The anti-crypto thread

[BFG10K]

Great news, crypto's collapsing across the board: https://www.techpowerup.com/282380/...ions-in-less-than-24-hours-did-the-bubble-pop

Also China's banned crypto, though individuals can still have it: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/chinese-financial-payment-bodies-barred-122712260.html

The sooner this cancerous parasite is wiped out, the better.

 

[fleshconsumed]

It's ironic how Crypto purports to be an anonymous utopia of unregulated currency to replace "failed" government money . But as soon as one mining parasite steals from another, miners expect government cops paid by Fiat to deal with it.

Yes, there is certain amount of irony here. There is definitely a libertarian inspired sub-culture that thinks that open source crypto can and will replace money, and they're definitely the loudest of the bunch, however, not everyone is a bitcoin maximalist. I think, or I hope, that most people are more practical than that, blockchain solves the trust problem between external parties, it has potential to greatly simply and streamline operations by removing inefficiencies that inevitably occur when two parties have to interact with each other.

 

[darkswordsman17]

Yes, there is certain amount of irony here. There is definitely a libertarian inspired sub-culture that thinks that open source crypto can and will replace money, and they're definitely the loudest of the bunch, however, not everyone is a bitcoin maximalist. I think, or I hope, that most people are more practical than that, blockchain solves the trust problem between external parties, it has potential to greatly simply and streamline operations by removing inefficiencies that inevitably occur when two parties have to interact with each other.

There's an entire mountains' worth of irony.

Explain. I've heard people claim this but they never seem able to actually explain how, and considering the monumental amount of energy spent on cryptocurrency, it seems like a bold faced lie.

 

[gdansk]

I stopped mining on my card. I don't think it's worth the wear at this price. How would I ever get a replacement if needed

 

[Mopetar]

Heh, I wonder if that's how McAffe bought it. It makes me wonder what he did to get himself "suicided"...

Maybe, but if you hated him enough to have him killed I'd imagine him getting extradited to the US and run through the legal system and probably send to federal PMITA prison is a far worse fate. If I were John I'd almost considering hiring an assassin to off myself in that kind of situation.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Really good YT from an "actual professional software developer", on ETH and it's lead dev.

 

[CP5670]

On another note, Nvidia stock has been like a rocket. I bought a bunch last summer and was wondering whether to cash out but it just keeps going. They must be raking in the cash from all the mining sales.

 

[fleshconsumed]

Explain. I've heard people claim this but they never seem able to actually explain how, and considering the monumental amount of energy spent on cryptocurrency, it seems like a bold faced lie.

Blockchain represents an immutable public ledger. Once information has been written to the blockchain it cannot be changed which means that nefarious entity can't cook the books after the fact. Now, this does not prevent bad actors from writing bad data to the blockchain in the first place, but the public and immutable nature of the blockchain makes it much easier to audit records to identify who was responsible for uploading bad data to blockchain.

Additionally newer blockchains support smart contracts, so for example a supplier and a receiver could set up a smart contract whereas supplier automatically gets paid as soon as the warehouse records receiving a shipment.

As far as energy consumption goes, yes, that is a known issue, and people are working on it. Most newer blockchains use either PoA or PoS validation mechanisms that are very very energy efficient. ETH is currently proof of work, but they are working on migration to PoS. Once that happens the energy problem will be no more.

 

[DisarmedDespot]

Blockchain represents an immutable public ledger. Once information has been written to the blockchain it cannot be changed which means that nefarious entity can't cook the books after the fact. Now, this does not prevent bad actors from writing bad data to the blockchain in the first place, but the public and immutable nature of the blockchain makes it much easier to audit records to identify who was responsible for uploading bad data to blockchain.

Can you give a real-world example of this 'trust problem' that blockchains solves, where a 'nefarious entity' cooks the books that wouldn't already be solved by existing contract law? Because I've yet to see one that isn't just illegal like ransomware payments. Blockchains only make sense for cases where there is zero trust between parties and no trusted third parties. In the real-world, those scenarios are extremely rare.

 

[fleshconsumed]

Can you give a real-world example of this 'trust problem' that blockchains solves, where a 'nefarious entity' cooks the books that wouldn't already be solved by existing contract law? Because I've yet to see one that isn't just illegal like ransomware payments. Blockchains only make sense for cases where there is zero trust between parties and no trusted third parties. In the real-world, those scenarios are extremely rare.

Yes, cooking the books/etc is already illegal, and punishable by law... if you get caught. That's where the problem lies - compliance and enforcement. The public and immutable nature of blockchain makes compliance and enforcement much easier.

Take for example a lab that is supposed to keep Phizer vaccine at -30C to keep it from going bad. That lab has automated sensors that are set up to automatically log temperature every hour into some internal database. Say there was a power outage and the person responsible for monitoring goofed up and didn't notice, the problem didn't get fixed and instead of taking responsibility he just updated internal database to make it look like there was no problem. Now, if the automated sensors were writing data to the blockchain, then he couldn't just cook the books after the fact.

Lets expand the example above and say the hospital administering vaccine randomly tested the batch and realized it's no good. What do they do now? Can they really trust the supplier now? Do they test every batch coming from the supplier now? Do they cancel the contract and try to find a new supplier? Blockchain would completely eliminate that problem, it would prevent the nefarious entity from cooking the data, and it would let the hospital easily verify which batches are good and which ones are not. The world is not black and white, it's not like there is 100% trust or no trust at all. There are accidents, there are malicious entities, blockchain does not replace trust, it helps to maintain it.

 

[DrMrLordX]

Really good YT from an "actual professional software developer", on ETH and it's lead dev.

Not convinced that was good. Early on in the vid, he already commits several errors in interpreting Buterin's statements, particularly when Buterin incorporates a tweet (from Hasu, @ 3:00 or so) indicates that secure validation isn't guaranteed merely by the method but by its users. It doesn't matter if you use PoW or PoS: the culture of the users is critical. In no way was anyone saying "Proof of Stake doesn't work". What he's saying is, "without everyone being able to run a node if they want to, it won't matter what validation method you use". Also I don't think anyone is stupid enough to think that an Ethereum node can run on a phone. But a desktop PC with 16GB or more of RAM? Yeah, probably.

I think he's right that ETH is grossly overvalued, but beyond that his vid kind of sucks.

 

[cytg111]

Almost pulled the trigger on a 2500$ 3080ti, then like waking up from a dream, "what the f... am I doing!!" - and cancelled. Jfc.

 

[BFG10K]

Because I've yet to see one that isn't just illegal like ransomware payments. Blockchains only make sense for cases where there is zero trust between parties and no trusted third parties. In the real-world, those scenarios are extremely rare.

Exactly right. The only place place where there's consistently zero trust is crime. Any other presented examples or scenarios are pure fictitious delusion.

I don't trust the guy who hacked my computer, and the hacker doesn't trust me to pay him. Can't do Fiat in that situation because government/police/bank/insurance protects the victim.

Enter :-> Crypto. Its "solved" the problem, yo!

I mean where's that "cooking the books" protection when two guys straight out of puberty walk out with $3.6 billion 'coins, no audit trail and no security?

 

[Fanatical Meat]

Exactly right. The only place place where there's consistently zero trust is crime. Any other presented examples or scenarios are pure fictitious delusion.

I don't trust the guy who hacked my computer, and the hacker doesn't trust me to pay him. Can't do Fiat in that situation because government/police/bank/insurance protects the victim.

Enter :-> Crypo. It's "solved" the problem, yo!

I mean where's that "cooking the books" protection when two guys straight out of puberty walk out with $3.6 billion 'coins, no audit trail and no security?

Exactly this!

 

[DisarmedDespot]

Yes, cooking the books/etc is already illegal, and punishable by law... if you get caught. That's where the problem lies - compliance and enforcement. The public and immutable nature of blockchain makes compliance and enforcement much easier.

Take for example a lab that is supposed to keep Phizer vaccine at -30C to keep it from going bad. That lab has automated sensors that are set up to automatically log temperature every hour into some internal database. Say there was a power outage and the person responsible for monitoring goofed up and didn't notice, the problem didn't get fixed and instead of taking responsibility he just updated internal database to make it look like there was no problem. Now, if the automated sensors were writing data to the blockchain, then he couldn't just cook the books after the fact.

Lets expand the example above and say the hospital administering vaccine randomly tested the batch and realized it's no good. What do they do now? Can they really trust the supplier now? Do they test every batch coming from the supplier now? Do they cancel the contract and try to find a new supplier? Blockchain would completely eliminate that problem, it would prevent the nefarious entity from cooking the data, and it would let the hospital easily verify which batches are good and which ones are not. The world is not black and white, it's not like there is 100% trust or no trust at all. There are accidents, there are malicious entities, blockchain does not replace trust, it helps to maintain it.

But it does, the entire point of a blockchain is trustless transactions, all the way back to the bitcoin whitepaper. If you don't need trustless transactions, you don't need blockchain!

What is needed is an electronic payment system based on cryptographic proof instead of trust, allowing any two willing parties to transact directly with each other without the need for a trusted third party.

Your example doesn't work, either, as you're going from an internal database to a (presumably) public blockchain. There's better ways to automatically report temperatures, like the lab's sensors sending webhook events to an endpoint run by the hospital.

Blockchain is, frankly, a dead-end tech. It's twelve years old now and the only non-ransomware use cases people can point to are hypotheticals.

 

[Leeea]

Take for example a lab that is supposed to keep Phizer vaccine at -30C to keep it from going bad. That lab has automated sensors that are set up to automatically log temperature every hour into some internal database. Say there was a power outage and the person responsible for monitoring goofed up and didn't notice, the problem didn't get fixed and instead of taking responsibility he just updated internal database to make it look like there was no problem. Now, if the automated sensors were writing data to the blockchain, then he couldn't just cook the books after the fact.

But your still absolutely trusting the lab 100%.

Specifically, your trusting that the data being written to the block chain is relevant. And not just some script running to make you feel good.


Also, even if the data being written to the block chain is correct, what is to stop me from marking the effected lot as disposed, then simply recording it as new production, and shipping it to you anyway?

Lets expand the example above and say the hospital administering vaccine randomly tested the batch and realized it's no good. What do they do now?

Ask the supplier what is going on.

Can they really trust the supplier now?

depends on how the supplier responds. and the shipper responds. And the hospitals own personnel respond.

If you think about it, there are a ton of people involved besides the supplier.

Do they test every batch coming from the supplier now?

The supplier normally does that for them, and sends in an certificate from a third party lab.

Do they cancel the contract and try to find a new supplier?

Either supplier is good
or the supplier is in prison for fraudulently altering the lab certificate (which is trivial to trace)

or something went wrong after the batch sample was pulled for the lab cert, which typically will not by the suppliers fault. Regardless, the next step is a 3rd party audit paid for by the hospital.
followed by a lessons learned / SOP update commitment from the guilty party
followed by business as usual

It is not uncommon for the supplier to deal with being audited by each customer once a quarter anyway. For sensitive stuff once a month. These are third party audits paid for by the customer from a provider agreed upon before hand. They typically are no warning (the auditor shows up outside your office one day and you drop what your doing to deal with it).

In my opinion the best third party auditor is the NSF: https://www.nsf.org/
in my limited experience their auditors always had their act together and there was no need to explain to them what they were looking at. They were always helpful and good to work with.

Take for example a lab that is supposed to keep Phizer vaccine at -30C to keep it from going bad.

This specific problem is typically solved by slipping one of these into the batch:

https://www.sensitech.com/en/media/Ryan_EZT_Food_1_2021_tcm35-107694.pdf

These are mechanical recorders started by pulling a small tab on the recorder. They are tamperproof, and have to be destructively opened by the customer. They have a sheet of paper on the inside that records when it was started, and has a graph on it of the metric your interested in over time.


Cost wise:
cheap disposable strip recorder
vs
stupidity: block chain + computers to run said chain + engineers to maintain said chain + internet connections + security for internet connections + electricity + temperature sensors + all the other BS associated with that

Nobody has ever hacked a mechanical strip recorder from a computer in Russia. They are also annoying sensitive. Not only recording you opening the fridge door, it is going to be obvious if you touched one with your hot little hand.

 

[Dribble]

I mean where's that "cooking the books" protection when two guys straight out of puberty walk out with $3.6 billion 'coins, no audit trail and no security?

This * 100

I mean how can anyone claim any security when people regularly walk off with the stuff. You can't - for all this talk about how amazing it is the whole thing still essentially requires crypto banks. These aren't banks that are regulated by anyone, there is no insurance if they loose your crypto. It's literally just a random bunch of people on the internet, and you are meant to trust these guys?

 

[Roger Wilco]

I’m no crypto guru, but it seems a common misconception is that crypto is some kind of anarchistic libertarian wet dream. That may have been part of the vision early on, but many governments are beginning to embrace crypto, and even make their own crypto currencies (including the US). The ledger is public and the IRS can tax everything anyway.

It seems to me the real benefit of crypto is that it cuts the bank out of the equation, albeit at the cost of higher risk to the user.

 

[Shmee]

I am hearing good things about safemoon.

 

[ultimatebob]

I am hearing good things about safemoon.

Really? Considering the amount of Twitter hype I've been seeing for it, I figured that it was another pump and dump coin.

 

[Ninjak]

Some analogies hold true between your cryptocurrency-wallet and your physical wallet, likewise between your cryptocurrency and your cash money. If you have a wallet full of hundred dollar bills and you lose it in the street, they money is gone, you're never going to get it back and you have no recourse. Likewise, if you let someone your cash money without going through some legal process, and that person skips town, you're pretty much out of luck. So maybe think twice before parking your cryptocurrency with shady people / operations who might close shop and leave you holding the bag.

 

[beginner99]

I mean where's that "cooking the books" protection when two guys straight out of puberty walk out with $3.6 billion 'coins, no audit trail and no security?

This * 100

I mean how can anyone claim any security when people regularly walk off with the stuff. You can't - for all this talk about how amazing it is the whole thing still essentially requires crypto banks. These aren't banks that are regulated by anyone, there is no insurance if they loose your crypto. It's literally just a random bunch of people on the internet, and you are meant to trust these guys?

If you don't want to get it fine. Like you can never talk a priest out of his believes.

This is my way of saying this example/argument is pretty, ehm, weak and shows you don't understand how crypto works. These "banks" and the case in the example is the equivalent of transferring your funds to a third party account and then act surprised they walk away with it (which is exactly like all phone scams of elderly work),

It's clear the hurdle in terms of knowledge is bigger than in traditional banking and there is a risk of getting scammed. But I wager this risk is actually lower than in traditional banking, phone scammers, ever heard of that? Blockchain isn't here to prevent scammers or protects the dumb form themselves.

In the example the thiefs still have the issue the addresess are known and authorities can monitor the flow of money. They will actually face problems to cash it out without getting caught plus bascially having to be on the run for the rest of their lives.

 

[rommelrommel]

Blockchain is, frankly, a dead-end tech. It's twelve years old now and the only non-ransomware use cases people can point to are hypotheticals.

Hey man, there's also buying drugs off of the internet!

 

[Arkaign]

😌

 

[Gideon]

Take for example a lab that is supposed to keep Phizer vaccine at -30C to keep it from going bad. That lab has automated sensors that are set up to automatically log temperature every hour into some internal database. Say there was a power outage and the person responsible for monitoring goofed up and didn't notice, the problem didn't get fixed and instead of taking responsibility he just updated internal database to make it look like there was no problem. Now, if the automated sensors were writing data to the blockchain, then he couldn't just cook the books after the fact.

This is a classic example of a solution looking for a problem.

People already discussed the hardware based solution that actually is widespread in this case, but even when focusing on software there is still no need for a blockchain.

Problems like that have been solved for decades before anyone knew what a ”blockchain" was and that was with hashed audit logs. Essentially you keep the hash of the previous log entry in the next entry, making the entire chain tamper proof. There is YOu also need to decide where and how you store the append-only log (so that the evildoer couldn't just rewrite the entire log), but that's rather trivial and the options are plentyful.

Yeah, blockchains also do similar hash chains (that's where part of the name comes from) but they also do a metric ton of extra stuff that is absolutely useless in this use-case. There is no need for any P2P networks, stupidly complex consensus algorithms (there is only 1 place where you add data to the "chain").

99% of the actual complexity of blockchain is totally unnecessary and easily avoidable in this example. This tends to be the case with most hyped up potential usecases of blockchain.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Harsh rug-pull by Binance using "leveraged exchange tokens".