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Don’t think in terms of a „web app“. Instead, consider this: A block chain is basically just a distributed append-only database. Actually quite similar to how G

Don’t think in terms of a „web app“. Instead, consider this: A block chain is basically just a distributed append-only database. Actually quite similar to how GIT works but with stronger security guarantees.

dagmx 4y ago
That doesn’t really answer the question of what it offers over a sharded cloud hosted web app if you’re having to move things to L2 to scale. Edit: also unrelated, but I hate the tendency for crypto fans to keep moving the conversation to new analogies. The vast majority of threads here are analogies and buzzwords without very concrete technical discussion of the merits of the architecture.
- cinntaile 4y ago
  > The vast majority of threads here are analogies and buzzwords without very concrete technical discussion of the merits of the architecture. > isn’t it just a highly over engineered cloud hosted but sharded web app? A bit ironic.
  - dagmx 4y ago
    One is asking for a difference, the other is presenting analogies for bits of the tech that weren’t part of the discussion
- G3rn0ti 4y ago
  Well, the details are more convoluted than two sentences on a public forum can convey. If you are seriously interested in how digital money works, I suggest you to read „Mastering Bitcoin“ which I found quite accessible even without a strong background in cryptography. Once you understood the BTC network you get a good grasp of what ETH is doing. The former also employs an execution stack for running transactions but it is much more limited and I believe Turing incomplete (as a conscious choice).
  - ShamelessC 4y ago
    The problem is these contracts will have bugs, as most software written by normal coders can attest to. Further! there is no decentralized way to settle disputes. Finally, modern contracts are at least ostensibly premised on being human readable. You may think such "pure logic" of some JS-alike smart contract is somehow easier to understand, but this will never be true while keeping the language meangfully capable, due to turing completeness (and other friends). Such a system, where stakeholders are required to trust coders, destroys the benefits you claim. You now have the bottleneck of required human vetting/interacting. -This- is what people mean when they say such a system cant work in practice and is essentially no better (and definitely has lots of strange quirks like gas fees) than existing financial instruments.
    - G3rn0ti 4y ago
      > -This- is what people mean when they say such a system cant work in practice Not sure what you are talking about. First of all I did not argue whether smart contracts have benefits (the thread was about L2 chains in the ETH context and whether that was overengineered). Secondly, I would suggest you try ETH out. With the bubble over, gas fees are back to reasonable values. Buy a hundred bugs of ETH on Coinbase, move that to your Coinbase wallet and store some of it in the AAVE lender contract. While you might lose about $10 in gas fees and Coinbase fees, you’ll earn an interest rate on a decentralized network not involving banks. I found that pretty cool when I tried it for my first time. The test may be more fun if you happen to know sb willing to sell you ETH directly and guide you through the ramp up phase.
      - ShamelessC 4y ago
        I bought 10$ of ETH once about a year ago in the hopes that I could donate to some developers on GitHub. I never used it, and certainly wouldn't hold it for speculation as that is just pumping US cash dollars into a system full of people trying to cash out on a greater fool's scheme. Anyway, doesn't seem like we are going to see eye-to-eye and no one has the energy to refute the complex uselessness that is crypto-currency. Dan Olson did a better job than I ever could - https://youtu.be/YQ_xWvX1n9g https://youtu.be/YQ_xWvX1n9g case in point, this fun little copy-pasta you've given us: "Secondly, I would suggest you try ETH out. With the bubble over, gas fees are back to reasonable values. Buy a hundred bugs of ETH on Coinbase, move that to your Coinbase wallet and store some of it in the AAVE lender contract. While you might lose about $10 in gas fees and Coinbase fees, you’ll earn an interest rate on a decentralized network not involving banks. I found that pretty cool when I tried it for my first time. The test may be more fun if you happen to know sb willing to sell you ETH directly and guide you through the ramp up phase. " My favorite part about this is that you deliberately explain _none_ of it (don't worry, I'm really not interested). Do you really think average people know what all this is? Or are you just hoping they'll ask so you can cheerlead each concept individually?

dagmx 4y ago

That doesn’t really answer the question of what it offers over a sharded cloud hosted web app if you’re having to move things to L2 to scale. Edit: also unrelated, but I hate the tendency for crypto fans to keep moving the conversation to new analogies. The vast majority of threads here are analogies and buzzwords without very concrete technical discussion of the merits of the architecture.

cinntaile 4y ago
> The vast majority of threads here are analogies and buzzwords without very concrete technical discussion of the merits of the architecture. > isn’t it just a highly over engineered cloud hosted but sharded web app? A bit ironic.
- dagmx 4y ago
  One is asking for a difference, the other is presenting analogies for bits of the tech that weren’t part of the discussion
G3rn0ti 4y ago
Well, the details are more convoluted than two sentences on a public forum can convey. If you are seriously interested in how digital money works, I suggest you to read „Mastering Bitcoin“ which I found quite accessible even without a strong background in cryptography. Once you understood the BTC network you get a good grasp of what ETH is doing. The former also employs an execution stack for running transactions but it is much more limited and I believe Turing incomplete (as a conscious choice).
- ShamelessC 4y ago
  The problem is these contracts will have bugs, as most software written by normal coders can attest to. Further! there is no decentralized way to settle disputes. Finally, modern contracts are at least ostensibly premised on being human readable. You may think such "pure logic" of some JS-alike smart contract is somehow easier to understand, but this will never be true while keeping the language meangfully capable, due to turing completeness (and other friends). Such a system, where stakeholders are required to trust coders, destroys the benefits you claim. You now have the bottleneck of required human vetting/interacting. -This- is what people mean when they say such a system cant work in practice and is essentially no better (and definitely has lots of strange quirks like gas fees) than existing financial instruments.
  - G3rn0ti 4y ago
    > -This- is what people mean when they say such a system cant work in practice Not sure what you are talking about. First of all I did not argue whether smart contracts have benefits (the thread was about L2 chains in the ETH context and whether that was overengineered). Secondly, I would suggest you try ETH out. With the bubble over, gas fees are back to reasonable values. Buy a hundred bugs of ETH on Coinbase, move that to your Coinbase wallet and store some of it in the AAVE lender contract. While you might lose about $10 in gas fees and Coinbase fees, you’ll earn an interest rate on a decentralized network not involving banks. I found that pretty cool when I tried it for my first time. The test may be more fun if you happen to know sb willing to sell you ETH directly and guide you through the ramp up phase.
    - ShamelessC 4y ago
      I bought 10$ of ETH once about a year ago in the hopes that I could donate to some developers on GitHub. I never used it, and certainly wouldn't hold it for speculation as that is just pumping US cash dollars into a system full of people trying to cash out on a greater fool's scheme. Anyway, doesn't seem like we are going to see eye-to-eye and no one has the energy to refute the complex uselessness that is crypto-currency. Dan Olson did a better job than I ever could - https://youtu.be/YQ_xWvX1n9g https://youtu.be/YQ_xWvX1n9g case in point, this fun little copy-pasta you've given us: "Secondly, I would suggest you try ETH out. With the bubble over, gas fees are back to reasonable values. Buy a hundred bugs of ETH on Coinbase, move that to your Coinbase wallet and store some of it in the AAVE lender contract. While you might lose about $10 in gas fees and Coinbase fees, you’ll earn an interest rate on a decentralized network not involving banks. I found that pretty cool when I tried it for my first time. The test may be more fun if you happen to know sb willing to sell you ETH directly and guide you through the ramp up phase. " My favorite part about this is that you deliberately explain _none_ of it (don't worry, I'm really not interested). Do you really think average people know what all this is? Or are you just hoping they'll ask so you can cheerlead each concept individually?