4 ms·

Zooko's Triangle was a useful lens, but I think of it has having long been solved (or, refuted) by many blockchain projects.

amingilani 4y ago
I concur, for example, ENS domains are memorable, secure and the whole contract is decentralized. And you can send Vitalik eth at vitalik.eth
- digitaLandscape 4y ago
- googlryas 4y ago
  Woe betide other Vitaliks!
  - hackernewds 4y ago
    ?
    - googlryas 4y ago
      It's nice that you can send vitalik eth to vitalik.eth, but what about the 10000 other vitaliks out there? Are they supposed to be vitalik_4591.eth, the_real_vitalik.eth, etc?
      - alexslobodnik 4y ago
        they can pick a different name, i don't really understand what solution you are advocating. that no one can be vitalik because there are more than one?
        googlryas 4y ago
        I'm actually not advocating for a solution, because I don't know of one. My point was only that OPs statement of "ENS domains are memorable" is only true for early adopters. Later adopters won't have that luxury. The same thing played out with the .com domain, which is why so many companies use non-.com domains these days, because it is not straightforward to get a memorable domain in .com.
mindslight 4y ago
IMO, blockchain human-readable naming generally creates a single coherent namespace and are thus "centralized" in terms of Zooko's Triangle. The singular authority is vested in shared consensus, but is singular authority nonetheless. The real answer to Zooko's Triangle is to do human-meaningful name lookups as little as possible. For instance, in an ideal world I should be able to run a nameserver that stuffs all of ICANN's TLD pollution under an .icann label, such that I could type "blog.google.icann" to access what is currently called "blog.google". References to other resources would be specified with decentralized non-human-readable (ie cryptographic) identifiers, and outgoing links intended for human consumption would also have a relative hint so that my browser could turn the cryptographic identifier back into a human readable identifier in my own namespace.
- jeffparsons 4y ago
  I guess I'm not adding much to your comment, but I just wanted to remark that this exact thing has been bugging me for ages: people talk about these blockchain projects as being "decentralized" simply because _execution of the algorithm_ is distributed across lots of (mutually distrusting) nodes. This perspective confuses me, because it doesn't seem to be a particularly meaningful distinction when there is still one consensus truth in the network. In the case of a naming system, as you point out, that means there is still one finite, scarce namespace in the system, just as there is in DNS. More generally, there is still a central authority pushing out code, and so unless you want to hard-fork, what does the "decentralization" in a blockchain actually buy you? Does it do anything more for you in practical terms than protecting you from a central server suffering an outage? I spent some time a while back coming up with ideas for an alternative to blockchains that would pursue many of the same goals, starting from first principles ("what the heck even _is_ money?"). I have no idea whether any of my ideas would have actually worked in practice, but they at least ticked the "decentralized" box in a way that I found a lot more meaningful than merely "decentralized execution of a centrally-defined algorithm to determine a single global consensus state". (I stopped working on them not because they didn't show promise, but because I became convinced that they would be a net negative for the world if they were successful; I lost the desire to find a working design.)
sanxiyn 4y ago
This has been noticed quickly. Aaron Swartz wrote "Squaring the Triangle" in 2011: http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/squarezooko http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/squarezooko.
api 4y ago
Proof of work gets progressively centralized by industrial economies of scale. Proof of stake will lead to a plutocracy controlling the chain.
- kelthuzad 4y ago
  Not all PoW mining were created equal, monero for instance uses a pow algorithm that was designed to be resistant to ASIC mining.
  - mrguyorama 4y ago
    All proof of work is just a proxy to proof of capital. As long as having more money and hardware gets you more mined "stuff", then all the power will go to those who start with more resources. "One <thing you can buy a million of>, one vote" just means you can buy more votes.
    - kelthuzad 4y ago
      for xmr it's 1 cpu = 1 vote, that's the lowest barrier I can imagine. furthermore owning more capital is not really a big deal since the tokens are fungible, thus no censorship of lower net worth individuals is possible on the protocol level
      - mrguyorama 4y ago
        As long as the protocols are controlled by a majority of miners choosing the chain, being able to buy votes is a problem. Devaluing my "owned" currency by forking a new chain with your preferred outcomes, or refusing to implement useful features because it would make it harder for your miners to make a profit are both things detrimental to the ecosystem as a whole and me as an individual and are impossible to prevent as long as you can just buy more votes. More capital means more control over the network, period. This applies to any blockchain that uses miner consensus to decide anything, and also applies to any blockchain that is forkable at all.

amingilani 4y ago

I concur, for example, ENS domains are memorable, secure and the whole contract is decentralized. And you can send Vitalik eth at vitalik.eth

digitaLandscape 4y ago
googlryas 4y ago
Woe betide other Vitaliks!
- hackernewds 4y ago
  ?
  - googlryas 4y ago
    It's nice that you can send vitalik eth to vitalik.eth, but what about the 10000 other vitaliks out there? Are they supposed to be vitalik_4591.eth, the_real_vitalik.eth, etc?
    - alexslobodnik 4y ago
      they can pick a different name, i don't really understand what solution you are advocating. that no one can be vitalik because there are more than one?
      - googlryas 4y ago
        I'm actually not advocating for a solution, because I don't know of one. My point was only that OPs statement of "ENS domains are memorable" is only true for early adopters. Later adopters won't have that luxury. The same thing played out with the .com domain, which is why so many companies use non-.com domains these days, because it is not straightforward to get a memorable domain in .com.

mindslight 4y ago

IMO, blockchain human-readable naming generally creates a single coherent namespace and are thus "centralized" in terms of Zooko's Triangle. The singular authority is vested in shared consensus, but is singular authority nonetheless. The real answer to Zooko's Triangle is to do human-meaningful name lookups as little as possible. For instance, in an ideal world I should be able to run a nameserver that stuffs all of ICANN's TLD pollution under an .icann label, such that I could type "blog.google.icann" to access what is currently called "blog.google". References to other resources would be specified with decentralized non-human-readable (ie cryptographic) identifiers, and outgoing links intended for human consumption would also have a relative hint so that my browser could turn the cryptographic identifier back into a human readable identifier in my own namespace.

jeffparsons 4y ago
I guess I'm not adding much to your comment, but I just wanted to remark that this exact thing has been bugging me for ages: people talk about these blockchain projects as being "decentralized" simply because _execution of the algorithm_ is distributed across lots of (mutually distrusting) nodes. This perspective confuses me, because it doesn't seem to be a particularly meaningful distinction when there is still one consensus truth in the network. In the case of a naming system, as you point out, that means there is still one finite, scarce namespace in the system, just as there is in DNS. More generally, there is still a central authority pushing out code, and so unless you want to hard-fork, what does the "decentralization" in a blockchain actually buy you? Does it do anything more for you in practical terms than protecting you from a central server suffering an outage? I spent some time a while back coming up with ideas for an alternative to blockchains that would pursue many of the same goals, starting from first principles ("what the heck even _is_ money?"). I have no idea whether any of my ideas would have actually worked in practice, but they at least ticked the "decentralized" box in a way that I found a lot more meaningful than merely "decentralized execution of a centrally-defined algorithm to determine a single global consensus state". (I stopped working on them not because they didn't show promise, but because I became convinced that they would be a net negative for the world if they were successful; I lost the desire to find a working design.)

sanxiyn 4y ago

This has been noticed quickly. Aaron Swartz wrote "Squaring the Triangle" in 2011: http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/squarezooko http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/squarezooko.

api 4y ago

Proof of work gets progressively centralized by industrial economies of scale. Proof of stake will lead to a plutocracy controlling the chain.

kelthuzad 4y ago
Not all PoW mining were created equal, monero for instance uses a pow algorithm that was designed to be resistant to ASIC mining.
- mrguyorama 4y ago
  All proof of work is just a proxy to proof of capital. As long as having more money and hardware gets you more mined "stuff", then all the power will go to those who start with more resources. "One <thing you can buy a million of>, one vote" just means you can buy more votes.
  - kelthuzad 4y ago
    for xmr it's 1 cpu = 1 vote, that's the lowest barrier I can imagine. furthermore owning more capital is not really a big deal since the tokens are fungible, thus no censorship of lower net worth individuals is possible on the protocol level
    - mrguyorama 4y ago
      As long as the protocols are controlled by a majority of miners choosing the chain, being able to buy votes is a problem. Devaluing my "owned" currency by forking a new chain with your preferred outcomes, or refusing to implement useful features because it would make it harder for your miners to make a profit are both things detrimental to the ecosystem as a whole and me as an individual and are impossible to prevent as long as you can just buy more votes. More capital means more control over the network, period. This applies to any blockchain that uses miner consensus to decide anything, and also applies to any blockchain that is forkable at all.