mattdesl

14 ms·

151.
by mattdesl 3y ago
> What wallet are you using. There are hundreds of wallets, some of them OSS, some of them closed source, some of them homebrew. I have used several different wallets, including some that I have coded myself from lower level cryptographi
152.
by mattdesl 3y ago
All of these proposed alternatives are centrally owned either by a private company or state central bank, and only work in and between specific countries. Crypto lies in stark contrast as a shared and open source protocol across the globe,
153.
by mattdesl 3y ago
Depends on the sending and receiving country, and what the relationship is between the two banks, and what the amount is being transferred. A lot of people have a limited set of experiences, such as sending wires or Wise payments to/fr
154.
by mattdesl 3y ago
> not worth supporting Why not? Having open source protocols that compete with PayPal and VISA and aren’t funded and controlled by central states can be a positive thing.
155.
by mattdesl 3y ago
> Also anyone with the means can still do a 51% attack if they wanted. Not quite, at least in PoS protocols with off chain governance. If somebody with billions of dollars decided to attack Ethereum, the community would be able to fork t
156.
by mattdesl 3y ago
You misread - the scenario is that USD is dying, but other state currencies like Euro or JPY stay afloat.
157.
by mattdesl 3y ago
Sure, if the entire world economy collapses and we go back to the dark ages, crypto (and the internet in general) will be functionally useless. It seems like a given. I am imagining a scenario where USD fails, but some other state currencie
158.
by mattdesl 3y ago
If a bank failure like SVB was not covered ad-hoc and out of policy by FDIC, the economic impact of thousands of companies suddenly going bankrupt and tens of thousands more pulling out of other banks across the country would probably be pr
159.
by mattdesl 3y ago
As a thought experiment: if USD were to fail, yet other world currencies stayed afloat, why would anybody holding non-custodial crypto flock to a dying currency? It’s not entirely unreasonable to predict that “crypto” might outlast a centra
160.
by mattdesl 3y ago
Of course it will depend who you ask; but most Ethereum developers at least would probably agree that the word “trustless” shouldn’t be interpreted literally as “without trust” to the extent your comments suggest, just as “serverless” syste
161.
by mattdesl 3y ago
As far as the OP is concerned, a wallet generated via a dice roll and pen would have worked to circumvent the vulnerability. And we probably have different definitions of “trustless.” See here for a common understanding within crypto: h
162.
by mattdesl 3y ago
Wallets tend to have two main features: A) generate random private keys and B) given some private key, sign a transaction and broadcast this message to the network. Pen, paper, and some dice (and a bit of work) can generate a private key fo
163.
by mattdesl 3y ago
Although you do open yourself to vulnerabilities in how you generate your random entropy—for average user, it might be worse than relying on a hardware wallet. The safest play here for an average user is to just not buy your hardware wallet
164.
by mattdesl 3y ago
It’s not that hard to build your own wallet software, or if you really want, a paper wallet using dice and a pen. But frankly it’s not that different than cryptography as a whole: nobody implements ECDSA themselves, or builds the computer t
165.
by mattdesl 3y ago
“Trustless” is one of those crappy words that implies there is zero trust in the system. Obviously this is not true - you trust the protocol, the contracts, the hardware wallet supply chain. Hell, you have to trust that ECDSA is not broke
166.
by mattdesl 3y ago
Creating a restriction where every new social media protocol has to be built on top of ActivityPub sounds awful. There is room for innovation outside of this narrow scope of ideas.
167.
by mattdesl 3y ago
Worth correcting: 59% of hosted nodes use Amazon, or 37% of all nodes. If you filter out unsynced nodes, about 17% of all nodes are hosted on Amazon. https://ethernodes.org/networkType/Hosting?synced=1
168.
by mattdesl 3y ago
It seems passkeys mostly operate in the cloud, like replication across all iCloud connected devices? This seems like a major point of vulnerability for the average user. Private key infra in crypto/web3 tends to promote best practice a
169.
by mattdesl 4y ago
Axie Infinity used a proof-of-authority side chain secured by a multisig bridge. It was not what most people refer to as L2s - which can achieve the same scalability as a side chain but with much stronger security properties (using validity
170.
by mattdesl 4y ago
I outlined some thoughts on how game NFTs could work, and provide benefits over current centralized models.[1] I don’t take much stock in play-to-earn or “playable bored apes” or whatever some publishers are currently investing in. [1] htt
171.
by mattdesl 4y ago
Some cameras do this already, and there is some interesting research (2022) that tries to use zero-knowledge proofs to make signed images editable (e.g. cropping, simple adjustments). https://medium.com/@boneh/using-zk-
172.
by mattdesl 4y ago
The fediverse is not decentralized, it is “federated.” Large portions of the fediverse are censored by a few powerful admins that control the majority of users and speech that flows through the network. Better examples of decentralized soci
173.
by mattdesl 4y ago
Basically, an improved API that targets a more modern graphics pipeline and has better support outside of browsers. You can write a graphics engine or custom renderer in Rust and have it ship across desktop and web. See Vello for example:
174.
by mattdesl 4y ago
“At scale” is relative. Platforms like Patreon and Ko-Fi haven’t achieved the same reach and scale as PayPal, but they still work for lots of users.
175.
by mattdesl 4y ago
If “near future” is 3-5 years then yes. Four interesting protocols in early development: Optimism, Arbitrum, zkSync, Scroll. These already all compete with PayPal in fees & transaction time, but not in UX, features, and widespread use.
176.
by mattdesl 4y ago
Why does an Ethereum L2 have to be slow or planet destroying? IMHO most Eth L2s already show more promise than PayPal as a future payment rail tech, despite them all basically being in beta state. Much lower fees, faster transactions, permi
177.
by mattdesl 4y ago
If held non-custodially, “big players” cannot confiscate your coins.
178.
by mattdesl 4y ago
Holding BTC doesn’t require trust in a single exchange, only trust that it continues to hold some market value. If you have $20K of non-blacklisted BTC you will probably be able to find a buyer somewhere in the world, though the exchange ra
179.
by mattdesl 4y ago
Most Ethereum L2s (rollups) follow similar patterns; once you learn how to build on one with tools like Hardhat + Alchemy/Infura + Solidity, you can easily transfer these skills to other L2s. zkSync, Scroll, Optimism, Arbitrum. Most of
180.
by mattdesl 4y ago
Most L2 developer experience is pretty easy nowadays. I would say a lot easier than Apple app development & distribution experience, for example. L2 fees are a fraction of the cost of industry standard payment processors. The DX can con

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