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There are some legitimate use cases for decentralized ledgers and other "crypto-like" tech. As far as I'm aware, none of those involve anything that looks remo

by zhdc1 4y ago

There are some legitimate use cases for decentralized ledgers and other "crypto-like" tech. As far as I'm aware, none of those involve anything that looks remotely like financial speculation.

chitowneats 4y ago
Name them please. This technology has had very smart and very financially motivated people trying to apply it for more than a decade.
- zhdc1 4y ago
  GNU Thaler for central-bank regulated digital currencies.
  - chitowneats 4y ago
    GNU Taler is an interesting toy. I was hoping you had an example that has actually been used in practice.
  - selectodude 4y ago
    A quick glance at the website makes it seem like PayPal but using "tokens" instead of just leaving everything in normal currency values.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- unintendedcons 4y ago
  Distributed domain name services. ENS is the only good example, standing naturally next to many imitators and scams.
  - polygamous_bat 4y ago
    You mean the service that had to beg people online far and wide to change their domain names from .link to .limo because the founder was in jail for aiding North Korea in money laundering? Quite the shining beacon of decentralization in a centralized land, yeah. (If you ever wonder why people treat crypto as a joke, think back to this moment.)
    - unintendedcons 4y ago
      You're not making the point you think you're making. The ENS and ens.link are different people. You have misunderstood the situation.
- EthanHeilman 4y ago
  I know everyone will laugh at me for saying this but... we are still in the early stages of cryptocurrency from a technology development perspective. I'm not aware of anyway to securely scale a decentralized cryptocurrency without recursive proofs of correctness that are fast to prove and fast to verify. Every year since 2016 I've seen major progress being made in this area but we have far to go. We just barely got there in 2020. We could probably build a scalable decentralized cryptocurrency in 2020, maybe. Give it another 5-10 years of advancement like we saw over the last 5 and you will have the ability to build scalable decentralized cryptocurrencies. That doesn't mean people will build them or that even if they do the built systems won't suffer from serious drawbacks. It is a long road ahead. Now there are other problems to solve as well, but everything i being gated right now by proofs of correctness. We have a steam engine, we can put it on rails and it can pull a small load. Unfortunately the expectation has been set that we have train that can move millions of people. The fact that we can't meet this expectation doesn't mean that steam engines or engines in general are bad.
  - psychlops 4y ago
    It's fascinating the amount of repetitive comments that believe there should be some sort of time limit for a technology to succeed. It's not clear to me where this line of thinking comes from, the implication being that if something doesn't work after x years, people should just give up and go back to the old ways.
    - EthanHeilman 4y ago
      It's the confusion between: It is unlikely that Charles Babbage is going to be able to build his difference engine and even if he does it is so complex and so prone to failure that it probably will never be commercially viable. vs. It is unlikely that Charles Babbage is going to be able to build his difference engine, thus proving computers can't work and have no utility.
- psychlops 4y ago
  Money not controlled by a central entity. I don't think it's more complex than that. The closer the idea gets to centralization, the more scams erupt.
  - oblio 4y ago
    That's not even a problem. It's just a statement. What does "money not controlled by a central entity" do? What problem does it solve? Why do I need it? Keep in mind that in my day to day life, I rely on a central entity, a government. And in places where people can't, life is NOT BETTER. It's awful. We call those places failed (fragile if you want to be nice) states. And government should be able to control money. Money is tied to the economy, it's tied to politics, it's tied to the society. The idea that by decentralizing things money will be fully democratic is just silly. Plus, full blown democracy doesn't even work. It leads to tyranny of the masses, that's why every modern country has a constitution that basically say: "you can't do that, no matter how much you want, since you can't abuse others you don't like[1]". [1] In practice, "can't do that" means something really hard to do, usually stuff like "persuade at least 67% of your countrymen to let you do it", to rein in the insanity.
- drkstr 4y ago
  I setup a double entry bookkeeping solution for my LLC that uses Amazon QLDB as a block chain ledger. Not sure if this really counts, but it seemed like a good use case for the tech. I used amazon-qldb-double-entry-sample-java as a starting point if anyone is curious.

by zhdc1 4y ago

There are some legitimate use cases for decentralized ledgers and other "crypto-like" tech. As far as I'm aware, none of those involve anything that looks remotely like financial speculation.

chitowneats 4y ago

Name them please. This technology has had very smart and very financially motivated people trying to apply it for more than a decade.

zhdc1 4y ago
GNU Thaler for central-bank regulated digital currencies.
- chitowneats 4y ago
  GNU Taler is an interesting toy. I was hoping you had an example that has actually been used in practice.
- selectodude 4y ago
  A quick glance at the website makes it seem like PayPal but using "tokens" instead of just leaving everything in normal currency values.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
unintendedcons 4y ago
Distributed domain name services. ENS is the only good example, standing naturally next to many imitators and scams.
- polygamous_bat 4y ago
  You mean the service that had to beg people online far and wide to change their domain names from .link to .limo because the founder was in jail for aiding North Korea in money laundering? Quite the shining beacon of decentralization in a centralized land, yeah. (If you ever wonder why people treat crypto as a joke, think back to this moment.)
  - unintendedcons 4y ago
    You're not making the point you think you're making. The ENS and ens.link are different people. You have misunderstood the situation.
EthanHeilman 4y ago
I know everyone will laugh at me for saying this but... we are still in the early stages of cryptocurrency from a technology development perspective. I'm not aware of anyway to securely scale a decentralized cryptocurrency without recursive proofs of correctness that are fast to prove and fast to verify. Every year since 2016 I've seen major progress being made in this area but we have far to go. We just barely got there in 2020. We could probably build a scalable decentralized cryptocurrency in 2020, maybe. Give it another 5-10 years of advancement like we saw over the last 5 and you will have the ability to build scalable decentralized cryptocurrencies. That doesn't mean people will build them or that even if they do the built systems won't suffer from serious drawbacks. It is a long road ahead. Now there are other problems to solve as well, but everything i being gated right now by proofs of correctness. We have a steam engine, we can put it on rails and it can pull a small load. Unfortunately the expectation has been set that we have train that can move millions of people. The fact that we can't meet this expectation doesn't mean that steam engines or engines in general are bad.
- psychlops 4y ago
  It's fascinating the amount of repetitive comments that believe there should be some sort of time limit for a technology to succeed. It's not clear to me where this line of thinking comes from, the implication being that if something doesn't work after x years, people should just give up and go back to the old ways.
  - EthanHeilman 4y ago
    It's the confusion between: It is unlikely that Charles Babbage is going to be able to build his difference engine and even if he does it is so complex and so prone to failure that it probably will never be commercially viable. vs. It is unlikely that Charles Babbage is going to be able to build his difference engine, thus proving computers can't work and have no utility.
psychlops 4y ago
Money not controlled by a central entity. I don't think it's more complex than that. The closer the idea gets to centralization, the more scams erupt.
- oblio 4y ago
  That's not even a problem. It's just a statement. What does "money not controlled by a central entity" do? What problem does it solve? Why do I need it? Keep in mind that in my day to day life, I rely on a central entity, a government. And in places where people can't, life is NOT BETTER. It's awful. We call those places failed (fragile if you want to be nice) states. And government should be able to control money. Money is tied to the economy, it's tied to politics, it's tied to the society. The idea that by decentralizing things money will be fully democratic is just silly. Plus, full blown democracy doesn't even work. It leads to tyranny of the masses, that's why every modern country has a constitution that basically say: "you can't do that, no matter how much you want, since you can't abuse others you don't like[1]". [1] In practice, "can't do that" means something really hard to do, usually stuff like "persuade at least 67% of your countrymen to let you do it", to rein in the insanity.
drkstr 4y ago
I setup a double entry bookkeeping solution for my LLC that uses Amazon QLDB as a block chain ledger. Not sure if this really counts, but it seemed like a good use case for the tech. I used amazon-qldb-double-entry-sample-java as a starting point if anyone is curious.