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Honest question: how many hackernews people are cool with all their purchases being on a blockchain forever that is accessible ad infinitum to whichever party h

Honest question: how many hackernews people are cool with all their purchases being on a blockchain forever that is accessible ad infinitum to whichever party has access to it (and potentially all of the public) ?

tenuousemphasis 5y ago
Even Bitcoin has the Lightning network that uses some clever smart contacts to avoid having to record every purchase on the blockchain. it's a layer built on top of Bitcoin that only requires an on-chain transaction to open or close a payment channel. Once the channel is open you can make a lot of extremely private payments through it.
tcgv 5y ago
Good question. There are tools and procedures that can be used to maintain anonymity within the blockchain. For instance, tornado cash is a popular dapp used to break the on-chain link between source and destination addresses of a transaction, so you could fund a spending address and make payments with it. The companies receiving money (stablecoins) would maintain off-chain data of your purchase (e.g. product, quantity, your contact info and delivery address) not available publicly.
- woodruffw 5y ago
  The UX of paying a third-party broker to opt into a semblance of privacy isn't particularly great. It's amusing (to me) how the cryptocurrency community has managed to convince its members to accept ridiculous amounts of commoditization and middlemen in exchange for anonymity properties that are strictly worse than cash, and arguably worse than payment cards.
  - tcgv 5y ago
    What do you mean by third party broker? Tornado Cash is a decentralized protocol based on zero knowledge proofs. Its smart contracts are immutable, have no admins. Besides that, let us not forget that the Mastercard/Visa middlemen charge us large fees for using their services and knows everthing about our purchase habits. (unless you're living a cash based life, but that would make you an exception)
    - woodruffw 5y ago
      I don't know about Tornado Cash specifically, but every cryptocurrency tumbler that I'm familiar with takes a cut of the pork, on top of any transaction fees. This community discussion[1] makes it sound expensive. > Besides that, let us not forget that the Mastercard/Visa middlemen charge us large fees for using their services and knows everthing about our purchase habits. This is a common refrain, but it isn't quite accurate: the payment card networks charge merchants to use their services. And sure, they know what you buy. But my Aunt Susie doesn't, nor does the next person who I pay using my payment card. Privacy as a concept is described by the security or threat model one is trying to conform to; cash and payment cards both protect me from unrelated prying eyes. Cryptocurrencies can also protect me from prying eyes, but they charge me for the privilege. By default, both my Aunt Susie and my neighborhood restaurant can see that I've been unfaithful and tried a new place for dinner. [1]: https://torn.community/t/fee-how-much-does-it-cost-to-use/68 https://torn.community/t/fee-how-much-does-it-cost-to-use/68
      - seibelj 5y ago
        Cash is dying and all credit card payments, bank transfers, Venmo / PayPal, literally everything is sucked up by data miners and is easily available to the government. You are arguing against a new system by comparing it to an irretrievably broken privacy financial system. Privacy is difficult on the blockchain but not impossible. The tools continue to get better. I anticipate the privacy tools in the blockchain world will improve faster than any semblance or hope of privacy in the traditional financial world.
        woodruffw 5y ago
        Again: the privacy/threat model is what matters. I do not operate under the delusion that I will stop my bank or payment card provider from seeing my transactions, or that my government can't obtain a lawful order to inspect the details of my finances. My interest is in protecting my privacy from people who are not in those domains: my local bodega owner, a bored Internet denizen who decides that They Just Don't Like Me, a snooping relative. I do not want to live in a world where those people, by default, get to see and evaluate my financial behavior. That, so far, is the only world that immutable public ledgers currently offer me. Thus far, privacy in the blockchain space seems to have become more expensive, not "better" in either the statistical or colloquial sense of the word. I'll believe it when I see it. In the mean time, the dollars I use to buy my morning coffee are about as anonymous as they were yesterday, last week, and last year.
wmf 5y ago
Crypto isn't for purchases, but if you decide to do that you should use an anonymous cryptocurrency.
- pirate787 5y ago
  Actually Bitcoin's initial promise was as a form of cash for purchases, and it has failed spectacularly to the point where even the strongest proponents rarely make that claim.
- losteric 5y ago
  cryptocurrency is not intended for making purchases?
  - wmf 5y ago
    Cryptocurrency is not currency (unit of account); we just call it that for historical reasons. It's not usable for purchases and the intent is irrelevant.
    - Bellyache5 5y ago
      So what is it then?
      - yazaddaruvala 5y ago
        Disclaimer: This is just my interpretation of “unit of account”. This is not me agreeing with it or advocating for it. When people say “unit of account” basically what they are saying is: Cryptocurrency is an Open Source rewrite of the banking systems that currently run on Cobal. “Banks, please start using them as your database and reconciliation layer instead of your legacy software.” Meanwhile, users continue to use credit / debit cards as they do now, and they continue to see some number on their bank accounts going up and down regardless of where the “money” actually is. Which is the same as today. That’s why we see “Pending” across so many of our transactions.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
godot 5y ago
This question presumes the envisioned future is where each person has their own non-custodial wallet that holds stablecoins that they use in transactions, no? If the current trajectory is any indication, it's more likely that everyday users would mostly hold custodial accounts at organizations (e.g. Coinbase, like banks) and use stablecoins that way, which control aggregate wallets, and trackability stays within the org level (also like banks). Probably not as easy for the public to access (possible in data hacks) but just as easy for government access.
- elevaet 5y ago
  Amusing how it's gone from "be your own bank" back around to centralization, but this time with a colossal energy footprint behind it. Same shit, bigger pile I guess.
  - tenuousemphasis 5y ago
    You can always build centralized systems on top of decentralized ones in order to mitigate the scaling costs of decentralization. It's essentially impossible to build a decentralized system on top of a centralized one in order to mitigate the downsides of centralization.
    - spupe 5y ago
      I don't think that's the case. If Paypal wanted, and it was legally allowed, they could anonymize my data to an extent where not even their own team could know who I am. We don't do it because it would be open to fraud and scams, not because it is impossible.
      - tenuousemphasis 5y ago
        You didn't actually address anything I said. I'm not talking about privacy at all.
steelstraw 5y ago
There are ways to maintain privacy with things like Block Wallet: https://blockwallet.io/ https://blockwallet.io/
rmbyrro 5y ago
I'm in
golergka 5y ago
For most purposes, it doesn't matter. For others, there's Monero.
gogopuppygogo 5y ago
I am not. When I speak with those in defi they hardly even understand the most basic aspects of this technology. My personal hope is that quantum computing develops fast enough to decimate the decentralized financial industry powered by blockchain.
- Galanwe 5y ago
  I don't think any forward looking state of quantum computing threatens SHA2.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
TimJRobinson 5y ago
There are technologies like Tornado cash and Railgun that can hide transactions on Ethereum. The current issue is they're too expensive to use on mainnet. Once we have layer 2 payments using zk-rollups, transaction costs will fall to a few cents and many apps could easily integrate these technologies to tumble your wallet (taking all funds and send them through this tech into a new wallet) any time you want for a dollar or two. Or they could automatically do this after every transaction. Then everyone will have access to easy completely anonymous payments in any currency they like. We're just in the early days of this tech, like the internet when we used http everywhere and no one knew what a VPN was.
- T0Bi 5y ago
  Fortunately tornado cash is already on L2, I think even on every single bigger L2. Not with the same volume as on mainnet, but still gradually increasing.

tenuousemphasis 5y ago

Even Bitcoin has the Lightning network that uses some clever smart contacts to avoid having to record every purchase on the blockchain. it's a layer built on top of Bitcoin that only requires an on-chain transaction to open or close a payment channel. Once the channel is open you can make a lot of extremely private payments through it.

tcgv 5y ago

Good question. There are tools and procedures that can be used to maintain anonymity within the blockchain. For instance, tornado cash is a popular dapp used to break the on-chain link between source and destination addresses of a transaction, so you could fund a spending address and make payments with it. The companies receiving money (stablecoins) would maintain off-chain data of your purchase (e.g. product, quantity, your contact info and delivery address) not available publicly.

woodruffw 5y ago
The UX of paying a third-party broker to opt into a semblance of privacy isn't particularly great. It's amusing (to me) how the cryptocurrency community has managed to convince its members to accept ridiculous amounts of commoditization and middlemen in exchange for anonymity properties that are strictly worse than cash, and arguably worse than payment cards.
- tcgv 5y ago
  What do you mean by third party broker? Tornado Cash is a decentralized protocol based on zero knowledge proofs. Its smart contracts are immutable, have no admins. Besides that, let us not forget that the Mastercard/Visa middlemen charge us large fees for using their services and knows everthing about our purchase habits. (unless you're living a cash based life, but that would make you an exception)
  - woodruffw 5y ago
    I don't know about Tornado Cash specifically, but every cryptocurrency tumbler that I'm familiar with takes a cut of the pork, on top of any transaction fees. This community discussion[1] makes it sound expensive. > Besides that, let us not forget that the Mastercard/Visa middlemen charge us large fees for using their services and knows everthing about our purchase habits. This is a common refrain, but it isn't quite accurate: the payment card networks charge merchants to use their services. And sure, they know what you buy. But my Aunt Susie doesn't, nor does the next person who I pay using my payment card. Privacy as a concept is described by the security or threat model one is trying to conform to; cash and payment cards both protect me from unrelated prying eyes. Cryptocurrencies can also protect me from prying eyes, but they charge me for the privilege. By default, both my Aunt Susie and my neighborhood restaurant can see that I've been unfaithful and tried a new place for dinner. [1]: https://torn.community/t/fee-how-much-does-it-cost-to-use/68 https://torn.community/t/fee-how-much-does-it-cost-to-use/68
    - seibelj 5y ago
      Cash is dying and all credit card payments, bank transfers, Venmo / PayPal, literally everything is sucked up by data miners and is easily available to the government. You are arguing against a new system by comparing it to an irretrievably broken privacy financial system. Privacy is difficult on the blockchain but not impossible. The tools continue to get better. I anticipate the privacy tools in the blockchain world will improve faster than any semblance or hope of privacy in the traditional financial world.
      - woodruffw 5y ago
        Again: the privacy/threat model is what matters. I do not operate under the delusion that I will stop my bank or payment card provider from seeing my transactions, or that my government can't obtain a lawful order to inspect the details of my finances. My interest is in protecting my privacy from people who are not in those domains: my local bodega owner, a bored Internet denizen who decides that They Just Don't Like Me, a snooping relative. I do not want to live in a world where those people, by default, get to see and evaluate my financial behavior. That, so far, is the only world that immutable public ledgers currently offer me. Thus far, privacy in the blockchain space seems to have become more expensive, not "better" in either the statistical or colloquial sense of the word. I'll believe it when I see it. In the mean time, the dollars I use to buy my morning coffee are about as anonymous as they were yesterday, last week, and last year.

wmf 5y ago

Crypto isn't for purchases, but if you decide to do that you should use an anonymous cryptocurrency.

pirate787 5y ago
Actually Bitcoin's initial promise was as a form of cash for purchases, and it has failed spectacularly to the point where even the strongest proponents rarely make that claim.
losteric 5y ago
cryptocurrency is not intended for making purchases?
- wmf 5y ago
  Cryptocurrency is not currency (unit of account); we just call it that for historical reasons. It's not usable for purchases and the intent is irrelevant.
  - Bellyache5 5y ago
    So what is it then?
    - yazaddaruvala 5y ago
      Disclaimer: This is just my interpretation of “unit of account”. This is not me agreeing with it or advocating for it. When people say “unit of account” basically what they are saying is: Cryptocurrency is an Open Source rewrite of the banking systems that currently run on Cobal. “Banks, please start using them as your database and reconciliation layer instead of your legacy software.” Meanwhile, users continue to use credit / debit cards as they do now, and they continue to see some number on their bank accounts going up and down regardless of where the “money” actually is. Which is the same as today. That’s why we see “Pending” across so many of our transactions.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]

godot 5y ago

This question presumes the envisioned future is where each person has their own non-custodial wallet that holds stablecoins that they use in transactions, no? If the current trajectory is any indication, it's more likely that everyday users would mostly hold custodial accounts at organizations (e.g. Coinbase, like banks) and use stablecoins that way, which control aggregate wallets, and trackability stays within the org level (also like banks). Probably not as easy for the public to access (possible in data hacks) but just as easy for government access.

elevaet 5y ago
Amusing how it's gone from "be your own bank" back around to centralization, but this time with a colossal energy footprint behind it. Same shit, bigger pile I guess.
- tenuousemphasis 5y ago
  You can always build centralized systems on top of decentralized ones in order to mitigate the scaling costs of decentralization. It's essentially impossible to build a decentralized system on top of a centralized one in order to mitigate the downsides of centralization.
  - spupe 5y ago
    I don't think that's the case. If Paypal wanted, and it was legally allowed, they could anonymize my data to an extent where not even their own team could know who I am. We don't do it because it would be open to fraud and scams, not because it is impossible.
    - tenuousemphasis 5y ago
      You didn't actually address anything I said. I'm not talking about privacy at all.

steelstraw 5y ago

There are ways to maintain privacy with things like Block Wallet: https://blockwallet.io/ https://blockwallet.io/

rmbyrro 5y ago

I'm in

golergka 5y ago

For most purposes, it doesn't matter. For others, there's Monero.

gogopuppygogo 5y ago

I am not. When I speak with those in defi they hardly even understand the most basic aspects of this technology. My personal hope is that quantum computing develops fast enough to decimate the decentralized financial industry powered by blockchain.

Galanwe 5y ago
I don't think any forward looking state of quantum computing threatens SHA2.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

TimJRobinson 5y ago

There are technologies like Tornado cash and Railgun that can hide transactions on Ethereum. The current issue is they're too expensive to use on mainnet. Once we have layer 2 payments using zk-rollups, transaction costs will fall to a few cents and many apps could easily integrate these technologies to tumble your wallet (taking all funds and send them through this tech into a new wallet) any time you want for a dollar or two. Or they could automatically do this after every transaction. Then everyone will have access to easy completely anonymous payments in any currency they like. We're just in the early days of this tech, like the internet when we used http everywhere and no one knew what a VPN was.

T0Bi 5y ago
Fortunately tornado cash is already on L2, I think even on every single bigger L2. Not with the same volume as on mainnet, but still gradually increasing.