Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP.

satoshis_sockpuppet

Active Member
Feb 22, 2016
776
3,312
https://www.reddit.com/r/ethereum/comments/4oj7ql/personal_statement_regarding_the_fork/

This confirms two reservations I had towards Ethereum,
1. Buterin is a leader with too much influence, Ethereum is centrally planned and controlled over all.
2. Ethereum is suspiciously acting like central banks. They now are on the way to bail out a single institution which they apparently think is "too big to fail".

And, does PoS still look great if a huge part of Ethereum is controlled by a criminal?

Furthermore, I don't want to sound to derogatory, but this also confirms my assessment of a lot of Ethereum fanboys. They don't really know what they are rallying behind, they just swallow buzzwords and repeat them. Perfect breading ground for a huge fuck up like the DAO.
[doublepost=1466177588][/doublepost]lol and that's just nice:

 

Norway

Well-Known Member
Sep 29, 2015
2,424
6,410
Given the oracle problem (essentially that all useful programs use data and there's no way to inject data into the blockchain in a trustless fashion), I always thought that these contracts should be executed by a layer above the blockchain.
I still think this is the important question. No point of having a secure blockchain if the link to the real world (the oracle) is weak.
My theory is that most use cases presented by the "blockchain everything" crowd is actually about creative uses of cryptographic signatures and good old computers. (Like the diamond certificate "blockchain".)
 

cypherdoc

Well-Known Member
Aug 26, 2015
5,257
12,994
So, according to central planner Vitalik, exchanges are only allowed to make money (in tx fees) on the buy, but not the sell (attacker dumping eth for BTC)? So much for fungibility.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ethereum/comments/4oj7ql/personal_statement_regarding_the_fork/

This confirms two reservations I had towards Ethereum,
1. Buterin is a leader with too much influence, Ethereum is centrally planned and controlled over all.
2. Ethereum is suspiciously acting like central banks. They now are on the way to bail out a single institution which they apparently think is "too big to fail".

And, does PoS still look great if a huge part of Ethereum is controlled by a criminal?

Furthermore, I don't want to sound to derogatory, but this also confirms my assessment of a lot of Ethereum fanboys. They don't really know what they are rallying behind, they just swallow buzzwords and repeat them. Perfect breading ground for a huge fuck up like the DAO.
[doublepost=1466177588][/doublepost]lol and that's just nice:

 

cliff

Active Member
Dec 15, 2015
345
854
https://www.reddit.com/r/ethereum/comments/4oj7ql/personal_statement_regarding_the_fork/

This confirms two reservations I had towards Ethereum,
1. Buterin is a leader with too much influence, Ethereum is centrally planned and controlled over all.
2. Ethereum is suspiciously acting like central banks. They now are on the way to bail out a single institution which they apparently think is "too big to fail".

And, does PoS still look great if a huge part of Ethereum is controlled by a criminal?

Furthermore, I don't want to sound to derogatory, but this also confirms my assessment of a lot of Ethereum fanboys. They don't really know what they are rallying behind, they just swallow buzzwords and repeat them. Perfect breading ground for a huge fuck up like the DAO.
[doublepost=1466177588][/doublepost]lol and that's just nice:

Had anyone heard of any of theDao and slock.it guys before ethereum or DAO came about? I had not and I've been around a while under various names. To me, the whole DAO thing seemed very GAW and Moolah-ish: all PR, graphics, hype. etc. Its scary how effective the PR is; I suppose said effectiveness is one reason why the US is currently in the midst of very wacky presidential election cycle.
 

VeritasSapere

Active Member
Nov 16, 2015
511
1,266
https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/ethereum-to-hardfork-dao-to-be-dismantled/

Wow, it looks like the development teams have made a decisive decision.

This is amazing, at first I thought it would not be good if they hard forked and did a roll back since that would be to much of an overreach of power and breach of social contract. However achieving this without the roll back and invalidating the DAO while returning peoples ether seems like a good solution, I am still not sure myself. Though the decision is being made by the miners, represented by the pools. At a later stage this type of decision would be made by the stakeholders, at a larger scale these type of changes would not be so easy to pull off.
 
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VeritasSapere

Active Member
Nov 16, 2015
511
1,266
Yet ether was premined and handed out in an arbitrary manner.
Distribution of Ether was not arbitrary, a crowdfund where the funds go to the foundation and users get the ether, while the foundation also gets a percentage of the ether is not the same a an arbitrary premine.
Furthermore, what is the security mechanism, PoW or PoS? Is there a blockchain?
It is PoW then PoS, this type of hybrid PoW-PoS is actually fairly common in the altcoin world, the mining initially allows for a more fair distribution while the move to PoS allows for a cryptocurrency without mining where stakeholders have direct voting power and full nodes are incentivized. There is a blockchain, with a 15 second blocktime to boot.

@cypherdoc You say that most people will lose money in cryptocurrency, and that we should not allow our ideology and emotions to cloud our financial investments. Would it not make sense for you to invest a small percentage in Bitcoins competitors, even if it is just one percent. From a strategic point of view this does make sense right?

Acknowledging that we can know for certain what the outcome of any of these experiments will be, including Bitcoin.
 
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VeritasSapere

Active Member
Nov 16, 2015
511
1,266
Yet if they don't fork the money back, an attacker will hold a huge amount of mining power - forever once they switch to pos... Ethereum is fucked either way.
That is not the case, if 50 million worth of Ethereum was stolen it still represents a small minority of the total Ethereum especially once the switch to PoS happens. It is not a significant enough amount in terms that it could sway the governance mechanism. Anyway you would think the thief would be incentivized to do what is in the best interest of his holdings. ;)
[doublepost=1466182057][/doublepost]I never invested in the DAO myself because it I did not really believe in the fundamentals of the project. There are already several DAO's that have already been build with much better rules in place, like Dash and Bitshares for example. I see this is a failure of slock.it and the DAO, but not Ethereum itself necessarily. This reaction is fascinating and I am still contemplating its significance.
 

Peter Tschipper

Active Member
Jan 8, 2016
254
357
https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/ethereum-to-hardfork-dao-to-be-dismantled/

Wow, it looks like the development teams have made a decisive decision.

This is amazing, at first I thought it would not be good if they hard forked and did a roll back since that would be to much of an overreach of power and breach of social contract. However achieving this without the roll back and invalidating the DAO while returning peoples ether seems like a good solution, I am still not sure myself. Though the decision is being made by the miners, represented by the pools. At a later stage this type of decision would be made by the stakeholders, at a larger scale these type of changes would not be so easy to pull off.
I think its a very bad precedent, to roll back the chain because of a theft. Isn't it like rolling back bitcoin's chain because of mtgox? That said, i really don't like etherium anyway for several other reasons so maybe i'm a little biased, but it all smells too much like central planning to me.
 

VeritasSapere

Active Member
Nov 16, 2015
511
1,266
@Peter Tschipper I would agree that rolling back the chain would be terrible, but that is not what they are doing, they are invalidating the DAO returning everyone's Ether without rolling back the chain.

It is a unique solution that is only possible because of the peculiarities of these smart contracts. Importantly they are only going to make this change with "consensus" from the wider community and the miners.
 

freetrader

Moderator
Staff member
Dec 16, 2015
2,806
6,088
@Peter Tschipper :

Their announcement explicitly says "with NO ROLLBACK".

They're making a soft-fork to lock up the stolen funds, then later plan to hard-fork to return the specifics funds to their owners. Not quite a rollback if you ask me. But still a controversial intervention of course.
It will be instructive to see whether the majority get behind this.
 

satoshis_sockpuppet

Active Member
Feb 22, 2016
776
3,312
If Bitcoin forked to Classic we would see Bitcoin at >=95% market share again.
This is the best setup, use Ethereums weakness and become the only important blockchain again.
Forget about the Turing crap and write smart contracts for the Bitcoin blockchain if you want.
Everything can be done with Bitcoin.
[doublepost=1466183157][/doublepost]@freetrader : That's nitpicking imho. It has the same effect.

I overcame the temptation to buy Ethereum as a hedge against Bitcoin core and now I'm 100% sure I won't touch it with a 10 foot pole ever. It's completely dead.
 

cliff

Active Member
Dec 15, 2015
345
854
http://hackingdistributed.com/2016/06/17/thoughts-on-the-dao-hack/

"
You might think that, faced with an attacker on The DAO, you could just take your funds and be safe. But this is not the case here.

The DAO devs decided to make it difficult to take funds out of The DAO. So they did not give people the option to "just take funds out." Instead, a DAO investor gets to create a new "child DAO" and move her funds into the child and keep them there for 27 days -- there is no direct withdrawal."

^ red flag?
 

cypherdoc

Well-Known Member
Aug 26, 2015
5,257
12,994
Lots of interesting comments here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11923240
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11921900
[doublepost=1466184183,1466183504][/doublepost][I]@cypherdoc[/I] You say that most people will lose money in cryptocurrency, and that we should not allow our ideology and emotions to cloud our financial investments. Would it not make sense for you to invest a small percentage in Bitcoins competitors, even if it is just one percent. From a strategic point of view this does make sense right?

@VeritasSapere

You're assuming I'm making am emotional and ideological choice not to diversify. ;) I don't think I am having been in this game for so many years. For all the reasons I've mentioned above as to why i don't like eth. The lowest risk for me is to stay where I am in Bitcoin.
 

Mengerian

Moderator
Staff member
Aug 29, 2015
536
2,597
Furthermore, I don't want to sound to derogatory, but this also confirms my assessment of a lot of Ethereum fanboys. They don't really know what they are rallying behind, they just swallow buzzwords and repeat them. Perfect breading ground for a huge fuck up like the DAO.
I often imagine the market as a sort of breeder, selecting certain qualities in the investors. Mr. Bitcoin has subjected his holders to many tests to weed out the careless, the overly credulous, the impatient, and the easily discouraged. As a result, Bitcoin's army of holders has grown strong and resilient.

Etherium, from its inception, has selected for people who are attracted to technical wizardry, and who are looking for the Next Big Thing. So did Bitcoin, at first, but it has tempered its holders through many harsh lessons.

I don't know whether bailing out victims of scams is morally justified or not. But one inevitable effect is that it leaves money in the hands of people who fall victim to scams, and probably more likely to fall victim to future scams (or other risks) too.

Dog breeders, in a few thousand years, turned wolves into Shih Tzus. And while Shih Tzus might be nice and they might thrive in a domesticated environment, they probably won't fare too well if they have to go out into the wild and compete with wolves.
 

albin

Active Member
Nov 8, 2015
931
4,008
Here's a trigger-warning for anyone allergic to shameless stoner-type talk:

I kind of think that ethereum is way too ambitious right now, and the real emphasis should be on simpler more application-specific layer 2 stuff.

When the singularity happens, have the AI work on ethereum.

It's actually probably not that outlandish to think that the timeline for adoption/technical maturity of something as ambitious as ethereum is similar to that of strong exponentially self-improving AI.