So what's the deal with smart contracts? - page 2.

Come-from-Beyond

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Quote from: Nxtblg on May 12, 2016, 01:37:15 PM

Quote from: Come-from-Beyond on May 12, 2016, 08:00:07 AM

Quote from: r0ach on May 12, 2016, 07:58:06 AM

Please, no China conspiracy theories.

China is completely irrelevant here.

Are you saying that any transaction with (say) Bitcoin that's not a cryptographically-sound circle jerk requires at least one outside trust-based input?

FWIW, I saw on a very old thread that the first iteration of Mt. Gox (when Jeb McCaleb owned it) accepted deposits from PayPal.

I'm saying that Bitcoin operates out of a Nash equilibrium. This shows that words of r0ach ("There is no Nash equilibrium in such a system, thus it has zero value.") is a nonsense. Or Bitcoin has zero value.

PS: Btw,

Quote

The contribution of Nash in his 1951 article Non-Cooperative Games was to define a mixed-strategy Nash equilibrium for any game with a finite set of actions and prove that at least one (mixed-strategy) Nash equilibrium must exist in such a game.

This kinda shows that r0ach didn't put much thinking into that phrase. Probably it's indication that he doesn't understand what he is talking about. I'm not surprised, though.

Nxtblg

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Quote from: Come-from-Beyond on May 12, 2016, 08:00:07 AM

Quote from: r0ach on May 12, 2016, 07:58:06 AM

Please, no China conspiracy theories.

China is completely irrelevant here.

Are you saying that any transaction with (say) Bitcoin that's not a cryptographically-sound circle jerk requires at least one outside trust-based input?

FWIW, I saw on a very old thread that the first iteration of Mt. Gox (when Jeb McCaleb owned it) accepted deposits from PayPal.

Come-from-Beyond

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Quote from: JollyTrades on May 12, 2016, 08:35:49 AM

Come-from-Beyond,

Are you the CfB that I know from Nxtforum?

I posted on Nxtforum under the same name for a while.

JollyTrades

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Quote from: r0ach on May 12, 2016, 07:26:28 AM

Quote from: JollyTrades on May 12, 2016, 06:07:30 AM

Maybe the task is not to improve bitcoin, but to build something different based on the same technology on which bitcoin depends. This is why it is called Blockchain 2.0, and not Bitcoin 2.0. What is improved is not Bitcoin, but the blockchain technology. This is also why your post is not an answer to my question. "Nobody in altcoins has improved on Bitcoin in any way," you say. Should they? Does Localbitcoins.com improve bitcoin? Does Bitfinex improve bitcoin, or let me ask: Does Bitfinex improve Localbitcoins.com?

Seriously man, you are confused. The buzzword you constantly see spammed by bankers now, "blockchain not Bitcoin", is them trying to co-opt and hijack cryptocurrency. The only purpose of this propaganda is for them to try and create their own permissioned ledger or federated chain, "GoldmansachsCoin" that they create out of thin air and try to sell off to mindless idiots for profit. There is no Nash equilibrium in such a system, thus it has zero value. It provides zero benefits over Bitcoin or the digital fiat already in use and will go nowhere.

Bankers are mad they weren't early adopters of Bitcoin and are now trying to weasel their way out of having to buy at higher prices. That's all there is to this discussion. They will fail in this attempt because their federated chains and permissioned ledgers have no value. There's Antonopolous talking about the same subject:

http://news.bitcoin.com/antonopoulos-banks-blockchain-romance/

Since when has our topic been the bankers? Bankers do what they do. They use blockchain-inspired decentralized ledgers; they hijack bitcoin, etc. etc. What they do has nothing to do with what we can do with blockchain.

yelllowsin,

I'll definitely check out that article. Thank you.

Come-from-Beyond,

Are you the CfB that I know from Nxtforum?

Come-from-Beyond

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Quote from: r0ach on May 12, 2016, 07:58:06 AM

Please, no China conspiracy theories.

China is completely irrelevant here.

r0ach

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Quote from: Come-from-Beyond on May 12, 2016, 07:49:59 AM

Quote from: r0ach on May 12, 2016, 07:26:28 AM

There is no Nash equilibrium in such a system, thus it has zero value.

Bitcoin has been operating out of a Nash equilibrium for several years already. Maybe you should start to critically analyze words you are parroting?..

Please, no China conspiracy theories. Everyone knows China is not a long term threat to Bitcoin due to commoditization of ASIC occurring. Having lots of hash power in China right now is only a symptom of everything on earth being manufactured there - people using their slaves as global labor arbitrage. This is something that will end by tariffs or war, or both, and it's going to happen soon. The US already put enormous tariffs on China steel to protect that industry. Tariffs on everything else from China by every nation on earth is what comes next. China knows this is coming, this is why they're trying to prop up domestic spending.

Come-from-Beyond

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Quote from: r0ach on May 12, 2016, 07:26:28 AM

There is no Nash equilibrium in such a system, thus it has zero value.

Bitcoin has been operating out of a Nash equilibrium for several years already. Maybe you should start to critically analyze words you are parroting?..

Laniakea

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Quote from: JollyTrades on May 11, 2016, 01:38:33 PM

Everyone talks about what can be done with Ethereum et al and the power of decentralized application technology. What I insist not understanding is what makes those applications superior to their centralized counterparts.

I don't claim that Dapps are not important. I just want to learn what's deal with them.

I think if something is too hard to understand to explain in just one sentence, the majority of people will never even care the slightest bit

r0ach

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Quote from: JollyTrades on May 12, 2016, 06:07:30 AM

Maybe the task is not to improve bitcoin, but to build something different based on the same technology on which bitcoin depends. This is why it is called Blockchain 2.0, and not Bitcoin 2.0. What is improved is not Bitcoin, but the blockchain technology. This is also why your post is not an answer to my question. "Nobody in altcoins has improved on Bitcoin in any way," you say. Should they? Does Localbitcoins.com improve bitcoin? Does Bitfinex improve bitcoin, or let me ask: Does Bitfinex improve Localbitcoins.com?

Seriously man, you are confused. The buzzword you constantly see spammed by bankers now, "blockchain not Bitcoin", is them trying to co-opt and hijack cryptocurrency. The only purpose of this propaganda is for them to try and create their own permissioned ledger or federated chain, "GoldmansachsCoin" that they create out of thin air and try to sell off to mindless idiots for profit. There is no Nash equilibrium in such a system, thus it has zero value. It provides zero benefits over Bitcoin or the digital fiat already in use and will go nowhere.

Bankers are mad they weren't early adopters of Bitcoin and are now trying to weasel their way out of having to buy at higher prices. That's all there is to this discussion. They will fail in this attempt because their federated chains and permissioned ledgers have no value. There's Antonopolous talking about the same subject:

http://news.bitcoin.com/antonopoulos-banks-blockchain-romance/

yelllowsin

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Quote from: JollyTrades on May 11, 2016, 01:38:33 PM

Everyone talks about what can be done with Ethereum et al and the power of decentralized application technology. What I insist not understanding is what makes those applications superior to their centralized counterparts.

I don't claim that Dapps are not important. I just want to learn what's deal with them.

I suggest you to read this article, it will help you understand what smart contracts are for and what they are not for, good read Cheesy

http://www.coindesk.com/three-smart-contract-misconceptions/

JollyTrades

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Quote from: r0ach on May 12, 2016, 05:45:24 AM

Quote from: JollyTrades on May 12, 2016, 04:05:55 AM

May I ask if you think the same way as for other Blockchain 2.0 initiatives?

That's used car salesman marketing speak. The phrase means literally nothing. Nobody in altcoins has improved on Bitcoin in any way except maybe anonymity purposes such as ring signatures and zk-snarks (monero and zcash). I once thought some proof of stake systems like DPoS might have promise, but once you figure out the complete picture in how these systems works, you can walk away with no other conclusion than them being a step BACKWARDS compared to plain Bitcoin.

Although I would not recommend buying any altcoin such as Monero or Zcash until a few months after BTC halving or you will likely get financially raped. The drawbacks of Zcash also kinda outweigh the pros of increased anonymity set over Monero to me.

Maybe the task is not to improve bitcoin, but to build something different based on the same technology on which bitcoin depends. This is why it is called Blockchain 2.0, and not Bitcoin 2.0. What is improved is not Bitcoin, but the blockchain technology. This is also why your post is not an answer to my question. "Nobody in altcoins has improved on Bitcoin in any way," you say. Should they? Does Localbitcoins.com improve bitcoin? Does Bitfinex improve bitcoin, or let me ask: Does Bitfinex improve Localbitcoins.com?

r0ach

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Quote from: JollyTrades on May 12, 2016, 04:05:55 AM

May I ask if you think the same way as for other Blockchain 2.0 initiatives?

That's used car salesman marketing speak. The phrase means literally nothing. Nobody in altcoins has improved on Bitcoin in any way except maybe anonymity purposes such as ring signatures and zk-snarks (monero and zcash). I once thought some proof of stake systems like DPoS might have promise, but once you figure out the complete picture in how these systems works, you can walk away with no other conclusion than them being a step BACKWARDS compared to plain Bitcoin.

Although I would not recommend buying any altcoin such as Monero or Zcash until a few months after BTC halving or you will likely get financially raped. The drawbacks of Zcash also kinda outweigh the pros of increased anonymity set over Monero to me.

Come-from-Beyond

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Quote from: r0ach on May 12, 2016, 02:20:43 AM

When I said IOTA is a permissioned ledger extortion scheme...

...you still refused to put your money where your mouth is, revealing your real motives.

JollyTrades

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Quote from: Cyaren on May 12, 2016, 04:17:48 AM

Quote from: JollyTrades on May 12, 2016, 04:15:45 AM

Cyaren,

What do you mean the coin which the system is based on makes the system worthless?

Ethereum. As many people suggest, I believe too that Ether is too much of a pump & dump scheme for it to work.

Just my opinion.

I don't see any reason why ETH price should be pumped for the Ethereum platform to work. I am not interested in the price of ETH, but in the usability of the platform.

Cyaren

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Quote from: JollyTrades on May 12, 2016, 04:15:45 AM

Cyaren,

What do you mean the coin which the system is based on makes the system worthless?

Ethereum. As many people suggest, I believe too that Ether is too much of a pump & dump scheme for it to work.

Just my opinion.

JollyTrades

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Cyaren,

What do you mean the coin which the system is based on makes the system worthless?

Cyaren

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Ethereum smart contracts AFAIK are used increasingly for not so legal purposes such as the idea of a "legit ponzi". As you mentioned, gambling could also be a good use of it. But the coin that it's based on, that is, a shitcoin, makes it completely not worthwhile to use this system.

JollyTrades

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r0ach,

Thank you. I think your analysis is valuable, though I'm still not convinced. I need to think about it more. May I ask if you think the same way as for other Blockchain 2.0 initiatives?

Meanwhile I am still in search of good answers as regards what the possible use cases might be for smart contracts, which will prove to be superior to the equivalent centralized applications. Gambling is one of them. But if that is all, it doesn't make smart contracts very revolutionary.

And one more thing. Even if Ethereum et al will not be useful, calling them scam is still an extreme view. In order for them to be scam projects, the developer team should know about the consequences and disguise the hidden worthlessness of their product under embellished promises. As for Ethereum, all they say is that the platform will allow decentralized applications, and this is a fairly good description of what they have already delivered.

r0ach

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Quote from: JollyTrades on May 12, 2016, 02:00:39 AM

Your opinions are at extremes, friends. Even if Ethereum may have a limited use, it does by no means mean that it's a pure pump&dump scam. You should know that it's a novel and great thing to achieve at least from a geek's perspective.

On the other hand, the other extreme is to claim that Ethereum will be Web 3.0, or will have as widespread use and functionality as the Internet.

All we need is to think through some real-world use cases. There is a potential in smart contracts; this is the sure part. How this potential can be actualized; this is the question.

Sorry, but no, this is not an "extreme". Closed entropy systems do not even fall under the category of decentralized currencies in the first place. All recursive systems are permissioned ledgers. This means the most Eth could possibly hope to be is a shareholder owned company. It's like someone going public with a stock from their basement without even having a viable product. Unless they're somehow grandfathered in, the legal system will probably throw all these people in jail once the law catches up to this sector.

Having said that, even if you don't care about the law at all, Eth cannot scale, and scaling is far more important for Eth than for BTC. Even if you wanted just a shareholder owned company and not a decentralized currency, it is not a valid product because it would struggle to handle the load of financial services for just one large company, let alone integrate many together. It is 100% a scam.

Even Gmaxwell finally came out of the closet calling it a scam:

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.14601127

When I said IOTA is a permissioned ledger extortion scheme, I was not kidding about that either. I'm one of the few people on this forum that doesn't just flat out lie about everything:

Quote from: r0ach on May 11, 2016, 11:08:27 AM

Add another refutation concerning the validity of IOTA to the thread:

r0ach: I wouldn't worry about permissioning, Iota doesn't have any kind of consensus or UTXO set...it's entirely unworkable.

http://bob.mcelrath.org/

JollyTrades

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Your opinions are at extremes, friends. Even if Ethereum may have a limited use, it does by no means mean that it's a pure pump&dump scam. You should know that it's a novel and great thing to achieve at least from a geek's perspective.

On the other hand, the other extreme is to claim that Ethereum will be Web 3.0, or will have as widespread use and functionality as the Internet.

All we need is to think through some real-world use cases. There is a potential in smart contracts; this is the sure part. How this potential can be actualized; this is the question.

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