Slashdot Mirror
Ethereum Thinks it Can Change the World. It's Running Out of Time To Prove It. (technologyreview.com)
The blockchain system has daunting technical problems to fix. But first, its disciples need to figure out how to govern themselves. From a report: The handful of idealistic researchers, developers, and administrators in charge of maintaining its software are under increasing pressure to overcome technical limitations that stymie the network's growth. At the same time, well-funded competitors have emerged, claiming that their blockchains perform better. Crackdowns by regulators, and a growing understanding of how far most blockchain applications are from ready for prime time, have scared many cryptocurrency investors away: Ethereum's market value in dollars has fallen more than 90% since its peak last January.
The reason Devcon (the annual "family reunion" organized by the Ethereum Foundation; this year's edition was held in October) feels so upbeat despite these storm clouds is that the people building Ethereum have something bigger in mind -- something world-changing, in fact. Yet to achieve its goal, this ragtag community needs to crack a problem as complicated as any of the toe-curling technical challenges it faces: how to govern itself. It must find a way to organize a scattered global network of contributors and stakeholders without sacrificing "decentralization" -- the principle, which any cryptocurrency community strives for, that no one entity or group should be in control.
The reason Devcon (the annual "family reunion" organized by the Ethereum Foundation; this year's edition was held in October) feels so upbeat despite these storm clouds is that the people building Ethereum have something bigger in mind -- something world-changing, in fact. Yet to achieve its goal, this ragtag community needs to crack a problem as complicated as any of the toe-curling technical challenges it faces: how to govern itself. It must find a way to organize a scattered global network of contributors and stakeholders without sacrificing "decentralization" -- the principle, which any cryptocurrency community strives for, that no one entity or group should be in control.
No, you are just trying to turn my argument into something else and you are getting upset that I am not biting.
I don't care what you think, I only care about the facts. You can sit around the prognosticate all you want, it means nothing in the context of my comment.
Adding more currency creates inflation no matter how many fallacies you use to say otherwise. You are the one blathering about theory. It is very simple math to understand that increasing supply of currency decreases its value and thereby creates inflation. It's not theory, its just a plain as day fact just like gravity. I can't help you if you cannot accept that.
Wait until the next financial crisis. Crypto will work. Your bank cards may not.
I'm sure that people like you back in the 1920s would have said:
"Wait until the next financial crisis. Gold will work."
Except that it didn't. To keep the financial system afloat, they simply outlawed gold. They can do the same with cryptocurrency.
SirAstral you seem to be missing something very fundamental, which is why you're getting trashed here. Inflation is a currency having less buying power today than it had yesterday. That's it. There are many sources of inflation, only one of which is the creation of more currency. Similarly, deflation is a currency having more buying power today than it had yesterday. That's it. There are many sources of deflation, only one of which is the destruction of currency.
What you should be saying is that the creation of a currency always creates inflationary *pressure* on that currency. That pressure could, however, be dwarfed by deflationary pressure from another source. Such as a growth in the population of people who desire to use the currency.
What could we have done with 40 tWh of energy?!
It takes 15,000 kWh produce one ton of aluminum. That was 2.6 Gigatons of aluminum we could have had. We got stupid hash codes instead. This is 460,000 times the yearly world production of aluminum.
We wasted the energy of 460,000 times (not tons fricken times) the yearly world production of aluminum last year on Bitcoin and Ethereum!
Bitcoin energy use:
https://digiconomist.net/bitco...
Ethereum energy use
https://digiconomist.net/ether...
Aluminum produced / year
http://www.world-aluminium.org...
Energy to produce aluminum:
https://agmetalminer.com/2015/...