Web3 Is Bullshit(stephendiehl.com)
stephendiehl.com
Web3 Is Bullshit
https://www.stephendiehl.com/blog/web3-bullshit.html
120 comments
Is this what the struggles of the transition from scarcity to post scarcity looks like? Building systems that simulate scarcity to generate the illusion of value and to front run that value?
Of course. It's even more clear with NFTs: people aren't spending thousands of dollars on low-quality NFT sprites because they think they're sound investments or artworks that are that unique and enjoyable in and of themselves. It's people with serious wealth, people who have benefited from scarcity in other domains, trying to promote a system of artificial scarcity in the digital art world. Artificial scarcity that they will later profit off of. This is why they attach huge prizes to what is really worthless crap in order to generate hype and adoption.
Yes, because it’s the only way to generate “wealth” in a world full of plenty. Humans, like most creatures, have a biological imperative to try to outdo one another in order to reproduce.
The Tyranny of the Hierarchy.
I don’t understand how a post-scarcity society would even be desirable. For things like art and music, their creators need to be able to command a price on their creations. The digitization of these things removes their scarcity and essentially makes them function as a public good, making it impossible to set a price on them that will support the artist. If there’s no way for digital artists to support themselves, then they’ll cease to exist. Extend this to any other proposed “post-scarcity X” and you get a society I wouldn’t really want to live in. This isn’t meant to be flippant, I’m genuinely curious if there’s something here I’m missing.
The artist won't starve if all the basics of living are free. Universal basic income or some other scheme could maintain the means of economic transactions, but post-scarcity fundamentally means that everyone is taken care of to a minimum basic standard of living. Food, water, healthcare, shelter, sanitation, and safety are available by default to every citizen. An artist would only ever starve or suffer if they renounced the basics.
The nature of economics and markets changes radically in ways we can't predict. Post-scarcity systems could be fundamentally unstable concurrent with fungible currencies of the type we use now. New mechanisms of valuation based on time and so on might take hold, or it might require distribution of resources in ways not yet considered. The point being that incentives and accumulation of wealth will be radically different to the extent that there's not a clean or obvious connection to current incentives that drive human behavior.
The nature of economics and markets changes radically in ways we can't predict. Post-scarcity systems could be fundamentally unstable concurrent with fungible currencies of the type we use now. New mechanisms of valuation based on time and so on might take hold, or it might require distribution of resources in ways not yet considered. The point being that incentives and accumulation of wealth will be radically different to the extent that there's not a clean or obvious connection to current incentives that drive human behavior.
> I don’t understand how a post-scarcity society would even be desirable.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_vulture_and_the_little_gir...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_vulture_and_the_little_gir...
> If there’s no way for digital artists to support themselves, then they’ll cease to exist.
They'll have day jobs and create art on the weekends and evenings. Alternately, they'll be sponsored through some full-time fellowship to create art.
They'll have day jobs and create art on the weekends and evenings. Alternately, they'll be sponsored through some full-time fellowship to create art.
> They'll have day jobs and create art on the weekends and evenings. Alternately, they'll be sponsored through some full-time fellowship to create art.
If public wants a specific artist to create a specific art, they will be forced to pay such artist money to incentive them. Examples: patreon, Kickstarter, etc.
If public wants a specific artist to create a specific art, they will be forced to pay such artist money to incentive them. Examples: patreon, Kickstarter, etc.
>making it impossible to set a price on them that will support the artist.
What part of post-scarcity don't you understand? Money doesn't matter. Post-scarcity.
What part of post-scarcity don't you understand? Money doesn't matter. Post-scarcity.
> Money doesn’t matter.
That would be a pretty huge departure from how we currently create and transact anything of value, so I’d say I don’t understand that.
That would be a pretty huge departure from how we currently create and transact anything of value, so I’d say I don’t understand that.
Nothing to be ashamed of tbqh. Post-scarcity is the type of thing that will probably give everyone nowadays nightmares and existential ennui.
Imagine life where the guy bumming on the street and the guy working hard at his craft are both contributing the same amount in the long run because there is more than enough to keep everyone living comfortably, with no need to actually compete.
In fact, I imagine the trauma of the paradigm shift could very well break a generation or so adjusting to it.
Imagine life where the guy bumming on the street and the guy working hard at his craft are both contributing the same amount in the long run because there is more than enough to keep everyone living comfortably, with no need to actually compete.
In fact, I imagine the trauma of the paradigm shift could very well break a generation or so adjusting to it.
Perhaps! Because people are trying to create opportunity from the lack of scarcity maybe?
The author beautifully missed the point of having a EVM in the first place, he missed the "it's trustless" memo. EVM is slow because it runs the same code in millions of computers where no computers are trusted and only the consensus of the computers are trusted. You won't be running Firefox or Linux on EVM.
I like how even the most educated and experienced people in the world can't bother to read the bitcoin whitepaper with no reservations.
I like how even the most educated and experienced people in the world can't bother to read the bitcoin whitepaper with no reservations.
> I like how even the most educated and experienced people in the world can't bother to read the bitcoin whitepaper with no reservations.
I get your sarcasm, but the bitcoin paper has little to do with the EVM and smart contracts except as a foundational idea.
Either way, I’m inclined to agree with the beautiful sarcasm the OP posted. Trustless doesn’t make it more valuable than the trusted systems that we already have that are cheaper and do a decent job without artificial scarcity
I get your sarcasm, but the bitcoin paper has little to do with the EVM and smart contracts except as a foundational idea.
Either way, I’m inclined to agree with the beautiful sarcasm the OP posted. Trustless doesn’t make it more valuable than the trusted systems that we already have that are cheaper and do a decent job without artificial scarcity
>but the bitcoin paper has little to do with the EVM and smart contracts except as a foundational idea
I am not claiming the bitcoin whitepaper has anything to do with EVM, but it explains why a trustless, digital currency is needed and how it can be implemented. It predates real cryptocurrencies, so it can read easier without references to cryptocurrencies that exist today. The author has demonstrated incredible ignorance of why things like EVM exist in the first place.
>Trustless doesn’t make it more valuable than the trusted systems
Author doesn't understand why people think it could be/is valuable either.
I am not claiming the bitcoin whitepaper has anything to do with EVM, but it explains why a trustless, digital currency is needed and how it can be implemented. It predates real cryptocurrencies, so it can read easier without references to cryptocurrencies that exist today. The author has demonstrated incredible ignorance of why things like EVM exist in the first place.
>Trustless doesn’t make it more valuable than the trusted systems
Author doesn't understand why people think it could be/is valuable either.
He does understand. It’s for the people that manage to grow into adulthood without realizing that Ayn Rand was a terrible hack. “Trustless” sounds like a good idea to these most boring of cynics who consider anything but ruthless short-sighted egotism to be weakness or naïveté, all institutions to be corrupt (with the same magnitude of “totally”), and the only debate to be had is if it’s the Wall Street Jews, Hilary Clinton, or all women that are ruining their lives.
> The Ethereum virtual machine has the equivalent computational power of an Atari 2600
Is there a source for the computational power of the ethereum VM?
Is there a source for the computational power of the ethereum VM?
To me this is rhetoric that conveniently ignores the sole advantages of blockchain and distributed computing.
Blockchains don't exist to be fast, efficient, or scalable. They exist to be decentralized, permissionless, and censorship resistant.
> People are trying to move from a world in which compute resources are efficient and almost limitless to a world of scarcity because they want to build an economic system where you can trade your fortnite skins for online currency
Actually, no one's doing this. You've created a strawman argument. Netflix and Youtube aren't moving their hosting to the blockchain. Google's not storing database shards on IPFS. What people are trying to use blockchains for is the creation and persistence of digital property. Blockchains are expressly better at provenance because records cannot easily be altered, compared to a centralized service.
> Creating economic ownership schemes of things that nobody needs to own because they're not scarce in the first place.
Congratulations, you just defined western capitalism.
Blockchains don't exist to be fast, efficient, or scalable. They exist to be decentralized, permissionless, and censorship resistant.
> People are trying to move from a world in which compute resources are efficient and almost limitless to a world of scarcity because they want to build an economic system where you can trade your fortnite skins for online currency
Actually, no one's doing this. You've created a strawman argument. Netflix and Youtube aren't moving their hosting to the blockchain. Google's not storing database shards on IPFS. What people are trying to use blockchains for is the creation and persistence of digital property. Blockchains are expressly better at provenance because records cannot easily be altered, compared to a centralized service.
> Creating economic ownership schemes of things that nobody needs to own because they're not scarce in the first place.
Congratulations, you just defined western capitalism.
> Netflix and Youtube aren't moving their hosting to the blockchain.
I see people claim, basically constantly, that the blockchain will be the source of all such content in the future and that this will free people from youtube's tyranny or whatever.
I see people claim, basically constantly, that the blockchain will be the source of all such content in the future and that this will free people from youtube's tyranny or whatever.
That's not practical, but decentralized sources like IPFS, BitTorrent, etc will be useful sources of hosting for videos/creators who don't want to face censorship from Youtube etc.
They have. And this is where the "decentralized storage of video will replace youtube" argument comes from that apparently the person I replied to have never seen. As you mention, this is completely impractical except for the very few people who are willing to spend the enormous overhead for this sort of hosting.
Yeah most of these posts start with a straw man and try to work their way backwards from there.
What I think it really boils down to is that web3 represents a shift away from the centralized dystopian organizations that employ most of the people in this community.
What I think it really boils down to is that web3 represents a shift away from the centralized dystopian organizations that employ most of the people in this community.
Show me the Atari 2600 that people are happy to store billions of $ on.
> Show me the Atari 2600 that people are happy to store billions of $ on.
Uh, they just did.
Uh, they just did.
Good, someone finally put it into words.
It’s only crypto-bros who are trying to push “web3” as even a “thing”. Kind of like Zuckerberg and the metaverse. Their delusions of grandeur are so great as to warrant an increment in the web’s metaphorical major version number, but nobody else gives a shit.
It’s only crypto-bros who are trying to push “web3” as even a “thing”. Kind of like Zuckerberg and the metaverse. Their delusions of grandeur are so great as to warrant an increment in the web’s metaphorical major version number, but nobody else gives a shit.
It's like when years ago it was speculated that web 3.0 might be a semantic web or some IoT web. I guess both technologies have some strong niches now but what drives everything is still web 2.0 and native apps that wrap any extra features. But I'm sure the crypto-everything hype will still be there for some time.
I liked the IoT web as web 3.0
Web 1.0 - The internet of information
Web 2.0 - The internet of people
Web 3.0 - The internet of things
> It’s only crypto-bros who are trying to push “web3” as even a “thing”.
I keep saying that there are only two kinds of people peddling crypto: scammers, and gullible fools with tenuous grasp of reality.
I keep saying that there are only two kinds of people peddling crypto: scammers, and gullible fools with tenuous grasp of reality.
I think many people’s postive Web3 experience has been signing a transaction with Metamask as a proof of identity, at least that’s the most obvious magic I’ve seen, the notion that I can interact with a website without registering an account with email and 2FA etc etc feels futuristic and a good step toward whatever the metaverse is, allowing me to have a consistent identity across platforms.
But can’t this be accomplished with older crypto primatives? Is there any implementation of posting my ssh public key and being able to prove my identity by signing a transaction? I ask because I agree with the author, the work that a blockchain peforms is pitiful given the extraordibary cputime and bandwidth committed to the effort, and I appreciate their psychoanalysis that so many of us willing to follow a messiah if they promise to lead us out of the desert.
But can’t this be accomplished with older crypto primatives? Is there any implementation of posting my ssh public key and being able to prove my identity by signing a transaction? I ask because I agree with the author, the work that a blockchain peforms is pitiful given the extraordibary cputime and bandwidth committed to the effort, and I appreciate their psychoanalysis that so many of us willing to follow a messiah if they promise to lead us out of the desert.
You can do passwordless login already with WebAuthn. It's just a matter of sites integrating it. https://webauthn.guide/
WebAuthn isn't cryptographic. The root of your identity isn't a public key.
WebAuthn is based on public key cryptography. U2F signs website's challenge ("transaction") with your private key that sits in the key fob ("wallet"). SSH and TLS client certs work the same (I can take your public ssh key, and I'll know when you try to log in to my server, obviously).
You don't need a blockchain for identity. The unique feature that Blockchains provide is protection against double spending (without reliance on a single party), but that isn't a concept relevant to authentication.
Everything else in "crypto" is the old boring cryptography. All the zero-knowledge proofs, secret sharing, anonymity, proofs of identity are just general-purpose tools that blockchain systems happen to use.
"I've used a transaction to log in — we should use wallets for identity" is like "I've used my car radio to listen to music — we should replace ipods with cars!"
You don't need a blockchain for identity. The unique feature that Blockchains provide is protection against double spending (without reliance on a single party), but that isn't a concept relevant to authentication.
Everything else in "crypto" is the old boring cryptography. All the zero-knowledge proofs, secret sharing, anonymity, proofs of identity are just general-purpose tools that blockchain systems happen to use.
"I've used a transaction to log in — we should use wallets for identity" is like "I've used my car radio to listen to music — we should replace ipods with cars!"
The root of identity is still not a public key. To perform essential actions on such a website doesn't need your public key. You are only proving that you have access the private key correspondent to the public key stored in the database entry, and nothing else. Authz is still database records and not inherently trustless akin to cryptographic authentication.
Imagine I had a entirely PGP-based comment system, where the key used to sign comments serves as the identity rather than a database record. The software remaining the same, not even the owner of the database can change the text of the comment without also changing the key, which would immediately destroy the utility of such an action. Applications utilizing MetaMask are actually able to develop this kind of application where it's trustless end to end. Furthermore, comments could also be embedded as a transaction to a hash of the URL (or something akin to that), where anyone with an access to a ethereum node, public or private can access a global comments system.
>You don't need a blockchain for identity. The unique feature that Blockchains provide is protection against double spending (without reliance on a single party), but that isn't a concept relevant to authentication.
Blockchain doesn't solve the Authn problem, it only solves the Authz problem. I can hypothetically make my own game which has a DRM that can only be unlocked if your private key owns the access NFT. They are complementary.
Imagine I had a entirely PGP-based comment system, where the key used to sign comments serves as the identity rather than a database record. The software remaining the same, not even the owner of the database can change the text of the comment without also changing the key, which would immediately destroy the utility of such an action. Applications utilizing MetaMask are actually able to develop this kind of application where it's trustless end to end. Furthermore, comments could also be embedded as a transaction to a hash of the URL (or something akin to that), where anyone with an access to a ethereum node, public or private can access a global comments system.
>You don't need a blockchain for identity. The unique feature that Blockchains provide is protection against double spending (without reliance on a single party), but that isn't a concept relevant to authentication.
Blockchain doesn't solve the Authn problem, it only solves the Authz problem. I can hypothetically make my own game which has a DRM that can only be unlocked if your private key owns the access NFT. They are complementary.
> Furthermore, comments could also be embedded as a transaction to a hash of the URL (or something akin to that), where anyone with an access to a ethereum node, public or private can access a global comments system.
Why not just sign content with a private key? Buy a YubiKey for $50, generate a key, announce it to the world via an account you control, continue to host content on non-blockchain servers. Your content can be verified with the same public key and no one can forge it.
I guess I just don't see the benefit of blockchain-distributing your public key, and how that helps protect from forgery. What's to stop me from publishing a 2nd message impersonating you with a new key saying "oops I lost the first key"? Or, conversely, what if you needed to generate a new key with no way of signing it with the older key? Or much worse: what if you haven't posted your key yet and I publish a key for @somebody first? Whatever medium you then use to announce "this person isn't me" can also be used by an attacker to discredit the real public key, or by you to announce your public key.
Why not just sign content with a private key? Buy a YubiKey for $50, generate a key, announce it to the world via an account you control, continue to host content on non-blockchain servers. Your content can be verified with the same public key and no one can forge it.
I guess I just don't see the benefit of blockchain-distributing your public key, and how that helps protect from forgery. What's to stop me from publishing a 2nd message impersonating you with a new key saying "oops I lost the first key"? Or, conversely, what if you needed to generate a new key with no way of signing it with the older key? Or much worse: what if you haven't posted your key yet and I publish a key for @somebody first? Whatever medium you then use to announce "this person isn't me" can also be used by an attacker to discredit the real public key, or by you to announce your public key.
> But can’t this be accomplished with older crypto primatives?
What, like PGP? The only thing missing is integration with a common interchange... back in the day everybody on the net had a server and you could look up their PGP key. Of course, that was before https was common and it was all vulnerable to MITM (and PGP was deeply broken but the concept was there)
What, like PGP? The only thing missing is integration with a common interchange... back in the day everybody on the net had a server and you could look up their PGP key. Of course, that was before https was common and it was all vulnerable to MITM (and PGP was deeply broken but the concept was there)
The author has a huge conflict of interest whenever he writes about cryptocurrency, seeing as he's the founder of Adjoint, Inc, a company which digitizes cash and settlement processes for multinational corporates.
The site in question: http://www.adjoint.io/
this was originally brought up by robot_no_419 in this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27121532 all props go to him.
The site in question: http://www.adjoint.io/
this was originally brought up by robot_no_419 in this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27121532 all props go to him.
I don’t understand the use of “conflict of interest” here, the author is expressing an opinion, plainly explaining which “side” they are on, no other context required.
It’s not as if the author is trying to pass legislation or close a business deal without disclosing how they’ll benefit. Like my sibling says, that the author puts their money where their mouth is by placing bets against crypto only makes their opinion more credible.
It’s not as if the author is trying to pass legislation or close a business deal without disclosing how they’ll benefit. Like my sibling says, that the author puts their money where their mouth is by placing bets against crypto only makes their opinion more credible.
Wouldn't a media interview or someone debating Diehl be even more credible?
The public can make their minds up when presented with both sides of the argument rather than one side on Twitter.
The public can make their minds up when presented with both sides of the argument rather than one side on Twitter.
I dont know that convincing the public was the intention of the blog, the author seems resigned that they are preaching to their choir. Not everything has to be about winning people over, I enjoyed the piece as a rant that resonates with me, puts my vague impressions into prose.
This is an opinion piece. Write a rebuttal and post it.
What rebuttal? I agree with the post?
I just want the common man to see crypto for what it really is with a balanced debate or interview, not just a blog post that only 'nerds' reads as Diehl states.
> It’s almost only nerds who read my blog...
After all, it would be more credible coming from him than me.
I just want the common man to see crypto for what it really is with a balanced debate or interview, not just a blog post that only 'nerds' reads as Diehl states.
> It’s almost only nerds who read my blog...
After all, it would be more credible coming from him than me.
> I just want the common man to see crypto for what it really is with a balanced debate or interview, not just a blog post that only 'nerds' reads as Diehl states.
I've been following this space for a while and honestly I don't see how a counterpart would actually look like. We had blockchains/crypto for almost 13 years and the only thing that came out of it is a speculative semi-unregulated asset market. Still Forbes, NYT etc... always write articles like "Cryptocurrencies are volatile asset that is doomed to crash, but the underlying blockchain technology is here to say". Without offering any kind of proof for the second part of the statement.
Show me one blockchain application that has nothing to do with virtual assets that not only turns a profit but is provably more efficient than a database based solution.
Whenever I bring this up, the response is usually: "We're just at the beginning, this will take a while". For a space that is claiming the disruption of everything it's moving pretty slow.
I've been following this space for a while and honestly I don't see how a counterpart would actually look like. We had blockchains/crypto for almost 13 years and the only thing that came out of it is a speculative semi-unregulated asset market. Still Forbes, NYT etc... always write articles like "Cryptocurrencies are volatile asset that is doomed to crash, but the underlying blockchain technology is here to say". Without offering any kind of proof for the second part of the statement.
Show me one blockchain application that has nothing to do with virtual assets that not only turns a profit but is provably more efficient than a database based solution.
Whenever I bring this up, the response is usually: "We're just at the beginning, this will take a while". For a space that is claiming the disruption of everything it's moving pretty slow.
Considering BTC's network uptime has been about 99.9% for over a decade, I'd say the "here to stay" articles may have been relatively accurate? (I don't care much for BTC, though I do feel a narrow scope of its usage will probably persist in some fashion for many more years.)
> Show me one blockchain application that has nothing to do with virtual assets that not only turns a profit but is provably more efficient than a database based solution.
The only thing ledger specifies is virtual state and virtual assets (ie: tokens). A simple example of an application that is easier with a smart contract than traditional financial services and a plain old database is an escrow agent for handling a significant sum across hundreds or thousands of global participants (and thus potentially currencies). In practice; a smart contract application built on this may look like a time-constrained Kickstarter campaign, but using a trustless/ownerless escrow contract to accept and manage payments.
> Show me one blockchain application that has nothing to do with virtual assets that not only turns a profit but is provably more efficient than a database based solution.
The only thing ledger specifies is virtual state and virtual assets (ie: tokens). A simple example of an application that is easier with a smart contract than traditional financial services and a plain old database is an escrow agent for handling a significant sum across hundreds or thousands of global participants (and thus potentially currencies). In practice; a smart contract application built on this may look like a time-constrained Kickstarter campaign, but using a trustless/ownerless escrow contract to accept and manage payments.
A centralized database can handle the escrow too, and far more efficiently. The only reason decentralized crypto solutions have a head start is that people who work in crypto tend not to care about what is legal.
Yet there is a key difference in trust - that a centralized actor (say, Kickstarter) will not mutate their private database, will not go under, and will not fail to meet its promises in how the funds are managed.
There is also an ease of use (for developers building these applications), particularly in terms of finances: say, an escrow that holds $1M worth of value and may need to return those funds to 100K donors across the globe should the fundraiser not meet its goals before a set deadline.
There is also an ease of use (for developers building these applications), particularly in terms of finances: say, an escrow that holds $1M worth of value and may need to return those funds to 100K donors across the globe should the fundraiser not meet its goals before a set deadline.
Trust works because of legal frameworks. You have to have the same trust that Ethereum won't do another fork, and you have to trust that the smart contract isn't fraudulent. In exactly the same way, the law is what keeps the average person from being fleeced.
A central database has far better ease of use for developers than a distributed ledger.
A central database has far better ease of use for developers than a distributed ledger.
To some users and developers, the chain/contract is easier, less expensive, and simpler to trust and build upon than the equivalent legal and traditional financial structures on a global scale.
Even if that’s true the argument “web3 is better for some users and developers” is very far from “web3 will disrupt the internet as we know it”
That, like everything else in the space, breaks at the point where anything of non-virtual value needs to be returned to the buyers/investors/etc. That just happens to be impossible unless you allow for trusted people observing and certifying a part of reality. So they basically came up with a set of “crypto assets” to trade using the “crypto currencies”. Of course those are more or less the same concepts with different labels. Still, it feels so much more real to buy a virtual something with your virtual money than just exchanging it for other virtual money.
These contracts intentionally only deal with tokens and virtual data/assets. A “web3” Kickstarter alternative built on a common set of OSS and fee-less escrow contracts does not need to manage anything other than tokens - that is the currency being exchanged.
If you are concerned about price fluctuations in the cryptocurrency, you could set this contract to operate only on a stablecoin like DAI.
If you are concerned about price fluctuations in the cryptocurrency, you could set this contract to operate only on a stablecoin like DAI.
People are free to post opposing arguments wherever they want, including this thread. So far, they have come up with a few ad hominems, three invocations of “socialism” none of which come close to the concept, and complaints that their side isn’t being given a chance to respond.
This makes him more qualified in my eyes to write about crypto currency. He's bearish on it. I'd be a fool not to listen to all sides of the argument.
I think you mean: "Has relevant industry knowledge
if Web2 became a dystopic Zuckerbergia and Web3 is a disguised Cryptobrosia is there maybe a chance for a Web 2.5 that doesn't suck? Like something that isn't fake techno-solutionism on steroids?
What would be its building blocks? IFPS, Activitypub, XMPP, Matrix? but more importantly what would be the governance and incentives that would prevent it from rapidly degenerating as with all other versions
What would be its building blocks? IFPS, Activitypub, XMPP, Matrix? but more importantly what would be the governance and incentives that would prevent it from rapidly degenerating as with all other versions
The alternate path is one the free software community has been pushing towards for decades. The ability to voluntarily associate (and disassociate) from trusted communities, software and communities that works for users and not the other way around, and autonomy coupled with mutual aid/benefit.
Compare the focus of the GNU, Mastodon, Matrix, etc. projects to blockchain world and the fundamental difference is they're not trying to create a world in which we don't trust anyone except a the idea that human nature runs on greed and can be exploited by making us have to pay (spend tokens) for everything.
Compare the focus of the GNU, Mastodon, Matrix, etc. projects to blockchain world and the fundamental difference is they're not trying to create a world in which we don't trust anyone except a the idea that human nature runs on greed and can be exploited by making us have to pay (spend tokens) for everything.
> the fundamental difference is they're not trying to create a world in which we don't trust anyone
This. Massive effort and talent seems to be directed towards what is intuitively a dead end: trust is something between people, not something between devices. Any protocol no matter how ingeniously crafted will be subverted when it leaves the silicon layer and hits the human layer (unless you create the ultimate dystopia where people are collared and tracked on permanent basis or something equivalent)
Nevertheless, imho the human-centric vision of computing is misfiring, losing battle after battle (from self-sovereign computing, to social media, to mobile etc) and at some point it will lose the war. Maybe the silver lining of the cryptofunded "web3" marketing onslaught for "alternatives" is to give the real-deal one more window of opportunity...
This. Massive effort and talent seems to be directed towards what is intuitively a dead end: trust is something between people, not something between devices. Any protocol no matter how ingeniously crafted will be subverted when it leaves the silicon layer and hits the human layer (unless you create the ultimate dystopia where people are collared and tracked on permanent basis or something equivalent)
Nevertheless, imho the human-centric vision of computing is misfiring, losing battle after battle (from self-sovereign computing, to social media, to mobile etc) and at some point it will lose the war. Maybe the silver lining of the cryptofunded "web3" marketing onslaught for "alternatives" is to give the real-deal one more window of opportunity...
>making us have to pay (spend tokens) for everything.
If you have to pay, or someone else has to pay for something (in FOSS it is just done in a more distributed way), why use a massively corrupt and degenerate currency to do it?
If you have to pay, or someone else has to pay for something (in FOSS it is just done in a more distributed way), why use a massively corrupt and degenerate currency to do it?
>if Web2 became a dystopic Zuckerbergia and Web3 is a disguised Cryptobrosia is there maybe a chance for a Web 2.5 that doesn't suck?
Nobody is forcing people to use Facebook or any of Facebook's family of apps. I personally don't use FB or any of its apps for the last 10 years and I'm totally fine.
>What would be its building blocks? IFPS, Activitypub, XMPP, Matrix?
IP, TCP and HTTP are not going away anytime soon. Nobody really knows how would next stage of WWW look like therefore you can't even think about candidate protocols and standards.
Nobody is forcing people to use Facebook or any of Facebook's family of apps. I personally don't use FB or any of its apps for the last 10 years and I'm totally fine.
>What would be its building blocks? IFPS, Activitypub, XMPP, Matrix?
IP, TCP and HTTP are not going away anytime soon. Nobody really knows how would next stage of WWW look like therefore you can't even think about candidate protocols and standards.
> Nobody is forcing people to use Facebook or any of Facebook's family of apps. I personally don't use FB or any of its apps for the last 10 years and I'm totally fine.
Sorry, this so unbeliably the wrong attitude. Compare with food producers, car manufacturers etc building toxic, addictive, dangerous products and being allowed free access to the market on the basis that "nobody is forcing consumers to buy their products".
The vast majority of people cannot judge whether the use of a digital product is safeguarding their interests and welfare, both individually and as a society. Unless and until there is recognition of this fundamental fact we must acknowledge that one industry in particular has been excempted from oversight for reasons that are not doing the political class any favor.
Sorry, this so unbeliably the wrong attitude. Compare with food producers, car manufacturers etc building toxic, addictive, dangerous products and being allowed free access to the market on the basis that "nobody is forcing consumers to buy their products".
The vast majority of people cannot judge whether the use of a digital product is safeguarding their interests and welfare, both individually and as a society. Unless and until there is recognition of this fundamental fact we must acknowledge that one industry in particular has been excempted from oversight for reasons that are not doing the political class any favor.
Yea nobody is forcing consumers to buy any products, essentially you vote with your money or in Facebook's case with your time and attention.
> IP, TCP and HTTP are not going away anytime soon. Nobody really knows how would next stage of WWW look like therefore you can't even think about candidate protocols and standards.
IPFS is supposed to also be able to replace HTTP in the stack. Whether that'll succeed or not is a different discussion, but turns out people are thinking about candidate protocols and standards.
IPFS is supposed to also be able to replace HTTP in the stack. Whether that'll succeed or not is a different discussion, but turns out people are thinking about candidate protocols and standards.
>What would be its building blocks? IFPS, Activitypub, XMPP, Matrix? but more importantly what would be the governance and incentives that would prevent it from rapidly degenerating as with all other versions.
Everything you listed is Web3 in my opinion. I don't think the idea is to put everything on Ethereum. It's to provide niche but critical services like DNS, identity/auth, and some connecting governance logic to other federated/distributed systems.
Everything you listed is Web3 in my opinion. I don't think the idea is to put everything on Ethereum. It's to provide niche but critical services like DNS, identity/auth, and some connecting governance logic to other federated/distributed systems.
> What would be its building blocks? IFPS, Activitypub, XMPP, Matrix?
Wrong way of looking at it. What are people going to do differently and then what technology gets us there.
Wrong way of looking at it. What are people going to do differently and then what technology gets us there.
in principle, and in the long term, I agree that is the correct attitude. but in the short term the characteristics of the various tech building blocks shape what can be solved as "low hanging fruit" and that creates a dynamic of its own.
Make it slow and size constrained. People will only use it when it matters then.
> On a compute basis, blockchain networks don’t scale except by becoming the very same plutocratic and centralized systems they allegedly were designed to replace.
That sentence right there is when I stopped reading and realized the author doesn't understand the technology they are criticizing.
The word "plutocratic" is linked to the Wikipedia definition for Proof of Stake. PoS is not meant to increase scalability, its meant to increase efficiency and network decentralization and reduce the cost of running a validator. Switching to PoS on its own doesn't increase the ability of the network to handle more transactions or speed them up.
That sentence right there is when I stopped reading and realized the author doesn't understand the technology they are criticizing.
The word "plutocratic" is linked to the Wikipedia definition for Proof of Stake. PoS is not meant to increase scalability, its meant to increase efficiency and network decentralization and reduce the cost of running a validator. Switching to PoS on its own doesn't increase the ability of the network to handle more transactions or speed them up.
> the author doesn't understand the technology they are criticizing
I've been following Stephen Diehl and he seems to have a greater understanding than most, even if he is consistently bearish on the technology and I'm not always in agreement.
I don't see the issue you are having:
adjective: plutocratic relating to or characterized by government by the wealthy.
Proof of stake (PoS) protocols are a class of consensus mechanisms for blockchains that work by selecting validators in proportion to their quantity of holdings in the associated cryptocurrency.
I've been following Stephen Diehl and he seems to have a greater understanding than most, even if he is consistently bearish on the technology and I'm not always in agreement.
I don't see the issue you are having:
adjective: plutocratic relating to or characterized by government by the wealthy.
Proof of stake (PoS) protocols are a class of consensus mechanisms for blockchains that work by selecting validators in proportion to their quantity of holdings in the associated cryptocurrency.
>> On a compute basis, blockchain networks don’t scale except by becoming the very same plutocratic [...]
> The word "plutocratic" is linked to the Wikipedia definition for Proof of Stake.
> PoS is not meant to increase scalability
carlosdp isn't saying "because PoS isn't plutocratic, the claim 'can only scale by becoming plutocratic by using PoS' doesn't hold", Rather, carlosdp is saying that "because PoS isn't the thing being proposed for scaling, but is instead for different things, the claim 'can only scale by becoming plutocratic by using PoS' doesn't hold".
> The word "plutocratic" is linked to the Wikipedia definition for Proof of Stake.
> PoS is not meant to increase scalability
carlosdp isn't saying "because PoS isn't plutocratic, the claim 'can only scale by becoming plutocratic by using PoS' doesn't hold", Rather, carlosdp is saying that "because PoS isn't the thing being proposed for scaling, but is instead for different things, the claim 'can only scale by becoming plutocratic by using PoS' doesn't hold".
I don't see how increasing efficiency is seriously distinct from increasing scalability? It seems to me that efficiency is a solution to scalability.
scalability is about things like "how many transactions per second you can handle", efficiency (in this context) is more about e.g. "how much is the cost of electricity used (and other such costs), divided by how many transactions".
You cannot increase number of transactions by just increasing the amount of electricity; it doesn't work that way.
If an intervention reduces the amount of electricity used without changing the amount of transactions that can happen, that increases the efficiency, but this does not thereby increase scalability.
So, something which reduces electricity use and hardware use, but doesn't substantially influence the amount of transactions that can go through, improves efficiency, but doesn't improve scalability.
You cannot increase number of transactions by just increasing the amount of electricity; it doesn't work that way.
If an intervention reduces the amount of electricity used without changing the amount of transactions that can happen, that increases the efficiency, but this does not thereby increase scalability.
So, something which reduces electricity use and hardware use, but doesn't substantially influence the amount of transactions that can go through, improves efficiency, but doesn't improve scalability.
…how is efficiency different from scale? Right now Eth cannot accomodate the transactional demands of the world because it is extremely inefficient and costly (gas fees)
I don’t claim to be an eth or PoS expert, but is it not the case that the transition to PoS is to lower transaction fees and prepare the network for sharding? Maybe sharding for scale is a totally separate issue, but I don’t understand why they would prioritize PoS if it wasn’t necessary for the next step of becoming a “world computer”
I don’t want to come across as too flippant, I would like to understand the optimistic viewpoint.
I don’t claim to be an eth or PoS expert, but is it not the case that the transition to PoS is to lower transaction fees and prepare the network for sharding? Maybe sharding for scale is a totally separate issue, but I don’t understand why they would prioritize PoS if it wasn’t necessary for the next step of becoming a “world computer”
I don’t want to come across as too flippant, I would like to understand the optimistic viewpoint.
my understanding is that much of the motivation for PoS is to avoid the electricity usage, and in some but not other ways of measuring it possibly has some better security properties, not really increasing the throughput or gas fees?
PoS is more scalable because if you need faster validation all you do is add more parallel nodes. With PoW all the validators are competing against each other to be the fastest whereas with PoS there is no competition but consensus.
Eth2.0 is supposed to be much faster than Eth1.0 anyway, they say it'll be capable of doing thousands of transactions per second (as opposed to the ~15 it is doing right now). It's partly due to the switch to PoS.
This might also bring down costs, gas fees are high because when you have only 15 transactions that can go through every second and you have thousands, millions of transactions requested every minute... well, a lot of pressure is built and that pressure is reflected on the gas price. But if you were to have a system that is capable of doing thousands, even hundreds of thousands of TPS then you would have very quick transactions and very high availability which would bring fees down.
Really, the only people that don't want POS are miners, a node in Eth2.0 is meant to be run on any home set up. Even a laptop, the most important part is for it to never go down.
Eth2.0 is supposed to be much faster than Eth1.0 anyway, they say it'll be capable of doing thousands of transactions per second (as opposed to the ~15 it is doing right now). It's partly due to the switch to PoS.
This might also bring down costs, gas fees are high because when you have only 15 transactions that can go through every second and you have thousands, millions of transactions requested every minute... well, a lot of pressure is built and that pressure is reflected on the gas price. But if you were to have a system that is capable of doing thousands, even hundreds of thousands of TPS then you would have very quick transactions and very high availability which would bring fees down.
Really, the only people that don't want POS are miners, a node in Eth2.0 is meant to be run on any home set up. Even a laptop, the most important part is for it to never go down.
Ok, I may be wrong there?
By parallel validators, do you mean more validators for each block of the... beacon chain(?) or, do you mean like as validators on different shards?
As you can see I haven’t been keeping up with the details
By parallel validators, do you mean more validators for each block of the... beacon chain(?) or, do you mean like as validators on different shards?
As you can see I haven’t been keeping up with the details
The value provided by the crypto assets is financial. Decentralized exchanges, flash loans, and other real innovations are in service of money games. In the same way many financial firms participate in money games for profit (algorithmic trading, complex derivatives bets, etc.) a huge ecosystem is growing of games designed around blockchains. I don’t think these ideas of “one world currency”, “new internet”, or “my house on a blockchain” are relevant anymore. People are still attacking these ideas but the ecosystem isn’t going that way.
The author seems to have no knowledge of Eth 2 sharding, zero-knowledge proofs, or ZK rollups. Or even basic encryption.
“Who’s servers will have custody of your private family photos and who get’s to determine those access controls?” - I can send them to you using your public key. Or store then encrypted and selectively give out the decoding key. Or selectively choose one server to trust (or self host) with my unencrypted photos and let them handle it for me.
The author is still picturing web2
The author founded and ran a blockchain company for years, has done conference talks on modern cryptography you can find on youtube, and wrote an open source zero knowledge proof library.
Author needs to DIY research and see that web3 is more than just btc and eth. I remember first programming for Android 2.3 back in the day, and the bubble of the late 90s. Now everyone and their kid has a smart phone (yes I know 1/3 of the world apparently isn't digitally connected, but that rate and global literacy are rising higher than they've ever been in history).
I am no fan of conning people out of their money, and there is plenty of that. But when people talk shit about web3 they sound as ignorant as people do when they talked shit about the early internet. You think gas fees are high? I remember when 56k was fast, and now look where we are (5G). Especially when a person, who I'd presume is intelligent enough to code and write such a piece, should know better: if you want to pick a fight with web3, at least pick a real enemy and not contribute to the FUD that web3 already has enough of.
Author should have looked into Dfinity's ICP as it is blockchain technology implemented not as a financial fad or for trendy hype (or even to try and resolve settlement layer solutions), but as a technological basis empowering developers to utilize this new technology we have (blockchain) to build and connect the world with it.
*On an unrelated note, I also find it disappointment that while developers are smart people, they haven't yet figured out how to organize collectively. Ironic and tragic that the gains of the social and labor rights movements translated into the luxury of wealth, time and opportunity for a generation of kids to grow up and have the ability to disrupt entire economic industries, but still are either self centered (or don't know any better) to a make difference in raising precedent the rest of the world deals with. How many software developers do you know that have been encouraged, maybe even unknowingly, to burnout (literally abusing their developer's own creative and productive desire) by their employers? And to think our (coders) best example of social progress is just Jobs (think different) or Musk (here's a hint: unless you plan on leaving the rest of the Earth behind, maybe focus on also improving the possible trajectories the rest of the world can get on board with).
Anyways.
I am no fan of conning people out of their money, and there is plenty of that. But when people talk shit about web3 they sound as ignorant as people do when they talked shit about the early internet. You think gas fees are high? I remember when 56k was fast, and now look where we are (5G). Especially when a person, who I'd presume is intelligent enough to code and write such a piece, should know better: if you want to pick a fight with web3, at least pick a real enemy and not contribute to the FUD that web3 already has enough of.
Author should have looked into Dfinity's ICP as it is blockchain technology implemented not as a financial fad or for trendy hype (or even to try and resolve settlement layer solutions), but as a technological basis empowering developers to utilize this new technology we have (blockchain) to build and connect the world with it.
*On an unrelated note, I also find it disappointment that while developers are smart people, they haven't yet figured out how to organize collectively. Ironic and tragic that the gains of the social and labor rights movements translated into the luxury of wealth, time and opportunity for a generation of kids to grow up and have the ability to disrupt entire economic industries, but still are either self centered (or don't know any better) to a make difference in raising precedent the rest of the world deals with. How many software developers do you know that have been encouraged, maybe even unknowingly, to burnout (literally abusing their developer's own creative and productive desire) by their employers? And to think our (coders) best example of social progress is just Jobs (think different) or Musk (here's a hint: unless you plan on leaving the rest of the Earth behind, maybe focus on also improving the possible trajectories the rest of the world can get on board with).
Anyways.
[deleted]
Whatever your stance on Web3 is, major kudos for the Dune deep dive analytical allusion, and Tim O’Reilly’s masterful book on the novel (which contrasts it with Asimov’s Foundation).
[deleted]
I think Web3 will be all about AI not crypto. Cryptography is already in the veins of modern World Wide Web through the use of PKI.
No, that's 5th generation computing...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifth_generation_computer
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifth_generation_computer
I never heard of this project but it is really interesting. Something like proto AI.
[deleted]
[deleted]
I like how you claim Facebook deletes Nazi pages.
This reads like a poor DHH impression.
That's gonna age great
Honestly this community is just an echo chamber of bad takes when it comes to web3.
Kind of hard to recognize a problem when your salary is dependent on propagating it.
Kind of hard to recognize a problem when your salary is dependent on propagating it.
What are the best resources for learning about the current state of web3 projects? Most of what I encounter with respect to it seems like marketing copy, without good summaries of the pros and cons that come with the different technologies and their roadmap.
There's clearly a lot going on in the space. But for someone who's at best adjacent to it, it's hard to sort the wheat from the chaffe.
There's clearly a lot going on in the space. But for someone who's at best adjacent to it, it's hard to sort the wheat from the chaffe.
>What are the best resources for learning about the current state of web3 projects?
https://cryptoscamdb.org/scams
https://twitter.com/scams_alarms
https://cryptoscamdb.org/scams
https://twitter.com/scams_alarms
The article that @diveanon and @dannypovolotski are berating is a good learning resource.
Also, these two evergreen articles:
- "Ten years in, nobody has come up with a use for blockchain", https://hackernoon.com/ten-years-in-nobody-has-come-up-with-...
- And the sequel, "Blockchain is not only crappy technology but a bad vision for the future", https://medium.com/@kaistinchcombe/decentralized-and-trustle...
Any other "learning resource" about web3 are either thinly veiled scams, or can be solved with literally any other tech with none of the problems inherent in blockchains.
Also, these two evergreen articles:
- "Ten years in, nobody has come up with a use for blockchain", https://hackernoon.com/ten-years-in-nobody-has-come-up-with-...
- And the sequel, "Blockchain is not only crappy technology but a bad vision for the future", https://medium.com/@kaistinchcombe/decentralized-and-trustle...
Any other "learning resource" about web3 are either thinly veiled scams, or can be solved with literally any other tech with none of the problems inherent in blockchains.
The status blog has some good posts covering daos+communities/wallets/zkproofs/clients => https://our.status.im/
https://www.youtube.com/c/ETHGlobal has lots of recordings of talks from their hackathons, their playlists split into different topics
https://www.radicalxchange.org/# is full of interesting discussions, organises meetups, more big picture discussions of the stuff web3/crypto is playing with
I enjoyed this conversation with Stuart Brand (of Whole Earth Catalogue) from a few years ago, it lays the ground of what then became NFTs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLGZdLpHl1w
https://ethereum-magicians.org/ is a more technical forum to discuss eips
https://interdependence.fm/ is a good podcast from some musicians interviewing people in the space.
https://twitter.com/dhof Dom (creator of Vine) is constantly pushing novel toys on chain, i enjoy his playful approach to making stuff less serious.
really though its a "get involved to understand" scene/subculture. if you can ignore the noise of markets/speculation/capitalism its a fun crowd poking around. Theres all sorts from content/identity/scaling/money stuff/games. it feels like playing an mmorpg. at some point it'll hit its eternal september moment but its been really great the past few years.
https://www.youtube.com/c/ETHGlobal has lots of recordings of talks from their hackathons, their playlists split into different topics
https://www.radicalxchange.org/# is full of interesting discussions, organises meetups, more big picture discussions of the stuff web3/crypto is playing with
I enjoyed this conversation with Stuart Brand (of Whole Earth Catalogue) from a few years ago, it lays the ground of what then became NFTs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLGZdLpHl1w
https://ethereum-magicians.org/ is a more technical forum to discuss eips
https://interdependence.fm/ is a good podcast from some musicians interviewing people in the space.
https://twitter.com/dhof Dom (creator of Vine) is constantly pushing novel toys on chain, i enjoy his playful approach to making stuff less serious.
really though its a "get involved to understand" scene/subculture. if you can ignore the noise of markets/speculation/capitalism its a fun crowd poking around. Theres all sorts from content/identity/scaling/money stuff/games. it feels like playing an mmorpg. at some point it'll hit its eternal september moment but its been really great the past few years.
For a pretty great introduction on how to structure the FE of a web3 app I would take a look at PancakeSwaps GitHub, they have open sourced almost all of their code and it is pretty well written.
Many projects start as clones of that repo.
As far as use cases are concerned the best source of information has been and always will be the community itself.
All reputable projects produce white papers and they are usually more than happy to discuss questions and concerns in their community discords / telegram.
Many projects start as clones of that repo.
As far as use cases are concerned the best source of information has been and always will be the community itself.
All reputable projects produce white papers and they are usually more than happy to discuss questions and concerns in their community discords / telegram.
The term "Web3" may be bullshit: it wrongly implies that crypto/blockchains will replace current web structures like servers, websites, AWS media hosting, OAuth, etc.
But, the ideas of Web3 — building applications on top of distributed ledgers and programmable smart contracts — is rather novel, potentially paradigm-shifting, and has already exhibited some clear merits[1]. Most likely this will continue to grow as these systems become more efficient and scalable (see: Proof of Stake, zk-rollups, sharding, alt/side-chains).
[1] - https://mattdesl.substack.com/p/hicetnunc-and-the-merits-of-...
But, the ideas of Web3 — building applications on top of distributed ledgers and programmable smart contracts — is rather novel, potentially paradigm-shifting, and has already exhibited some clear merits[1]. Most likely this will continue to grow as these systems become more efficient and scalable (see: Proof of Stake, zk-rollups, sharding, alt/side-chains).
[1] - https://mattdesl.substack.com/p/hicetnunc-and-the-merits-of-...
I wish that people writing articles talking about how horrible web3 is tried something other than Ethereum lol. I'm fairly certain that if people's first web3 experience is something that actually works and doesn't cost hundreds of dollars for minor transactions they won't be as put off.
I get downvoted everytime here I bring it up but seriously if people tried something like Solana today compared to Ethereum I'm fairly certain they'd have a much better experience. Yeah, it's currently more centralized, but that really is minor compared to actually being able to use the ecosystem and explore what kinds of applications and products are possible on web3 without the unacceptably high costs and low tx throughputs that Ethereum as an L1 offers. It's no wonder that people are upset with web3 when their first experience is on ETH.
A fundamentally simple approach of using private keys (wallets) as identification for auth purposes is huge, and we're still really early imo as we explore the possibilities with Web3.
I get downvoted everytime here I bring it up but seriously if people tried something like Solana today compared to Ethereum I'm fairly certain they'd have a much better experience. Yeah, it's currently more centralized, but that really is minor compared to actually being able to use the ecosystem and explore what kinds of applications and products are possible on web3 without the unacceptably high costs and low tx throughputs that Ethereum as an L1 offers. It's no wonder that people are upset with web3 when their first experience is on ETH.
A fundamentally simple approach of using private keys (wallets) as identification for auth purposes is huge, and we're still really early imo as we explore the possibilities with Web3.
Genuine question: what has private key authentication to do with blockchain? I've been using this for my ssh connections for almost 15 years now.
And the second question: what happens if you use your private key? Every website that uses password has a mechanism to reset your password. Take that feature away you'll lock out millions of users.
And the second question: what happens if you use your private key? Every website that uses password has a mechanism to reset your password. Take that feature away you'll lock out millions of users.
Yeah PKI has been around of course for a long time and is a core facet to how the web functions today. The private key authentication I'm referring to is because wallet extensions allow for users to connect their wallet to applications, as a method of authentication. You don't even have to have funds in your wallet to perform this authentication, you just need a wallet.
If you lose your private key, you're probably out of luck, but there may be some wallets / platforms that have strategies to mitigate risk, but idk to be honest. So yes, for sensitive applications it is a risk vector, however for users that are already familiar with crypto, it's not really a new risk. If you ever lose your private key or it's compromised you can lose whatever money is in that wallet.
The thing that I like about the infra personally as a solo dev is that using this for authentication for small scale applications on whatever chain I chose is really easy to set up and is a great user experience, and I'm not worried about this as an app developer as my target audience already should be vaguely familiar with how this works.
If you lose your private key, you're probably out of luck, but there may be some wallets / platforms that have strategies to mitigate risk, but idk to be honest. So yes, for sensitive applications it is a risk vector, however for users that are already familiar with crypto, it's not really a new risk. If you ever lose your private key or it's compromised you can lose whatever money is in that wallet.
The thing that I like about the infra personally as a solo dev is that using this for authentication for small scale applications on whatever chain I chose is really easy to set up and is a great user experience, and I'm not worried about this as an app developer as my target audience already should be vaguely familiar with how this works.
A crypto wallet is just a random number. Literally.
Everyone using wallets for identity equals everyone just picking a random number to represent themselves (and then classic cryptography allows you to prove to others that you know this number without revealing it).
The hard part of this is not cryptography — that is already solved quite well. It's the human side. People forget pass phrases. Or disclose them to whoever calls them and says they're from Microsoft Pass Phrase Verification Authority. People break computers they haven't backed up. People click "Yes" on security prompts, and open random mail attachments. With private keys involved, these situations are irreversibly catastrophic.
Everyone using wallets for identity equals everyone just picking a random number to represent themselves (and then classic cryptography allows you to prove to others that you know this number without revealing it).
The hard part of this is not cryptography — that is already solved quite well. It's the human side. People forget pass phrases. Or disclose them to whoever calls them and says they're from Microsoft Pass Phrase Verification Authority. People break computers they haven't backed up. People click "Yes" on security prompts, and open random mail attachments. With private keys involved, these situations are irreversibly catastrophic.
> You don't even have to have funds in your wallet to perform this authentication, you just need a wallet.
OK. This was literally 100% possible and functioned in 100% the same way a decade ago. A wallet address is just a public key for which you control the private key. Literally nothing about this requires blockchains. When you sign up for a service you say "here is my public key" and then you sign a message providing that you have the private key for that public key to authenticate in the future. Where is the blockchain?
OK. This was literally 100% possible and functioned in 100% the same way a decade ago. A wallet address is just a public key for which you control the private key. Literally nothing about this requires blockchains. When you sign up for a service you say "here is my public key" and then you sign a message providing that you have the private key for that public key to authenticate in the future. Where is the blockchain?
It's just really easy to use and easier authentication than any scheme I've worked with before. If you want to try it out yourself, it's easy and only takes a few minutes to try out, I recommend it if you're really curious. Just download metamask and connect your wallet to opensea or some other nft marketplace. Once you connect that's registering for the site and you can play around with the functionality on the site afterwards.
The blockchain is involved for you to be able to make transactions and execute smart contracts, which take your wallet public key and signed message as inputs. So yeah you could use a traditional web app and the only thing you are using is this wallet for authentication purposes if you want, but most apps using this approach are going to natively interact with the blockchain, whether it's a financial app, gaming app, whatever. They're going to be inseparably part of the experience.
The blockchain is involved for you to be able to make transactions and execute smart contracts, which take your wallet public key and signed message as inputs. So yeah you could use a traditional web app and the only thing you are using is this wallet for authentication purposes if you want, but most apps using this approach are going to natively interact with the blockchain, whether it's a financial app, gaming app, whatever. They're going to be inseparably part of the experience.
> It's just really easy to use and easier authentication than any scheme I've worked with before.
But this is literally the same as just "connecting my pgp public key" to some authentication service that manages this. This is no more convenient than the stuff that happens the first time I ssh into a service.
And surprise, passwords crushed this and virtually nobody uses this for consumer applications.
> but most apps using this approach are going to natively interact with the blockchain, whether it's a financial app, gaming app, whatever.
Now the story is very different. You led with "a good use of web3 technologies is auth." Now you say "yeah, auth isn't any better but you might as well do it this way given that your web3 service is using ETH for whatever other hypothetical thing."
But this is literally the same as just "connecting my pgp public key" to some authentication service that manages this. This is no more convenient than the stuff that happens the first time I ssh into a service.
And surprise, passwords crushed this and virtually nobody uses this for consumer applications.
> but most apps using this approach are going to natively interact with the blockchain, whether it's a financial app, gaming app, whatever.
Now the story is very different. You led with "a good use of web3 technologies is auth." Now you say "yeah, auth isn't any better but you might as well do it this way given that your web3 service is using ETH for whatever other hypothetical thing."
Has any crypto argument ever not depended on circular reasoning?
There are some that are direct. Cryptocurrencies do provide novel features for users. Whether those features are desirable or beneficial enough to justify the huge price of these tokens (and further growth) is something people disagree on. I also think that ETH does provide novel capabilities with distributed computation. But again, the cost is enormous. This makes it hard for many people to buy the idea that the whole web will transition to this model.
For auth though, I agree with you. The only thing new here is that a lot of people have public/private key pairs that never had them before. Maybe this means that adoption is easier but I'm skeptical that this is a meaningful difference over existing signature-based authentication systems.
For auth though, I agree with you. The only thing new here is that a lot of people have public/private key pairs that never had them before. Maybe this means that adoption is easier but I'm skeptical that this is a meaningful difference over existing signature-based authentication systems.
Fair enough, I did use a circular argument example unintentionally, my bad. But yeah, I agree with you - I wouldn't use wallets for auth really unless I'm making a web3 app. You *can* use this authentication scheme for other sites if you wanted, but you're right in the fact that the question is "Why?" Your target audience isn't going to have a wallet, why use it for authentication? Unless we reach the point where more browsers have native wallets built in, but even then, I'm not sure I'd want to do it for a traditional web app. Even though I find it cool personally that I can auth in this manner, if the target audience for the service has no idea how to use it, then it's not a good idea.
And I just wanted to say that I personally don't think the whole web will transition to this model, despite me working in the field. The current web isn't really going anywhere, I don't really have pipedreams of everything under the sun getting decentralized, but what I see is the potential for creators to make something cool and it's a neat emerging field to explore as a developer.
And one more time, just because I mentioned it in the first post, ETH is ridiculously expensive right now, but there are alternatives. It's awful for anything other than pretty minor distributed computing currently. There are some really neat projects out there that may be able to get around this by using off-chain distributed computing on ETH, there is a product that I've been meaning to test out as a dev but haven't had the chance yet as I've been focusing in learning the Solana ecosystem for the past few months instead of Ethereum. But it's an emerging space and I think we'll continue to see a lot of innovations over the years; even in the past 2 years we've seen a huge influx of innovative projects.
> Now you say "yeah, auth isn't any better but you might as well do it this way given that your web3 service is using ETH for whatever other hypothetical thing."
Edit - And I did want to reply to this actually. The value I find in this as an authentication method is it does make it incredibly easy as a developer to integrate. I've worked with SSO before that's also super easy as well, however that relies on centralization of trust in an entity such as Google. Even if it is just minor, I do like the idea of being able to provide authentication that:
1. I don't need to store passwords or handle them whatsoever
2. I don't need to rely on an external arbiter of truth such as google / facebook
I have used webauthn a bit, not as a dev, but as an end user and it's really awesome. I would imagine it's not terribly difficult to integrate and would satisfy both of those above desires for my own projects. But yes, in crypto world, might as well use the keypairs everyone already has.
And I just wanted to say that I personally don't think the whole web will transition to this model, despite me working in the field. The current web isn't really going anywhere, I don't really have pipedreams of everything under the sun getting decentralized, but what I see is the potential for creators to make something cool and it's a neat emerging field to explore as a developer.
And one more time, just because I mentioned it in the first post, ETH is ridiculously expensive right now, but there are alternatives. It's awful for anything other than pretty minor distributed computing currently. There are some really neat projects out there that may be able to get around this by using off-chain distributed computing on ETH, there is a product that I've been meaning to test out as a dev but haven't had the chance yet as I've been focusing in learning the Solana ecosystem for the past few months instead of Ethereum. But it's an emerging space and I think we'll continue to see a lot of innovations over the years; even in the past 2 years we've seen a huge influx of innovative projects.
> Now you say "yeah, auth isn't any better but you might as well do it this way given that your web3 service is using ETH for whatever other hypothetical thing."
Edit - And I did want to reply to this actually. The value I find in this as an authentication method is it does make it incredibly easy as a developer to integrate. I've worked with SSO before that's also super easy as well, however that relies on centralization of trust in an entity such as Google. Even if it is just minor, I do like the idea of being able to provide authentication that:
1. I don't need to store passwords or handle them whatsoever
2. I don't need to rely on an external arbiter of truth such as google / facebook
I have used webauthn a bit, not as a dev, but as an end user and it's really awesome. I would imagine it's not terribly difficult to integrate and would satisfy both of those above desires for my own projects. But yes, in crypto world, might as well use the keypairs everyone already has.
It's not really minor to worry about funds being inaccessible for who knows how long when Solana is down.
I'd rather go with Polygon or Arbitrum for now since it's fast, and wait until zkEVM like zkSync is out. Same with StarkNet. The quick and cheap transactions of Solana with Ethereum's decentralization is what I'm looking for, and that'll only be possible with zk rollups.
I'd rather go with Polygon or Arbitrum for now since it's fast, and wait until zkEVM like zkSync is out. Same with StarkNet. The quick and cheap transactions of Solana with Ethereum's decentralization is what I'm looking for, and that'll only be possible with zk rollups.
> I'd rather go with Polygon or Arbitrum for now since it's fast, and wait until zkEVM like zkSync is out.
I don't think the local supermarket would be pleased to hear that if they were going to adopt Ethereum for shoppers to pay for their groceries, they would need to approve + switch to layers like Polygon, Arbitrum just to reduce the already high fees on ETH. Even if they did, it's still very expensive and not very fast either.
Perhaps some will tell them to use contraptions like zkSync, StarkNet etc, which are experimental and not ready to be used by 'everyone'. Therefore is not a mature solution to use right now.
Looking at which cryptocurrency is suitable today for lots of users to make fast, cheap and efficient payments for their groceries in the supermarket, it is clearly not Ethereum. There are better alternatives out there that are more useable and best suited for this; even Solana qualifies for this.
After all, everyone needs to eat.
I don't think the local supermarket would be pleased to hear that if they were going to adopt Ethereum for shoppers to pay for their groceries, they would need to approve + switch to layers like Polygon, Arbitrum just to reduce the already high fees on ETH. Even if they did, it's still very expensive and not very fast either.
Perhaps some will tell them to use contraptions like zkSync, StarkNet etc, which are experimental and not ready to be used by 'everyone'. Therefore is not a mature solution to use right now.
Looking at which cryptocurrency is suitable today for lots of users to make fast, cheap and efficient payments for their groceries in the supermarket, it is clearly not Ethereum. There are better alternatives out there that are more useable and best suited for this; even Solana qualifies for this.
After all, everyone needs to eat.
This summarizes my viewpoint on ETH quite well. I think it's a really technologically sick platform that has a lot of potential, and I do believe in the future when these scalability solutions are in place and have mass adoption, then the ecosystem really can be excellent. However, today, it's not there, and I cannot recommend using base ETH for anything other than if you are a large corporation or generally wealthy and want to capitalize on the large amount of liquidity in the ecosystem compared to others.
ETH, as a base layer, is financially impractical. The native L2 solution in Arbitrum is also too expensive, I believe it's like a quarter of the cost? That is still absolutely unacceptable. Also I don't have any faith in advertised timelines or scalability solutions until they are in place, I saw slides and discussions around sharding, layering, and off-chain computation solutions like Truebit back in 2017. Fast forward to today and the system is still unusably inefficient, so yeah, I'll believe it when I see it.
I'm fairly certain that the majority of holders in ETH are treating it purely as a stock that only goes up, never moves their ETH off of the exchange (or even better it's not able to move off as it's a closed system like Robinhood), and actually are not using the ecosystem. If they were, then the average person would quickly realize how absurd it is to burn through their ETH for simple transactions.
I truly hope that the scalability solutions in development now pan out, because it will never succeed long term imo if they cannot solve this. If the scalability solution ETH proposes is simply use different chains, I'll do that, and they won't be in your ecosystem.
ETH, as a base layer, is financially impractical. The native L2 solution in Arbitrum is also too expensive, I believe it's like a quarter of the cost? That is still absolutely unacceptable. Also I don't have any faith in advertised timelines or scalability solutions until they are in place, I saw slides and discussions around sharding, layering, and off-chain computation solutions like Truebit back in 2017. Fast forward to today and the system is still unusably inefficient, so yeah, I'll believe it when I see it.
I'm fairly certain that the majority of holders in ETH are treating it purely as a stock that only goes up, never moves their ETH off of the exchange (or even better it's not able to move off as it's a closed system like Robinhood), and actually are not using the ecosystem. If they were, then the average person would quickly realize how absurd it is to burn through their ETH for simple transactions.
I truly hope that the scalability solutions in development now pan out, because it will never succeed long term imo if they cannot solve this. If the scalability solution ETH proposes is simply use different chains, I'll do that, and they won't be in your ecosystem.
Polygon's a pretty good chain, but I have had issues with it before with essentially a traffic jam where my tx got locked up in a queue and took 30 minutes to process. But it's nice to be able to use the chain and it is quite cheap.
Arbitrum is pretty expensive per tx still though right? I haven't used the chain too much because the native bridge takes about a week to get funds over IIRC.
And Solana's only been down for a day like once I believe.
Arbitrum is pretty expensive per tx still though right? I haven't used the chain too much because the native bridge takes about a week to get funds over IIRC.
And Solana's only been down for a day like once I believe.
[deleted]
Polygon has become my go to chain over the last 6 months.
Even during yesterday’s crash I was able to execute trades at reasonable gas prices (<$1).
I’ve developed a couple of dapps that run on polygon, and while the docs could use some love the overall experience was pretty frictionless.
Crypto.com now supports deposit/withdraw directly to polygon making it possible to skip ETH altogether.
For bridging I recommend Relay if you are setting up on a new chain for the first time, then xpollinate for later transfers of just stables. Fees are super low to go from L2 to L2 these days.
Rabby is a really nice web wallet the replaces metamask and supports all the L2 chains by default, built by the guys at debank.
Even during yesterday’s crash I was able to execute trades at reasonable gas prices (<$1).
I’ve developed a couple of dapps that run on polygon, and while the docs could use some love the overall experience was pretty frictionless.
Crypto.com now supports deposit/withdraw directly to polygon making it possible to skip ETH altogether.
For bridging I recommend Relay if you are setting up on a new chain for the first time, then xpollinate for later transfers of just stables. Fees are super low to go from L2 to L2 these days.
Rabby is a really nice web wallet the replaces metamask and supports all the L2 chains by default, built by the guys at debank.
Yeah polygon does seem like a nice chain to develop for, I'm assuming the same frontend packages like ethers.js / web3 work seamlessly since it's EVM? The thing I like about working in the Ethereum ecosystem is it is more mature as a whole despite the scalability issues, and there are some very cool projects out there.
If you are looking for other bridges too I recommend checking out Synapse, they let you bridge between a good number of EVM chains and I haven't had any issues with them at all.
If you are looking for other bridges too I recommend checking out Synapse, they let you bridge between a good number of EVM chains and I haven't had any issues with them at all.
One of the best, most concise things I've read in a while. People are trying to move from a world in which compute resources are efficient and almost limitless to a world of scarcity because they want to build an economic system where you can trade your fortnite skins for online currency. Creating economic ownership schemes of things that nobody needs to own because they're not scarce in the first place.