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Lack of leadership is why BTC elevated a con artist pretending to be satoshi and is still arguing over block size. I think hard improvements require effective

Lack of leadership is why BTC elevated a con artist pretending to be satoshi and is still arguing over block size. I think hard improvements require effective coordination and someone who can pull that off. Vitalik is part of the reason I think ETH is more likely to be successful than competitors in the space (in addition to their head start).

drawkbox 5y ago
A programming language needs a BDFL in the early days of design and value creation. Even content/entertainment creation needs a director, a novel should have only one writer and a game should have a consistent design. However, a "distributed" financial system that requires a BDFL is a single point of failure.
xiphias2 5y ago
ETH had only one war so far (ETH vs ETC) where Vitalik won the leadership role. But at some point governments will want to control Vitalik (which isn't that hard, as he's just 1 person). I believe that something like the blocksize wars with BTC is inevitable in the ETH space as well.
- fossuser 5y ago
  Vitalik's role is dependent on consensus of most of the community - he's not a dictator. He won ETH vs. ETC because the majority of the community thought he was right. If that changes then he'll lose his influence (imo), but from listening to him I think he's a pretty earnest guy and I've been impressed [0]. [0]: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/intellectual-honesty-cryptocurrency-more-vitalik-buterin/id351953012?i=1000511637460 https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/intellectual-honesty-c...
  - xiphias2 5y ago
    Does he have the will power and training to go against CIA, NSA, the Chinese government and Putin when they want to add a form of KYC (or crypto primitives that NSA provide to him)? To tell you the truth, I can't keep up with zero knowledge cryptography that ETH uses / intends to use, and Ethereum implementations are usually buggy. I can understand Schnorr signatures and Taproot, but even the Musig/Musig2 multi-signature aggregation schemes are too hard for me, so I won't use them for significant amount of money. Bitcoin codebase is still readable, even though it's getting somewhat more complex over time.
jstx1 5y ago
Having strong leadership isn't a substitute for having clear rules and stipulations about the different outcomes when taking people's money. Right now the ETH 2.0 staking rules are "you'll get it back when 2.0 is ready, trust us". There's also the fact that strong leadership trades away most of the decentralisation. I'm sure this software project which has changed scope and has been delayed many times and is led by a 20-something-year-old with a personality cult around him will be successful. So convinced that I'll send them money which they promise they'll send back at an unspecified date. Decentralised and trustless? Please...
- proto-n 5y ago
  Honestly, even having the "money" that you send "them" (really it's not them, but a consensus mechanism on chain lol) signals a great amount of trust in the network and its future, including 2.0 transition, adaptation, etc. It's just a (very) long position in eth. If you hold eth and the 2.0 transition fails to happen, you can practically say goodbye to your money anyways.
- fossuser 5y ago
  Yeah - ETH2 is a high risk long bet on the future of ETH, that risk is why the rewards for doing it are pretty high right now. I haven't personally staked anything because of that risk. My point was billions of dollars of wealth are already being staked so there are a lot of people that have already bought in. This doesn't mean it is guaranteed to succeed, but it does mean there are pretty strong incentives in place for it. I suppose the other argument would be an ETH2 failure would likely devalue ETH too, so I'm not sure how much holding ETH is a hedge against failure.

drawkbox 5y ago

A programming language needs a BDFL in the early days of design and value creation. Even content/entertainment creation needs a director, a novel should have only one writer and a game should have a consistent design. However, a "distributed" financial system that requires a BDFL is a single point of failure.

xiphias2 5y ago

ETH had only one war so far (ETH vs ETC) where Vitalik won the leadership role. But at some point governments will want to control Vitalik (which isn't that hard, as he's just 1 person). I believe that something like the blocksize wars with BTC is inevitable in the ETH space as well.

fossuser 5y ago
Vitalik's role is dependent on consensus of most of the community - he's not a dictator. He won ETH vs. ETC because the majority of the community thought he was right. If that changes then he'll lose his influence (imo), but from listening to him I think he's a pretty earnest guy and I've been impressed [0]. [0]: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/intellectual-honesty-cryptocurrency-more-vitalik-buterin/id351953012?i=1000511637460 https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/intellectual-honesty-c...
- xiphias2 5y ago
  Does he have the will power and training to go against CIA, NSA, the Chinese government and Putin when they want to add a form of KYC (or crypto primitives that NSA provide to him)? To tell you the truth, I can't keep up with zero knowledge cryptography that ETH uses / intends to use, and Ethereum implementations are usually buggy. I can understand Schnorr signatures and Taproot, but even the Musig/Musig2 multi-signature aggregation schemes are too hard for me, so I won't use them for significant amount of money. Bitcoin codebase is still readable, even though it's getting somewhat more complex over time.

jstx1 5y ago

Having strong leadership isn't a substitute for having clear rules and stipulations about the different outcomes when taking people's money. Right now the ETH 2.0 staking rules are "you'll get it back when 2.0 is ready, trust us". There's also the fact that strong leadership trades away most of the decentralisation. I'm sure this software project which has changed scope and has been delayed many times and is led by a 20-something-year-old with a personality cult around him will be successful. So convinced that I'll send them money which they promise they'll send back at an unspecified date. Decentralised and trustless? Please...

proto-n 5y ago
Honestly, even having the "money" that you send "them" (really it's not them, but a consensus mechanism on chain lol) signals a great amount of trust in the network and its future, including 2.0 transition, adaptation, etc. It's just a (very) long position in eth. If you hold eth and the 2.0 transition fails to happen, you can practically say goodbye to your money anyways.
fossuser 5y ago
Yeah - ETH2 is a high risk long bet on the future of ETH, that risk is why the rewards for doing it are pretty high right now. I haven't personally staked anything because of that risk. My point was billions of dollars of wealth are already being staked so there are a lot of people that have already bought in. This doesn't mean it is guaranteed to succeed, but it does mean there are pretty strong incentives in place for it. I suppose the other argument would be an ETH2 failure would likely devalue ETH too, so I'm not sure how much holding ETH is a hedge against failure.