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I also agree that not everything needs a blockchain or decentralized layers. And moreover agree that there is a giant amount of garbage on the chain. However,

• xigoi 4y ago
  Until they stop consuming more electricity than a big country, there is a moral right to be hostile toward them.
  • bilekas 4y ago
    While I agree, I don't think this should be a fair primary reason. Unless you also feel the same about everything else that consumes more electricity than it could. There wouldn't be a concern if all energy was green for example, that should be where the energy hostility should be pointed. Trying to complain about the blockchain and its useage on power is an XY problem for me.
    • xigoi 4y ago
      I don't know about any other thing that's literally designed to consume as much electricity as possible.
      • arriu 4y ago
        Blockchain != Bitcoin
        • bilekas 4y ago
          Thank you for saying what we're all thinking. The above highlights my point in a sense.
      • disruptalot 4y ago
        Consuming energy is a requirement for it to provide its stated benefits. If you're able to conjure the protocol which doesn't require PoW and still maintains the characteristics, you would be welcomed with open arms.
  • bovermyer 4y ago
    While the electricity problem does need to be addressed, do not be so quick to lump all blockchain users, advocates, and researchers into a single hideous glob. There is value to be achieved, I think, in a more nuanced approach.
    • Benjammer 4y ago
      I think the problem is that, at least in this area, the only people asking for more nuance are bitcoin supporters, and they aren’t open to nuanced reasoning for why people hate bitcoin. “Nuance,” to them, just means letting them win some of the arguments or admitting that some of what they say is not entirely bad. That’s not “nuance,” that’s appeasement.
    • alimov 4y ago
      I think it’s safe to say that the vast majority are a blob. There is a substantial overlap between users and advocates (shared interest in seeing <coin> “go to the moon”)… adding “researchers” here to lend some credibility to the blob is unfair to the researchers who probably make up < 1% (low figure in just tossing out there)… If there is “value to be achieved”, it won’t be achieved by speculators on coin prices…
    • Beldin 4y ago
      Bitcoin has existed for about 13 years. Given its environmental impact, it's high time there was value beyond criminal money flow and gambling on exchange rates.
  • once_inc 4y ago
    You don't use a wash dryer I assume. Or Christmas lights? Plugged out all standby appliances? Never drive a car? Working without a laptop? Comparing energy usage of a global system with the total energy usage of a country is absurd, and people doing it should feel ashamed they didnt rationally think about what they said/wrote.
    • lkrubner 4y ago
      A dish washing machine is useful. A clothes washing machine is useful. Christmas lights help celebrate a tradition that's important to billions of people, some of whom see deep religious meaning it. Cars are useful. Laptops are useful. As such, none of these things can be compared to blockchain. You're making an invalid comparison. To take one use case of blockchain, Bitcoin debuted in 2009. It's been 13 years, about half the age of the commercial Web. If blockchain was going to lead to something useful, then that would have happened already. Its failure to find a use case suggests that this is pure hype.
    • Beldin 4y ago
      It is absurd, but such absurdity is needed to make the energy waste relatable. You could compare a blockchain transaction's energy use to that of a credit card payment. But that would not convey the scale difference.
    • NovemberWhiskey 4y ago
      How about we compare the energy usage of a single transaction against the entire home electricity costs of a two-person household, then? A single bitcoin transaction uses more electricity than my apartment does in two months (at least during the spring).
    • Mordisquitos 4y ago
      The fundamental difference between (proof-of-work) blockchains and the examples that you mentioned is that (pow) blockchains not only must consume ever increasing amounts of electricity by their very design, but they also incentivise doing so as much as possible, the only limit being whether you can afford it. Let's take Bitcoin for instance. I'm pretty sure that the electricity required to perform one single BTC transaction has grown by multiple orders of magnitude since Bitcoin first appeared, regardless of the possible efficiency improvements in GPUs or ASICs, and will continue to grow—hence, profitability will always scale linearly with the willingness and capability to waste. On the other hand, dryers, Christmas lights, appliances, cars and laptops etc. have, if anything, all become more energy-efficient in the past decade, being able to perform the same funcion or better while using less power. On top of that, there's only so much washing you want to dry, or so many places you want to drive to—you don't want to indefinitely scale up the size of your dryer, or the number of cars you drive. And if you were to find a reason to scale up either of them, it would be because there is a business opportunity in providing a material service to customers, either laundry or transport. In that case, your profitability would be limited by how many people want their clothes dried or to be driven somewhere, and not just by how big you can afford the dryer or how many cars you can accumulate.
  • jovial_cavalier 4y ago
    Many chains are already proof of stake, and many others are transitioning, including Ethereum.
    • xigoi 4y ago
      Proof of stake only allows rich people to verify transactions, which seems to… contradict the goals of cryptocurrency.
      • jovial_cavalier 4y ago
        Howso? Those people cannot pervert the actual transaction, they will be slashed, and the money I believe goes to the node who proves them wrong, as incentive (don't quote me). It remains completely decentralized and effectively ungovernable, which I believe is the primary goal of cryptocurrency. I don't think it was ever meant to address the "rich get richer" effect. Also, the practical upshot of the previous dynamic was that only people who could afford thousands of GPUs/ASICs/FPGAs could verify transactions, so it was basically the same effect with more steps.
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  • briffle 4y ago
    I thought the electricity usage was due to the 'mining' for new crypto, not for the actual blockchain that stores the 'ledger' of transactions.
    • danans 4y ago
      Mining is what gives legitimacy to the records stored on the blockchain, what allows it to be "trustless". No mining, no blockchain.
    • flir 4y ago
      They're inextricably linked by design. The "mined" bitcoins are the reward for successfully attaching some transactions to the ledger in a computationally expensive way.
  • birdyrooster 4y ago
    Stellar doesn't do this.
  • dang 4y ago
    Please let's not repeat the same flamewar tropes for the ten thousandth time. Whether it's right or wrong, this level of repetition is deeply uninteresting. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=curiosity%20optimiz%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor... https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
    • MrMan 4y ago
      the fact that so many capable humans have constructed this orgy of greed which is purely financial, at a time when the global economy actually requires massive definancialization, is of profound interest. this is a huge distraction, and another way to divide people, and use tricks or marketing to cause them to act out of FOMO and greed. it would be "interesting" if we were debating how to solve the supply line fragility, the need for soil, the need to keep the temperature down, the need to achieve some modicum of equality here in North America so that millions of intelligent humans dont become slaves and have their potential as inventors and scientists wasted. who survives all this will not see your comment, probably, but the facile way that you declare these fundamental questions of survival as .... uninteresting ... makes me despair.
      • dang 4y ago
        The thing to do with those large concerns is to post something interesting about them in their own right—not change a different thread to that subject. If they're as important as you say, there must be plenty of interesting things to discuss.
• bilekas 4y ago
  I personally haven't seen any problem solved by the blockchain thus far. However I do think the whole ecosystem is flooded with 'morons' who believe its just the solution to everything. Usually people who don't know what they're talking about and only thinking of the money side of it. There is value in almost every new technology, I think blockchain and co haven't gotten a bad rap thanks to the 'morons' who are basically just 'pumping and dumping' or 'hyping' to make quick money. Which IMO is a shame because it stops the real innovation taking place. It could be something, but it's been given (rightly so) a stigma thanks to the cult of 'crypto bros'. So far a waste of potential.
  • eMGm4D0zgUAVXc7 4y ago
    > I personally haven't seen any problem solved by the blockchain thus far. Solved problem: Hyperinflation caused by excessive governmental money printing. Yes, I know you may not consider this as a "problem", but tell that to the millions of people who have had to watch their life savings being erased to zero value. Yes, the Bitcoin price may be jumpy, but we aren't yet seeing kids playing with bricks of trillions of Bitcoins because they'd be so worthless that you can give them to your kids as toys. That DID happen with fiat currency: Enter "hyperinflation" into your favorite picture search engine. I personally own a 1 billion bill of a previous currency of my country which I bought for the equivalent of $5 on eBay.
    • bilekas 4y ago
      Hyper inflation is absolutely a problem. Not solved by the blockchain though.. I think you're referencing BTC in use as some kind of ubiquitous currency ? That would be an interesting use, until someone owns enough to influence the market, which, already happens, so it would make matters worse for more people
      • disruptalot 4y ago
        > Owns enough to influence the market Meaning acquiring it fairly from the market? As compared to fiat currencies, which can be issued and moved around with the snap of a finger. That's a net improvement.
• ruffrey 4y ago
  It’s unfortunate how the entire blockchain ecosystem is overshadowed by overhyped scams and nasty hacks. There are countless economy-changing experiments happening in the DeFi community. Rebuilding of Wall Street and insurance infrastructure being attempted on chain, where trust and centralization and scams or unfairness are ripe for disruption. Staking assets to provide liquidity pools has resulted in billions coming on chain. Plenty of people are trying to make a quick buck. Plenty of hacks and bad engineering is happening. Most things don’t need a blockchain. I wish HN community looked deeper though.
• screye 4y ago
  It also has to do with very few posts about genuinely ground breaking projects. I have personally found it rather difficult to tell the wheat from the chaff. If you have any suggestions on promising projects in the space then please do link me to it.
  • dubswithus 4y ago
    Brave/BAT. Micropayments and a new model for advertising. It probably has the largest userbase in the crypto space. https://brave.com/transparency/ https://brave.com/transparency/
• Dwolb 4y ago
  Which is weird because YC has made crypto investments. Looks like around 11 [1]. [1] https://www.ycombinator.com/companies?query=cryptocurrency&tags=Crypto https://www.ycombinator.com/companies?query=cryptocurrency&t...
• root_axis 4y ago
  The "bias" against blockchains is rooted in the fundamental nature of the technology combined with the breathless unsubstantiated hype that the enthusiasts project into the discourse. Blockchains have earned their bad reputation.
• dang 4y ago
  It's a two cultures thing. Unfortunately, both of the cultures produce a lot of indignant froth, and since the internet is wired for indignation, that's what gets repeated over and over. Since repetition is off topic here, we need to avoid this and stick to pathways that haven't fried yet. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=curiosity%20repetition%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so... https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=curiosity%20optimiz%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor... https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  • junofan 4y ago
    It’s sad because there’s been so much progress in cryptography over the past 10 years, and now we’re nearing a point where a little imagination would go a long way.
• jancsika 4y ago
  I rather think there's well-placed skepticism (at least on HN) of the decentralize-all-the-things crowd. That crowd gets louder on a monthly basis and makes ever more grand and urgent pronouncements about the need to decentralize all the things. Since there are many open research problems with decentralization in programming, this leads to these posts having more than their fair share of magical thinking. "We are building distributed filesystems" as a new(ish) practical user control is one such example. IPFS has been around for much longer than a year, so I'm not sure what the author means by "past year." Regardless, it is slow. Regardless, isn't privacy-preserving. Perhaps the speed issue could be solved with improvements to the software. Let's imagine it's fast, then-- what are we going do with it? We can't house Scihub there-- otherwise the nodes replicating it will get hit with lawsuits. Similarly, we can't build a new Demonoid or any other sharing service that lets students and scholars pool together the various copies of reference materials that they own. At the same time, college students are constantly bootstrapping all kinds of private content collections on private centralized services, and sharing it among themselves (and, unfortunately, not re-sharing it outside their group so these collections keep getting rebuild opportunistically), jumping from app to app as tastes for apps change. That's achieved with the current internet plus all the walled gardens that people use to get their work done. If our distributed filesystem cannot include the content these users are already sharing amongst themselves, then it's functionally equivalent to a hard-drive that won't allow writing based on certain content hashes. Moreover, if users still have to do cartwheels to use the distributed filesystem in a privacy-preserving way, they may as well use their current walled garden apps that are probably decades ahead in terms of UX. Yes, blockchain certainly has its share of hot air from finance. But this pairing of blockchain plus decentralize-all-the-things overlays (which will be done baking real soon now!) is particularly prone to magical thinking. One because blockchain fans typically handwave scaling issues (or pivot to a non-blockchain approach which isn't functionally equivalent to blockchain), and two because decentralization zealots are prone to releasing vaporware. I hope that clarifies things. I've certainly reacted on this list with hostility to low-effort blockchain pitches from people who have a clear conflict-of-interest. My hostility is probably like other people's here-- based in knowledge of the disappearing act that these magic-thinking systems can perform on the money of ordinary folks. That's real damage, and it's bad. The day someone makes a repo for "sloth sort" by pasting a jpeg of a sloth in a readme for sleep sort and performs a pump and dump scheme on it, I'll be sure to be hostile towards that, too. Meanwhile, people seem to only be doing that with blockchain-based cryptocurrencies. That more likely explains the hostility here than the idea that anyone is (unwittingly or otherwise) biased against blockchain. Edit: typos, clarifications
• rvz 4y ago
  > As the author has pointed out, things have evolved substantially over the last year and it deserves open and fair discussion. I don't think you will get an 'open and fair discussion' here, even if you list examples like Stripe (Using blockchain for crypto payouts) [0] and Skiff (Using ENS for identities for their E2E decentralized workspace) [1]. When asked about this earlier, you get random incomprehensible replies like "CrYPtO IS SCaM" and admitting they haven't even looked at the article and either cannot answer basic questions or reply back with another question without given a concrete answer to the first. Good luck getting an 'open and fair discussion' about anything crypto without someone screeching absolutist scam nonsense or some die hard crypto supporter / investor pushing their 'NFTs is the future' nonsense. Don't fall in *either* of those camps. [0] https://stripe.com/blog/expanding-global-payouts-with-crypto https://stripe.com/blog/expanding-global-payouts-with-crypto [1] https://skiff.org/ https://skiff.org/ [2] https://skiff.org/blog/skiff-x-ethereum-naming https://skiff.org/blog/skiff-x-ethereum-naming [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31133074 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31133074