disruptalot

Why are those related?

The purpose of requiring energy to operate the network is to have something at stake when enforcing rules of the system. You could have unlimited or even arbitrary inflation of the currency while still requiring proof of work.

Hence, the rule that is being enforced by PoW here is that sending to a "wrong" address is not reversible.

Something happening once does not mean it will happen again. There have been numerous huge hacks in the past 5 years, even where the losses were from the most influential of holders and no action was taken (e.g. parity bugs).

A bug and reversal occurred in the first few years of Bitcoin's existence that has effectively meant that Bitcoin won't reach the stated 21m coins exactly.

It's guaranteed at this point that there won't be any further reversals.

Everything in the universe is built on something else. Let's speak the facts, can you demonstrate how DAI has been knocked off the peg substantially and with serious effects? Even with a reach should we find a an hour in history where it did wander more than 2-3%%, that by no means discounts it from the service that it provides in the rest of it's history.

> Of course there are middlemen, it's the validators or miners and contract authors and liquidity providers. There's a ton of middle men.

It's absurd to equate these entities with middlemen in the same sense as central banks and retail/investment banks are middlemen to loans. Again, let's speak the facts, demonstrate in DAIs history:

Where did a validator or miner, deny or cheat a loan? Plenty of examples in traditional finance.

Where did the contract authors or liquidity provides exercise power over the protocol that substantively affected the users of the protocol where it was not transparent and went against the rules which the users signed up for? The same happens all the time with tradfi.

> Trustlessness can by definition only extend to what can be wholly represented on chain. Stablecoins cannot.

Many algorithmic stablecoins like DAI can be fully audited on chain and have proved to be robust (so far, 4 years). They let you trustlessly borrow USD, top up your collateral and whatever else you would do with a loan but with no middlemen.

I've been reading your comments for a while, and have been getting real value from it but I think you are missing the mark on the detail. Unfortunately to really tell the difference, it requires an indepth exploration, preferably actually coding it. I know this is a cop out for an argument, but from experience it takes dozens of replies to really get to this depth.

I would also read ivmmeta's response [0] and his reply [1] .

At first I walked away fairly confident at what I had read. Later when I came across the responses, things got more uncertain. The example which quickly comes to mind is that most if not all the prophylaxis studies were not reviewed in Scott's analysis.

[0] https://ivmmeta.com/#sa

[1] https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/higlights-from-the-com...

There are plenty of ways to distribute and obtain revenge porn. Nothing unique and especially nothing efficient about blockchain. Blockchain isn't some special higher power, from a data perspective it's not substantively different than a server with media on it.

It's not the job of the software protocol to address social/legal problems. That's the job of governments and law. If the law in particular jurisdiction prohibits certain illegal content, then the node operating in that jurisdiction will be compelled to follow it, blockchain or not.

It is objectively better because one has an option and the other doesn't.

What option do you have if twitter _does not_ filter out media that you deem bad?

Conversely, what option do you have if twitter _does_ filter out content that is not objectionable to you?

No this isn't the modern narrative, it's the stop gap solution for individuals that don't have the capacity to adapt to a new paradigm or have particular concerns (e.g. abuse)

The utility is still right there for whoever wants to take advantage of it, but they still have the option to forgo part or all of the trustless nature.

It doesn't matter if the "offending data" is sitting on a computer somewhere (that's all a blockchain is) what matters if it's accessible and as I mentioned, it's up to the blockchain nodes to transmit it or a user to consume it. Both of which can be solved if needed with middleware.

The entire premise of the article is flawed. Blockchains aren't at all as "take it or leave it" as it's being portrayed as. In fact, the exact opposite compared to traditional web services.

Yes you can send a token or NFT to anyone on the chain, yes as far as the data layer is concerned that is "immutable". That however does not prevent you as a user to forgo your access/freedom to an entity that knows best for you, just like we do everyday in traditional web services, social media, banking institutions etc.

What does that look like? The underlying data layer (the blockchain) is public and open source. A "moderation" company can build their own middleware that filters data, throws out spam/harassment etc. Then, your node or wallet consumes and interacts with this middleware instead of the base layer. Now you have successfully incorporated abuse/harassment moderation without having to worry about the blockchain at all. If someone sends you something undesirable, you never see or interact with it.

At the end of the day, blockchains give you *the option* to have your freedom, they do not force it upon you. The same can't be said about the traditional tech.

I'm not aware of any instances of this but the solution is pretty simple. It's not dis similar at all to the current web. At the end of the day, any node that faces the public is a web server that is serving content, whether it's backed by a Blockchain or not. If it transmits a mentioned "illegal content" then it must cease to do so just like any other web server.

What is the practical solution? Clean nodes. If such web server is in a jurisdiction of said illegal content, it must run a clean node that specifically filters such content to the web. This technology exists today, it's called "moderation", it's just that the backend is a MySQL database, not a blockchain.

You make it sound like this is somehow a unique property Bitcoin. In truth, every asset and even medium of exchange can and has been manipulated for gain.

JP Morgan spoofed the precious metals market and got caught.

In the medium of exchange category, the forex market has been manipulated for decades.

You are more at risk of volatility and manipulation in crypto markets because they are immature. Bitcoin is still in the discovery stage.

Do you have any examples of any of the parties you listed successfully exercising their power against the protocol?

Sure anyone can affect anything but how did any of them selfishly affect the fundamental properties of the protocol?

They can't interfere with what you want to do. They could try to prevent you from interacting for a while but it would be futile. There are heavy disencentives, and decentralised enough. Which is why this has basically never happened. Talking strictly bitcoin and Ethereum here.

In honesty I have no experience with a pledge asset line but I can guarantee you that if the institutions involved in conducting it wanted to, they could cancel it on you anytime. With a correctly coded smart contract on Ethereum, you could ensure that never happens.

One system requires trust in third parties. One gives you the option to design a system to minimise or eliminate it.

This is the perfect example of a critic response and exactly the phenomenon I'm describing.

On 1, you're somehow conveniently ignoring the "without permission or interference from a third party.". I never mentioned against a car, stock, or house. Nonetheless the functionality still exists. Using ETH or other crypto assets. It gets so much easier. Have you tried it? No talking to advisors, no documents, no discriminatory requirements. Pretty much 1 click and 30 seconds. Fully expect the next question of validity "aha! Well that's against a useless asset!".

2nd example. Yes it can be a hyper link or a hash, is there something particularly wrong with that? The use case I described has still been achieved, it's a digital object. Are you really questioning that people exchange assets using a digital identity? I'm not sure how that invalidates the use case.

By the way you're incorrect that digital objects don't fit on the Blockchain. First it depends which Blockchain. Second, there are some objects that do fit. Look at ENS. A domain name, address mapping fits on the chain. That is an NFT. That exists today.

It's truly incredible that people still confidently proclaim that there is "no use case" today.

Because of the technical nature of the underlying tech, it's hard for the average individual to recognise how and why it's different. However, it's not possible to explain away the particular applications and their properties.

Here are 2 use cases which are live and working today:

-Taking a collaterised USD loan without permission or interference from a third party.

- Creating a public digital object which lives forever and can be exchangeable and extendable without a third party involved.

The immediate response from critics then is to question the validity of the use case. But that requires to admit that the use case is there.

There hasn't been "furious money printing" before, at least not in comparison to post covid. Have you seen the M1 money supply? [1]

[1] https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/money-supply-m1

The other misconception I often see is that if prices aren't increasing, then that means inflation is not occurring. Inflation in the sense that money is losing purchasing power, is always happening. It often doesn't perfectly reflect in consumer prices because business are hopefully becoming more efficient at some rate.

Web3 is a highly ambigious term so there's no point discussing whether it's decentralized - it simply depends on what system you are referring to.

For the sake of simplicity we stick to the authors main claim. That Ethereum is centralized.

> while anyone can join the Ethereum or Bitcoin network, you can only join if you agree to follow the same protocol

In which other protocol is this not the case? Can you communicate with a web page without using the protocol that it required? Furthermore, as blockchain protocols are all open source, they allow their network rules and data to be easily forked and run. This is not at all dissimilar to an example provided further that explains that anyone can run their own web network.

> Ethereum is only decentralized in the way that doesn't matter — you're free to join the decentralized system, under the condition that you act in the exact same way as every other actor in that system.

The opposite in fact. The author misses that Ethereum allows anyone to encode their own protocol into the network. Blockchain nodes, simply enforce that those rules are being adhered to by the participants. This is perhaps the only way that matters for what etheruem wants to do. Blockchains are not websites, their purpose is not to serve you data. The purpose is, given a pre existing set of rules - which anyone can code permanently into the blockchain, clients understand exactly in what way those states can transition, and are capable of executing the state transaction as equally as all other peers.

Let's take a practical example. Say you want to publish torrent links. I hope I don't need to explain why dencetralisation matters and what propoerties you are looking for. If someone encodes a smart contract on Ethereum that allows anyone to submit a name, along with a torrent link but not able to delete it. In the Ethereum world, this protocol lives forever more. On the traditional web world, you will:

- Have ISP, hosting provider take your website down

- The web owner may decide to arbitrarily take down specific torrents or the application as a whole

This is where decentralisation matters and what it means.

I wish there was a more concerted effort on following up on both covid patients and vaccine administrations and presenting the data on the outcomes in the general media. Instead, the only widely decimated message is "get your vaccine".

> It's unknown how long the booster would last

It's well within reason to expect that it won't be longer than the 2nd dose.

> The person I responded to didn't say what their reaction was

I kind of extrapolated based on the parent's parent. I had a personal example in mind. Chest pains after first shot, heart palpitations after 2nd, checked at ER. These are myocarditis signs and a booster makes me very uneasy. This I would guess is the most commonly brought up examples of potentially serious side effects.

> Relatively has higher risk of side effects among their profile

Just generalising, assuming young healthy male with no underlying health conditions.

> Vs. the now well-known long-term risks of contracting Covid, which given its prevalence seems highly likely that your long term choices are (a) never leave your house, (b) reduce likelihood and severity of infection with a vaccine, or (c) get Covid.

It's inaccurate to have "Never leave your house" as an option, situations are different. Different case numbers based on location, different personal lifestyles. On the other hand, the vaccine risk is fixed, you either take it or don't.

I'm personally happy doing continuous risk assessment and acting accordingly and if I did catch Covid then so be it, risks are extremely low already.

> why wouldn't you want to get something that showed such high efficacy against death and hospitalization that had such a low, temporally finite cost?

Because they've already determined that their current health is already highly effective at keeping them out of hospital and death.

So you want them decrease their risk from 0.2% to 0.1% and in exchange expose them to a vaccine that's:

- Expires in a few months

- They've already had a history of reacting to (further shots always worse)

- No one takes liability for

- Relatively has higher risk of side effects among their profile

- Unknown long term risk

It doesn't seem like a good deal

> You'd think the "decentralized finance" people would have figured out a way to separate those functions by now. But no.

But yes. I'm not sure how you've heard the term "decentralised finance" but haven't heard of decentralised exchanges, both traditional Ethereum DEXs and more novel cross chain ones. They successfully separate out:

- User funds by self custody

- protocol rules that are publicly verifiable.

- build/bring your own front end

- market making- AMM, order relayers + others

- lending and borrowing including the above stack in completely separate but composable protocols

Can you explain the history of accredit investor laws and how they were designed to keep out criminals? I thought they kept out retail, i.e. the less wealthy.

Criminals are traditionally the opposite and have "legitimate" funds that they have washed through and through using the existing financial system.

Almost no one that appreciates the unique characteristics of Bitcoin want anything to do with those 2 blockchains.

CryptoA != CryptoB. Specifics matter, _a lot_

> Experiment away! But not with mega-scale proof-of-work projects

Are you familiar with any methods to achieve the same characteristics of Bitcoin but without PoW? Perhaps the energy is not the issue, perhaps it's your view to the importance of it.

You could say "finance of last resort" or you could call it a new paradigm of finance. You are simply dismissing something that you have no personal connection to.

When you can't open a bank account, are discriminated against by institutions, live in highly authoritarian environments etc. This type of finance is not a "last resort" it's your first resort.

The reason it's not "popular" however you want to define it is simply a matter of time and not function.

Executing the contract takes very little compute. It's the transaction and block ordering which is the most important. For that, you need to distribute and add stake (PoW) to the blocks.

Using graphic cards to mine bitcoin became unprofitable about 10 years ago. The graphic card shortage can be linked to other cryptocurrencies.

You don't need to buy goods and services directly but it is a good way to store and invest your wealth. Most capital controls are mute once you've exited into crypto.

On what basis do they hit you? Anyone that ever has any link to crypto? That's everyone. Crypto has a level of security and plausible deniability, that makes such things unrealistic. That's why you don't hear about it happening often.

To many people under these regimes, there is much more security afforded to them by crypto than by their governments and currencies.

Remember when Apple punted privacy as their strength? In a closed proprietary system, it's always just a promise. It's the same story then as it is now. Never trust a company promising you privacy. If you can't verify your privacy, consider it absent.

> The crypto community is largely divided over Wright’s claims that he invented Bitcoin.

Anything but. Bar a few, the entire space asserts that Craig Wright is a fraud.

Not exactly. There are plenty of anonymous projects, developers and users.