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Ethereum founder on U.S. crypto crackdown
- api 3y ago“The developing world will keep the crypto revolution going” means “we haven’t been driven out of the developing world for scamming too many people yet so we can keep recruiting fresh marks to make number go up.” You know what will save the crypto revolution? Actual uses that are not gambling, speculation on crypto itself, or scams.
- madsbuch 3y agoluckily there are a few projects, Ethereum being one of them.
- dale_glass 3y agoWhich uses of Ethereum are positive? And I don't mean abstract ideas like "smart contracts", but specific things being done that aren't scams, illegal activity, gambling, or speculation.
- madsbuch 3y agoit provides blockchain and smart contract infrastructure for other projects.
- polygamous_bat 3y ago[flagged]
- madsbuch 3y agoyou should take a look at hacker news community guidelines. your tone does not promote curious and enlightening discussion.
- hanniabu 3y agoHere's a passive list: https://gist.github.com/hanniabu/32b0f933618a3229efe3fbc01cbb03df https://gist.github.com/hanniabu/32b0f933618a3229efe3fbc01cb...
- Chabsff 3y agoI challenge you to pick a single example from this list that at the same time can't be done without blockchain, warrants the monstrous overhead, and provides utility other than "make money".
- b112 3y agoOverhead? Ethereum uses almost no power, if that's what you mean.
- Chabsff 3y agoIf the overhead was negligible, then so would gas costs.
- b112 3y agoGas costs have no relation to processing power. It wouldn't fluctuate wildly, otherwise. Eth is now POS, a laptop in a corner can now "mine" eth.
- pa7x1 3y agoAbsolutely not. The gas fee is not moved up or down based on the cost to settle a transaction. It's an independent market based on supply and demand for blockspace. Supply is constrained because for the network to remain decentralized you need to be able to run a node inexpensively, demand is just a result of value added.
- Chabsff 3y agoIf I want to operate a service on top of the eth blockchain, I have to factor in gas fees as part of the operation costs. That's overhead.
- polygamous_bat 3y agoMaybe if we tolerate the scams and fraud for 10 more years, it will be useful? Or maybe that's fundamentally an unrealistic viewpoint [0] [0] https://blog.dshr.org/2022/03/vitalik-buterin-vs-reality.html https://blog.dshr.org/2022/03/vitalik-buterin-vs-reality.htm...
- everfree 3y agoWhat do you think we should do, other than "tolerate" it? Should we go back to the era of illegal numbers?
- hanniabu 3y agoHere's a list of usecases for you: https://gist.github.com/hanniabu/32b0f933618a3229efe3fbc01cbb03df https://gist.github.com/hanniabu/32b0f933618a3229efe3fbc01cb...
- throwbadubadu 3y agoSeriously? Most of them barely make sense and are just "oh let's try this with crypto", what's your favorite one (besides the apparent one)?
- hanniabu 3y ago>Most internet usecases don't make sense and are just "oh let's try this online"
- throwbadubadu 3y agoNo, without sense don't call them use case at all?
- skulk 3y agoPutting out a laundry list of projects (that are inferior to those that operate within the fiat ecosystem) isn't going to change the fact that 95% of people in crypto are looking to enrich themselves on speculation or to part said fools with their money.
- hanniabu 3y agoNot mutually exclusive, this is the case with all industries
- JuanPosadas 3y agoNone of those are usecases, they're just random products that use "crypto" for no discernable reason.
- xnx 3y ago> Actual uses that are not gambling, speculation on crypto itself, or scams. You forgot buying drugs and money laundering
- b112 3y agoHey! How dare you! Crypto is legit! I use my crypto to buy extra credits on my private tracker!
- yyyk 3y ago>> Actual uses that are not gambling, speculation on crypto itself, or scams. > You forgot buying drugs and money laundering Let's not neglect ransomware and spam.
- Scoundreller 3y agoAnd the list of what you can/cannot buy with a Mastercard or Visa varies from country to country. And doesn’t necessarily follow the law. Still a lot of US banks that block card usage in Cuba, but they don’t need to from what I can see: https://ofac.treasury.gov/faqs/738 https://ofac.treasury.gov/faqs/738
- 5350-uiop-1130 3y ago> Actual uses that are not gambling, speculation on crypto itself, or scams. Flatcoins seem interesting to me. A stablecoin that moves in line with inflation. https://decrypt.co/155775/flatcoins-new-thing-on-the-horizon-coinbase-ceo-brian-armstrong https://decrypt.co/155775/flatcoins-new-thing-on-the-horizon... IMO we need financial alternatives. If you see what happened in Argentina, Turkey, Lebanon...people's life savings being stolen overnight. There is a problem that needs solving. Whether thats a problem that can be solved with technology or not, IDK. I doubt it.
- toomuchtodo 3y agoIssue them digital wallets to enable holding global reserve currencies. It is an AML/KYC problem. Imagine if, just for the sake of argument, any of these unbanked folks in countries you mentioned could install something like TransferWise (which app doesn’t matter, but the ability to tie your identity to your account holding various value stores) and hold whichever currency they wanted digitally. No stablecoin, CBDC, or blockchain required.
- hanniabu 3y agoMaybe they'd rather have censorship resistant funds, rather than a wallet that a government can freeze at any time.
- toomuchtodo 3y agoGood point, crypto never gets stolen or lost, very secure. https://web3isgoinggreat.com/charts/top https://web3isgoinggreat.com/charts/top (“$68,004,906,103 has been lost to hacks, scams, fraud, and other disasters since January 1, 2021.”)
- LeeroyWasHere 3y agoWe only know this because we can track it. Would love to see how much money PayPal and stripe freeze on a yearly basis.
- JoshuaRogers 3y agoAgreed. To make any real inroads, there needs to be a generally accepted use case that the existing systems don’t handle sufficiently well that crypto excels at. That isn’t to say that the existing systems do things well, but the networking effect they have and the friction, risk, and learning curve of dealing with crypto tend to make it less fluid of the options. Frankly, I’ve not heard of a use case that fits that description. It isn’t to say that it doesn’t exist, but I don’t expect to see crypto regain its hyped status until that generally accepted case comes up.
- IAmGraydon 3y agoWhat may save the crypto revolution is future bank failures. I think that’s where the public will discover its true utility.
- networkchad 3y ago[dead]
- GrumpyNl 3y agoWith crypto comes ransomware, how would they pull that off without crypto?
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- CPLX 3y agoIt’s worth noting that gambling and crime (of the evading money transfer restrictions variety not the stealing kind) are perfectly useful applications for a technology. That’s all crypto has ever been and all it will be. But that’s pretty big. Gambling is one of the most enduring and appealing activities humans engage in. Lock people in a prison with only walls and cigarettes and they’ll figure out how to do it. People will populate an empty desert to do it. So there’s that.
- kmeisthax 3y ago>of the evading money transfer restrictions variety not the stealing kind At least in the western world these are synonyms, and everywhere else it's still more often that the tech is used for theft than for authorized-but-illegal transactions. Irreversible, censorship-resistant transactions are like rocket fuel for cybercriminals.
- CPLX 3y agoNot really. The original killer app for crypto was sending people money in exchange for drugs, which fits my description quite neatly.
- rainsford 3y ago> You know what will save the crypto revolution? Actual uses that are not gambling, speculation on crypto itself, or scams. I think the problem is actually deeper than that. It's not just a lack of good use cases, cryptocurrency's fundamental design goals are things that most people not only don't care about but would actively try to avoid. An immutable financial ledger where you manage your own keys is actually a terrible solution for the average person, so you need a super compelling use case to make up for the downsides. It can't just be an alternative to traditional finance. That's fine for people who are ideologically sold on the concept, but people who just want to go shopping or save money aren't going to find that super compelling. It has to do something way better that normal people actually care about. Really the best use case that's developed is cryptocurrency investing as a get rich quick scheme, but it's hard to see that as a sustainable model for any "revolution".
- imacomputertoo 3y agoThis seems like a very hostile and unreasonable take. People in developing countries have far greater need for access to financial services, banking and loans. rich countries have that already because they have stable governments. Poor countries don't. While crypto has its risks, the risks of unstable national currencies can be greater. So it's a reasonable decision to consider crypto in that context. People in rich countries have less need. For rich stable nations, crypto will have to offer more than simple services and better-than-Venezuela security.
- balls187 3y agoThe developing world kept orkut going too.
- im3w1l 3y agoI went from being very positive about cryptocurrencies when they got started to being a bit disgusted the last few years as it seemed to be completely dominated by scams and get-rich-quick people. It's starting to feel like that is fading away, that the ecosystem is going back to basics and providing value to people again. Great to hear!
- imacomputertoo 3y agoI went through a similar arch of sentiment since discovering crypto in about 2014. the field really is full of scams, but I think that's being cleared out. Bitcoin and Ethereum are emerging from that as legitimate projects. Still government regulation could squash them, or they might just fail, but if they were scams, I think they would have pulled the rug by now.
- SeanAnderson 3y agoJust a reminder that there was an example of a company using blockchain to track inventory, admittedly in a pilot project, shared on HN just ten days ago - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37469811 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37469811 Their reasons was: "If you are wondering about using a p-Chip instead of an RFID tag, the former boasts several advantages. According to the maker, p-Chip devices are smaller, cheaper (a few cents each), tougher, and more secure than nearest competitor RFID." I don't claim to be sufficiently versed in these fields to critique, and I'm not trying to start an ideological war here, but I felt it important to highlight that legitimate companies in America continue to explore its use cases.
- GrumpyNl 3y agoYou should read the first comment on that article.
- SeanAnderson 3y agoI read through the HackerNews discussion on the article before sharing. It still felt worthwhile to me to share this here. Please don't make assumptions in bad faith.
- GrumpyNl 3y agoI did not mean it that way, i was just mentioning the first comment, because it gives a good view on it.
- dale_glass 3y agoIt seems to me that the actual relevant innovation has to do with a better chip than with the blockchain. Ultimately, there's a single source of truth: whoever certifies the cheese to be authentic. And there's the requirement to shoot a laser at this thing. It's a device you have to physically interact with. So this at best requires what, a standard cryptographic signature emitted by a trusted party? The blockchain part is complete fluff. The main point of this seems to be that for a third party it's hard to obtain this very specific chip to insert into their non-authentic cheese, which is why they use a physical chip instead of printing a QR code on the rind. So that'd be what provides the benefit, not the blockchain.
- foobarbazetc 3y agoBeen in the Web3 space as a side hustle for something like 2 years now and the only real usecase I’ve seen is something like USDC transfers over Solana. Everything else is just a scam and/or ponzi. Add to that that the price of coins is manipulated by market makers and exchanges (CEX and DEX) and it’s not looking good, honestly. Regulation would actually improve the space a lot. Something like a national ticker for coins would go a long way to clearing out a lot of the scum.
- edkennedy 3y agoNationalize the Oracles (like Link) basically
- mistrial9 3y agoyou are describing just parts of a larger, complicated system. Everything you say is true no doubt, but that is not all that is going on, in the entirety. On the other side, six hundred years of modern finance with insurance and performance-based outcomes, have been leveraged with top-heavy monopoly players. In daily finance on a very large scale, industry companies use "trust" or credit-ratings, or regulatory capture even, to hold on to transaction flows with a lot of overhead. The promise of automatable chains of transactions is a kind of no-boss, no-outsized fee "free market." The largest currency issuers of the world know this, and have been busily building their own, controlled versions. You are wandering among flea-market stalls and wondering where the sense is, one might say.
- bitcharmer 3y agoWhat is Web3?
- everfree 3y agoTechnically speaking, it's a JavaScript library used for interacting with EVM blockchains. Practically speaking, people use the term to mean just about whatever they want nowadays. Often it's used as a generic buzzword to sell products on some vague idea of a better, more equitable internet.
- 3y ago
- codezero 3y agoI recently started working for a web3 company - and I am a crypto skeptic, I joined because it was founded by two former coworkers who I enjoyed working with. We're a data SaaS in the space and even though it's a bear market, we're doing pretty well. There are a lot of real businesses building on top of various chains that aren't just scams/shady (though there are plenty of those too). Just the sheer amount of business activity I see on a daily basis that looks like the web2 SaaS work I did for the prior 8 years when it wasn't a bear market makes me pretty optimistic that eventually these businesses (and many others) will find sustainable ways to operate using blockchains, it's just going to take some time, it's still really early in the space. At least on the Ethereum side of things, I see success being less about a particular crypto currency and more about how smart contracts and the underlying EVM layers evolve to operate decentralized applications at scale. It's still not something I think is guaranteed. I didn't think Linux was a guaranteed success when I worked at Red Hat in the 90s either, but it became more certain when we started selling services and put less focus on box sales.
- mrtksn 3y agoAny examples of those non shady businesses with real products that real people are using for stuff beyond betting on some crypto assets?
- hanniabu 3y agoHere's a list of some: https://gist.github.com/hanniabu/32b0f933618a3229efe3fbc01cbb03df https://gist.github.com/hanniabu/32b0f933618a3229efe3fbc01cb...
- latchkey 3y agoLet's not forget that last year ETH fulfilled a promise and switched from PoW to PoS. Effectively decimating the entire GPU PoW mining industry almost overnight. This reduced crypto power usage significantly. The developers executed open heart surgery on a multi billion $ patient with live coverage, and it went off pretty much without a hitch. The complaint is no longer if they can do something ground breaking, but when. All the while, AI is also taking over. Businesses are slurping up power from everywhere, without any regard for the environment. We hear about companies purchasing 10,000 H100's, but we don't hear about how it is going to be powered. Nobody outside the industry is talking about the fact that you can't get any meaningful (>5MW) data center space in the US because it has all been taken. It isn't being taken for generating hashes that secure billions in value, but for generating images and content... I'm not sure which one is more wasteful.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- dale_glass 3y agoThe difference would be that AI's power usage is performing useful calculations, and that everyone involved wants to reduce the power usage. Nobody in AI likes paying big power bills. If somebody invents a chip that uses 10% of the power, the industry would gladly adopt it and decrease consumption by 90%. This is the general pattern in computing, except for crypto. We start with room sized monsters like ENIAC and improve and improve until something better fits in a solar powered watch.
- latchkey 3y ago> The difference would be that AI's power usage is performing useful calculations Subjective. > Nobody in AI likes paying big power bills. Nobody anywhere "likes" big power bills, including in crypto. That said for crypto, this actually had the effect of driving everyone to the lowest priced power sources on the planet (many of which ended up being 'green' energy) and building more efficient systems. The fact of the matter is that AI is so hot right now that people are paying absurd rates for power and nobody is talking about the usage. Like I said above, datacenter demand is off the charts right now. They are announcing space on a Friday and it is gone by Monday. > This is the general pattern in computing, except for crypto. We start with room sized monsters like ENIAC and improve and improve until something better fits in a solar powered watch. "except for crypto" is wrong. ETH started as an ENIAC and now it is a solar powered watch. In fact, ETH pegged itself to GPUs from the start, which meant that it didn't have the same sort of hardware competition that Bitcoin has. ETH's PoW algo is memory hard and limited by the onboard controller bandwidth, which meant that the fastest GPUs were not always the more ROI efficient... you didn't need to continuously upgrade the hardware to latest greatest.