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Name systems. Decentralized forex. Censorship resistant voting.

fsh 4y ago
The first two require centralized governance to function, so putting it on a blockchain is useless. Voting requires anonymity, so putting it on a blockchain is dangerous.
- mhluongo 4y ago
  Neither of those require centralized governance (see Handshake, see Uniswap v2) and you can get anonymous voting on-chain as long as you have a registry of voting weight (see a variety of ZKPs). It amazes me that on this forum for technologists, so few are familiar with the technology... and still try to tear down crypto so passionately.
  - fsh 4y ago
    It amazes me that crypto-fanboys simply refuse to think through the failure modes of their toy projects. If you put your domains or your money on the blockchain, and you lose your keys, your domains or your money are gone with no recourse. This makes it obviously unusable in practice (keys get stolen all the time), and the only solution is centralized governance. This is fundamentally the oracle problem, and adding more and more layers of bullshit complexity won't fix it. Some ZKP-Voodoo may provide weak anonymity (the votes are not immediately obvious), but the voter can still prove to a third party who he or she voted for. Obviously this makes it vulnerable to vote buying and voter intimidation.
    - mhluongo 4y ago
      Hm, by that logic we shouldn't ever do cryptography at all I guess? I mean keys get lost all the time, what's the point? On ZKPs... seriously, you're calling cutting edge advances in cryptography "voodoo"? Do you not realize how anti-intellectual that is? There are plenty of proofs for truly anon voting, without auditability if that's what you so desire. More protocols include it than not because it turns out people want to be able to audit elections! The difference in this system is users have to volunteer the information, rather than rely on an election operator.
  - olalonde 4y ago
    > It amazes me that on this forum for technologists, so few are familiar with the technology... and still try to tear down crypto so passionately. I think this comment explains most of it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31356857 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31356857 Basically an emotional reaction.

fsh 4y ago

The first two require centralized governance to function, so putting it on a blockchain is useless. Voting requires anonymity, so putting it on a blockchain is dangerous.

mhluongo 4y ago
Neither of those require centralized governance (see Handshake, see Uniswap v2) and you can get anonymous voting on-chain as long as you have a registry of voting weight (see a variety of ZKPs). It amazes me that on this forum for technologists, so few are familiar with the technology... and still try to tear down crypto so passionately.
- fsh 4y ago
  It amazes me that crypto-fanboys simply refuse to think through the failure modes of their toy projects. If you put your domains or your money on the blockchain, and you lose your keys, your domains or your money are gone with no recourse. This makes it obviously unusable in practice (keys get stolen all the time), and the only solution is centralized governance. This is fundamentally the oracle problem, and adding more and more layers of bullshit complexity won't fix it. Some ZKP-Voodoo may provide weak anonymity (the votes are not immediately obvious), but the voter can still prove to a third party who he or she voted for. Obviously this makes it vulnerable to vote buying and voter intimidation.
  - mhluongo 4y ago
    Hm, by that logic we shouldn't ever do cryptography at all I guess? I mean keys get lost all the time, what's the point? On ZKPs... seriously, you're calling cutting edge advances in cryptography "voodoo"? Do you not realize how anti-intellectual that is? There are plenty of proofs for truly anon voting, without auditability if that's what you so desire. More protocols include it than not because it turns out people want to be able to audit elections! The difference in this system is users have to volunteer the information, rather than rely on an election operator.
- olalonde 4y ago
  > It amazes me that on this forum for technologists, so few are familiar with the technology... and still try to tear down crypto so passionately. I think this comment explains most of it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31356857 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31356857 Basically an emotional reaction.