this post was submitted on 20 Aug 2023
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[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Blockchain is stupid and cryptocurrency is a scam.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Blockchain and cryptocurrencies are pretty cool from just a technology perspective. At university I studied a lot of math and cryptography and that happened to be at the same time that Bitcoin became a thing. It could have some real applications, but scammers and cryptobros ruined it for everyone and now I can't even say I find crypto (meaning cryptography) cool without seeming like an asshat.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Blockchain is an unchangeable (unless you own the only authority as we've seen, or you fork it) database that can only grow. It HAS to have multiple, identical instances or the owner can corrupt it. I'm not sure I see any benefit here except for potential security. But we've seen blockchains get into the terrabytes pretty quickly which isn't that feasible for large-scale operations.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This is why Ethereum is moving to statelessness. Where only a rolling state is saved but the diffs are broadcast and accessible for a certain period of time before they are dropped. So any system listening to an Ethereum node can just follow the root and listen for just changes they care about.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

How do you ensure you are holding an accurate copy of the blockchain in that case? A single holder of a blockchain means the entire thing is insecure and the holder can change or steal whatever they want.

If a new player wants to host a copy of the etherum blockchain, how do they do that when it's stateless?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

It will still have some state, things like merkle roots will still be verifiable, and any derived/state that isn't kept from the main chain will have some form of proof that links it to the main chain.

Most actual transactions/normal user stuff is moving to layer 2 chains, which commit a hash or proof of their state to the main chain. So they will still carry their state, but rely on the security of Ethereum main net.

There will still be archive nodes that store everything that's ever happened, but being a full archive node won't be required to run a normal node as a validator or as a user. This allows the network to be more decentralized without every node needing 2-4TB of fast nvme to even do anything.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

You're right about that for sure. But a few TB isn't that big a deal anymore, and if there was a need to deal with it we could come up with something.. or just not use it at all. 😎

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Well, I guess I just used a „scam“ to pay for my VPN subscription. Later today, I will use another „scam“ to pay for my email service. Tomorrow I will use a „scam“ to pay for a VPS. Some day, I might use a „scam“ to rent a seedbox. So unfortunate that your so called „scam“ is actually usable to make payments online. In fact, those „scam“ payments are in some cases better, then‚ using a absolutely trustworthy credit card issued by a definitely trusted a reliable bank. Because banks never collapse and they never scam their customers. Such trustworthy multi-billion dollar corporations, I really don’t see a reason to distrust them. Depending on which “scam” you use, your payments are actually anonymous, just like cash. But the government and your bank don’t want you to use cash, because that way, they can’t track all of your transactions. They hand you a credit card, and they advertise it to you, and you actually start thinking that it is supposed to help you, while in reality it makes you a slave to the corporate and government-lead surveillance system. Fuck credit cards, fuck banks and payment providers, fuck central banks and governments. Use Monero and stay anonymous.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

What's the transaction or gas fee just to pay your bills?