mattdesl

36 ms·

361.
by mattdesl 5y ago
I think this article addresses some legitimate concerns of Bitcoin and PoW, but fails to present a strong argument against cryptocurrency networks running on Proof of Stake. Gini coefficient is a poor metric to describe distribution in a cr
362.
by mattdesl 5y ago
Correction: according to your link, only 28% of Eth nodes are running on AWS (1579 of 5632 - click "Network Types"). However, many of these are not mining nodes that secure the network (and therefore security of the blockchain), b
363.
by mattdesl 5y ago
zk rollups tend to inherit most of the security features of L1[1] but with some trade-offs. The trade-off is basically scalability (and thus fees). If the L1 network is so highly congested that each transaction costs $100 or more in the fut
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by mattdesl 5y ago
Security of zk rollups may be sufficient for a lot of activity - trading, DeFi, games, art, DAO/access tokens, escrow, crowdfunds, all the web3 stuff. The L1 may eventually be a primary settlement layer for protocols like zkSync and St
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by mattdesl 5y ago
Similarly: purchasing a signed art print will not give you any rights to the intellectual property of the artwork. With that said, there are some NFTs that do attempt to tie property/copyright to the token ownership.
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by mattdesl 5y ago
This does happen and tends to create competition. If your entire service is a very thin wrapper around a smart contract, the market may decide that a fork with equivalent functionality and lower fees is more worth using. On the other hand,
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by mattdesl 5y ago
MetaMask is a wallet, the whole purpose is to send tokens (or to interact with a contract). All wallets basically enable this (ability to send tokens to any address in the network). Sending your tokens to a contract or invoking its methods
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by mattdesl 5y ago
Interacting with a contract by sending it tokens (and having no idea what the outcome will be) is about as risky behaviour as you can imagine, and is quite a lot like using a low level API to circumvent the guardrails put in place by typica
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by mattdesl 5y ago
I'm not sure ZK proof alone solves this, but seems integral to Sybil resistant systems that operate on personhood/identity, as it allows you to prove your identity (or that your personhood meets some criteria, like an age limit) w
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by mattdesl 5y ago
Thanks! You may be correct in that this application could be better achieved with a simple signed message—this is my first time playing with ZK proofs. The main issue is that the circuit is simply hashing the coordinates and the resulting h
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by mattdesl 5y ago
It doesn't seem to work on mobile (maybe a limitation of snarkjs)—I've been testing only on macOS Chrome.
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by mattdesl 5y ago
The project can be downloaded and run locally (it is a static client side website, no server) and the proof generation and verification can be run offline, without the coordinates ever being sent over the network. Only the proof file needs
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by mattdesl 5y ago
Hi HN! Author here, this is my first experiment with circom and snarkjs, I wanted to do something basic that shows a small sample of their potential. :) Comments & questions welcome!
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by mattdesl 5y ago
The demo does not disclose any coordinates—only verifies a proof that you know the coordinates. Not even the demo knows the coordinates of a valid proof that you submit (check the source - there are no coordinates present).
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by mattdesl 5y ago
It is possible to embed a users public key (from a private/public key pair) in the zk circuit, so that the proof would be tied to it. In a blockchain setting this could tie each proof to a user; only releasing a reward if they both can
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by mattdesl 5y ago
(author here) totally - and unironically. there is a lot to explore within the space of using zk proofs to mitigate sybil attacks, vote buying and botting in terms of governance tokens, NFT auctions and the like. also the benefit of decentr
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by mattdesl 5y ago
Just fwiw the demo runs client side as a static site - no server is really needed for proof generation or verification. In a more ideal scenario the code and prover/verifier would all be running in a decentralized fashion (see zk-evms
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by mattdesl 5y ago
The demo assumes that zkSNARK, circom, snarkjs and my usage of them all works as expected. At some point in the future I can reveal the Proof to demonstrate that I indeed know the hash associated with the Impossible location (the hashes are
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Show HN: Simple Zero-Knowledge Proof Treasure Hunt Game(zk-treasure-hunt.glitch.me)
82 points by mattdesl 5y ago|45 comments
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On Crypto Art and NFTs(mirror.xyz)
1 points by mattdesl 5y ago|0 comments
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On Crypto Art and NFTs(mirror.xyz)
9 points by mattdesl 5y ago|1 comments
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by mattdesl 5y ago
thank you for spotting that typo, corrected.
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by mattdesl 5y ago
there are many non-PoW chains and applications built on top of them that meet your criteria, and are already benefiting from the decentralization of these networks. I wrote about one case here: https://mattdesl.substack.com/
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by mattdesl 5y ago
not surprising as this is a tech/tool to enable non-fungibility and uniqueness rather than anything specific to art[1]. in the same way that applying pencil to paper, developing generative computer programs, signing a urinal, or writin
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by mattdesl 5y ago
basically: adherence to centralized systems of value transfer, rejection of decentralized alternatives.
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by mattdesl 5y ago
it’s all relative, depends on your vantage point. just look at the OP thread that led to these discussions: the author is vocally decrying blockchains. if you view anti-crypto as the atheists in this analogy then they sure do make a lot o
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by mattdesl 5y ago
it goes both ways – "I used to be religious, now I am an atheist" (I was also against crypto/blockchains when I first learned about them last year)
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by mattdesl 5y ago
this is a pretty fundamental misunderstanding of non-custodial private key management. what you are describing is a custodial wallet.
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ERC-721 and the protocols that define NFTs(mirror.xyz)
2 points by mattdesl 5y ago|0 comments
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Why the Distributed Ledger?(mirror.xyz)
1 points by mattdesl 5y ago|0 comments

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