The author talks about making Ethereum more humane and user-friendly, but jargon like "The Internet of Agreements" and "Humanizing the Singularity" makes me think he's mostly interested in becoming a thought-leader through Branding™. Those terms and his bombastic language in general will not help bring Ethereum to the masses like he claims to want to do.
Also, the idea that Ethereum at $100 implies this amazing decentralized future is simply wrong, because that also implies that Ethereum at $1 didn't mean anything. Instead his argument should center around the many different businesses, products and experiments being built on the platform.
I think the post was good, but I was definitely surprised when I clicked the link to his venture capital firm only to see the ™ symbol next to "The Internet of Agreements".
"Internet of Agreements" we hope to stand up as a series of conferences, and then a trade association a bit like a more participatory "Internet of Things." Remember that Linux, Ethereum, Internet of Things are all trademarks. It's very much how the world works: if you want to build a commons, first you have to have something to share.
I think Vinay has great insights into gun control, the hexayurt, and some other topics, however, on ETH, I think he's totally in error. I'd be happy to livestream chat him about it.
I am a fan of Ethereum but I wish they (and other alt-coins) would be honest about the fact that there is very much a central authority at work; in Ethereum's case, it's a small network of developers and mining pools. That's not necessarily bad, but let's at least be honest about it.
Admit that central authorities have a role to play (and may take many different forms). Recent events clearly reflect, to me at least, that the value of a blockchain doesn't depend upon the lack of a central authority (indeed, investors may feel safer with a steady hand on the wheel) or immutability (Ethereum violated supposed rule #1 and look at how the market has voted, i.e. ETH/ETC price variance).
Hi I'm the original author of the piece and I'll be around for the next couple of hours to answer questions. Glad to see such a lot of debate here already!
The problem with smart contracts is that they are only 100% trustless as long as all the input data is already present on the blockchain.
Even something banally simple as "if such and such win the world cup deposit earnings there" cannot be 100% trustless. How does one overcome this problem?
I don't think smart contracts can overcome this problem while remaining 100% trustless.
"Trustless" is a terrible meme, as the term is misleading and the implementation of the concept is impossible. The truth is:
There is no cloud, just other people's computers.
Smart contracts can make trust relationships explicit.
By using a blockchain system, you entrust a network - which you may have no control over - with application state. If you rely on such a network, you indirectly also rely on the network infrastructure and operators' social and economic incentives.
I think it means a lot of people are going to lose a lot more money than $1 Ether would have meant.
1. The halting problem states you can't predict what a turing complete program will do, until you run it. This means to some degree, that you can't predict what your "smart" contract will do, until it does it. Thus turing completeness causes security to be far, far harder than non turing completeness. This is how you lose the millions of dollars as the DAO did after it passed audits.
2. Competing implementations of consensus code in different languages greatly increases breakdown of consensus. (more millions have been lost over this, and it created a fork at about 10 percent the value of the old chain.)
3. You can buy things with bitcoin. What can you buy with ETH? If you can't buy anything with a currency, it's not a currency.
Thus, human resolved chain rollbacks? Check. Failed consensus between implementations? Check. Passed audit yet totally failed smart contracts? Check. No place to spend them? Check. New tokens given out all the time forever? Check.
Every dollar that goes into bad ideas is taken directly from the good ideas. Smart contracts can never be smart until oracles are solved. Oracles aren't solved. ETH has all the technical odds and history stacked against it, however some how, the people that bought them aren't dumping.
There's a saying that the market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent.
> The halting problem states you can't predict what a turing complete program will do, until you run it. This means to some degree, that you can't predict what your "smart" contract will do, until it does it. Thus turing completeness causes security to be far, far harder than non turing completeness. This is how you lose the millions of dollars as the DAO did after it passed audits.
The Halting Problem states that you can't create a general purpose algorithm for predicting what an arbitrary program in a Turing Complete language will do. This is very different.
"3. You can buy things with bitcoin. What can you buy with ETH? If you can't buy anything with a currency, it's not a currency."
This is the one that really sticks out to me. What do people need any of this for? I think they did a fine job pitching the value of smart contract / blockchain technology. But why do I, or a bank, or society need anything beyond those?
The tech may be useful, but what 99% of these discussions come down to is whether you think a decentralized currency and disintermediated payments system have value. I don't really see the need for the vast majority of society to have the former in the long run, and I think the latter is actively harmful and impractical. Like you pointed out, you're inevitably going to have these code failures, disagreements, etc. Those are basic failures of any human-designed and human-negotiated system. As far as those go, I still prefer to wager my business on the time-worn technology of English common law.
As far as the tech goes, yes, banks should get behind some of this. Their infrastructure is garbage and could well benefit from associations of private chains and the like.
I've been in crypto since 2011. If critical mass/adoption/press/uptime/wallets/ matter to you, then there's you know what. The problems ETH has had would be predicted by anyone looking at their choices. They will continue to have the same problems for the same core reasons. Good news for people long ETH though, it seems the market doesn't really care about the downtime, or forks, or risks of dual codebases or the halting problem of turing comleteness in smart contracts. Hell, they dont' even care about user wallet adoption, or retailer adoption, so, it would seem that the price can just keep going up without really hitting any of the metrics other crypto's have cared about.
> 1. The halting problem states you can't predict what a turing complete program will do, until you run it. This means to some degree, that you can't predict what your "smart" contract will do, until it does it. Thus turing completeness causes security to be far, far harder than non turing completeness. This is how you lose the millions of dollars as the DAO did after it passed audits.
While others have pointed out that this is wrong, it's worth amplifying: Turing machines are deterministic. You can run the contract locally and observe how it behaves, and it will behave the same way in the same environment elsewhere. If this wasn't the case, you couldn't have consensus at all.
> 2. Competing implementations of consensus code in different languages greatly increases breakdown of consensus. (more millions have been lost over this, and it created a fork at about 10 percent the value of the old chain.)
The DAO hard fork had nothing to do with a consensus failure. There's been one single short-lived mainnet fork due to a consensus issue, which was quickly resolved with - to the best of my knowledge - no financial loss.
I routinely pay for things with ethereum - and if the target only accepts btc, then I can just shapeshift.
The "Halting Problem" is a red herring here - eth transactions are technically not Turing complete since they automatically halt when they run out of the finite supply of ether attached to the transaction. Saying that ethereum isn't feasible because of the halting problem is like saying cars aren't feasible because an object in motion stays in motion - there are countless practical ways to manage it, and if nothing else stops you, in the end you'll definitely run out of gas.
Theoretically ETH can easily replace bitcoin as a payment method for anything that can be bought with BTC currently. I would imagine some people investing in ETH are expecting that to happen.
To be fair, BTC had a lot of problems in the early years too.
And note I'm trying to be technology agnostic as we build out the VC firm and the Internet of Agreements organisation - I am not of the opinion any of these systems are going to scale cleanly. I think we will need to go back and build it from scratch on an abstraction like pi calculus and work it up from there, not try to accelerate the Proof of Work systems by increments.
Only time will tell, though. I'm flexible on this.
as someone who's been involved since the beginning, the only thing $100 means is there are enough people invested that the real work can begin where developers and teams can take the time to learn how to build for it without worrying it'll disappear tomorrow. that assurance counts for something, but beyond that do -not- consider this a "production ready" platform. There will be failure. There will be losses. treat this as a place to experiment and dabble in the future but don't strive for world domination, let success build naturally. fuck the hype.
> By all and any standards, this is a success beyond anything dreamt of when the project started
I doubt this is true. When Bitcoin came out I think a lot of people realized a whole new game was afoot. An autonomous ledger was demonstrated and the race was on to create the autonomous everything else. An autonomous application host was the obvious brass ring, and whoever got it seemed assured to spark a market at least as big as Bitcoin.
I can't imagine Vitalik was thinking anything other than "if this works, it will be huge." That's a big if, but I think the stakes were clear.
This guy Vinay Gupta really has a gift for writing about technology. Lots of clear technical concepts without resorting to jargon, bright syntax and style, and never pedantic.
Bitcoin has had several drastic price corrections in its life. We are yet to see this from Ether. I suspect the fall will be greater if it starts >$100.
Of course, we will look back on this in 5 years and think $100 ETHER was cheap!
[+] [-] djh_|8 years ago|reply
Also, the idea that Ethereum at $100 implies this amazing decentralized future is simply wrong, because that also implies that Ethereum at $1 didn't mean anything. Instead his argument should center around the many different businesses, products and experiments being built on the platform.
[+] [-] plainOldText|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] leashless|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] RichardHeart|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cjslep|8 years ago|reply
Sorry if I don't trust the "small group of legends" more than the government.
[+] [-] nugget|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sf_rob|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lawik|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jhildings|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] leashless|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lumberjack|8 years ago|reply
Even something banally simple as "if such and such win the world cup deposit earnings there" cannot be 100% trustless. How does one overcome this problem?
I don't think smart contracts can overcome this problem while remaining 100% trustless.
[+] [-] 7373737373|8 years ago|reply
There is no cloud, just other people's computers.
Smart contracts can make trust relationships explicit.
By using a blockchain system, you entrust a network - which you may have no control over - with application state. If you rely on such a network, you indirectly also rely on the network infrastructure and operators' social and economic incentives.
[+] [-] mwnivek|8 years ago|reply
https://docs.oraclize.it/
[+] [-] kolinko|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] RichardHeart|8 years ago|reply
1. The halting problem states you can't predict what a turing complete program will do, until you run it. This means to some degree, that you can't predict what your "smart" contract will do, until it does it. Thus turing completeness causes security to be far, far harder than non turing completeness. This is how you lose the millions of dollars as the DAO did after it passed audits.
2. Competing implementations of consensus code in different languages greatly increases breakdown of consensus. (more millions have been lost over this, and it created a fork at about 10 percent the value of the old chain.)
3. You can buy things with bitcoin. What can you buy with ETH? If you can't buy anything with a currency, it's not a currency.
Thus, human resolved chain rollbacks? Check. Failed consensus between implementations? Check. Passed audit yet totally failed smart contracts? Check. No place to spend them? Check. New tokens given out all the time forever? Check.
Every dollar that goes into bad ideas is taken directly from the good ideas. Smart contracts can never be smart until oracles are solved. Oracles aren't solved. ETH has all the technical odds and history stacked against it, however some how, the people that bought them aren't dumping.
There's a saying that the market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent.
[+] [-] benchaney|8 years ago|reply
The Halting Problem states that you can't create a general purpose algorithm for predicting what an arbitrary program in a Turing Complete language will do. This is very different.
[+] [-] ellius|8 years ago|reply
This is the one that really sticks out to me. What do people need any of this for? I think they did a fine job pitching the value of smart contract / blockchain technology. But why do I, or a bank, or society need anything beyond those?
The tech may be useful, but what 99% of these discussions come down to is whether you think a decentralized currency and disintermediated payments system have value. I don't really see the need for the vast majority of society to have the former in the long run, and I think the latter is actively harmful and impractical. Like you pointed out, you're inevitably going to have these code failures, disagreements, etc. Those are basic failures of any human-designed and human-negotiated system. As far as those go, I still prefer to wager my business on the time-worn technology of English common law.
As far as the tech goes, yes, banks should get behind some of this. Their infrastructure is garbage and could well benefit from associations of private chains and the like.
[+] [-] RichardHeart|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nicksdjohnson|8 years ago|reply
While others have pointed out that this is wrong, it's worth amplifying: Turing machines are deterministic. You can run the contract locally and observe how it behaves, and it will behave the same way in the same environment elsewhere. If this wasn't the case, you couldn't have consensus at all.
> 2. Competing implementations of consensus code in different languages greatly increases breakdown of consensus. (more millions have been lost over this, and it created a fork at about 10 percent the value of the old chain.)
The DAO hard fork had nothing to do with a consensus failure. There's been one single short-lived mainnet fork due to a consensus issue, which was quickly resolved with - to the best of my knowledge - no financial loss.
[+] [-] jaibot|8 years ago|reply
The "Halting Problem" is a red herring here - eth transactions are technically not Turing complete since they automatically halt when they run out of the finite supply of ether attached to the transaction. Saying that ethereum isn't feasible because of the halting problem is like saying cars aren't feasible because an object in motion stays in motion - there are countless practical ways to manage it, and if nothing else stops you, in the end you'll definitely run out of gas.
[+] [-] m3ta|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] geppeto|8 years ago|reply
Did you ever consider that the currency part of cryptocurrency was a misnomer and has nothing to do with the value of the asset?
[+] [-] unknown|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] leashless|8 years ago|reply
And note I'm trying to be technology agnostic as we build out the VC firm and the Internet of Agreements organisation - I am not of the opinion any of these systems are going to scale cleanly. I think we will need to go back and build it from scratch on an abstraction like pi calculus and work it up from there, not try to accelerate the Proof of Work systems by increments.
Only time will tell, though. I'm flexible on this.
[+] [-] Jenya_|8 years ago|reply
https://twitter.com/VitalikButerin/status/854271590804140033
[+] [-] unknown|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] rabbyte|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] erikpukinskis|8 years ago|reply
I doubt this is true. When Bitcoin came out I think a lot of people realized a whole new game was afoot. An autonomous ledger was demonstrated and the race was on to create the autonomous everything else. An autonomous application host was the obvious brass ring, and whoever got it seemed assured to spark a market at least as big as Bitcoin.
I can't imagine Vitalik was thinking anything other than "if this works, it will be huge." That's a big if, but I think the stakes were clear.
[+] [-] djtriptych|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] leashless|8 years ago|reply
Much practice. I am old (45)
[+] [-] 45h34jh53k4j|8 years ago|reply
Of course, we will look back on this in 5 years and think $100 ETHER was cheap!
[+] [-] avaer|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Jabanga|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] evanvanness|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] brighton36|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rabbyte|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mavdi|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] madamelic|8 years ago|reply
You could buy now and dump it when it hits $900 - $1000. It will.
As far as I am concerned, the current iteration of *coin are just pump and dump basically.
[+] [-] akhilcacharya|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] joeblau|8 years ago|reply
This is interesting. Where Bitcoin seems to reward miners based on solving NP hard problems, Etherium is just handed out randomly?
[+] [-] wmf|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nexus9|8 years ago|reply
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