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Random thought - is Web3 a real danger to the currently existing web, where "real" means "plausible" rather than just "possible"? I'm asking because every Web3

• coffeeblack 4y ago
  Regarding point 2, not all blockchains use the useless calculation of hashes as a method to establish trust.
  • planb 4y ago
    This comes up everytime someone mentions the energy waste, so please answer one simple question: Which web3 services that are CURRENTLY online are not based on proof of work?
    • sascha_sl 4y ago
      It's not like they don't exist, they just have a lot of problems scaling to capacities that are in any way meaningful.
      • bogomipz 4y ago
        Might you or someone else say what or where the bottlenecks are that prevent these from scaling?
        • redox99 4y ago
          The biggest challenge in general is that the approach of storing every transaction forever leads to petabytes of storage. And you can't expect a decentralized system to require petabytes of storage.
          • bogomipz 4y ago
            I apologize if this a naive question but Proof of work is also decentralized no? Why does Proof of Stake incur these scaling limitations but Proof of work does not?
            • coffeeblack 4y ago
              Both do.
              • bogomipz 4y ago
                Can you elaborate? The person I was replying to indicated that the problem was one of storage however the only scalability problems I have seen written about have been around transaction processing.[1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin_scalability_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin_scalability_problem
          • MacroChip 4y ago
            Not every node has to store every transaction ever. Nodes can prune old state
    • 4pkjai 4y ago
      https://www.projectserum.com/ https://www.projectserum.com/ I'm not pro web3, but it didn't take much effort for me to find an example.
      • LegitShady 4y ago
    • 0x64 4y ago
      Any Ethereum L2 that commits transaction bundles to the mainnet, plus anything on Binance's EVM chain, Cardano, Solana, Polkadot, Avalanche... They're all proof-of-stake or not based on PoW. And, Ethereum will transition to PoS by this year, ideally in August. All of the popular nine Ethereum execution/consensus clients should be ready for the merge, and mainnet has already been test-merged five times successfully. The first existing PoW testnet will be merged on the first week of June. After that, there's two testnets remaining that will be upgraded (Ropsten -> Goerli -> Sepolia), and then it's time for mainnet.
      • coffeeblack 4y ago
        Interesting. Never thought that Eth will actually transition it’s consensus method. So that means there’s hope for Bitcoin to do the same some day.
        • DonHopkins 4y ago
      • skocznymroczny 4y ago
        > Ethereum will transition to PoS by this year, ideally in August. I feel like every year is the year when Ethereum will finally transition to PoS, but it never happens.
        • 0x64 4y ago
          Name another year that has had feature-ready clients across the board, with a working merge transition mechanism implemented across all of them. The proof-of-stake chain we're merging to was launched in December of 2020, and has been running since, with almost 400'000 validators currently.
        • rekoil 4y ago
          The difference is that this time we actually have testnets already running the full Proof-of-Stake code, most recent news on this front is that the Ropsten testnet will merge on June 8th, that's a huge milestone considering Ropsten is like _the_ testnet if you're developing for the EVM, and is only slightly younger than the ETH mainnet itself.
    • coffeeblack 4y ago
      Not an expert, but as far as I know IOTA and NANO as two examples.
    • ddjsn111 4y ago
      Algorand, Cardano
  • hnbad 4y ago
    Yeah, the alternative is called proof of stake. Now please explain to me how "having a lot of money means you get more control and more money in the future" as a system is in any way adhering to the promise that crypto will disrupt the existing oligopolies and bring power back to the people (unless you define "the people" as "other billionaires who missed out on being part of the current tech oligopolies and want to be Caliph in the place of the Caliph).
    • Kbelicius 4y ago
      Now please explain to me how what you wrote doesn't apply to PoW.
      • hnbad 4y ago
        It does. What's your point? The only difference is proof-of-work measures it more indirectly by letting rich people compete in how fast they can burn cash rather than just flaunting what they have. Both are bad.
        • Kbelicius 4y ago
          My point is.. it does. I can now see that I've misinterpreted your post, apologies.
• DebtDeflation 4y ago
  >is Web3 a real danger to the currently existing web Are cryptocurrencies a real danger to regular currencies? Are NFTs a real danger to tangible items? Are DAOs a real danger to actual corporations? I'd answer all of those questions with a hard NO.
  • sascha_sl 4y ago
    Cryptocurrencies will obviously be forgotten, especially in their current iteration. But the climate and energy impact is not that easy to set aside. The article itself mentions one of the many consequences could be flooding the termination points for underwater sea fiber. So while web3 isn't a threat to the web itself by superseeding it, it's a threat to its existence (and a whole lot of other existences).
    • KptMarchewa 4y ago
      Too many fools losing too much money is a threat in itself. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albanian_Civil_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albanian_Civil_War
    • toolz 4y ago
      Which metrics would suggest people might forget bitcoin? (much less, make it obvious they will forget about it).
      • guerrilla 4y ago
        The fact that it's all useless.
        • Shish2k 4y ago
          That hasn’t stopped anybody so far - what makes you think it’ll stop people in the future?
        • nobody9999 4y ago
          >The fact that it's all useless. But Bitcoin is definitely not useless. I can use it to buy drugs, guns, child porn and other important commodities.
• christopherwxyz 4y ago
  Ethereum name service (ENS), which ties a wallet to a human readable domain name.
  • phoe-krk 4y ago
    What does the adoption look like and what are its perspectives for future adoption? It seems to me that it's as popular as Handshake right now, which is not popular at all.
    • throwaway98797 4y ago
      a couple hundred thousand people use it
      • rvz 4y ago
        That tells us that ENS, Handshake, etc are the only 'NFT' project(s) so far that has a use case for web3. Handshake is also part of this as well and the CEO of Namecheap is somewhat convinced on that. Only a few useful projects will survive.
        • throwaway98797 4y ago
          have you heard of POAP? non-financial & fun
    • everfree 4y ago
      ENS is much more broadly adopted than Handshake. Pretty much the entire Ethereum ecosystem has standardized on it.
• verisimi 4y ago
  > the second is a way to waste our electricity I wonder how much electricity has been wasted on cat videos... There are all sorts of wastes - the process of waste in attempting to find (R&D) a good crypto, should lead to a net gain in the long run. Cat videos, not so much..
  • NikolaNovak 4y ago
    There are a zillion wasteful activities. I think what gets me, and where the arguments sometimes seem disingenuous, is that in cat videos, the energy waste is "accidental". Both the provider and consumer would readily see it reduced, and in fact optimization happens constantly and mercilessly. Providers typically expend effort to reduce energy expenditure, especially in mature fields, as it represents real cost to bottom line. In proof of work crypto though, energy expenditure is by design / intentional, and not only that, but designed to consistently increase. That feels any comparison between POW crypto to anything else not even apples and oranges, more like car accidents and nuclear weapons - one is an accident, the other is designed to nuke you.
  • phoe-krk 4y ago
    Cat videos provide tangible relaxation and a way to rest in between other tasks, whereas any Web3 endeavours in the "crypto mainstream" I have seen so far have been purely speculation vehicles disguised as something useful.
  • DonHopkins 4y ago
    Cat videos are not purposefully distributed uncompressed, in ultra high definition resolution, with extremely high frame rates, including enormous amounts of extra redundant padding, with 24 hour and longer durations, so they take as much time as technologically possible to download.
    • guerrilla 4y ago
      Cat videos also aren't completely useless: they make people happy. Shitcoins hasn't done anything but scam people and contribute way more CO2.
• rvz 4y ago
  > Are there any notable exceptions to my above observation? Am I wrong in some more fundamental way? Do you see web3isgoinggreat reporting about [0][1] or perhaps [2] or even [3] and maybe this [4]? As soon as the speculation calms down and the regulators limit these random DeFi projects there will be these projects like the ones I listed that will be still around that won't be 'wasting electricity' and have a valid use case rather than being a random DeFi token project clobbered up as a exit scam which is what you see that is widely reported and filtered out by web3isgoinggreat. Sorry, but as long as these companies have re-entered into the same cryptocurrency industry, it is really not going to completely 100% guaranteed go away, unless you ban it all; which that is not going to happen. The reality is, only a few projects will survive. [0] https://skiff.org https://skiff.org [1] https://skiff.org/blog/skiff-x-ethereum-naming https://skiff.org/blog/skiff-x-ethereum-naming [2] https://stripe.com/blog/expanding-global-payouts-with-crypto https://stripe.com/blog/expanding-global-payouts-with-crypto [3] https://ir.moneygram.com/news-releases/news-release-details/stellar-development-foundation-and-moneygram-partner-techstars https://ir.moneygram.com/news-releases/news-release-details/... [4] https://www.icann.org/en/system/files/files/octo-034-27apr22-en.pdf https://www.icann.org/en/system/files/files/octo-034-27apr22...
  • phoe-krk 4y ago
    Thanks for the insight, it's valuable. > As soon as the speculation calms down and the regulators limit these random DeFi projects, there are projects that will be still around that won't be 'wasting electricity' and have a valid use case rather than being a random DeFi project clobbered up as a exit scam which is what you see that is widely reported and filtered by web3isgoinggreat. I want to believe in what you say, but at the moment I simply can't. Maybe in a few years, if what you describe actually happens, I'll be able to see this matter differently.
  • lupire 4y ago
    The only hint of a real product here is using crypto to bypass exchange fees and border controls of international money movements. Those fees exist for a reason (volatility risk), and there is no reason to believe the crypto version would be different. Those controls exist for a reason, and there is no reason to believe governments would allow "legit" regulated companies like MoneyGram to bypass them.
• rauljordan2020 4y ago
  There are so many examples. Some of the most popular web3 applications have only gained more momentum over the last few years, and have growing user bases. Examples are: Uniswap, Compound Finance, Maker DAO, Aave, Curve Finance, Tornado Cash (which is incredibly useful for preserving privacy), and more. They actually provide a service people care about and use. I agree they are still at a small scale compared to traditional web applications, but I personally know people in developing countries that rely on stablecoins to survive, such as DAI, use Aave to take out loans, and Tornado to preserve their privacy from tyrannical governments.
  • WinstonSmith84 4y ago
    The most interesting part is reading comments in HN. Obviously the interest of the average HN reader is different from the one from a developing country. And yet again different from our influencers (aka politicians) dictating policy - who have obviously a very biased interest in tradfi.
  • kredd 4y ago
    I’m fairly unexperienced in web3 world, but aren’t the aforementioned services are just financial services that are promising greater results than the traditional finances, due to volatility of the crypto market and missing regulations?
• hnbad 4y ago
  Web3 by itself is not a real danger because anyone who looks at it objectively can see that there's nothing there worth working on. What does make web3 a real danger is the amount of money behind it. VCs and wealthy tech influencers and billionaires are pushing it because it's an easy way to scam retail investors out of their money in ways that would get the SEC breathing down your neck if crypto and web3 weren't largely lawless territories at the moment. In a lot of ways the aspect of the web that web3 actually builds on is the lawless "wild west" spirit that legislations have been finally trying to clamp down on in the past decades. The only technical innovation happening in it is the equivalent of software patents for existing technology but "on a computer" (or in this case "on the chain"). Even the crypto enthusiast tech nerds cheerleading the technology because they currently (or initially) make money by sitting comfortably near the top of the pyramid scheme will likely be screwed over and lose everything eventually, but until then they're going hand in hand with the grifters who know better than retain any actual stake in the ecosystem by the time it collapses.