Longtime Linux/Open-Source Supporter Joins A Blockchain Foundation

[kgonzales]

I'm just here for the unqualified opinions about blockchain and cryptocurrency made by people who also have unqualified opinions about all the other topics they know nothing about.

*grabs the popcorn*

Ok, please continue.

[mazumoto]

I think you're missing the point. Not having to trust a third party is the killer feature... The only thing you need to have trust in is in well established cryptography and maths.

As soon as you are a normal user you already have to trust the people writing the code. Cause you won't be able to toroughly understand it even if you take the time to read it all (and whoe does?).
In case of bitcoin at least you also have to trust the majority of the "miners" to not build a cartel and invalidate your transactions after you thought they're safe.

Actually I don't know much about "proof of stake", but I'm sceptical if that really makes this blockchain stuff more valuable than other, simpler methods of solving the relevant problems.

[M1kkko]

As soon as you are a normal user you already have to trust the people writing the code. Cause you won't be able to toroughly understand it even if you take the time to read it all (and whoe does?).
In case of bitcoin at least you also have to trust the majority of the "miners" to not build a cartel and invalidate your transactions after you thought they're safe.

Actually I don't know much about "proof of stake", but I'm sceptical if that really makes this blockchain stuff more valuable than other, simpler methods of solving the relevant problems.

No, that's now how open source works in general. Even if you don't know code, you don't have to trust the people writing the code. You have to trust that the project you're using is interesting enough that someone competent has cared about it enough to independently look at the code. Which is not nearly the same thing.

[mdedetrich]

Blockchain is an interesting data structure for networked systems, and it makes a lot of sense for a medium scale, relatively illiquid "hacker" currency... but I just don't see how people think the world will use it to buy Cokes from vending machines or catalog Walmart inventory. Its *massively* inefficient at scale, even with exponentially faster computers and alternative consensus mechanisms.


Hence I don't get that mindset. In fact, I feel that blockchain is eroding the reputation of purely digital currency, and eating all the attention of literally any other structure.

There are blockchains that solve this issue as well, its only the original blockchain as proposed in Bitcoin that has these inefficiency issues and that was 2 decades ago.

[ridge]

Sigh. Disappointing.

[mazumoto]

No, that's now how open source works in general. Even if you don't know code, you don't have to trust the people writing the code. You have to trust that the project you're using is interesting enough that someone competent has cared about it enough to independently look at the code. Which is not nearly the same thing.

That's pretty much wishful thinking. Auditing code is hard and arduous. You don't get that for free usually.
For examples read the news about pretty popular projects in the last few years: OpenSSL, log4j, ...

Maybe blockchain code is a bit different, since there is real monetary interest from personally affected users. Buuut I'd not bet on that

[brucethemoose]

There are blockchains that solve this issue as well, its only the original blockchain as proposed in Bitcoin that has these inefficiency issues and that was 2 decades ago.

Do they though? Appending *everything* to a chunked list indefinitely, and then sending that list to everyone for everyone to churn, just strikes me as an algorithm that scales poorly no matter how you set it up.

Not to speak of social issues, like privacy, or high behavioral requirements for adequate security, just to scratch the surface.

Even making the churning faster doesn't solve those issues, and in the case of proof-of-stake, opens up its own can of worms, while scalability schemes like sharding strike me as compromised workarounds for an algorithm thats just not meant to scale like that.



Blockchain crypto has a niche, but a highly liquid, high volume, sustainable real world global currency isn't that niche.

[kgonzales]

Blockchain (as in decentral consensus system without trust) generally is just a broken concept. It' s only use case is pulling money out of dumb peoples pockets.
A world without any trustworthy entity is just not something we should strive for - or that could work.

Which supposedly trustworthy entities do we have today? I’m not seeing any. Best to hope for is picking the one which screws you the least.

‘What’s broken is assuming the current systems are fine. They are not. We are just used to how they screw us.