Riccardo SpagniVerified account

It’s filled with “not invented here” syndrome where they’ve done things in an alternate way, not because it’s a good idea, but simply because they can’t possible be “like Bitcoin”. Examples of this include a 12 second block time whilst rewarding orphaned miners (uncle blocks).

Similarly, they think they can make Proof of Stake robust and secure (despite all evidence to the contrary), and instead of merely researching the idea they start with Proof of Work and add a “difficulty bomb” that will make PoW mining impossible and force them to activate PoS!

You and I both know that the best way to build a secure decentralised system is to start with first principles: use stuff that is proven, and demonstrably robust, and then build on that. Stuff like Lightning Network on top of Bitcoin does exactly that. Ethereum does not.

? Layer 2 needed for bitcoin but layer 2 for ether not needed? What exactly is the point of this argument when you are yourself saying layer 2 can handle it like in btc. Out of all ppl you know well LN is not the OG scalability solution just the right one.

Ethereum hasn’t layered “smart contracts” on to a stable base, that’s the point I’m making.

They should have built on top of bitcoin? I agree, but when it was conceived there wasnt a lot of choice. Layer 2 ideas were very new or not available. Maybe give them same time as bitcoin to grow? Then pass sweeping judgement?

No I wouldn’t say that, my issue is definitely not “should have built on Bitcoin”. My issue is that Ethereum is like rolling your own crypto vs. using libsodium. You can always add your own vetted crypto in later, as long as you’ve started on a firm foundation.

Yes I'm not so buzzing on ETH now, which is the best smart contract platform in your opinion?

I think “smart contracts” right now are quite broken, mostly due to Ethereum encouraging JavaScript developers to write smart contracts Some future iteration will encourage that they’re created by teams including those skilled at defensive programming + lawyers + economists.

Smart contracts created by defensive programming, lawyers and economists .... interesting. Can you describe what you think are real-world use cases for future non-broken smart contracts? Are they just more sophisticated version of bitcoin scripts?

I think you can have sophisticated interactions between parties, eg. things that might otherwise require a third-party holding escrow. That’s what most of them boil down to in my head.

Tx. What kinds of events (in addition to signatures/time events) could trigger changes in interaction state? Could a contract be affected by an external event (e.g. the price of a realworld commodity like crude oil reaching a certain threshold)?

Certain real world events can have a related prediction market, and then it can be triggered by that, eg changes in the price of the USD / ZAR exchange rate

But typically speaking anything decentralised can’t track anything in the real world without an added trust layer, outside of using something like prediction markets.

Thanks. That's what I have been wondering about. That does seems to limit the actual usefulness of smart contracts in FinTech - does it not?

To be fair they at least have decent smart contracts that can be used for atomic swaps and DEX, which is more than can be said of Monero. What good is privacy if you have to trade Monero via a centralized exchange?

Hmmm, don't they use some sort of intermediary token to do it? @0xProject on $ETH has thus far been the best #DEX software I've come across. In fact I'm hoping #Monero has enough of a smart contract layer to be included as a trading pair. I'll look more into Bisq though.

Nope, no intermediary token, you can go BTC to XMR directly without any intermediary or slippage:)

I’m not sure I understand the point of the highlighted section?

Ya wasn't meant to highlight anything really. Just curious your opinion on Bisq having one of the three keys for multisig. I have a feeling most of my questions can be answered by experimenting with it, though. For the record most of my holdings are in $XMR

Best way to learn is to play:)