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>There's a lot of research and development into blockchain technology by very smart people. That is precisely why this is such a societally detrimental technol

>There's a lot of research and development into blockchain technology by very smart people. That is precisely why this is such a societally detrimental technology. The communities that are forming around it are self-reinforcing and suck up both monetary and intellectual capital. All of this hype about crypto's "potential" is demolished in Dan's excellent work. >It's a lack of imagination to think that because crypto is "slow" now (and not all of it is by the way), that it will always be the case. Proof of work combined with the deflationary nature of these currencies is literally the antithesis of efficiency. The system necessarily needs to become less efficient over time because new coins need to become asymptotically harder to mint. >Maybe a purely decentralized system cannot. It's clear that the systems that interpret the blockchain (and even the blockchain itself, if wealthy and well-connected folks decide to fork) can be pressured into "censorship." >if they can prove perfectly transparent and reduce or eliminate corruption? No system that relies on human inputs can prove to be perfectly transparent or eliminate corruption. The blockchain itself can have provably unbreakable crypto that prevents man-in-the-middle manipulation of data but that in and of itself does not govern the interface between the chain and the people feeding it data.

logicalmonster 5y ago
> Proof of work combined with the deflationary nature of these currencies is literally the antithesis of efficiency. 1) First of all, are we discussing crypto as a currency or blockchains as a technology? Your criticisms seem all over the place here. 2) Maybe talking negatively about the dangers of deflationary currencies while we're in a period of economic inflation and peoples' purchasing power is being deliberately destroyed is not the best idea. 3) I'm not convinced that deflation in a currency is a bad thing. Mainstream economics schools hate deflation, but the Austrian school writes very favorably on the merits of deflation: https://mises.org/library/deflating-deflation-myth https://mises.org/library/deflating-deflation-myth 4) Proof of work might or might not be around in the future: who knows? But that doesn't mean that blockchains are unworkable, just that one implementation might not stand the test of time. > No system that relies on human inputs can prove to be perfectly transparent or eliminate corruption. Look into what Oracles are and how they can guarantee the reliability of information and the concept of cryptoeconomic security. Who knows where this ends up going and if it's widely used or not, but there's a very high chance that all of the theoretical objections you would make here have been addressed.
- omegaworks 5y ago
  >First of all, are we discussing crypto as a currency or blockchains as a technology? Blockchains require an incentive for members of their network to maintain a copy of the shared ledger. Modeling it after a deflationary currency creates a first-mover advantage that generates this momentum. We're not talking about "theoretical objections" or hypothetical better systems, the commonly implemented blockchain systems are creating problems that are manifesting themselves today, and every ounce of capital invested into them creates real inertia against changing how they fundamentally work. >Proof of work might or might not be around in the future: who knows? We can not afford to be ambivalent about how this technology evolves.
- ShamelessC 5y ago
  > If an oracle relies on a single source of truth (centralized), that can lead to issues: the data source can be hacked in a man-in-the-middle attack, or altered by its owner, in order to sway smart contracts. Decentralized oracles (consensus oracles) increase the reliability of the information provided to smart contracts by querying multiple data sources, thus distributing trust between participants. However, this does not achieve trustlessness, since oracles are not part of the main blockchain consensus, and thus not part of the security mechanisms of public blockchains. https://wikiless.org/wiki/Blockchain_oracle https://wikiless.org/wiki/Blockchain_oracle
  - logicalmonster 5y ago
    If this is a topic you're curious about, look into some of Sergey Nazarov's interviews and/or pay attention to the topic of "cryptoeconomic security" in relation to oracles. Basically the idea is to have a system where the cost of corrupting the information on a network is always far more than the potential gain. Whether or not this is possible or will succeed is a question mark, but I'd think many potential objections and question marks have been addressed.
- timeon 5y ago
  > Proof of work might or might not be around in the future: who knows? Let's not argument in terms of 'what ifs'. Proof of waste is real here and now.

logicalmonster 5y ago

> Proof of work combined with the deflationary nature of these currencies is literally the antithesis of efficiency. 1) First of all, are we discussing crypto as a currency or blockchains as a technology? Your criticisms seem all over the place here. 2) Maybe talking negatively about the dangers of deflationary currencies while we're in a period of economic inflation and peoples' purchasing power is being deliberately destroyed is not the best idea. 3) I'm not convinced that deflation in a currency is a bad thing. Mainstream economics schools hate deflation, but the Austrian school writes very favorably on the merits of deflation: https://mises.org/library/deflating-deflation-myth https://mises.org/library/deflating-deflation-myth 4) Proof of work might or might not be around in the future: who knows? But that doesn't mean that blockchains are unworkable, just that one implementation might not stand the test of time. > No system that relies on human inputs can prove to be perfectly transparent or eliminate corruption. Look into what Oracles are and how they can guarantee the reliability of information and the concept of cryptoeconomic security. Who knows where this ends up going and if it's widely used or not, but there's a very high chance that all of the theoretical objections you would make here have been addressed.

omegaworks 5y ago
>First of all, are we discussing crypto as a currency or blockchains as a technology? Blockchains require an incentive for members of their network to maintain a copy of the shared ledger. Modeling it after a deflationary currency creates a first-mover advantage that generates this momentum. We're not talking about "theoretical objections" or hypothetical better systems, the commonly implemented blockchain systems are creating problems that are manifesting themselves today, and every ounce of capital invested into them creates real inertia against changing how they fundamentally work. >Proof of work might or might not be around in the future: who knows? We can not afford to be ambivalent about how this technology evolves.
ShamelessC 5y ago
> If an oracle relies on a single source of truth (centralized), that can lead to issues: the data source can be hacked in a man-in-the-middle attack, or altered by its owner, in order to sway smart contracts. Decentralized oracles (consensus oracles) increase the reliability of the information provided to smart contracts by querying multiple data sources, thus distributing trust between participants. However, this does not achieve trustlessness, since oracles are not part of the main blockchain consensus, and thus not part of the security mechanisms of public blockchains. https://wikiless.org/wiki/Blockchain_oracle https://wikiless.org/wiki/Blockchain_oracle
- logicalmonster 5y ago
  If this is a topic you're curious about, look into some of Sergey Nazarov's interviews and/or pay attention to the topic of "cryptoeconomic security" in relation to oracles. Basically the idea is to have a system where the cost of corrupting the information on a network is always far more than the potential gain. Whether or not this is possible or will succeed is a question mark, but I'd think many potential objections and question marks have been addressed.
timeon 5y ago
> Proof of work might or might not be around in the future: who knows? Let's not argument in terms of 'what ifs'. Proof of waste is real here and now.