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How about metrics like answering the question of, "how much of the coin exists?" Or metrics like, "how understandable and simple is the overall protocol and min

by krupan 3y ago

How about metrics like answering the question of, "how much of the coin exists?" Or metrics like, "how understandable and simple is the overall protocol and mining scheme?" Or "has this chain ever broken it's own rules and rolled back transactions at the behest of its benevolent dictator?" Spoiler: Bitcoin wins on all of those. The market cap is better for a reason.

FatalLogic 3y ago
>"has this chain ever broken it's own rules and rolled back transactions at the behest of its benevolent dictator?" Bitcoin has also done this. You're referring to the $50m DAO smart contract bug (or "hack") early in 2016, when Ethereum had been running for about a year. The Ethereum blockchain was swiftly rolled back. This was achieved by the majority of Ethereum developers agreeing to create an update to Ethereum software that reversed the hackers transactions specifically, and the great majority of users and miners agreeing to use that updated software. The people behind the DAO were closely connected to the Ethereum developers. Some of them were Ethereum developers. Some of the people who lost money in the DAO were Ethereum developers. What you're unaware of apparently, is that when Bitcoin had been running for about a year, in 2010, a bug allowed someone to create 184 billion Bitcoins. This effectively made everybody's Bitcoins worthless (or even more worthless!). This event was ALSO swiftly rolled back, just like the Ethereum DAO event, by the same consensus process that I described above. "Core developers Gavin Andresen and Satoshi Nakamoto were on the case, and the 184 billion BTC transaction was purged from block 74638." https://news.bitcoin.com/bitcoin-history-part-10-the-184-billion-btc-bug/ https://news.bitcoin.com/bitcoin-history-part-10-the-184-bil... Since then, there have been various incidents involving Ethereum and Bitcoin and hacks or smart contract bugs that caused losses of millions or billions. But neither currency has ever done a roll back of this nature again. For instance. A year or so after Ethereum's DAO debacle, there was another similar event, the Parity bug, which accidentally locked $230m in a smart contract, permanently. The people operating Parity were closely connected to the Ethereum developers, some of them were Ethereum developers. But this time, although the victims pleaded for a roll back, it was never seriously considered. https://news.bitcoin.com/parity-calls-for-ethereum-hard-fork-to-reverse-230-million-bug/ https://news.bitcoin.com/parity-calls-for-ethereum-hard-fork...
- Quindecillion 3y ago
  > But neither currency has ever done a roll back of this nature again. Maybe not a rollback, but Ethereum has proven it is malleable time and time again. As one example, compare the issuance of ether to Bitcoin. Eth's issuance is a dog's breakfast, indicative of changing opinions by those who call the shots... just like a central bank. Bitcoin's issuance? Predictable and steady as a rock for 15 years. Another example is replacing Proof-of-Work with Proof-of-Stake. A core part of how it works, important for censorship resistance and accessibility, and they removed it for something permissioned that makes censorship far easier. Bitcoin? Still on PoW and never going to change. If you think it will change, you still don't understand Bitcoin. But never fear, there's already a PoS Bitcoin out there (that no one uses).
  - FatalLogic 3y ago
    I don't know why you're replying to my comment, because I wasn't talking about any of those other issues you've said here. I did not confirm or deny them. I quoted the single issue that I was disputing. I wrote as clearly as possible to only refute one point, about the implication that Bitcoin had never done a roll back. If you want to talk about all those other things, then make a separate thread or post,. Please don't use my comment as a vehicle for your arguments, because it's confusing and few people will understand what you're talking about.
    - Quindecillion 3y ago
      No.
- krupan 3y ago
  Thanks for pointing that out, I didn't know that bit of Bitcoin history. I see a big fundamental difference between that chain fork and the ethereum DAO fork. The bitcoin fork was to fix a bug in the bitcoin source code. Without doing that fork, bitcoin would have died. All bitcoin users would have suffered if the fork had not been done. No bitcoin users complained about it. The ethereum fork was to fix a bug in a smart contract running on top of ethereum. That bug only affected those who were participating in that smart contract (which was code for an investment scheme that a private organization had dreamed up). Lots of ethereum users complained about it. Can you see the difference?
decentralised 3y ago
Actually... the account model is much easier to use to get an accurate view of all balances than the UTXO model. As for rollbacks, Bitcoin had one in 2010 (https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Value_overflow_incident https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Value_overflow_incident) and a chain fork in 2013 (https://bitcoin.org/en/alert/2013-03-11-chain-fork https://bitcoin.org/en/alert/2013-03-11-chain-fork) both decided by those who could make the decision... and accepted by a majority of nodes, same as with the ETH hard fork I'm not so sure about understandability at protocol level, I do believe Ethereum to be straightforward but then again I've followed its progress over the years
- krupan 3y ago
  Finally looked at both of those bitcoin events that you are attempting to equate to the DAO fork. I commented about the first one elsewhere here. The second one was indeed a chain fork, which is actually a normal and expected event in Bitcoin when miners disagree (for whatever reason) about which blocks are valid or not. In this case the disagreement happened because of a backwards incompatible change that was accidentally made to the mining software. Nodes running the old software rejected blocks generated by the new software. The bug was fixed and miners happily stopped using the buggy version of code and the chain fork was resolved, just as designed by the Bitcoin protocol. Nodes that never ran the buggy version didn't have to do a thing. Like my discussion of the other bitcoin fork, this to me looks like an entirely different category of event than the DAO. Bitcoin fixed a broken promise in both cases. Ethereum broke a promise in the DAO fork.

by krupan 3y ago

FatalLogic 3y ago

>"has this chain ever broken it's own rules and rolled back transactions at the behest of its benevolent dictator?" Bitcoin has also done this. You're referring to the $50m DAO smart contract bug (or "hack") early in 2016, when Ethereum had been running for about a year. The Ethereum blockchain was swiftly rolled back. This was achieved by the majority of Ethereum developers agreeing to create an update to Ethereum software that reversed the hackers transactions specifically, and the great majority of users and miners agreeing to use that updated software. The people behind the DAO were closely connected to the Ethereum developers. Some of them were Ethereum developers. Some of the people who lost money in the DAO were Ethereum developers. What you're unaware of apparently, is that when Bitcoin had been running for about a year, in 2010, a bug allowed someone to create 184 billion Bitcoins. This effectively made everybody's Bitcoins worthless (or even more worthless!). This event was ALSO swiftly rolled back, just like the Ethereum DAO event, by the same consensus process that I described above. "Core developers Gavin Andresen and Satoshi Nakamoto were on the case, and the 184 billion BTC transaction was purged from block 74638." https://news.bitcoin.com/bitcoin-history-part-10-the-184-billion-btc-bug/ https://news.bitcoin.com/bitcoin-history-part-10-the-184-bil... Since then, there have been various incidents involving Ethereum and Bitcoin and hacks or smart contract bugs that caused losses of millions or billions. But neither currency has ever done a roll back of this nature again. For instance. A year or so after Ethereum's DAO debacle, there was another similar event, the Parity bug, which accidentally locked $230m in a smart contract, permanently. The people operating Parity were closely connected to the Ethereum developers, some of them were Ethereum developers. But this time, although the victims pleaded for a roll back, it was never seriously considered. https://news.bitcoin.com/parity-calls-for-ethereum-hard-fork-to-reverse-230-million-bug/ https://news.bitcoin.com/parity-calls-for-ethereum-hard-fork...

Quindecillion 3y ago
> But neither currency has ever done a roll back of this nature again. Maybe not a rollback, but Ethereum has proven it is malleable time and time again. As one example, compare the issuance of ether to Bitcoin. Eth's issuance is a dog's breakfast, indicative of changing opinions by those who call the shots... just like a central bank. Bitcoin's issuance? Predictable and steady as a rock for 15 years. Another example is replacing Proof-of-Work with Proof-of-Stake. A core part of how it works, important for censorship resistance and accessibility, and they removed it for something permissioned that makes censorship far easier. Bitcoin? Still on PoW and never going to change. If you think it will change, you still don't understand Bitcoin. But never fear, there's already a PoS Bitcoin out there (that no one uses).
- FatalLogic 3y ago
  I don't know why you're replying to my comment, because I wasn't talking about any of those other issues you've said here. I did not confirm or deny them. I quoted the single issue that I was disputing. I wrote as clearly as possible to only refute one point, about the implication that Bitcoin had never done a roll back. If you want to talk about all those other things, then make a separate thread or post,. Please don't use my comment as a vehicle for your arguments, because it's confusing and few people will understand what you're talking about.
  - Quindecillion 3y ago
    No.
krupan 3y ago
Thanks for pointing that out, I didn't know that bit of Bitcoin history. I see a big fundamental difference between that chain fork and the ethereum DAO fork. The bitcoin fork was to fix a bug in the bitcoin source code. Without doing that fork, bitcoin would have died. All bitcoin users would have suffered if the fork had not been done. No bitcoin users complained about it. The ethereum fork was to fix a bug in a smart contract running on top of ethereum. That bug only affected those who were participating in that smart contract (which was code for an investment scheme that a private organization had dreamed up). Lots of ethereum users complained about it. Can you see the difference?

decentralised 3y ago

Actually... the account model is much easier to use to get an accurate view of all balances than the UTXO model. As for rollbacks, Bitcoin had one in 2010 (https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Value_overflow_incident https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Value_overflow_incident) and a chain fork in 2013 (https://bitcoin.org/en/alert/2013-03-11-chain-fork https://bitcoin.org/en/alert/2013-03-11-chain-fork) both decided by those who could make the decision... and accepted by a majority of nodes, same as with the ETH hard fork I'm not so sure about understandability at protocol level, I do believe Ethereum to be straightforward but then again I've followed its progress over the years

krupan 3y ago
Finally looked at both of those bitcoin events that you are attempting to equate to the DAO fork. I commented about the first one elsewhere here. The second one was indeed a chain fork, which is actually a normal and expected event in Bitcoin when miners disagree (for whatever reason) about which blocks are valid or not. In this case the disagreement happened because of a backwards incompatible change that was accidentally made to the mining software. Nodes running the old software rejected blocks generated by the new software. The bug was fixed and miners happily stopped using the buggy version of code and the chain fork was resolved, just as designed by the Bitcoin protocol. Nodes that never ran the buggy version didn't have to do a thing. Like my discussion of the other bitcoin fork, this to me looks like an entirely different category of event than the DAO. Bitcoin fixed a broken promise in both cases. Ethereum broke a promise in the DAO fork.