tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4503292949532760618.post303733361891076054..comments2024-03-28T13:39:27.601-07:00Comments on DSHR's Blog: Vitalik Buterin vs. RealityDavid.http://www.blogger.com/profile/14498131502038331594noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4503292949532760618.post-36896199532581817932022-09-16T16:32:36.504-07:002022-09-16T16:32:36.504-07:00David Gerard doesn't hold back in Vitalik Bute...David Gerard doesn't hold back in <a href="https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/2022/09/16/vitalik-buterins-philosophical-essays-theyre-not-good/" rel="nofollow"><i>Vitalik Buterin’s philosophical essays: they’re not good</i></a>:<br /><br />"People read Buterin’s social essays, then they have to bridge the gap between the assumption that all of this <i>must</i> make coherent sense because it was written by an acknowledged genius wonder boy, and the undeniable fact that the stuff in front of you looks … stupid.<br /><br />The fancy promises, the essays, the wild ideas that sound like they’re stupid but must have <i>something</i> to them, surely … it’s all marketing for Ethereum.<br /><br />Ethereum makes more sense if you first assume it never mattered if the fancy promises ever worked out — even if Buterin believed they were supposed to. The purpose was to sell you their ether. And it worked."David.https://www.blogger.com/profile/14498131502038331594noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4503292949532760618.post-40898228913539369202022-06-01T12:22:31.076-07:002022-06-01T12:22:31.076-07:00More evidence of detachment from reality in George...More evidence of detachment from reality in George Steer's <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/610e111e-71a2-4182-ad30-da49530a12f6" rel="nofollow"><i>The crypto plan to save our souls</i></a>:<br /><br />"Packed with references to DAO-on-DAO “vampire attacks” and sentences like “we also do not assume non-transferability of Souls across humans”, a <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4105763" rel="nofollow">whimsical paper</a> on the future of Web3 from Eric Glen Weyl, Puja Ohlhaver and Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin makes for quite the ride. <br /><br />As far as these technologists are concerned, the world lacks any hopeful vision of the future. “We’re heading either for a Peter Thiel-inspired anarcho-capitalist dystopia or a Chinese government-style top-down surveillance system,” Weyl told FT Alphaville. Web3’s “radically democratic” horizontality constitutes a potential third way."<br /><br />"radically democratic horizontality" is rather rich coming from people behind the blockchain that is even more centralized than Bitcoin, and is proposing to switch to a system that guarantees ever-increasing inequality.David.https://www.blogger.com/profile/14498131502038331594noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4503292949532760618.post-83808005987172988582022-04-14T16:50:02.101-07:002022-04-14T16:50:02.101-07:00Buterin isn't alone in having difficulty facin...Buterin isn't alone in having difficulty facing reality. Jessica Sier's headline says it all <a href="https://www.afr.com/technology/ethereum-co-founder-lubin-frustrated-by-scams-20220406-p5abbz" rel="nofollow"><i>Ethereum co-founder Lubin frustrated by scams</i></a>.David.https://www.blogger.com/profile/14498131502038331594noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4503292949532760618.post-33624473736948241542022-04-13T12:30:22.008-07:002022-04-13T12:30:22.008-07:00Molly White's Ethereum transition to proof-of-...Molly White's <a href="https://web3isgoinggreat.com/?id=2022-04-13-1" rel="nofollow"><i>Ethereum transition to proof-of-stake delayed again, as is tradition</i></a> reports that:<br /><br />"Ethereum developers have projected new levels of optimism lately, with several of them describing "the merge" as imminent—I believe a June timeframe was the popular estimate. Unfortunately, this appears to have been just as unachievable as the prior "deadlines", with an Ethereum core developer stating it was now looking like it wouldn't happen until some time this autumn. This is particularly brutal timing, given <a href="https://www.theverge.com/23020727/decoder-chris-dixon-web3-crypto-a16z-vc-silicon-valley-investing-podcast-interview" rel="nofollow">Nilay Patel's interview yesterday with a16z's Chris Dixon</a>, where he confidently pointed to an early July "merge" date (only to become substantially less confident when pressed on specifics). Anyway, see you this fall for the next hype cycle—between now and then, Ethereum will have again consumed energy comparable to the amounts used annually by some small countries, for little if any useful purpose.David.https://www.blogger.com/profile/14498131502038331594noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4503292949532760618.post-55761702382615645502022-04-05T19:09:48.192-07:002022-04-05T19:09:48.192-07:00As I keep writing:
"The demand for transacti...As I keep <a href="https://blog.dshr.org/2022/02/talk-for-bace-cybersecurity-institute.html" rel="nofollow">writing</a>:<br /><br />"The demand for transactions is variable, but the supply is fixed. Pending transactions bid their fees in a blind auction for inclusion in a block. The result is that when no-one wants to transact fees are low and when everyone does they spike enormously."<br /><br />Molly White describes a canonical example in <a href="https://web3isgoinggreat.com/?id=2022-04-05-0" rel="nofollow"><i>Collectors spend a cumulative $26 million on gas fees alone for "VaynerSports" NFT project—3× the amount made from the NFTs</i></a>:<br /><br />"The popularity of the project resulted in surging gas fees on the Ethereum chain, and a poorly-implemented contract worsened issues. Users encountered failed transactions, meaning they lost the gas fee they had spent, and also did not successfully mint an NFT. Once the mint was over, 2411 ETH ($8.2 million) had been spent on mints, and 7652 ETH ($26.4 million) had been spent on gas fees. Some users lost thousands of dollars in gas fees on failed transactions."David.https://www.blogger.com/profile/14498131502038331594noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4503292949532760618.post-91057659173063274892022-04-04T16:52:56.885-07:002022-04-04T16:52:56.885-07:00David Gerard reports on a paper from DataFinnovati...David Gerard <a href="https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/2022/04/04/if-you-want-a-scalable-ethereum-blockchain-then-pnp/" rel="nofollow">reports</a> on a paper from DataFinnovation entitled <a href="https://datafinnovation.medium.com/the-consequences-of-scalable-blockchains-8c4d23c6af4d" rel="nofollow"><i>The Consequences of Scalable Blockchains</i></a> which starts:<br /><br />"What we are going to do here is pretty simple:<br /><br />1) Describe some thing a scalable blockchain could do.<br />2) Prove that thing is NP-Complete.<br />3) Show how, if you have such a blockchain, you can right now break hash functions and public-key cryptography and constructively prove P=NP.<br /><br />If you build this thing you can break nearly all the major protocols out there — blockchains, banks, SSL, RSA, nearly everything — right now."<br /><br />Their definition of "scalable" is strong:<br /><br />"We are going to call something “scalable” when it can process more transactions per unit time than a single node on the network. If you always need to wait for some designated leader/verifier/miner/whatever to finalize transactions then you’re never going to run faster, in the worst-case, than that node."<br /><br />Note "worst-case" - the worst-case is almost always the result of an attack. David Gerard <a href="https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/2022/04/04/if-you-want-a-scalable-ethereum-blockchain-then-pnp/" rel="nofollow">writes</a>:<br /><br />"To some extent, the Ethereum project has just given up on scaling the main blockchain. “For Ethereum to scale and keep up with demand, it has required rollups” — do the work somewhere else and send back the result. The blockchain is only usable if you work around actually using it. [<a href="https://ethereum.org/en/bridges/" rel="nofollow">ethereum.org</a>]"<br /><br />There are comments from the Ethereum community <a href="https://ethresear.ch/t/np-completeness-of-a-strong-form-of-scalability/12307" rel="nofollow">here</a>.<br /><br />Given the publication date of 1st April I'm skeptical enough that I need to work through their proof. Stay tuned.David.https://www.blogger.com/profile/14498131502038331594noreply@blogger.com