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There's a whole ecosystem of devs working on interesting stuff that have nothing to do with finance, they just don't get mainstream headlines today. Copied fro

There's a whole ecosystem of devs working on interesting stuff that have nothing to do with finance, they just don't get mainstream headlines today. Copied from another reply I made a few days ago, here's some projects to check out: - Lens Protocol [https://lens.xyz/ https://lens.xyz/ (one example implementation: https://lenster.xyz/ https://lenster.xyz/)] is an early social network built on top of Polygon. - Farcaster [https://farcaster.xyz/ https://farcaster.xyz/] is another one, that takes a more hybrid approach of using Ethereum for trustless identity, but stores social stuff in a "sufficiently decentralized" way. - ENS [https://ens.domains/ https://ens.domains/] is a universal username system. - Unlock Protocol [https://unlock-protocol.com/ https://unlock-protocol.com/] uses NFTs for tradeable subscriptions, event tickets, etc. - Radicle [https://radicle.xyz/ https://radicle.xyz/] is a decentralized Github basically, that (optionally) uses Ethereum to store the Git HEAD of a "project" essentially. - Arweave [https://www.arweave.org/ https://www.arweave.org/] stores files permanently using a cool "endowment" mechanism. Currently, the network has secured its storage for like 1000 years in theory.

seibelj 4y ago
- kanzure 4y ago
  > It doesn’t matter how much you argue with HN crypto haters, it’s always “bUt WhY nOt a SqL DaTaBaSe?” (plug warning) Well.... I tried that, the HN comments seemed somewhat positive to me at least: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32294951 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32294951
- BaseballPhysics 4y ago
  > It doesn’t matter how much you argue with HN crypto haters, it’s always “bUt WhY nOt a SqL DaTaBaSe?” We'll stop asking the question when we finally get a good answer.
  - seibelj 4y ago
    Parent comment linked to a bunch of projects with promise, but again, the HN crypto hater doesn't care. USDC is over $50 billion - https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/usd-coin https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/usd-coin - so clearly the market is seeing value in a stablecoin running on crypto rails. But then the counterpoint is "BUT NO ONE NEEDS THIS HAVEN'T YOU HEARD OF VISA DURR DURR HURR" it's exhausting to try and argue.
    - pram 4y ago
      We just had a $30B PoS coin/stablecoin platform evaporate into thin air this year, don’t even need to bring up Visa lol
      - seibelj 4y ago
        And Deutsch Bank laundered hundreds of billions of euros for drug lords. What system is flawed again?
        whaaswijk 4y ago
        Is there a mechanism in place to stop people from laundering money with ethereum? This is a serious question, I’m a total noob when it comes to crypto.
        seibelj 4y ago
        You can’t stop crime, otherwise murder wouldn’t happen. If you give people a modicum of freedom then some amount of them will act with criminal intent. Arguably the blockchain makes detecting and prosecuting money laundering easier than our opaque legacy financial system.
        ahahahahah 4y ago
        Right, in the same way that in the hypothetical Blockchain utopia anyone seeing you eat at a coffeeshop can also see what porn sites you visit, how often you shop at the dispensary, and which escorts you prefer to visit.
- WFHRenaissance 4y ago
  > You can’t argue in good faith with people who don’t want to learn. You can’t argue in good faith with people who don’t agree with the ideology behind crypto and decentralization. I'm a "crypto" person. I work for a "crypto" company. I do so for primarily ideological reasons. The tech is cool, but I'm here for the ideas and the possibility of a different world. Most people on HN are creating developer tools and SaaS software for corporations. Different ideology. They simply don't agree with the worldview that crypto is offering developers/users.
yardstick 4y ago
“ Arweave [https://www.arweave.org/ https://www.arweave.org/] stores files permanently using a cool "endowment" mechanism. Currently, the network has secured its storage for like 1000 years in theory.” 2 issues spring to mind: - What happens when someone puts illegal content on it? Eg child porn. It claims to be censorship-resistant (not censorship-proof), but I imagine any system that cannot expunge data like this won’t be around for long. - Where are the details on the 1000 years of storage? Have they got financing arranged (and already in trust funds/isolated from the rest of the business) for this storage, the maintenance of the software throughout the next 1000 years etc? Or are they relying on people to contribute resources? If I pay money to store data here (say precious, irreplaceable family photos), then come back in 50 years, what’s the odds that I will still be able to access them?
- bsamuels 4y ago
  RE the first point: you don't have to store/host 100% of the data, content can be blocklisted based on hash or other attributes so your node doesn't replicate or retransmit it. The censorship resistant claim assumes there's at least 1 node on the network willing to host your content. RE the second point: highly recommend taking a look at the arweave white paper. They use an interesting pricing mechanism that tries to account for the cost of the next 200 years of storage (dunno where 1000 came from, the spec plans for 200).
  - carlosdp 4y ago
    > dunno where 1000 came from, the spec plans for 200). The spec plans for 200, but that's a minimum I believe.
  - yardstick 4y ago
    > The censorship resistant claim assumes there's at least 1 node on the network willing to host your content. That’s a weak claim then. I wouldn’t call that censorship resistant at all. That’s no better than China imo. Wouldn’t be surprised- if this got popular- for people to publish blacklists you can subscribe to. Re the pricing mechanism, if the project fails/people abandon it (because the arweave economy crashes for whatever reason) what happens to the data? Paying out an endowment over time to fund the storage only works if you have people who put value in the tokens. Which could no longer exist.

seibelj 4y ago

kanzure 4y ago
> It doesn’t matter how much you argue with HN crypto haters, it’s always “bUt WhY nOt a SqL DaTaBaSe?” (plug warning) Well.... I tried that, the HN comments seemed somewhat positive to me at least: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32294951 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32294951
BaseballPhysics 4y ago
> It doesn’t matter how much you argue with HN crypto haters, it’s always “bUt WhY nOt a SqL DaTaBaSe?” We'll stop asking the question when we finally get a good answer.
- seibelj 4y ago
  Parent comment linked to a bunch of projects with promise, but again, the HN crypto hater doesn't care. USDC is over $50 billion - https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/usd-coin https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/usd-coin - so clearly the market is seeing value in a stablecoin running on crypto rails. But then the counterpoint is "BUT NO ONE NEEDS THIS HAVEN'T YOU HEARD OF VISA DURR DURR HURR" it's exhausting to try and argue.
  - pram 4y ago
    We just had a $30B PoS coin/stablecoin platform evaporate into thin air this year, don’t even need to bring up Visa lol
    - seibelj 4y ago
      And Deutsch Bank laundered hundreds of billions of euros for drug lords. What system is flawed again?
      - whaaswijk 4y ago
        Is there a mechanism in place to stop people from laundering money with ethereum? This is a serious question, I’m a total noob when it comes to crypto.
        seibelj 4y ago
        You can’t stop crime, otherwise murder wouldn’t happen. If you give people a modicum of freedom then some amount of them will act with criminal intent. Arguably the blockchain makes detecting and prosecuting money laundering easier than our opaque legacy financial system.
        ahahahahah 4y ago
        Right, in the same way that in the hypothetical Blockchain utopia anyone seeing you eat at a coffeeshop can also see what porn sites you visit, how often you shop at the dispensary, and which escorts you prefer to visit.
WFHRenaissance 4y ago
> You can’t argue in good faith with people who don’t want to learn. You can’t argue in good faith with people who don’t agree with the ideology behind crypto and decentralization. I'm a "crypto" person. I work for a "crypto" company. I do so for primarily ideological reasons. The tech is cool, but I'm here for the ideas and the possibility of a different world. Most people on HN are creating developer tools and SaaS software for corporations. Different ideology. They simply don't agree with the worldview that crypto is offering developers/users.

yardstick 4y ago

“ Arweave [https://www.arweave.org/ https://www.arweave.org/] stores files permanently using a cool "endowment" mechanism. Currently, the network has secured its storage for like 1000 years in theory.” 2 issues spring to mind: - What happens when someone puts illegal content on it? Eg child porn. It claims to be censorship-resistant (not censorship-proof), but I imagine any system that cannot expunge data like this won’t be around for long. - Where are the details on the 1000 years of storage? Have they got financing arranged (and already in trust funds/isolated from the rest of the business) for this storage, the maintenance of the software throughout the next 1000 years etc? Or are they relying on people to contribute resources? If I pay money to store data here (say precious, irreplaceable family photos), then come back in 50 years, what’s the odds that I will still be able to access them?

bsamuels 4y ago
RE the first point: you don't have to store/host 100% of the data, content can be blocklisted based on hash or other attributes so your node doesn't replicate or retransmit it. The censorship resistant claim assumes there's at least 1 node on the network willing to host your content. RE the second point: highly recommend taking a look at the arweave white paper. They use an interesting pricing mechanism that tries to account for the cost of the next 200 years of storage (dunno where 1000 came from, the spec plans for 200).
- carlosdp 4y ago
  > dunno where 1000 came from, the spec plans for 200). The spec plans for 200, but that's a minimum I believe.
- yardstick 4y ago
  > The censorship resistant claim assumes there's at least 1 node on the network willing to host your content. That’s a weak claim then. I wouldn’t call that censorship resistant at all. That’s no better than China imo. Wouldn’t be surprised- if this got popular- for people to publish blacklists you can subscribe to. Re the pricing mechanism, if the project fails/people abandon it (because the arweave economy crashes for whatever reason) what happens to the data? Paying out an endowment over time to fund the storage only works if you have people who put value in the tokens. Which could no longer exist.