Hacker News Reader

Comment by thr0wawayf00 | Hacker News Reader

> If you aren't willing to run your own geth instance and understand Solidity/EVM, it's not really decentralized for you.

This is how I feel about the exchanges generally, which wield an incredible amount of influence in the crypto markets, for better or worse. It's a complete tangent, but reading about Tether's shifting story around its capital reserves terrifies me.

I have yet to see a blockchain implementation that's easy enough to use on its own that it could achieve widespread adoption without a strong market desire to have someone else manage the complexity of it for you. People talk about decentralization all day long while completely ignoring the fact that we've just shifted the centralized authority from one entity to another.

View on HN

That summarizes a lot.

The system is not simple at all.

The benefits are only potentially here (eth fees are wild).

The solution involves the opposite of religious principles the mob believes in.

It's more than the mob believes it to be an ecumenical matter and you want it to be otherwise. If you want to participate, but aren't willing to trust someone else (which no one would blame you for), then your move is to run your own node. Like, that's the entire premise of blockchain technology - no one trusts each other - but no one has to!

> no one trusts each other - but no one has to!

Isn’t the whole point of a market that we trust each other enough to have a shared understanding of what value is? How can a market function when you trust no one else in it? Cash is a perfect example of this: it’s only worth something because we all agree that it’s worth something, we can’t eat it or do anything else with it other than to exchange it for goods. Crypto isn’t any different.

It will be interesting how this holds up if Tether is actually just “printing” money as they go. If the rumors are true and they go bust or are shut down, one could easily see that event catalyzing a crypto market meltdown similar to what we saw in 2008 where speculation was out of control. Will the energy remain in the crypto space if the crypto markets fall victim to the very thing they were created to prevent?

> Will the energy remain in the crypto space if the crypto markets fall victim to the very thing they were created to prevent?

Yes, because the energy in the cryptocurrency space is based not on rational analysis but religious fervor. The inconvenient objective facts will be explained away rather than addressed.

There are some philosophical question. Even trust need trustlessness at first. Things don't couple blindly. But ultimately I believe a good system is where trust is high.

> that we trust each other enough to have a shared understanding of what value is

No, hence why we need the state to print the money, regulate the markets, and put the bad guys in jail.

This is how I feel about the exchanges generally, which wield an incredible amount of influence in the crypto markets, for better or worse.

This isn’t really true as there’s a bunch of decentralized AMM’s(automated market maker) now: uniswap, sushiswap, pancakeswap

Word had it uniswap is prepping for KYC requirements. Sounds like there is still a centralized decision making element to the smart contracts that are what uniswap is at the core.

uniswap labs != open source uniswap (v1/v2) smart contracts and open source ui, both of which have been forked many times

https://newsletter.banklesshq.com/p/unstoppable-liquidity-ma...

How do you do an onchain swap for real money in a real bank?

>I have yet to see a blockchain implementation that's easy enough to use on its own

Bitcoin core is pretty easy to run yourself, no technical skills required.

you d have to define 'pretty easy' and 'technical skills'

Reply on news.ycombinator.com