9 ms·

>As soon as you have a trusted central authority You might have missed the entire point of cryptocurrency. The idea is that it is not centralized and a single

>As soon as you have a trusted central authority You might have missed the entire point of cryptocurrency. The idea is that it is not centralized and a single entity can't "reverse" transactions.

wombat-man 4y ago
It's all fun and games until someone steals your bored ape.
ouid 4y ago
Right, and the parent comment is asserting that that is worse in every way. Which it is.
adgjlsfhk1 4y ago
That works great except for the fact that 99% of crypto trades occur through exchanges which just put you back to the worst of both worlds.
- denkmoon 4y ago
  If 99% of users stuck their fork in their eyeball, it wouldn't mean that a Fork is a bad design or a bad implement, it would mean that the users are using it wrong. FWIW, in my own usage of crypto, the lack of central authority is exactly why it is used. I don't really care that other people are just hodl-ing their funny money in someone else's wallet. Crypto, outside of an exchange, means I can send money to anyone I want, and no other entity can prevent that.
  - lottin 4y ago
    > Crypto, outside of an exchange, means I can send money to anyone I want, and no other entity can prevent that. This is basically it. Crypto-currencies are essentially tool to evade financial regulations. The price that you pay for that is a high operational risk and a lack of property rights.
  - haswell 4y ago
    Except you've replaced something people want: easy access to their crypto and a feeling of assurance with something that people clearly don't want: no one wants to stick a fork in their eyeball. The thing is, users define the market. If we were talking about a traditional "product", if 99% of users used a product wrong, that product would be considered an abject failure, at least from a UX / messaging standpoint with a clear mismatch between user wants/needs and product capabilities. The average crypto buyer buys crypto because they want to make money. The average crypto buyer doesn't give a shit about decentralization or removal of bureaucracy. The average crypto buyer is getting exactly what they came for.
    - denkmoon 4y ago
      I would argue that the decentralised nature is a crucial aspect of the value proposition. It's part of the mythos of why crypto is valuable/worth investing in/going to the moon. The way it's actually used completely destroys that part of its value, but don't let reality get in the way of a good investment opportunity. I think if you set up a coin that doesn't use a distributed ledger, and instead uses an SQL database, you wouldn't get buy-in from the ~tulip~crypto fanatics because it doesn't line up with aforementioned mythos.
      - SkyMarshal 4y ago
        > I would argue that the decentralized nature is a crucial aspect of the value proposition. I would go so far as to argue it's the entire aspect of the value proposition. Take away decentralization and all you've got is a poorly architected, inefficient, unwieldy PayPal.
        deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
        haswell 4y ago
        But I think this highlights the dichotomy that is the crypto ecosystem right now. The people in this thread understand this value prop, but for a significant portion of crypto investors, the value prop is gains. It may be true that some casual crypto investors are interested because of the decentralization aspect, but that same user wants a PayPal-like experience. Most are not willing to deal with the complexity of doing it "right", and most of the non-technical people I know who buy crypto do it for the gains, not for the defi. In effect, this makes decentralization nothing more than a marketing promise, and the reality is exactly what you said - a poorly architected, inefficient, unwieldy PayPal. Sure, this system is capable of much more, and realizing the "true" value prop of decentralization, but that doesn't matter much if users are in it for other reasons. If users were doing it "right", or for sake of argument, let's say users are forced to do it right, I suspect they would just stop participating, bringing valuation down with them.
  - lmm 4y ago
    > If 99% of users stuck their fork in their eyeball, it wouldn't mean that a Fork is a bad design or a bad implement Yes it would.
    - denkmoon 4y ago
      Your task, if you choose to accept it, is to redesign Fork to prevent user-eyeball interaction.
      - lmm 4y ago
        Given that the actual rate of fork to eyeball is very low, I think the current design is fine.
        saalweachter 4y ago
        I feel like the portable sawmill has a place in this discussion, given that the solution to how easy it is to cut something off of yourself with it is to sell them with an amputation kit so when your accident inevitably happens you have the tools to attempt to survive it.
      - bitofhope 4y ago
        I have witnessed and participated in thousands of user-fork interactions and none of them have involved the user's eyeballs interacting with the fork. There is a chance (in my estimate, negligible) that my anecdote is an extreme outlier, but I still dare state with confidence that most forks today are designed in a way that less than 99% of users end up sticking them in their eyeballs. People using forks for the unconventional and usually unintended purpose of impaling their eyes* are a tiny minority of fork users and thus changing fork designs to encourage the intended method of use is not considered a high priority. Most people are naturally disinclined to pierce themselves, particularly in such a delicate part of their face, and as such the design of a typical fork with its pointy tines directs users to avoid this particular usage mistake. The thesis stated above in the thread was, that cryptocurrencies are very commonly used in a way that defeats their intended purpose of decentralization. It seems reasonable to assume there is a flaw in contemporary cryptocurrency implementations that encourages this kind of use, or at the very least, doesn't discourage it very strongly. * Excluding specialized forks for non-mainstream audiences such as very young children
  - hnthrow1010 4y ago
    >Crypto, outside of an exchange, means I can send money to anyone I want, and no other entity can prevent that. No, this is extremely false. The miners/stakers can prevent that by blacklisting your wallet address. You might be thinking of privacy coins which are a very small subset of cryptocurrencies that are hard to use because of the security requirements, and are extremely impractical for most people who aren't criminals, and they only really work correctly if everyone using them has perfect opsec which currently they don't. And also a powerful entity who really wants to stop you can still prevent your transactions just by attacking and disabling the network itself through traditional or non-technical means, such as infiltrating the foundation that manages the project.
- landemva 4y ago
  >> 99% of crypto trades occur through exchanges Do you mean 99% of transactions occur on centralized exchanges without going on-chain? I would like to see the numbers you are using.
  - tsimionescu 4y ago
    What does it matter that they go on-chain? They are happening between one Coinbase/Binance/etc. wallet and another. If the exchange wants, they can write a reverse transaction on-chain, nothing's stopping them. Even if it was transferred to a wallet of another exchange, they can work with that other exchange to reverse the transaction.
- randomran01234 4y ago
  Your statement isn’t really accurate. https://blog.chainalysis.com/reports/defi-dexs-web3/ https://blog.chainalysis.com/reports/defi-dexs-web3/
  - adgjlsfhk1 4y ago
    That analysis has a major flaw. One of the main advantages of a centralized exchange is that they don't have to process all transactions on chain. As such, this is measuring very different statistics for centralized and decentralized exchanges.
    - randomran01234 4y ago
      That is true. Probably by pure volume of trades the CEX order books will always be able to facilitate an order of magnitude more than DEX as they can fulfill orders instantly with almost no fees at all, and many beginners and casual traders with crypto will not bother with or even understand what it means to transact on-chain. But there is a very significant amount of crypto trading occurring on-chain, to the tune of multiple billions of dollars per day.
      - adgjlsfhk1 4y ago
        It's hard to know for sure, but it wouldn't be surprising if the majority of on chain trading is between different accounts of the same person in a (bad) attempt to launder the money.

>As soon as you have a trusted central authority You might have missed the entire point of cryptocurrency. The idea is that it is not centralized and a single entity can't "reverse" transactions.

wombat-man 4y ago

It's all fun and games until someone steals your bored ape.

ouid 4y ago

Right, and the parent comment is asserting that that is worse in every way. Which it is.

adgjlsfhk1 4y ago

That works great except for the fact that 99% of crypto trades occur through exchanges which just put you back to the worst of both worlds.

denkmoon 4y ago
If 99% of users stuck their fork in their eyeball, it wouldn't mean that a Fork is a bad design or a bad implement, it would mean that the users are using it wrong. FWIW, in my own usage of crypto, the lack of central authority is exactly why it is used. I don't really care that other people are just hodl-ing their funny money in someone else's wallet. Crypto, outside of an exchange, means I can send money to anyone I want, and no other entity can prevent that.
- lottin 4y ago
  > Crypto, outside of an exchange, means I can send money to anyone I want, and no other entity can prevent that. This is basically it. Crypto-currencies are essentially tool to evade financial regulations. The price that you pay for that is a high operational risk and a lack of property rights.
- haswell 4y ago
  Except you've replaced something people want: easy access to their crypto and a feeling of assurance with something that people clearly don't want: no one wants to stick a fork in their eyeball. The thing is, users define the market. If we were talking about a traditional "product", if 99% of users used a product wrong, that product would be considered an abject failure, at least from a UX / messaging standpoint with a clear mismatch between user wants/needs and product capabilities. The average crypto buyer buys crypto because they want to make money. The average crypto buyer doesn't give a shit about decentralization or removal of bureaucracy. The average crypto buyer is getting exactly what they came for.
  - denkmoon 4y ago
    I would argue that the decentralised nature is a crucial aspect of the value proposition. It's part of the mythos of why crypto is valuable/worth investing in/going to the moon. The way it's actually used completely destroys that part of its value, but don't let reality get in the way of a good investment opportunity. I think if you set up a coin that doesn't use a distributed ledger, and instead uses an SQL database, you wouldn't get buy-in from the ~tulip~crypto fanatics because it doesn't line up with aforementioned mythos.
    - SkyMarshal 4y ago
      > I would argue that the decentralized nature is a crucial aspect of the value proposition. I would go so far as to argue it's the entire aspect of the value proposition. Take away decentralization and all you've got is a poorly architected, inefficient, unwieldy PayPal.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
      - haswell 4y ago
        But I think this highlights the dichotomy that is the crypto ecosystem right now. The people in this thread understand this value prop, but for a significant portion of crypto investors, the value prop is gains. It may be true that some casual crypto investors are interested because of the decentralization aspect, but that same user wants a PayPal-like experience. Most are not willing to deal with the complexity of doing it "right", and most of the non-technical people I know who buy crypto do it for the gains, not for the defi. In effect, this makes decentralization nothing more than a marketing promise, and the reality is exactly what you said - a poorly architected, inefficient, unwieldy PayPal. Sure, this system is capable of much more, and realizing the "true" value prop of decentralization, but that doesn't matter much if users are in it for other reasons. If users were doing it "right", or for sake of argument, let's say users are forced to do it right, I suspect they would just stop participating, bringing valuation down with them.
- lmm 4y ago
  > If 99% of users stuck their fork in their eyeball, it wouldn't mean that a Fork is a bad design or a bad implement Yes it would.
  - denkmoon 4y ago
    Your task, if you choose to accept it, is to redesign Fork to prevent user-eyeball interaction.
    - lmm 4y ago
      Given that the actual rate of fork to eyeball is very low, I think the current design is fine.
      - saalweachter 4y ago
        I feel like the portable sawmill has a place in this discussion, given that the solution to how easy it is to cut something off of yourself with it is to sell them with an amputation kit so when your accident inevitably happens you have the tools to attempt to survive it.
    - bitofhope 4y ago
      I have witnessed and participated in thousands of user-fork interactions and none of them have involved the user's eyeballs interacting with the fork. There is a chance (in my estimate, negligible) that my anecdote is an extreme outlier, but I still dare state with confidence that most forks today are designed in a way that less than 99% of users end up sticking them in their eyeballs. People using forks for the unconventional and usually unintended purpose of impaling their eyes* are a tiny minority of fork users and thus changing fork designs to encourage the intended method of use is not considered a high priority. Most people are naturally disinclined to pierce themselves, particularly in such a delicate part of their face, and as such the design of a typical fork with its pointy tines directs users to avoid this particular usage mistake. The thesis stated above in the thread was, that cryptocurrencies are very commonly used in a way that defeats their intended purpose of decentralization. It seems reasonable to assume there is a flaw in contemporary cryptocurrency implementations that encourages this kind of use, or at the very least, doesn't discourage it very strongly. * Excluding specialized forks for non-mainstream audiences such as very young children
- hnthrow1010 4y ago
  >Crypto, outside of an exchange, means I can send money to anyone I want, and no other entity can prevent that. No, this is extremely false. The miners/stakers can prevent that by blacklisting your wallet address. You might be thinking of privacy coins which are a very small subset of cryptocurrencies that are hard to use because of the security requirements, and are extremely impractical for most people who aren't criminals, and they only really work correctly if everyone using them has perfect opsec which currently they don't. And also a powerful entity who really wants to stop you can still prevent your transactions just by attacking and disabling the network itself through traditional or non-technical means, such as infiltrating the foundation that manages the project.
landemva 4y ago
>> 99% of crypto trades occur through exchanges Do you mean 99% of transactions occur on centralized exchanges without going on-chain? I would like to see the numbers you are using.
- tsimionescu 4y ago
  What does it matter that they go on-chain? They are happening between one Coinbase/Binance/etc. wallet and another. If the exchange wants, they can write a reverse transaction on-chain, nothing's stopping them. Even if it was transferred to a wallet of another exchange, they can work with that other exchange to reverse the transaction.
randomran01234 4y ago
Your statement isn’t really accurate. https://blog.chainalysis.com/reports/defi-dexs-web3/ https://blog.chainalysis.com/reports/defi-dexs-web3/
- adgjlsfhk1 4y ago
  That analysis has a major flaw. One of the main advantages of a centralized exchange is that they don't have to process all transactions on chain. As such, this is measuring very different statistics for centralized and decentralized exchanges.
  - randomran01234 4y ago
    That is true. Probably by pure volume of trades the CEX order books will always be able to facilitate an order of magnitude more than DEX as they can fulfill orders instantly with almost no fees at all, and many beginners and casual traders with crypto will not bother with or even understand what it means to transact on-chain. But there is a very significant amount of crypto trading occurring on-chain, to the tune of multiple billions of dollars per day.
    - adgjlsfhk1 4y ago
      It's hard to know for sure, but it wouldn't be surprising if the majority of on chain trading is between different accounts of the same person in a (bad) attempt to launder the money.