Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login

What do you mean?



Crypto is a solution to establishing trust in a decentralized ledger system: proof of stake and proof of work prevent people from adding fake transactions to the blockchain.

It’s just a natural consequence that this creates scarcity.


It doesn’t establish trust. It’s the opposite of trust. It establishes paranoia, and even then, how can you be sure your screen is the truth?


It establishes both trust by separating it from mistrust (paranoia if you will) by making the division explicit and assigning trust to some people and operations and not others.

If you think it's concerned about screens, you're wrong. It's concerned about "did this person really do this"?


Do you understand that you are trusting your screen?


Do you also blame the post office when someone breaks into your post box?


Can you build a post box? Can you build a computer and the software?


A screen isn't software. And indeed, I can't. There are specific parties concerned with building postboxes and screens, and those have no reason to be the same as those delivering mail or writing blockchain software.


I mean you might as well just throw out all computers then.


What practical advantages are there to a decentralized ledger? Does it offer the trust that centralized ledgers and legal avenues do?


The same advantages of all decentralization. You could say the same things about crypto that youd say about open source




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: