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> Not that I’m saying MMOs need blockchains; I would hope not! Lots of MMOs exist, for example. > but it turns out Proof-of-Work ledger technology had a use c

> Not that I’m saying MMOs need blockchains; I would hope not! Lots of MMOs exist, for example. > but it turns out Proof-of-Work ledger technology had a use case here! Right, blockchain and more narrowly Proof-of-Work have loads of use cases. They're just the worst solution available for almost all of them.

palata 4y ago
They are actually pretty damn good for some criminal use-cases...
- kmeisthax 4y ago
  Not even. Everything except Monero makes money-laundering analysis trivially easy.
  - fatneckbeardz 4y ago
    ok so to restate. proof of work blockchain use case: you want to invent a money transfer system that will attract criminals to use it, and they will think it is anonymous, but its not really anonymous.
  - cottenio 4y ago
    Ironically I gave an interview to VICE News about exactly this during the Mueller investigation and they had to cut my Monero comments out for time.
  - JohnJamesRambo 4y ago
    If the funds are sent to mixers?
    - ceejayoz 4y ago
      I would bet the FBI operates and controls a non-zero amount of mixing services.
  - palata 4y ago
    Money laundering is one. What about ransomware? What about malware mining cryptocurrencies? Also I think North Korea is using cryptocurrencies to get money out of cyberattacks. It does not feel like all this is prevented by trivial analysis, is it?
not2b 4y ago
Couldn't they just use a Merkle tree, like git does, to keep track of the history? I think that's what he's referring to here. They don't need proof of work if the code that can modify the history is trusted.
- cottenio 4y ago
  As a huge fan and experienced implementer of merkle trees in my modern work I really wish I had known what they were at the time :) Merkle trees don’t solve the forgeability issue, just the unbroken chain of what you currently have. So, if you have control over the server you can just create a set of events with your “+5 billion gold” event injected in it, recalculate the tree and root and voila: forgery. PoW doesn’t prevent this, it just adds computational time provably spent between the events so that if you DID try to inject a false record a year ago you’d have to spend that same amount of time calculating the resulting merkle tree. Merkle trees all the way down!
arduinomancer 4y ago
Yeah this seems like another "how is that better than a centralized database" situation
- welshwelsh 4y ago
  Pretty much every MMO has implemented some type of censorship/shitty rules, so no company can be trusted to run a game
  - EamonnMR 4y ago
    Few people actually enjoy being in a community without moderation though.
    - registeredcorn 4y ago
      To welshwelsh's point, he wasn't advocating for no moderation, but rather good and limited moderation. For example, I doubt most would have an issue with something like moderation over cheating.
      - altairprime 4y ago
        Most cheaters do — but they’ll represent their viewpoint in terms that claim a “greater cause”, such as individual liberties or rights or whatever, so that they can try to rabble-rouse the crowd against enforcement in order to continue cheating. (This occurs with kernel anti-cheat drivers, for example, but there’s no way to measure what percentage of folks that is.)
        Huh1337 4y ago
        Kernel anti-cheat drivers??? You mean the game is hooking into the OS kernel, with privileged access? That's not okay in any case whatsoever.
        wheybags 4y ago
ezoe 4y ago
Yeah, If it has a single authority to consult, there is no need of inefficient proof-of-work bullshit. Just like explained in the article, UUID and simple KVS can detect the dupes.
hnbad 4y ago
I think that pitch was inevitable given the author's tagline: > Building interactive digital assets for the Metaverse. Of course the joke is that the use case is as easily solved by a database, which he even explicitly says UO didn't have. The "double spend problem" has been solved by any database that supports cluster-wide transactions and there are a number of pieces of software that implement only this aspect of a database as a part of "turning the database inside-out" (usually with only a promise of eventual consistency, e.g. implementing only a write-ahead log). Sure, a "proof of work ledger technology" could have been used but it would also have been the wrong tool for the job given that proof of work (or proof of stake for that matter) adds nothing to the solution but makes everything slower and more expensive. The only valid use cases I've heard of are interfaces between different companies and even in those cases I'm not convinced blockchain is a good solution, let alone the best one, rather than a buzzword someone used to get a raise by wooing upper management.

palata 4y ago

They are actually pretty damn good for some criminal use-cases...

kmeisthax 4y ago
Not even. Everything except Monero makes money-laundering analysis trivially easy.
- fatneckbeardz 4y ago
  ok so to restate. proof of work blockchain use case: you want to invent a money transfer system that will attract criminals to use it, and they will think it is anonymous, but its not really anonymous.
- cottenio 4y ago
  Ironically I gave an interview to VICE News about exactly this during the Mueller investigation and they had to cut my Monero comments out for time.
- JohnJamesRambo 4y ago
  If the funds are sent to mixers?
  - ceejayoz 4y ago
    I would bet the FBI operates and controls a non-zero amount of mixing services.
- palata 4y ago
  Money laundering is one. What about ransomware? What about malware mining cryptocurrencies? Also I think North Korea is using cryptocurrencies to get money out of cyberattacks. It does not feel like all this is prevented by trivial analysis, is it?

not2b 4y ago

Couldn't they just use a Merkle tree, like git does, to keep track of the history? I think that's what he's referring to here. They don't need proof of work if the code that can modify the history is trusted.

cottenio 4y ago
As a huge fan and experienced implementer of merkle trees in my modern work I really wish I had known what they were at the time :) Merkle trees don’t solve the forgeability issue, just the unbroken chain of what you currently have. So, if you have control over the server you can just create a set of events with your “+5 billion gold” event injected in it, recalculate the tree and root and voila: forgery. PoW doesn’t prevent this, it just adds computational time provably spent between the events so that if you DID try to inject a false record a year ago you’d have to spend that same amount of time calculating the resulting merkle tree. Merkle trees all the way down!

arduinomancer 4y ago

Yeah this seems like another "how is that better than a centralized database" situation

welshwelsh 4y ago
Pretty much every MMO has implemented some type of censorship/shitty rules, so no company can be trusted to run a game
- EamonnMR 4y ago
  Few people actually enjoy being in a community without moderation though.
  - registeredcorn 4y ago
    To welshwelsh's point, he wasn't advocating for no moderation, but rather good and limited moderation. For example, I doubt most would have an issue with something like moderation over cheating.
    - altairprime 4y ago
      Most cheaters do — but they’ll represent their viewpoint in terms that claim a “greater cause”, such as individual liberties or rights or whatever, so that they can try to rabble-rouse the crowd against enforcement in order to continue cheating. (This occurs with kernel anti-cheat drivers, for example, but there’s no way to measure what percentage of folks that is.)
      - Huh1337 4y ago
        Kernel anti-cheat drivers??? You mean the game is hooking into the OS kernel, with privileged access? That's not okay in any case whatsoever.
        wheybags 4y ago

ezoe 4y ago

Yeah, If it has a single authority to consult, there is no need of inefficient proof-of-work bullshit. Just like explained in the article, UUID and simple KVS can detect the dupes.

hnbad 4y ago

I think that pitch was inevitable given the author's tagline: > Building interactive digital assets for the Metaverse. Of course the joke is that the use case is as easily solved by a database, which he even explicitly says UO didn't have. The "double spend problem" has been solved by any database that supports cluster-wide transactions and there are a number of pieces of software that implement only this aspect of a database as a part of "turning the database inside-out" (usually with only a promise of eventual consistency, e.g. implementing only a write-ahead log). Sure, a "proof of work ledger technology" could have been used but it would also have been the wrong tool for the job given that proof of work (or proof of stake for that matter) adds nothing to the solution but makes everything slower and more expensive. The only valid use cases I've heard of are interfaces between different companies and even in those cases I'm not convinced blockchain is a good solution, let alone the best one, rather than a buzzword someone used to get a raise by wooing upper management.