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ETH's current scalability problems are beyond terrible, but there are alternatives. You can use chains like Polygon or Avalanche that are EVM, so you get all of

by _gf4m 5y ago

ETH's current scalability problems are beyond terrible, but there are alternatives. You can use chains like Polygon or Avalanche that are EVM, so you get all of the capabilities of Ethereum, but without insane gas fees. There are non-EVM solutions as well like Solana, which has substantially higher throughput while transactions cost a fraction of a cent. Try out other chains than ETH before ruling out web3 imo. There's a lot of engineering and incredible products outside of the main ethereum ecosystem which is being masked due to ETH's scalability problems. There are also standalone computation solutions that are under development such as Truebit, which if successful, could allow for smart contracts to execute complex calculations off-chain, avoiding both the increased gas fees due to complexity, and bypassing the gas limit altogether.

hanniabu 5y ago
> ETH's current scalability problems are beyond terrible, but there are alternatives The only alternative is ethereum L2s. Avalanche, solana, etc are centralized VC chains that do not have the foundation needed to be the infrastructure of tomorrow.
- shiohime 5y ago
  I keep hearing this argument but I really don't buy it, sorry. I think that over time these other chains are also going to naturally decentralize, at least in the case of Solana the primary barrier of entry is hardware. I think that actually having a product that works today is more important than a platform that hasn't been scalable since inception. Maybe ETH 2.0 will release sometime and all the ongoing scalability efforts actually do work, but until then I think it's absurd to write off other chains that are vastly outperforming it. Edit - It's really, really easy to see that a transaction on Ethereum is not even remotely worth the gas it charges today. I remember hearing ETH people trashing BTC transaction prices in 2017, but yeah I'm sorry, this is so beyond absurd I cannot support or recommend anyone use ETH as a layer 1 until it is actually a scalable chain. Not in theory, but actually works. Wasn't sharding and layering discussed in 2017? How much longer until it's actually usable? Gas price for minting a JPG the other day for me would have been $300. This isn't worth it in any world unless you are sitting on a fat stack of ETH you bought under $200. But then you should just sell it instead of actually using it. Don't you see the problem? Why do you think there's so many articles talking about how terrible Web3 is? It couldn't possibly be that people's first impression of the tech is on a financially impractical chain. I like working in Solidity and think the EVM is great, and there's a lot of cool projects in the Ethereum ecosystem. But ETH is an unusable L1 for the vast majority of people until they solve scalability. No amount of decentralization dreams are worth it. Hell, you could even just use Ethereum classic if you wanted. It does everything ETH does because it's just ETH except they didn't have a centralized Ethereum foundation mutate the chain history because someone stole a bunch of money from them and only costs like $50 the last time I checked. If you care so much about decentralization shouldn't you like the chain that didn't have it's history changed by a centralized organization? If you really want the most decentralized network possible, Bitcoin is it. I haven't looked into the taproot update too much yet, but maybe it'll be actually supported before ETH scales at this rate.
  - hanniabu 5y ago
    ETH already scales with L2 while remaining the most decentralized and secure
    - shiohime 5y ago
      Yeah, let me just lock up my ETH for a week so I can move it to Arbitrum and only have to pay $25 a transaction instead of $100.
      - serverholic 5y ago
        You should really do more research because that's not how it'll work. The idea is that users will onboard straight to Layer 2 and stay on Layer 2. Layer 1 will only be used by protocols and extremely important transactions like nation-state transactions. You'll also be able to move between L2's via bridging protocols like Hop. This isn't just Ethereum BTW. Other chains are moving to layer 2 rollups because that's just how blockchains scale. Ethereum is getting a lot of shit because it's dealing with unprecedented demand and it refuses to cut corners on important things like decentralization. Other chains will have the same fate if they grow large enough.
        shiohime 5y ago
        I'm simply stating how Arbitrum works today. And sure, once there's more adoption on L2s then there will be a reason to stay in the ecosystem, and I do get that it's inevitable that we'll have a multichain future (we have a multichain present anyways), but in this model I just don't understand why ETH has value in the thousands of dollars per token. The answer is simply amounting to "you cannot afford our chain so go use a different one". So I'll happily work with a more affordable chain with higher throughput. I hope that the ETH vision works out because right now it's kind of a clusterfuck tbh. But until the planned vision is not theory and is fully realized, I think it's absurd to refuse to work with other L1 solutions like Solana simply because Ethereum has a large head start on decentralization. I think that if people try some Web3 apps on a chain like Solana or Avalanche, more people would be excited about the potential that Web3 can bring. Instead, we have people blindly yelling about how NFTs are bad for the environment or whatever nonsense, or that it cost someone $100 to move $50. And regarding using ETH for nation state transactions, you can simply just use BTC for such important transactions. It's more decentralized than Ethereum and is just going to continue to decentralize.
xmprt 5y ago
I've looked into some of the engineering that goes into Web3, and while I'm incredibly impressed, I can't quite shake the feeling that all we're doing is getting really good at counting paperclips. What real world problems does Web3 solve? It seems like Web3 has a ton of great solutions to problems that Web3 creates. Most problems that Web3 claim to solve can be solved through non blockchain solutions and even decentralization doesn't require a blockchain. The Internet is already decentralized to begin with.
- ssss11 5y ago
  The internet is not decentralised name one application or website which does not require a server in the middle between two clients. Edit: but I agree there are already ways Web3 things can be done, and decentralization can be done without blockchain - the question I think is whether this impressive engineering is better than the existing ways
  - captn3m0 5y ago
    BitTorrent? BGP? SMTP?
    - ssss11 5y ago
      For BitTorrent isn’t there a tracker server which establishes your connection to the swarm? BGP - as in for routers? I’m talking end user applications SMTP - needs a server I believe, in any case there may be a way to craft and send emails on the cli but end users aren’t using that
      - captn3m0 5y ago
        DHT doesn't use trackers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mainline_DHT https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mainline_DHT What's true for SMTP also holds for BTC etc. Most users are just handing custody to exchanges, so crypto isn't really decentralized either.
  - easrng 5y ago
meheleventyone 5y ago
Even the cheaper chains are much more expensive than the actual compute cost.

by _gf4m 5y ago

hanniabu 5y ago

> ETH's current scalability problems are beyond terrible, but there are alternatives The only alternative is ethereum L2s. Avalanche, solana, etc are centralized VC chains that do not have the foundation needed to be the infrastructure of tomorrow.

shiohime 5y ago
I keep hearing this argument but I really don't buy it, sorry. I think that over time these other chains are also going to naturally decentralize, at least in the case of Solana the primary barrier of entry is hardware. I think that actually having a product that works today is more important than a platform that hasn't been scalable since inception. Maybe ETH 2.0 will release sometime and all the ongoing scalability efforts actually do work, but until then I think it's absurd to write off other chains that are vastly outperforming it. Edit - It's really, really easy to see that a transaction on Ethereum is not even remotely worth the gas it charges today. I remember hearing ETH people trashing BTC transaction prices in 2017, but yeah I'm sorry, this is so beyond absurd I cannot support or recommend anyone use ETH as a layer 1 until it is actually a scalable chain. Not in theory, but actually works. Wasn't sharding and layering discussed in 2017? How much longer until it's actually usable? Gas price for minting a JPG the other day for me would have been $300. This isn't worth it in any world unless you are sitting on a fat stack of ETH you bought under $200. But then you should just sell it instead of actually using it. Don't you see the problem? Why do you think there's so many articles talking about how terrible Web3 is? It couldn't possibly be that people's first impression of the tech is on a financially impractical chain. I like working in Solidity and think the EVM is great, and there's a lot of cool projects in the Ethereum ecosystem. But ETH is an unusable L1 for the vast majority of people until they solve scalability. No amount of decentralization dreams are worth it. Hell, you could even just use Ethereum classic if you wanted. It does everything ETH does because it's just ETH except they didn't have a centralized Ethereum foundation mutate the chain history because someone stole a bunch of money from them and only costs like $50 the last time I checked. If you care so much about decentralization shouldn't you like the chain that didn't have it's history changed by a centralized organization? If you really want the most decentralized network possible, Bitcoin is it. I haven't looked into the taproot update too much yet, but maybe it'll be actually supported before ETH scales at this rate.
- hanniabu 5y ago
  ETH already scales with L2 while remaining the most decentralized and secure
  - shiohime 5y ago
    Yeah, let me just lock up my ETH for a week so I can move it to Arbitrum and only have to pay $25 a transaction instead of $100.
    - serverholic 5y ago
      You should really do more research because that's not how it'll work. The idea is that users will onboard straight to Layer 2 and stay on Layer 2. Layer 1 will only be used by protocols and extremely important transactions like nation-state transactions. You'll also be able to move between L2's via bridging protocols like Hop. This isn't just Ethereum BTW. Other chains are moving to layer 2 rollups because that's just how blockchains scale. Ethereum is getting a lot of shit because it's dealing with unprecedented demand and it refuses to cut corners on important things like decentralization. Other chains will have the same fate if they grow large enough.
      - shiohime 5y ago
        I'm simply stating how Arbitrum works today. And sure, once there's more adoption on L2s then there will be a reason to stay in the ecosystem, and I do get that it's inevitable that we'll have a multichain future (we have a multichain present anyways), but in this model I just don't understand why ETH has value in the thousands of dollars per token. The answer is simply amounting to "you cannot afford our chain so go use a different one". So I'll happily work with a more affordable chain with higher throughput. I hope that the ETH vision works out because right now it's kind of a clusterfuck tbh. But until the planned vision is not theory and is fully realized, I think it's absurd to refuse to work with other L1 solutions like Solana simply because Ethereum has a large head start on decentralization. I think that if people try some Web3 apps on a chain like Solana or Avalanche, more people would be excited about the potential that Web3 can bring. Instead, we have people blindly yelling about how NFTs are bad for the environment or whatever nonsense, or that it cost someone $100 to move $50. And regarding using ETH for nation state transactions, you can simply just use BTC for such important transactions. It's more decentralized than Ethereum and is just going to continue to decentralize.

xmprt 5y ago

I've looked into some of the engineering that goes into Web3, and while I'm incredibly impressed, I can't quite shake the feeling that all we're doing is getting really good at counting paperclips. What real world problems does Web3 solve? It seems like Web3 has a ton of great solutions to problems that Web3 creates. Most problems that Web3 claim to solve can be solved through non blockchain solutions and even decentralization doesn't require a blockchain. The Internet is already decentralized to begin with.

ssss11 5y ago
The internet is not decentralised name one application or website which does not require a server in the middle between two clients. Edit: but I agree there are already ways Web3 things can be done, and decentralization can be done without blockchain - the question I think is whether this impressive engineering is better than the existing ways
- captn3m0 5y ago
  BitTorrent? BGP? SMTP?
  - ssss11 5y ago
    For BitTorrent isn’t there a tracker server which establishes your connection to the swarm? BGP - as in for routers? I’m talking end user applications SMTP - needs a server I believe, in any case there may be a way to craft and send emails on the cli but end users aren’t using that
    - captn3m0 5y ago
      DHT doesn't use trackers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mainline_DHT https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mainline_DHT What's true for SMTP also holds for BTC etc. Most users are just handing custody to exchanges, so crypto isn't really decentralized either.
- easrng 5y ago

meheleventyone 5y ago

Even the cheaper chains are much more expensive than the actual compute cost.