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People don't exchange public keys on the blorkchain, they use username/password to access their wallets, and these have a public key. That in itself doesn't aut

People don't exchange public keys on the blorkchain, they use username/password to access their wallets, and these have a public key. That in itself doesn't authenticate anyone to anything, the only guarantee is that it is unique. How do we know who is behind a hash? Because there is a server (aka. a "centralized authority") that has that information. So how exactly is that different from using my google account to login to some webservice?

jakupovic 5y ago
This is not true. Your key serves as proof you own something and nobody else without your key can claim to it. There is no central poin involved. You can connect to any chain node, yours including, and assert control over it. There is no central authority, that's the whole point. If you're referring to an NFT being a url hosted somewhere other tha. IPFS, nobody is arguing that.
- samhw 5y ago
  > Your key serves as proof you own something and nobody else without your key can claim to it. Yes, and what maps that to your physical identity? How is that any different from showing someone a public key you just generated with GPG? For what it’s worth, I recently read Moxie Marlinspike’s essay on web3, and I think he crystallised one of the most interesting insights I’ve ever heard on that topic: > We should accept the premise that people will not run their own servers by designing systems that can distribute trust without having to distribute infrastructure. This means architecture that anticipates and accepts the inevitable outcome of relatively centralized client/server relationships, but uses cryptography (rather than infrastructure) to distribute trust. I think he’s correct, and the cryptocurrency of the future – the one which actually takes off as a medium of exchange – will do exactly what we’re arguing about here. It will use purely cryptography as its mechanism, instead of large groups of servers acting as the gatekeeper. You’ll be able to send money to someone with purely a public key, no servers required, just you and them as peer-to-peer. And, as a corollary, you’ll be able to prove your balance with only a key and the encrypted data of your past transactions. I’ve barely stopped thinking about my envisioned implementation for the past couple of weeks.
  - jakupovic 5y ago
    I like your vision. Definitely sounds easier to use than what we have here amd now.
mattdesl 5y ago
this is a pretty fundamental misunderstanding of non-custodial private key management. what you are describing is a custodial wallet.
che_shirecat 5y ago
> server (aka. a "centralized authority") that's a very very liberal equivalence to make. decentralized authority in practice is just a collection of servers in aggregate that come to consensus according to a certain protocol.

jakupovic 5y ago

This is not true. Your key serves as proof you own something and nobody else without your key can claim to it. There is no central poin involved. You can connect to any chain node, yours including, and assert control over it. There is no central authority, that's the whole point. If you're referring to an NFT being a url hosted somewhere other tha. IPFS, nobody is arguing that.

samhw 5y ago
> Your key serves as proof you own something and nobody else without your key can claim to it. Yes, and what maps that to your physical identity? How is that any different from showing someone a public key you just generated with GPG? For what it’s worth, I recently read Moxie Marlinspike’s essay on web3, and I think he crystallised one of the most interesting insights I’ve ever heard on that topic: > We should accept the premise that people will not run their own servers by designing systems that can distribute trust without having to distribute infrastructure. This means architecture that anticipates and accepts the inevitable outcome of relatively centralized client/server relationships, but uses cryptography (rather than infrastructure) to distribute trust. I think he’s correct, and the cryptocurrency of the future – the one which actually takes off as a medium of exchange – will do exactly what we’re arguing about here. It will use purely cryptography as its mechanism, instead of large groups of servers acting as the gatekeeper. You’ll be able to send money to someone with purely a public key, no servers required, just you and them as peer-to-peer. And, as a corollary, you’ll be able to prove your balance with only a key and the encrypted data of your past transactions. I’ve barely stopped thinking about my envisioned implementation for the past couple of weeks.
- jakupovic 5y ago
  I like your vision. Definitely sounds easier to use than what we have here amd now.

mattdesl 5y ago

this is a pretty fundamental misunderstanding of non-custodial private key management. what you are describing is a custodial wallet.

che_shirecat 5y ago

> server (aka. a "centralized authority") that's a very very liberal equivalence to make. decentralized authority in practice is just a collection of servers in aggregate that come to consensus according to a certain protocol.