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Web3 requires retrofitting the web to use blockchain technologies to do what the web can mostly do already. In "Blockchains Are a Bad Idea", James Mickens give
by thesuperbigfrog 5y ago
Web3 requires retrofitting the web to use blockchain technologies to do what the web can mostly do already.
In "Blockchains Are a Bad Idea", James Mickens gives several arguments against blockchain-based systems like Bitcoin:
See his presentation here: https://youtu.be/15RTC22Z2xI https://youtu.be/15RTC22Z2xI
1. People have out-of-band trust relationships in real life which reduce the likelihood of malice. Bitcoin-style anonymous identities undermine trust relationships and are not needed for legitimate (not illegal) transactions.
2. Real life legal systems encourage good behaviors. If you have a dispute with someone, you can sue them. Bitcoin and related systems lack these protections.
3. Existing tools such as public-key cryptography and digital signatures can provide most of the functionality that applications need without the problems that blockchain-based systems have.
- bitxbitxbitcoin 5y ago1. The assumption that anonymous or pseudonymous identities undermine trust is very… naive and doesn’t consider the fact that many things are considered illegal but shouldn’t be and even if you think they should be, there will always be people that think otherwise. Like participating economically with a relative in an embargoed country for example. 2. Real life legal systems can still be used. Stolen coins can and have be blacklisted by court of law and chainanalysis companies meaning they are frozen immediately at fiat off ramps. Just like would happen with a fungible physical asset like gold. 3. This is 100% true. The thing is one of the problems that is fixed by blockchain based systems is trust. Trust that the source code won’t be changed because of the very pecuniary incentives people keep hating on.