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Please, name 1 single thing about it that isn't "scammy". Edit because I'm getting the same replies: Nobody's questioning the blockchain as a solution to a gam

by s1k3s 4y ago

Please, name 1 single thing about it that isn't "scammy". Edit because I'm getting the same replies: Nobody's questioning the blockchain as a solution to a game theory problem - that's great, long live the blockchain. We're talking about crypto here though.

carlosdp 4y ago
I'll name you several. Copied from another reply I made, 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.
- AlexandrB 4y ago
  > Currently, the network has secured its storage for like 1000 years in theory. Claims like this are ridiculous on their face. In 1000 years the cryptographic primitives used for this project will be obsolete and broken. That's if we're not all using quantum computers of some kind and "traditional" computing is a relic of the long past. As a result, why should I trust any other claims made about Arweave? Clearly the project has no sense of its own limitations.
  - ziddoap 4y ago
    The graphics card I just bought said "military grade" on it. What's military grade on a 3070? Not a clue. Obviously it's just bullshit marketing, written by someone who thought "military grade" sounded good or something. But I still trust nVidia to render my video games. Sometimes marketing department and copy-writers get ahead of themselves. It shouldn't discredit the entire project unless there are other signals as well. Which there might be with Arweave! I have no idea. But discrediting the technical part of a project because of the marketing part of the project can be short-sighted.
    - AlexandrB 4y ago
      > But discrediting the technical part of a project because of the marketing part of the project can be short-sighted. Fundamentally, I disagree. "Too good to be true" marketing is a great sign you're being scammed. I wouldn't trust a used car salesman who's throwing in free "undercarriage protection" and other junk after "talking to his manager". Why should I trust a website that's doing the same? What's more, because Arweave like all crypto projects probably depends on users continuing to buy and mine tokens to function, unrealistic marketing contributes to boom-and-bust dynamics that might put my data at risk if enough people give up on the project/token. Whatever the underlying technology, this is enough of a reason to stay away. When Luna collapsed, a lot of people lost all their money. If the Arweave token collapses, users might also lose their "permanent" data. Incidentally, this prompted me to look at the Arweave "yellow paper", and I found this gem: > While the Arweave’s mechanism design is generally engineered to promote adaptivity to new circumstances, the core Arweave team does not expect that the network as it is currently formulated will continue to produce blocks in true perpetuity. This does not, however, mean that we expect that the information stored inside the weave will be lost after the final block is mined. It is our expectation that when eventually a permanent information storage system more suited to the challenges of the time emerges, the Arweave’s data will be ‘subsumed’ into this network. After the mining of the final block, the financial incentive mechanisms for data preservation will subside and give way to social incentives for data preservation. This effect will likely be compounded by the exceptionally low cost of storing the data from the network, due to its decreasing relative cost over time. So data is stored "forever", assuming someone comes along and archives all the data at some point in the future for free.
  - almostkorean 4y ago
    Completely agree, they make claims like this and I'm instantly turned off because it feels like they are lying to my face. I think they've set up a system that incentivizes long term storage (and possibly a better setup than IPFS) but theres no way in hell they can make a guarantee for more than a few years at best.
- cguess 4y ago
  All of which can be done without a blockchain, without the massive environmental damage and mostly on a free Postgres instance running on a Raspberry Pi in the corner of your bedroom. All of these are absolutely fine, they are dumb to have on a blockchain.
  - ChadNauseam 4y ago
    No they can't. You can't have ENS running on a RaspPi in someone's bedroom because you don't want a naming system to be dependent on some random dude not unplugging their RaspPi, or modifying the database to change who owns which names for their personal benefit.
    - cguess 4y ago
      Pretty bad idea to have it on a system that costs a variable amount of money and seconds to minutes of time to run every transaction as well.
      - ziddoap 4y ago
        Inefficient or what you consider as a "pretty bad idea" is a far cry from "scam", which was the assertion.
  - carlosdp 4y ago
    > All of which can be done without a blockchain Yea but it hasn't though, so maybe the incentive models a blockchain-based approach provides is what actually makes this practical, consider that. > without the massive environmental damage That's a silly argument, but regardless the chain all these projects are built on (Ethereum) is about to move to Proof of Stake in a month, which makes it's carbon footprint nothing.
codetrotter 4y ago
The original whitepaper about Bitcoin, written in 2008 by Satoshi Nakamoto, was not a scam. https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf
cwkoss 4y ago
It's a functional decentralized value transfer system. Computerized systems can create wallets and transact without the consent of a third party. Properly secured cryptocurrency cannot be seized without the consent of the owner. Edit: your edit is nonsensical - there is no blockchain without crypto - blockchains do not function with the financial incentive because that's what makes potentially-adversarial actors cooperate.
tromp 4y ago
The Bitcoin whitepaper wasn't scammy (although I personally don't like the emission guaranteeing a concentration of wealth on early miners).
- wyldfire 4y ago
  IMO to bootstrap the first cryptocoin you had to solve lots of problems that aren't present for subsequent ones. What if people merely tried it out - download for a week, do some mining and then delete it? That could have made the network very unstable in its genesis, which discourage developers and users from taking Bitcoin seriously. It makes some sense to reward early adopters who invest time, energy and cycles. On a related note - I don't think proof-of-stake would have worked for bitcoin. First of all, equitable distribution is a big deal and mining can do that but PoS by itself can't. But if you solved that problem I still think you would have a harder time convincing people that there was any value in a staker's signature, and whether it makes sense to trust transactions secured "only" by stake.
  - tromp 4y ago
    > It makes some sense to reward early adopters A fixed block reward (i.e. no halvings) would also have rewarded early adopters to the extent that were fewer miners competing with each other, but would have avoided the large wealth concentration and deter most of the speculation. You're correct to note that PoS is not a coin distribution method and thus made no sense for bitcoin.
drexlspivey 4y ago
Pretty sure that GPT-3 can autofill this subthread from here on up to a depth of 10. It is basically the same back and forth over and over.

by s1k3s 4y ago

carlosdp 4y ago

I'll name you several. Copied from another reply I made, 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.

AlexandrB 4y ago
> Currently, the network has secured its storage for like 1000 years in theory. Claims like this are ridiculous on their face. In 1000 years the cryptographic primitives used for this project will be obsolete and broken. That's if we're not all using quantum computers of some kind and "traditional" computing is a relic of the long past. As a result, why should I trust any other claims made about Arweave? Clearly the project has no sense of its own limitations.
- ziddoap 4y ago
  The graphics card I just bought said "military grade" on it. What's military grade on a 3070? Not a clue. Obviously it's just bullshit marketing, written by someone who thought "military grade" sounded good or something. But I still trust nVidia to render my video games. Sometimes marketing department and copy-writers get ahead of themselves. It shouldn't discredit the entire project unless there are other signals as well. Which there might be with Arweave! I have no idea. But discrediting the technical part of a project because of the marketing part of the project can be short-sighted.
  - AlexandrB 4y ago
    > But discrediting the technical part of a project because of the marketing part of the project can be short-sighted. Fundamentally, I disagree. "Too good to be true" marketing is a great sign you're being scammed. I wouldn't trust a used car salesman who's throwing in free "undercarriage protection" and other junk after "talking to his manager". Why should I trust a website that's doing the same? What's more, because Arweave like all crypto projects probably depends on users continuing to buy and mine tokens to function, unrealistic marketing contributes to boom-and-bust dynamics that might put my data at risk if enough people give up on the project/token. Whatever the underlying technology, this is enough of a reason to stay away. When Luna collapsed, a lot of people lost all their money. If the Arweave token collapses, users might also lose their "permanent" data. Incidentally, this prompted me to look at the Arweave "yellow paper", and I found this gem: > While the Arweave’s mechanism design is generally engineered to promote adaptivity to new circumstances, the core Arweave team does not expect that the network as it is currently formulated will continue to produce blocks in true perpetuity. This does not, however, mean that we expect that the information stored inside the weave will be lost after the final block is mined. It is our expectation that when eventually a permanent information storage system more suited to the challenges of the time emerges, the Arweave’s data will be ‘subsumed’ into this network. After the mining of the final block, the financial incentive mechanisms for data preservation will subside and give way to social incentives for data preservation. This effect will likely be compounded by the exceptionally low cost of storing the data from the network, due to its decreasing relative cost over time. So data is stored "forever", assuming someone comes along and archives all the data at some point in the future for free.
- almostkorean 4y ago
  Completely agree, they make claims like this and I'm instantly turned off because it feels like they are lying to my face. I think they've set up a system that incentivizes long term storage (and possibly a better setup than IPFS) but theres no way in hell they can make a guarantee for more than a few years at best.
cguess 4y ago
All of which can be done without a blockchain, without the massive environmental damage and mostly on a free Postgres instance running on a Raspberry Pi in the corner of your bedroom. All of these are absolutely fine, they are dumb to have on a blockchain.
- ChadNauseam 4y ago
  No they can't. You can't have ENS running on a RaspPi in someone's bedroom because you don't want a naming system to be dependent on some random dude not unplugging their RaspPi, or modifying the database to change who owns which names for their personal benefit.
  - cguess 4y ago
    Pretty bad idea to have it on a system that costs a variable amount of money and seconds to minutes of time to run every transaction as well.
    - ziddoap 4y ago
      Inefficient or what you consider as a "pretty bad idea" is a far cry from "scam", which was the assertion.
- carlosdp 4y ago
  > All of which can be done without a blockchain Yea but it hasn't though, so maybe the incentive models a blockchain-based approach provides is what actually makes this practical, consider that. > without the massive environmental damage That's a silly argument, but regardless the chain all these projects are built on (Ethereum) is about to move to Proof of Stake in a month, which makes it's carbon footprint nothing.

codetrotter 4y ago

The original whitepaper about Bitcoin, written in 2008 by Satoshi Nakamoto, was not a scam. https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf

cwkoss 4y ago

It's a functional decentralized value transfer system. Computerized systems can create wallets and transact without the consent of a third party. Properly secured cryptocurrency cannot be seized without the consent of the owner. Edit: your edit is nonsensical - there is no blockchain without crypto - blockchains do not function with the financial incentive because that's what makes potentially-adversarial actors cooperate.

tromp 4y ago

The Bitcoin whitepaper wasn't scammy (although I personally don't like the emission guaranteeing a concentration of wealth on early miners).

wyldfire 4y ago
IMO to bootstrap the first cryptocoin you had to solve lots of problems that aren't present for subsequent ones. What if people merely tried it out - download for a week, do some mining and then delete it? That could have made the network very unstable in its genesis, which discourage developers and users from taking Bitcoin seriously. It makes some sense to reward early adopters who invest time, energy and cycles. On a related note - I don't think proof-of-stake would have worked for bitcoin. First of all, equitable distribution is a big deal and mining can do that but PoS by itself can't. But if you solved that problem I still think you would have a harder time convincing people that there was any value in a staker's signature, and whether it makes sense to trust transactions secured "only" by stake.
- tromp 4y ago
  > It makes some sense to reward early adopters A fixed block reward (i.e. no halvings) would also have rewarded early adopters to the extent that were fewer miners competing with each other, but would have avoided the large wealth concentration and deter most of the speculation. You're correct to note that PoS is not a coin distribution method and thus made no sense for bitcoin.

drexlspivey 4y ago

Pretty sure that GPT-3 can autofill this subthread from here on up to a depth of 10. It is basically the same back and forth over and over.