.
  - pcthrowaway 5y ago
    Ethereum is also moving to proof of stake... While there are some proof of stake networks which are 'permissioned' (for example, Binance Smart Chain), Solana to my knowledge is permissionless, meaning anyone who can afford the hardware and minimum stake can run a node. This is still a barrier, but so is setting up a bitcoin mining node.
exdsq 5y ago
I worked at IOHK and now work on a Parity-backed startup & wish more people had your view on the subject. Pretty tired of the HN viewpoint that people working in crypto == scammers.
hanniabu 5y ago
What a shill post. It's easy to spot because you're discounting all of ethereum's scaling innovation in order to allocate for Cardano (which was broken on arrival) and the VC interest polkadot. Polkadot is a great way to destroy web3 by handing it over to the VCs the own an overwhelming supply.
- benreesman 5y ago
  I don't own any DOT or ADA, don't plan to, and don't know anyone who works at either Parity or IO-HK. In fact my current crypto holdings are like 100 bucks in `ETH` left over from buying some dApp thing. So to the extent that I have a financial interest in any coin, it's the one you think I'm maliciously maligning. What possible motivation could I have for shilling a coin? You're better than this, and HN is too.

wmf 5y ago

The problem is that advanced technology (you forgot Avalanche) isn't more profitable during a bubble. It's probably less profitable because the development is slower and more expensive.

hanniabu 5y ago

> the technology demonstrably doesn’t scale Yes it does, look at rollups.

shiohime 5y ago

Check out other chains than Ethereum, this is really only an Ethereum scalability problem. Transactions on Solana for example cost a fraction of a cent and execute much quicker than ETH transactions.

evv 5y ago
Solana is a "Proof of Stake" network, a trust model where nodes can only be run by currency holders. There is a predetermined list of trusted identities- aka, centralization. And to your point, centralized services do have better performance. I'm not trying to be a downer- I think centralization can be incredibly valuable for building trusted systems. But they are not to be confused with trustless networks like Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Chia.
- shiohime 5y ago
  I understand the concern of centralization on the Solana chain, it is a very valid concern. However, I would like to remind you that Ethereum used to be similarly centralized (of course it has been PoW to date so far, however the hashing power early in the project was quite centralized). Ethereum in 2016 had the famous attack where 12 million ETH were stolen, and a rather centralized foundation was able to perform a hard fork to undo the transaction and recover the funds. This of course led to the split of Ethereum and Ethereum Classic. Nowadays, I believe that such a fork would be nearly impossible for Ethereum to pull off, due to the decentralization of the hash rate and the differences in the power the Ethereum Foundation has on the chain, due to the maturity of the chain. Whether or not that is a good thing that it could not roll back such a transaction is almost a philosophical question lol. In my mind, Solana is in a somewhat similar state to how early ETH was in terms of centralized power and control of the chain. It would not surprise me that as time marches on, Solana naturally decentralizes. It's not guaranteed by any means of course, but that is what I am expecting. And to be quite honest, for most applications, I would rather have a degree of centralization than pay > $100 for gas fees. I am aware of the existence of Layer 2 solutions, but I'm not too sure that by making a somewhat complicated layering solution to solve scalability concerns on the network that it can achieve mass long-term adoption. We'll see of course, just wanted to share my opinion on this.
  - casi18 5y ago
    > I am aware of the existence of Layer 2 solutions, but I'm not too sure that by making a somewhat complicated layering solution to solve scalability concerns on the network that it can achieve mass long-term adoption. the base layers always get expensive because of demand for block space. but zkrollups get cheaper as more people use them and the share of the writing to the L1 is split between more parties. solana has the exact same scaling strategy as eth, L2 rollups. but its harder for people to run on their own hardware for the L1. maybe thats something people care about, maybe not. time will tell.
- pcthrowaway 5y ago
  Ethereum is also moving to proof of stake... While there are some proof of stake networks which are 'permissioned' (for example, Binance Smart Chain), Solana to my knowledge is permissionless, meaning anyone who can afford the hardware and minimum stake can run a node. This is still a barrier, but so is setting up a bitcoin mining node.

exdsq 5y ago

I worked at IOHK and now work on a Parity-backed startup & wish more people had your view on the subject. Pretty tired of the HN viewpoint that people working in crypto == scammers.

hanniabu 5y ago

What a shill post. It's easy to spot because you're discounting all of ethereum's scaling innovation in order to allocate for Cardano (which was broken on arrival) and the VC interest polkadot. Polkadot is a great way to destroy web3 by handing it over to the VCs the own an overwhelming supply.

benreesman 5y ago
I don't own any DOT or ADA, don't plan to, and don't know anyone who works at either Parity or IO-HK. In fact my current crypto holdings are like 100 bucks in `ETH` left over from buying some dApp thing. So to the extent that I have a financial interest in any coin, it's the one you think I'm maliciously maligning. What possible motivation could I have for shilling a coin? You're better than this, and HN is too.