Except that... Blockchain transactions are actually much faster per second than payment card transactions. For example Solana can handle transactions 3 times faster than Visa, which is partially why the payment card industry is looking into utilizing Blockchain.
That's just Solana
Payments really don't work the way you are describing, you totally are omitting the various AML flows including sanctions, fraud and KYC screening which all payments involving any sort of financial institution or payment clearer such T2, Fed, CHIPS, MAS and many others route through.
There's also recent requirements that all payment activities for countries such as China and India have to be cleared and screened by onshore resources including hardware and staff.
It's not to say that the presence of these hoops some payment card transactions go through don't slow down their transactions, but, card fraud is in the billions of dollars every year and rising, so, I wouldn't say they are doing that much of a bang up job.
Crypto fraud is in the billions of dollars a year and rising as well.
And that's with a million times less people using crypto compared to people using credit cards.
Yes...annnd no
The problem with equating crypto losses to real money is that it's so volatile. You can say you stole 1million in ...say Solana since we talk about that... But... Solana has grown and contracted several times it's worth.
Did you steal 1 million when it was at 15 dollars? Or at 50 dollars? Or when it declined again to 20 dollars?
Just in the past week it fluctuated 2 dollars.
And generally when there's a big news article or report that a coin was stolen, it deflates the price insanely fast, unless it's a stable coin, and there have been only rare cases of those losses.
But the point is, news reports the big numbers at the time it was taken, but, that doesn't mean that's how much it was actually worth or how much the thieves actually got. In fact, it's highly unlikely they end up with that much money in the end anyways, simply because most of the time you can trace the transactions through their wallets, and in some cases, millions have been recovered by doing that.
But, you're not wrong, I'm just trying to give some perspective... Cryptocurrency prices in most cases are not cryptocurrency prices from one day to the next.
Solana lost 96% of its value in 2022 alone. Which was over $50 billion. You dismiss that as just volatility?!
Alright, if you dont want market cap going up and down then how about OneCoin. A pure fraud crypto coin that stole over $4 billion.
How about FTX? Or Binance? Or Luna? How about at the end of 2021 crypto market capitalization was at $3 trillion and at the end of 2022 it was at $800 billion?
That's... Literally proving the point. "Billions" in crypto losses that have then lost 96% of their value sure appears to be far less than billions. It's really only proving that if you want to utilize a real crypto currency you need to utilize currencies that are made to do that, and audited, like USDC.
The fact that the market on non stable coins are so volatile only prices that the actual amount stolen ends up being extremely trivial.
Suppose that you spend $1 million to buy some cryptocurrency, then it gets stolen, and then the price tanks so that it's now only worth $100k rather than $1 million. Was the amount stolen $100k or $1 million? Even if the thieves only got $100k, you're still out the full $1 million.
Or is it what the token was worth when you bought it?
Most of those that have gotten "rich" in crypto bought into it when the tokens were tenths of a cent or less.
If you spent 1 million on crypto and it depreciates to 100K whether or not it's stollen, it's the same as if you bought 1 million in stocks and the company goes bankrupt the next week. You're SOL.
What you're describing is a misrepresentation of what was taken.
If I spent 100 dollars when ethereum was .001 and now ethereum is 1000, how much is the loss if I lose 100k dollars in ethereum? And how much is that loss actually?
Where is the line? Is it what you spent on the crypto initially? What it was when it was stolen? What it is when it's sold?
Because those are all different numbers. You spend 10 dollars, that 10 is worth 10 million now. You lose 5 million from a hack. The currency takes a hit and it's worth 500k now.
Did you lose 5 million? 500k? or 5 dollars?
IF you spend 1 million dollars and lose exactly 1 million dollars worth of the currency you buy... you're not dealing in crypto. Even breaking even on a cash out would mean the currency would have had to appreciate.
Neither Sybil nor Eclipse attacks require a 51% attack to be successful. Part of the whole point of them is disrupting the nodes, hash rates, and breaking consensus of the mesh network. This is again how Solana has been successfully attacked before, and minor attacks targeting specific nodes for the duration for faking a transaction serve just as well even if corrected by the network later, since whoever did the false transaction has already made the exchange for the desired good.
POS exist on networks. The point of these attacks is targeting the networks.
We're talking about scenarios here where it's not just digital goods and fraudulent charges can be made without the ability to take back part of the transaction.
And I'll take your crypto identity fraud claims with a grain of salt.
No, demonizing is when you take another's argument presenting that things aren't all sunshine and roses, and that things need to be viewed holistically as to what the current state of technology is, and try to label it as strictly negative opinion.
You're trying to make this last comment of yours towards someone who has never called any of this as just being worse, but as trading problems and noting the importance of acknowledging current problems to address when it's still a smaller part of the industry.
Do not delve into such dishonesty, please.
The entire premise of an eclipse attack is trying to change information on a single node, by disconnecting from the network and authenticating on their own nodes. It's essentially the same as a 51% attack, and equally so Sybil works the same way. It all requires multiple nodes for authentication, and it gets substantially more difficult when you start to consider the ZKPOI's, which a lot of protocols use. More importantly, in most cases you can't target specific transactions on a weighted POS node pattern, which are generally far more resistance to those kind of attacks. This concludes why the majority of the stolen currencies don't revolve around these kind of attacks and instead revolve around vulnerabilities in cross chain bridges.
As for crypto "identity fraud" the links you posted don't provide any real information related to the type of identity fraud I'm talking about. I'm talking about identity access. You cannot access crypto assets through your identity. Crypto fraud cases are still high, but *identity fraud* is different. If I have your SSN address and/or bank account or credit card number - all of which have been leaked and lost by multiple websites over the years, the T-mobile hack of late being especially damaging with 77 million users having their information stolen, I could conceivably drain your bank account with a phone call.
But no matter who I call, without the seed phrase, I can't access a crypto wallet. There definitely are other ways to gain access to your funds or wallets, with even some people I know personally falling for a few tricks, but that's what I mean.
In the end, all of these cases are far off from the topic of blockchain gaming, and actually blockchain as a technology at all. Everyone is too wrapped up in the currency aspect of it.
And I was pointing the problem Sybil and Eclipse at transaction fraud, not stolen currency itself. Point in that context was targeting nodes to temporarily exploit, not the chain in sum. 33% attacks still work for this, as you're not trying to control a blockchain, just alter the ledger even if only temporarily.
Second paragraph, call out a specific kind of identity fraud if you want. If Identity fraud in general is on the rise, then it's not exempt from scrutiny. Splitting hairs is just pedantics.
That's in general to blockchain. If you want to refocus it to gaming in particular, those subjects still apply as concerns.
This is also in subject to dredging up the tired subject of "What does it bring to the game?" We can see even in the other thread that it's only main value for GH was in the simplicity to make a new currency.
Hard to move around that being the main function there when it's what things cycle back to even as a game mechanic, but more fundamentally it only worked in that context because they wanted something they didn't have to develop themselves, and it wasn't without it's limitations. The fact it was only being used to serve a small community as monopoly money being it's saving grace, though it did still suffer devaluation.
Neither Sybil nor Eclipse attacks require a 51% attack to be successful. Part of the whole point of them is disrupting the nodes, hash rates, and breaking consensus of the mesh network. This is again how Solana has been successfully attacked before, and minor attacks targeting specific nodes for the duration for faking a transaction serve just as well even if corrected by the network later, since whoever did the false transaction has already made the exchange for the desired good.
POS exist on networks. The point of these attacks is targeting the networks.
We're talking about scenarios here where it's not just digital goods and fraudulent charges can be made without the ability to take back part of the transaction.
And I'll take your crypto identity fraud claims with a grain of salt.
No, demonizing is when you take another's argument presenting that things aren't all sunshine and roses, and that things need to be viewed holistically as to what the current state of technology is, and try to label it as strictly negative opinion.
You're trying to make this last comment of yours towards someone who has never called any of this as just being worse, but as trading problems and noting the importance of acknowledging current problems to address when it's still a smaller part of the industry.
Do not delve into such dishonesty, please.
The entire premise of an eclipse attack is trying to change information on a single node, by disconnecting from the network and authenticating on their own nodes. It's essentially the same as a 51% attack, and equally so Sybil works the same way. It all requires multiple nodes for authentication, and it gets substantially more difficult when you start to consider the ZKPOI's, which a lot of protocols use. More importantly, in most cases you can't target specific transactions on a weighted POS node pattern, which are generally far more resistance to those kind of attacks. This concludes why the majority of the stolen currencies don't revolve around these kind of attacks and instead revolve around vulnerabilities in cross chain bridges.
As for crypto "identity fraud" the links you posted don't provide any real information related to the type of identity fraud I'm talking about. I'm talking about identity access. You cannot access crypto assets through your identity. Crypto fraud cases are still high, but *identity fraud* is different. If I have your SSN address and/or bank account or credit card number - all of which have been leaked and lost by multiple websites over the years, the T-mobile hack of late being especially damaging with 77 million users having their information stolen, I could conceivably drain your bank account with a phone call.
But no matter who I call, without the seed phrase, I can't access a crypto wallet. There definitely are other ways to gain access to your funds or wallets, with even some people I know personally falling for a few tricks, but that's what I mean.
In the end, all of these cases are far off from the topic of blockchain gaming, and actually blockchain as a technology at all. Everyone is too wrapped up in the currency aspect of it.
And I was pointing the problem Sybil and Eclipse at transaction fraud, not stolen currency itself. Point in that context was targeting nodes to temporarily exploit, not the chain in sum. 33% attacks still work for this, as you're not trying to control a blockchain, just alter the ledger even if only temporarily.
Second paragraph, call out a specific kind of identity fraud if you want. If Identity fraud in general is on the rise, then it's not exempt from scrutiny. Splitting hairs is just pedantics.
That's in general to blockchain. If you want to refocus it to gaming in particular, those subjects still apply as concerns.
This is also in subject to dredging up the tired subject of "What does it bring to the game?" We can see even in the other thread that it's only main value for GH was in the simplicity to make a new currency.
Hard to move around that being the main function there when it's what things cycle back to even as a game mechanic, but more fundamentally it only worked in that context because they wanted something they didn't have to develop themselves, and it wasn't without it's limitations. The fact it was only being used to serve a small community as monopoly money being it's saving grace, though it did still suffer devaluation.
No you were pointing to the transaction fraud in relation to currencies, as temporary transaction fraud in blockchain ends with the nodes being permanently banned from the network.
That's why a 33% attack DOES NOT WORK. You're picking up really old news about bitcoin. In order for anything under 51% to work as POS you're burning your stake, which is often farm more costly and won't actually fork the network, even if it is successful.
The dishonesty here is coming from you in stating that these are common concerns. They aren't, and most protocols that are generally utilized protect against these attacks, even if they aren't immune they are highly resistant enough. It's like saying banks are vulnerable to bank robbers. You're trying to make it seem like it's the wild west out there. Every friday is a bank robbery.
You're wrong.
Both attacks you're talking about are not the largest or even the most frequent vectors for attack.
And finally, you again misrepresent blockchain. In the other thread it was used as a currency.
On other games it's used for item generation, serverless games, monetization, inherently transitionable and externally held assets.
That's outside of the specific cases of currency only use.
A lot of your posts are thinly veiled attacks on blockchain, masked as research about the technology.
Which is fine. I know most people here don't like it. I've never asked anyone to. But I don't misrepresent what it is.
Neither Sybil nor Eclipse attacks require a 51% attack to be successful. Part of the whole point of them is disrupting the nodes, hash rates, and breaking consensus of the mesh network. This is again how Solana has been successfully attacked before, and minor attacks targeting specific nodes for the duration for faking a transaction serve just as well even if corrected by the network later, since whoever did the false transaction has already made the exchange for the desired good.
POS exist on networks. The point of these attacks is targeting the networks.
We're talking about scenarios here where it's not just digital goods and fraudulent charges can be made without the ability to take back part of the transaction.
And I'll take your crypto identity fraud claims with a grain of salt.
No, demonizing is when you take another's argument presenting that things aren't all sunshine and roses, and that things need to be viewed holistically as to what the current state of technology is, and try to label it as strictly negative opinion.
You're trying to make this last comment of yours towards someone who has never called any of this as just being worse, but as trading problems and noting the importance of acknowledging current problems to address when it's still a smaller part of the industry.
Do not delve into such dishonesty, please.
And I was pointing the problem Sybil and Eclipse at transaction fraud, not stolen currency itself. Point in that context was targeting nodes to temporarily exploit, not the chain in sum. 33% attacks still work for this, as you're not trying to control a blockchain, just alter the ledger even if only temporarily.
Second paragraph, call out a specific kind of identity fraud if you want. If Identity fraud in general is on the rise, then it's not exempt from scrutiny. Splitting hairs is just pedantics.
That's in general to blockchain. If you want to refocus it to gaming in particular, those subjects still apply as concerns.
This is also in subject to dredging up the tired subject of "What does it bring to the game?" We can see even in the other thread that it's only main value for GH was in the simplicity to make a new currency.
Hard to move around that being the main function there when it's what things cycle back to even as a game mechanic, but more fundamentally it only worked in that context because they wanted something they didn't have to develop themselves, and it wasn't without it's limitations. The fact it was only being used to serve a small community as monopoly money being it's saving grace, though it did still suffer devaluation.
No you were pointing to the transaction fraud in relation to currencies, as temporary transaction fraud in blockchain ends with the nodes being permanently banned from the network.
That's why a 33% attack DOES NOT WORK. You're picking up really old news about bitcoin. In order for anything under 51% to work as POS you're burning your stake, which is often farm more costly and won't actually fork the network, even if it is successful.
The dishonesty here is coming from you in stating that these are common concerns. They aren't, and most protocols that are generally utilized protect against these attacks, even if they aren't immune they are highly resistant enough. It's like saying banks are vulnerable to bank robbers. You're trying to make it seem like it's the wild west out there. Every friday is a bank robbery.
You're wrong.
Both attacks you're talking about are not the largest or even the most frequent vectors for attack.
And finally, you again misrepresent blockchain. In the other thread it was used as a currency.
On other games it's used for item generation, serverless games, monetization, inherently transitionable and externally held assets.
That's outside of the specific cases of currency only use.
A lot of your posts are thinly veiled attacks on blockchain, masked as research about the technology.
Which is fine. I know most people here don't like it. I've never asked anyone to. But I don't misrepresent what it is.
I only pointed to transaction fraud as a response to it's use in broader application. You aren't thinking very far ahead on this, as banning a node from the system isn't going to undo the harm of exploiting a node to enable a temporary transaction to obtain physical goods. When talking about banking, transactions, or even many elements of gaming, that's a problem.
I don't consider attacks on Solana as of last year to be really old news.
Very simply, you are overselling the state of security provided.
It's a bit late in the game here for you to be trying to flip the script on dishonesty.
Your accusation rings hollow, or rather can be pointed back your direction.
And yes, they aren't the most common methods. There are in fact other ways in which blockchains are attacked more frequently.
As to the gaming specific subject. That's not a misrepresentation, just look at your examples.
Outside of "serverless game", all of your use cases are tokenization for possession and transactions. Rose by any other name right there.
Nothing is veiled here. I'm not pretending to "research the technology" nor simply attack it, nor do I aim expressly to attack. What generic argument playbook did you yoink that nonsense out of?
I've made my point clear time and again. The things of concern ultimately remain justified use case and the actual scope and state of the technology. Both of which can bee seen as often misrepresented by you, though you may not see it as such because of your own invested interest.
And I was pointing the problem Sybil and Eclipse at transaction fraud, not stolen currency itself. Point in that context was targeting nodes to temporarily exploit, not the chain in sum. 33% attacks still work for this, as you're not trying to control a blockchain, just alter the ledger even if only temporarily.
Second paragraph, call out a specific kind of identity fraud if you want. If Identity fraud in general is on the rise, then it's not exempt from scrutiny. Splitting hairs is just pedantics.
That's in general to blockchain. If you want to refocus it to gaming in particular, those subjects still apply as concerns.
No you were pointing to the transaction fraud in relation to currencies, as temporary transaction fraud in blockchain ends with the nodes being permanently banned from the network.
That's why a 33% attack DOES NOT WORK. You're picking up really old news about bitcoin. In order for anything under 51% to work as POS you're burning your stake, which is often farm more costly and won't actually fork the network, even if it is successful.
The dishonesty here is coming from you in stating that these are common concerns. They aren't, and most protocols that are generally utilized protect against these attacks, even if they aren't immune they are highly resistant enough. It's like saying banks are vulnerable to bank robbers. You're trying to make it seem like it's the wild west out there. Every friday is a bank robbery.
You're wrong.
Both attacks you're talking about are not the largest or even the most frequent vectors for attack.
And finally, you again misrepresent blockchain. In the other thread it was used as a currency.
On other games it's used for item generation, serverless games, monetization, inherently transitionable and externally held assets.
That's outside of the specific cases of currency only use.
A lot of your posts are thinly veiled attacks on blockchain, masked as research about the technology.
Which is fine. I know most people here don't like it. I've never asked anyone to. But I don't misrepresent what it is.
I only pointed to transaction fraud as a response to it's use in broader application. You aren't thinking very far ahead on this, as banning a node from the system isn't going to undo the harm of exploiting a node to enable a temporary transaction to obtain physical goods. When talking about banking, transactions, or even many elements of gaming, that's a problem.
I don't consider attacks on Solana as of last year to be really old news.
Very simply, you are overselling the state of security provided.
It's a bit late in the game here for you to be trying to flip the script on dishonesty.
Your accusation rings hollow, or rather can be pointed back your direction.
And yes, they aren't the most common methods. There are in fact other ways in which blockchains are attacked more frequently.
As to the gaming specific subject. That's not a misrepresentation, just look at your examples.
Outside of "serverless game", all of your use cases are tokenization for possession and transactions. Rose by any other name right there.
Nothing is veiled here. I'm not pretending to "research the technology" nor simply attack it, nor do I aim expressly to attack. What generic argument playbook did you yoink that nonsense out of?
I've made my point clear time and again. The things of concern ultimately remain justified use case and the actual scope and state of the technology. Both of which can bee seen as often misrepresented by you, though you may not see it as such because of your own invested interest.
That was a nice attempt, but still too shortsighted. How about you explain the hack on Solana last year? Because it was neither an eclipse or a sybil attack.
Again the most likely cause for loss of crypto in the past several years are bridge hacks, they account for more than 50% of all transaction loss.
You may be pointing to these attacks as "possible hacks" but it's a misrepresentation. You're essentially making a mountain out of a molehill when it comes to those attacks.
And equally so, not every aspect of a database is meant to help gamers. That's a silly translation of what blockchain is.
Does blockchain have positive uses? Tons of them, that I've outlined many times to may people claiming the exact same thing on these forums. And every time the response is attempting to downplay it.
Like an evolution of the distributed database is supposed to always mean something to the end user.
Or that every aspect has to benefit you consumer.
Whereas even taking it as solely a monetization tool is enough for a wider adoption. Or a decentralized public database tool. Or as a transactional token ledger.
Nevermind that there are decentralized apps that can do anything from rendering videos through a distributed gpu blockchain, and an IDE specifically for building on-chain games. Web3 is also part of a universal online identity movement, that would act like a fingerprint online. Something a lot of people who like to remain anonymous don't want, but could be quite useful in many cases. Especially where metaverse applications are concerned.
In the end though what I find very interesting about a lot of the people here...
Is that they "know" it all. They rarely ask.
I don't misrepresent anything. If you asked what the areas of concern are, especially in relation to gaming, I would provide it.
Instead you pick up a shovel and make a huge deal over two attacks that are nowhere near the top of concerns in any blockchain project at all. They're costly, unsuccessful, and an extreme gamble to even attempt it, especially where proof of stake is concerned (which you'd understand if you realize that in order to transact something worth stealing you have to stake your own currency by a weighted distribution, which means that you lose the currency if you attempt to steal it)
And I was pointing the problem Sybil and Eclipse at transaction fraud, not stolen currency itself. Point in that context was targeting nodes to temporarily exploit, not the chain in sum. 33% attacks still work for this, as you're not trying to control a blockchain, just alter the ledger even if only temporarily.
Second paragraph, call out a specific kind of identity fraud if you want. If Identity fraud in general is on the rise, then it's not exempt from scrutiny. Splitting hairs is just pedantics.
That's in general to blockchain. If you want to refocus it to gaming in particular, those subjects still apply as concerns.
I only pointed to transaction fraud as a response to it's use in broader application. You aren't thinking very far ahead on this, as banning a node from the system isn't going to undo the harm of exploiting a node to enable a temporary transaction to obtain physical goods. When talking about banking, transactions, or even many elements of gaming, that's a problem.
I don't consider attacks on Solana as of last year to be really old news.
Very simply, you are overselling the state of security provided.
It's a bit late in the game here for you to be trying to flip the script on dishonesty.
Your accusation rings hollow, or rather can be pointed back your direction.
And yes, they aren't the most common methods. There are in fact other ways in which blockchains are attacked more frequently.
As to the gaming specific subject. That's not a misrepresentation, just look at your examples.
Outside of "serverless game", all of your use cases are tokenization for possession and transactions. Rose by any other name right there.
Nothing is veiled here. I'm not pretending to "research the technology" nor simply attack it, nor do I aim expressly to attack. What generic argument playbook did you yoink that nonsense out of?
I've made my point clear time and again. The things of concern ultimately remain justified use case and the actual scope and state of the technology. Both of which can bee seen as often misrepresented by you, though you may not see it as such because of your own invested interest.
That was a nice attempt, but still too shortsighted. How about you explain the hack on Solana last year? Because it was neither an eclipse or a sybil attack.
Again the most likely cause for loss of crypto in the past several years are bridge hacks, they account for more than 50% of all transaction loss.
You may be pointing to these attacks as "possible hacks" but it's a misrepresentation. You're essentially making a mountain out of a molehill when it comes to those attacks.
And equally so, not every aspect of a database is meant to help gamers. That's a silly translation of what blockchain is.
Does blockchain have positive uses? Tons of them, that I've outlined many times to may people claiming the exact same thing on these forums. And every time the response is attempting to downplay it.
Like an evolution of the distributed database is supposed to always mean something to the end user.
Or that every aspect has to benefit you consumer.
Whereas even taking it as solely a monetization tool is enough for a wider adoption. Or a decentralized public database tool. Or as a transactional token ledger.
Nevermind that there are decentralized apps that can do anything from rendering videos through a distributed gpu blockchain, and an IDE specifically for building on-chain games. Web3 is also part of a universal online identity movement, that would act like a fingerprint online. Something a lot of people who like to remain anonymous don't want, but could be quite useful in many cases. Especially where metaverse applications are concerned.
In the end though what I find very interesting about a lot of the people here...
Is that they "know" it all. They rarely ask.
I don't misrepresent anything. If you asked what the areas of concern are, especially in relation to gaming, I would provide it.
Instead you pick up a shovel and make a huge deal over two attacks that are nowhere near the top of concerns in any blockchain project at all. They're costly, unsuccessful, and an extreme gamble to even attempt it, especially where proof of stake is concerned (which you'd understand if you realize that in order to transact something worth stealing you have to stake your own currency by a weighted distribution, which means that you lose the currency if you attempt to steal it)
There's a reason these attacks don't happen.
This just leads to the response "which one" since you refer there to another incident.
It's not a misrepresentation for known issues to be put under scrutiny. Any individual opportunity for an issue to come up is a concern for any system, and the more variety there is the more that stacks. This is extended more bluntly by the point that any system leveraged by large financial institutions or large corporations come under even more attack by virtue of what they serve. It's factoring for scale here. If one wants to pitch something then they should consider the response.
As to the entire rest of your ramble. That's a massive attempt to avoid a rather basic point.
Consumers care about end user product.
You wanna pitch the backend services blockchain can provide? Pitch that to a network engineer or a company that needs to solve for their backend pipeline. Under that context, blockchain is completely inconsequential and invisible to the end user, and as such is nothing more than a buzzword selling a part of the game they never really engage as a player.
The one user facing thing you provide here is online identity, which as you even admit is a point of contention.
And that's the thing. This is a gaming site, most dialogue pitching things to gamers or discussion on the level of end users.
Seems you missed the point once again on the mentioned attacks. Aside form the fact I have multiple times acknowledge that these are not the biggest problem, you also continue to use misleading anecdote. You're pinning everything there on stake, which itself is double edged since you're increasing necessary investment in a node for basic interaction. That'd be like jacking the credit card transaction fee through the roof, which just wouldn't work for general consumers.
So aside from the fact they do happen, the defense you argue for is also one that conflicts with mass consumer adoption.
I think your talking to a brick wall to be 100% honest even if I'm wrong on that front people believe what they wanna believe and interpret things how they want to interpret things.
Unfortunately that's a common response once someone interprets something as confrontational towards personal interest.
It becomes a scrape to find any win or swipe or handwave, instead of simply acknowledging things as they are.
Point in case; how they accuse me of focusing on a specific attack, though I have actually acknowledged and agreed to their own statements that there are other more frequent forms of attack, and ignoring the why of this one still being discussed, that being the repeat attempts to dismiss threat.
Unfortunately it mostly just means that this thread probably isn't aimed in a good direction if the responses are going to be aimed in a downward spiral. When people respond on an emotional basis, the responses they make will become increasingly at risk of volatility.
That was a nice attempt, but still too shortsighted. How about you explain the hack on Solana last year? Because it was neither an eclipse or a sybil attack.
Again the most likely cause for loss of crypto in the past several years are bridge hacks, they account for more than 50% of all transaction loss.
You may be pointing to these attacks as "possible hacks" but it's a misrepresentation. You're essentially making a mountain out of a molehill when it comes to those attacks.
And equally so, not every aspect of a database is meant to help gamers. That's a silly translation of what blockchain is.
Does blockchain have positive uses? Tons of them, that I've outlined many times to may people claiming the exact same thing on these forums. And every time the response is attempting to downplay it.
Like an evolution of the distributed database is supposed to always mean something to the end user.
Or that every aspect has to benefit you consumer.
This just leads to the response "which one" since you refer there to another incident.
It's not a misrepresentation for known issues to be put under scrutiny. Any individual opportunity for an issue to come up is a concern for any system, and the more variety there is the more that stacks. This is extended more bluntly by the point that any system leveraged by large financial institutions or large corporations come under even more attack by virtue of what they serve. It's factoring for scale here. If one wants to pitch something then they should consider the response.
As to the entire rest of your ramble. That's a massive attempt to avoid a rather basic point.
Consumers care about end user product.
You wanna pitch the backend services blockchain can provide? Pitch that to a network engineer or a company that needs to solve for their backend pipeline. Under that context, blockchain is completely inconsequential and invisible to the end user, and as such is nothing more than a buzzword selling a part of the game they never really engage as a player.
The one user facing thing you provide here is online identity, which as you even admit is a point of contention.
And that's the thing. This is a gaming site, most dialogue pitching things to gamers or discussion on the level of end users.
Seems you missed the point once again on the mentioned attacks. Aside form the fact I have multiple times acknowledge that these are not the biggest problem, you also continue to use misleading anecdote. You're pinning everything there on stake, which itself is double edged since you're increasing necessary investment in a node for basic interaction. That'd be like jacking the credit card transaction fee through the roof, which just wouldn't work for general consumers.
So aside from the fact they do happen, the defense you argue for is also one that conflicts with mass consumer adoption.
Actually those things aren't mutually exclusive.
The fact is, mass consumer adoption is irrelevant. It's like saying that there's a mass consumer adoption of google data centers. That's a moot point. You know how to "code" so you should understand that it doesn't matter what the consumer perspective is.
Currently blockchain is being used but many companies, some of which may not even advertise how they're being used. They may be centralized, decentralized, in use or not.
You wouldn't know.
And you don't even seem to understand how nodes and validation work as basica principle. Like how nodes are being utilized to authenticate transactions. they are nothing like transaction fees lol. Gas fees are closer to transaction fees, and completely different than what proof of stake is actually performing.
I think you're on the cusp of understanding some of these things, but it still seems like you're rushing to grab material to prove your point, without understanding what you're providing, which is why you initially tried to push me when I didn't specifically mention Sybil and Eclipse attacks as points of concern. Now here, you concede these attacks aren't the largest problems and that you were only trying to state that they were an inherent problem, portraying last year's Solana hack as it being a recent problem, but you aren't providing information as to how that hack actually occurred, whereas the only sybil attack on solana last year that had any success wasn't in stealing currency but inflating the price.
But I digress. I think you miss the mark on several points. If your basic argument is "blockchain has bugs and can be exploited" bravo. Software has issues. I think we're all surprised about that one.
What I will give you credit for is that there aren't a lot of uses that SHOULD be important to gamers. GameFi is technically successful, when you take into consideration the use of GameFi in place of Gambling.
GameFi also technically works as a monetization model, including how NFTs and smart contracts pay out specifically to not only the developers over a long term model, but to gamers as well. Functionally, this is a consumer facing product that some people want.
Serverless games and serverless development for games, including IDEs like Xaya are also consumer facing features that might interest players. Knowing that a game could never be shut down because it lives on chain is something I think many gamers would like to see.
And finally the use of a single user identity, as planned in the creation of Web3, using a secure token hash rather than a username or password is basically as close to a virtual biometric as you can get, which might be something that consumers may also want.
But
Skewing GameFi as a feature is generally distasteful as any RMT in gaming is. The intention is to put the players in the hot seat for content and item creation, which disproportionally puts gamers in the roles of workers and not gamers.
There are a lot of problematic economic factors that just don't work for a traditional game where GamFi is concerned. That isn't the fault of blockchain, that lies on the end of the developers.
The thing about blockchain is, you don't need to have gas fees, you don't need to make it a currency, you can use it simply like any other database for a serverless design if you wanted. Or for a universal trade platform where you can trade items in and out of game on a barter system, or with a non-monetized currency. But that's not blockchains fault that the developers build it the way they do.
So I can agree with you, that from a consumer perspective in gaming, there are very few cases today, where an external observer would see the use of blockchain and find it worthwhile, but that doesn't fall at the hands of the technology. It's all in the implementation.
They are not mutually exclusive, but you are speaking to a different end of the equation. Mass consumer adoption is relevant, because it's the more visible trend for bad actors to respond to. Simple as that.
The attempt to spin away from stake as a form of security by saying gas fees are more like transaction fees resolves nothing. Fact is that in order to use stake for PoS security you are putting it forward as collateral. That is a cost that penalizes users of the node because that requires a certain sum before they can initiate a transaction. This doesn't work favorably for mass users, and is why even many users within the cryptocurrency sphere shies away from it. Your attempts at nitpicking and reframing this does not change that.
Similarly your attempt as getting quibbly about Solana just looks funny, because you're going "it's this not that". You're trying to whittle it down to theft is not an honest counterpoint. Fact there is that financial fraud is financial fraud.
GameFi as gambling and a monetization model, congratulations on another example based on transaction and currency.
Games living on blockchain is thus far a mixed bag. Addressing it's development hurdles has been done before too.
Similar to the user identity statement which you admitted was a subject of conflict when you mentioned it the first time.
And it's interesting how you get halfway through that paragraph saying you don't need to turn it into a currency, to then use the example of turning it into commodity trade.
That's rather the problem. The bulk of it's use outside of data/network storage is transactions. Whatever flavor you wanna name it.
And it's interesting how you get halfway through that paragraph saying you don't need to turn it into a currency, to then use the example of turning it into commodity trade.
That's rather the problem. The bulk of it's use outside of data/network storage is transactions. Whatever flavor you wanna name it.
See here's what gets me about this conversation.
I didn't bring up sybil and eclipse. You did. You stated "We can see your argument migrated it's examples away from prior examples, moving away from my prior subject of Sybil and Eclipse attacks." When I didn't address them because they were a non issue, later you agree and concede that point.
You concede that they are simply attacks, but agree they aren't successful attacks. It's a moot point, that had you looked closer, you would have realized there really isn't any merits. It's like saying "There's fraud in banking. Proof: Phishing."
Moving past that you then attempt to liken proof of stake to a transaction fee.
That's simply wrong. On all counts of what proof of stake is. "That is a cost that penalizes users of the node because that requires a certain sum before they can initiate a transaction. "
That's not even a little correct. It's not a penalty. That's not even what's happening when you transact something on ethereum. If you're initiating a transaction you're not staking your currency as part of the transaction.... you're paying gas fees to pay nodes, and the nodes front their stake so that they can attempt to authenticate a transaction for a piece of the gas fee. They don't lose their stake. That's exactly the point of staking it, during authentication they are giving up their own funds temporarily to validate the transaction. This is different than proof of work where multiple nodes would split the process by mining the transactions for the fee...
"The bulk of it's use outside of data/network storage is transactions. Whatever flavor you wanna name it."
Blockchain is a distributed database. What is even the point of this statement? Data storage is literally all it does. The difference is that it's meant to be inherently immutable, cryptographically secure, and live on a network. All datapoints inherently are logged as transactions within the database.
You basically just said "the bulk of a spoon's use outside of eating soup and cereal is picking up liquids, however you want to spin it." lol
It just shows how little you know about what you're talking about, it's not semantics, it's not just one thing being interchangeable to another.... and after pointing it out to you, you rush in after the fact after a little research, but you're not being genuine with your understanding of the technology and it shows.
Look, you can have your opinions. That's fine. Most people here don't care, and mose of them don't understand blockchain from the get go. As long as you're against blockchain, most people here won't look too closely in your arguments. They don't care as long as the end result is negative.
But that's not *the reality*.
Is there blockchain fraud. Yes. Is it disproportionate to other kinds of fraud? No.
Are there such things as sybil and eclipse attacks? Yes. Are they something that has a history of broad success? No.
Does Blockchain in GameFi have gambling? Yes. Is that all it's good for? No.
The thing is, there is perception, and then there is the reality of the situation, and most people here, you included, are diving into the perception of the technology based on the negative press. Nothing to fault anyone for in that regard.
But your arguments lack merit, and make no sense. You're trying to section off blockchain, making it sound like these problems exist in a vacuum. They don't. The technology has a lot of viable uses, and it's not going away.
I've entertained this conversation for a long time, and it's fine for neither of us to concede. But it's important that people understand what they're hating, and maybe someone might happen upon this thread one day and read through it, and put in the effort to do the research themselves.
Turning your argument to lying is not a way to become more convincing.
Yes, I brought up Sybil and Eclipse. You disregarded it to use a different example of a different problem in your response to me.
I am unclear where or why you make up this idea of concession. You brought up that there's other more common types of attack, and I agreed with that. This doesn't suddenly make other issues irrelevant.
And ignoring financial fraud because person a didn't directly steal from person b, and instead created an inflation in value for them or others to capitalize on, is still a problem. also a good sight different than phishing.
From your description of staking it's clear you're taking the view of using Sybil or eclipse to attack a network, which goes against what I'd stated a couple times previously of the security issue faced by using it against individual nodes. You talking about staking from the context of a validator. You also literally included the cost to a user of a node in your description. You also reaffirmed my point "Fact is that in order to use stake for PoS security you are putting it forward as collateral." and the subsequent statement on the fees. Once again it's a case of changing the description but not the content.
And "What is even the point of this statement?" is the fact you've repeatedly tried to argue it has use cases beyond being a transactional service, only to then describe another way you can turn things into an object to trade.
Yes, a spoon is a good analogy to that. Saying "you can do many things with a spoon" and then describing picking up soup five times, is a little nonsensical.
You can stretch your argument as much as you want, but devolving it to lying on top of things was rather a dishonest move. Same with continuing to mischaracterize what's actually been expressed as the concern. It's notable that every time you assign a new cause. Who said problems exist in a vacuum?
Or what was actually expressed was that we need to consider things holistically and not ignore trading one problem for another, that we are not looking at simple solutions?
It's important for people to understand when they have chosen to overstep reason for passion. You've turned your argument into scraping for any semantic win you can, and for what reason?
Turning your argument to lying is not a way to become more convincing.
Yes, I brought up Sybil and Eclipse. You disregarded it to use a different example of a different problem in your response to me.
I am unclear where or why you make up this idea of concession. You brought up that there's other more common types of attack, and I agreed with that. This doesn't suddenly make other issues irrelevant.
And ignoring financial fraud because person a didn't directly steal from person b, and instead created an inflation in value for them or others to capitalize on, is still a problem. also a good sight different than phishing.
From your description of staking it's clear you're taking the view of using Sybil or eclipse to attack a network, which goes against what I'd stated a couple times previously of the security issue faced by using it against individual nodes. You talking about staking from the context of a validator. You also literally included the cost to a user of a node in your description. You also reaffirmed my point "Fact is that in order to use stake for PoS security you are putting it forward as collateral." and the subsequent statement on the fees. Once again it's a case of changing the description but not the content.
And "What is even the point of this statement?" is the fact you've repeatedly tried to argue it has use cases beyond being a transactional service, only to then describe another way you can turn things into an object to trade.
Yes, a spoon is a good analogy to that. Saying "you can do many things with a spoon" and then describing picking up soup five times, is a little nonsensical.
You can stretch your argument as much as you want, but devolving it to lying on top of things was rather a dishonest move. Same with continuing to mischaracterize what's actually been expressed as the concern. It's notable that every time you assign a new cause. Who said problems exist in a vacuum?
Or what was actually expressed was that we need to consider things holistically and not ignore trading one problem for another, that we are not looking at simple solutions?
It's important for people to understand when they have chosen to overstep reason for passion. You've turned your argument into scraping for any semantic win you can, and for what reason?
How about you just break down your entire argument into bullet points because you keep shifting your stance.
You brought up eclipse and sybil, in conjunction with Solana, and you failed to provide actual proof of what you were talking about when you stated that "last year" seems recent. You provided no details as to what you're talking about.
You also still don't seem to understand the point of Proof of Stake. You literally don't understand how proof of stake works, it's not STAKING crypto in the way that exchanges allow you to stake currency.
It's not a "stance" on sybil or eclipse" to attack a network, I literally just explained the method of processing transactions. *these are types of algorithms used to validate blockchain transactions*.
That wasn't taking a stance LOL. That's literally explaining how it works. I honestly have no words. I'll give you credit for being a great writer, but wow, I'm having trouble continuing with a conversation when you whiffed on the simple understanding of the consensus methods.
My thoughts on blockchain aren't theoretical, I'm not reading random articles and professing knowledge second hand. I've used blockchain, I own tokens, and no matter whether you like or dislike my stance, nobody can point to a single time that I've advertised that anyone should buy into any protocols, games or projects. I've only named projects where alternative use can be researched and understood.
Very few people on this site I feel have the understanding of the technology to even get involved in any projects. It's not foolproof. It's not simple.
To that end, there aren't "semantic wins" for me, because it's literally not semantics. I explained that at length before. You are confidently incorrect in what you're talking about, and it's a real shame. Quite literally what you wrote could be easily checked by anyone with google and 10 minutes of read time.
It's okay to not know what proof of stake is. Or maybe you've heard it but don't know how it works. That's fine. I'm not going to knock people who are honest with what they know.
You on the other hand have put it on me to overexplain.
I'm not endorsing any of these, or requesting people back any blockchain projects. These links are for informational purposes only.
I implore people to educate themselves, most notably the person I'm responding to, because I didn't lie about a single thing. Nor did I misrepresent anything. I provided information - correct information - about how blockchain works.
Funny though, one really doesn't have to know much about block chains or crypto to just understand that deep down it all feels very, very wrong when it comes down to gaming.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Funny though, one really doesn't have to know much about block chains or crypto to just understand that deep down it all feels very, very wrong when it comes down to gaming.
What you want to define as your timescale is up to you. The fact Solana bragged about it's resistance to Sybil attacks in 2019 only to have successful ones later down the line still smacks of blockchain overselling itself. Even more so, yes, only last year. Most of the way through it too. Looked back and seems my original statement was itself "Hence bringing up the point on Sybil and Eclipse attacks, something Solana had claimed resistance to back in 2019 only to have several attacks made in the following years."
And I'm aware proof of stake is not the same as staking currency, hence the point made in passing on Validators. I'm sure you know plenty on this subject and confidently more than I do, but it's also clear when you're dancing around things with your over explanations. Talking past the subject is not taking about the subject, and serves as obfuscation as much as anything else.
Much like your conflation of Sybil and Eclipse there too. The main distinction about them is Sybil being used to attack a network while Eclipse targets a specific node. Basic distinction even a passing google search would give you. Granted colloquially Sybil can be used both ways. You gave a very narrow description that favored the apparent need to refute, rather than acknowledge the scope of what's been presented.
About the only leg to stand on with this one would be your insistence that Sybill/Eclispe attacks are rare. To which if were take your statement "Only in rare cases in conjunction with a 51% attack would a hack like that be a concern.", perhaps rare, but the Solana article demonstrates the prerequisite there was not necessary, and it was still a concern.
If you want to say that's not "taking a stance" fine, but it was certainly ignoring half the equation. Besides we can still always address that there are other more prolific types of attacks, as you'd previously pointed out. I've acknowledged that element several times now.
Your arguments being theory or no has not been a point of complaint.
While you want to accuse me of being incorrect, I would rather in return thank you for proving my point with those links.
First one, though cursory, does have links into staking as a validator as well as the transactions. Yet again we can point at the same statement's made, just with different phrasing.
The Solana article just reaffirms the thing we both knew. As the article and Vitalik put it "If two young developers from Texas can fool an entire ecosystem of the existence of $7.5 billion, then something is not right." That's a big something to solve.
No contention on serverless game.
The render farm thing is neat. Once upon a time we called that "Folding at Home." though. It's cool Blockchain is getting on the distributed computing bandwagon. It's neat to see them build a service around another already existing technology.
However, this is the third industry facing product rather than consumer.
The value of blockchain as an industry technology is not disputed, at least not by me. That does not change "If an honest assessment is ever to be made, it's done by taking the good with the bad and not making roundabout arguments."
Honestly I do commend you for providing information, and I agree with your sentiment that people should educate themselves. However, you did lie and you have been dishonest in the course of this conversation. Putting words in the mouths of others very much constitutes both and you've done that a few times now. The fact I can quote my original statements and they reflect the same I'm saying now directly contradicts your claim of shifting stances.
Same as the things already mentioned above in the comment. I can understand your zeal for the subject and you are usually better in how you interact with others, but this does not seem to be such an occasion.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
I don't speak Greek, anybody want to explain what the heck the last couple of pages have been about?
Sure, it's easy.
It all started when someone said:
"Crypto fraud is in the billions of dollars a year and rising as well. And that's with a million times less people using crypto compared to people using credit" cards."
And Maskedweasel jumped in to cryptobrosplain that away by saying that since crypto value is so volatile, you can't say it was BILLIONs because it might only have been billions depending on how the crypto market was doing the day of the theft and later on.
It was a ridiculous and useless counter and Uwakionna called him on it so they bitched back and forth for a while.
You're all caught up now.
"Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community ... but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It's the invasion of the idiots”
― Umberto Eco
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?” ― CD PROJEKT RED
Comments
Most of those that have gotten "rich" in crypto bought into it when the tokens were tenths of a cent or less.
If you spent 1 million on crypto and it depreciates to 100K whether or not it's stollen, it's the same as if you bought 1 million in stocks and the company goes bankrupt the next week. You're SOL.
What you're describing is a misrepresentation of what was taken.
If I spent 100 dollars when ethereum was .001 and now ethereum is 1000, how much is the loss if I lose 100k dollars in ethereum? And how much is that loss actually?
Where is the line? Is it what you spent on the crypto initially? What it was when it was stolen? What it is when it's sold?
Because those are all different numbers. You spend 10 dollars, that 10 is worth 10 million now. You lose 5 million from a hack. The currency takes a hit and it's worth 500k now.
Did you lose 5 million? 500k? or 5 dollars?
IF you spend 1 million dollars and lose exactly 1 million dollars worth of the currency you buy... you're not dealing in crypto. Even breaking even on a cash out would mean the currency would have had to appreciate.
Second paragraph, call out a specific kind of identity fraud if you want. If Identity fraud in general is on the rise, then it's not exempt from scrutiny. Splitting hairs is just pedantics.
That's in general to blockchain. If you want to refocus it to gaming in particular, those subjects still apply as concerns.
This is also in subject to dredging up the tired subject of "What does it bring to the game?" We can see even in the other thread that it's only main value for GH was in the simplicity to make a new currency.
Hard to move around that being the main function there when it's what things cycle back to even as a game mechanic, but more fundamentally it only worked in that context because they wanted something they didn't have to develop themselves, and it wasn't without it's limitations. The fact it was only being used to serve a small community as monopoly money being it's saving grace, though it did still suffer devaluation.
That's why a 33% attack DOES NOT WORK. You're picking up really old news about bitcoin. In order for anything under 51% to work as POS you're burning your stake, which is often farm more costly and won't actually fork the network, even if it is successful.
The dishonesty here is coming from you in stating that these are common concerns. They aren't, and most protocols that are generally utilized protect against these attacks, even if they aren't immune they are highly resistant enough. It's like saying banks are vulnerable to bank robbers. You're trying to make it seem like it's the wild west out there. Every friday is a bank robbery.
You're wrong.
Both attacks you're talking about are not the largest or even the most frequent vectors for attack.
And finally, you again misrepresent blockchain. In the other thread it was used as a currency.
On other games it's used for item generation, serverless games, monetization, inherently transitionable and externally held assets.
That's outside of the specific cases of currency only use.
A lot of your posts are thinly veiled attacks on blockchain, masked as research about the technology.
Which is fine. I know most people here don't like it. I've never asked anyone to. But I don't misrepresent what it is.
I don't consider attacks on Solana as of last year to be really old news.
Very simply, you are overselling the state of security provided.
It's a bit late in the game here for you to be trying to flip the script on dishonesty.
Your accusation rings hollow, or rather can be pointed back your direction.
And yes, they aren't the most common methods. There are in fact other ways in which blockchains are attacked more frequently.
As to the gaming specific subject. That's not a misrepresentation, just look at your examples.
Outside of "serverless game", all of your use cases are tokenization for possession and transactions. Rose by any other name right there.
Nothing is veiled here. I'm not pretending to "research the technology" nor simply attack it, nor do I aim expressly to attack. What generic argument playbook did you yoink that nonsense out of?
I've made my point clear time and again. The things of concern ultimately remain justified use case and the actual scope and state of the technology. Both of which can bee seen as often misrepresented by you, though you may not see it as such because of your own invested interest.
https://biturl.top/rU7bY3
Beyond the shadows there's always light
Again the most likely cause for loss of crypto in the past several years are bridge hacks, they account for more than 50% of all transaction loss.
You may be pointing to these attacks as "possible hacks" but it's a misrepresentation. You're essentially making a mountain out of a molehill when it comes to those attacks.
And equally so, not every aspect of a database is meant to help gamers. That's a silly translation of what blockchain is.
Does blockchain have positive uses? Tons of them, that I've outlined many times to may people claiming the exact same thing on these forums. And every time the response is attempting to downplay it.
Like an evolution of the distributed database is supposed to always mean something to the end user.
Or that every aspect has to benefit you consumer.
Whereas even taking it as solely a monetization tool is enough for a wider adoption. Or a decentralized public database tool. Or as a transactional token ledger.
Nevermind that there are decentralized apps that can do anything from rendering videos through a distributed gpu blockchain, and an IDE specifically for building on-chain games. Web3 is also part of a universal online identity movement, that would act like a fingerprint online. Something a lot of people who like to remain anonymous don't want, but could be quite useful in many cases. Especially where metaverse applications are concerned.
In the end though what I find very interesting about a lot of the people here...
Is that they "know" it all. They rarely ask.
I don't misrepresent anything. If you asked what the areas of concern are, especially in relation to gaming, I would provide it.
Instead you pick up a shovel and make a huge deal over two attacks that are nowhere near the top of concerns in any blockchain project at all. They're costly, unsuccessful, and an extreme gamble to even attempt it, especially where proof of stake is concerned (which you'd understand if you realize that in order to transact something worth stealing you have to stake your own currency by a weighted distribution, which means that you lose the currency if you attempt to steal it)
There's a reason these attacks don't happen.
It's not a misrepresentation for known issues to be put under scrutiny. Any individual opportunity for an issue to come up is a concern for any system, and the more variety there is the more that stacks. This is extended more bluntly by the point that any system leveraged by large financial institutions or large corporations come under even more attack by virtue of what they serve. It's factoring for scale here. If one wants to pitch something then they should consider the response.
As to the entire rest of your ramble. That's a massive attempt to avoid a rather basic point.
Consumers care about end user product.
You wanna pitch the backend services blockchain can provide? Pitch that to a network engineer or a company that needs to solve for their backend pipeline. Under that context, blockchain is completely inconsequential and invisible to the end user, and as such is nothing more than a buzzword selling a part of the game they never really engage as a player.
The one user facing thing you provide here is online identity, which as you even admit is a point of contention.
And that's the thing. This is a gaming site, most dialogue pitching things to gamers or discussion on the level of end users.
Seems you missed the point once again on the mentioned attacks. Aside form the fact I have multiple times acknowledge that these are not the biggest problem, you also continue to use misleading anecdote. You're pinning everything there on stake, which itself is double edged since you're increasing necessary investment in a node for basic interaction. That'd be like jacking the credit card transaction fee through the roof, which just wouldn't work for general consumers.
So aside from the fact they do happen, the defense you argue for is also one that conflicts with mass consumer adoption.
It becomes a scrape to find any win or swipe or handwave, instead of simply acknowledging things as they are.
Point in case; how they accuse me of focusing on a specific attack, though I have actually acknowledged and agreed to their own statements that there are other more frequent forms of attack, and ignoring the why of this one still being discussed, that being the repeat attempts to dismiss threat.
Unfortunately it mostly just means that this thread probably isn't aimed in a good direction if the responses are going to be aimed in a downward spiral. When people respond on an emotional basis, the responses they make will become increasingly at risk of volatility.
Actually those things aren't mutually exclusive.
The fact is, mass consumer adoption is irrelevant. It's like saying that there's a mass consumer adoption of google data centers. That's a moot point. You know how to "code" so you should understand that it doesn't matter what the consumer perspective is.
Currently blockchain is being used but many companies, some of which may not even advertise how they're being used. They may be centralized, decentralized, in use or not.
You wouldn't know.
And you don't even seem to understand how nodes and validation work as basica principle. Like how nodes are being utilized to authenticate transactions. they are nothing like transaction fees lol. Gas fees are closer to transaction fees, and completely different than what proof of stake is actually performing.
I think you're on the cusp of understanding some of these things, but it still seems like you're rushing to grab material to prove your point, without understanding what you're providing, which is why you initially tried to push me when I didn't specifically mention Sybil and Eclipse attacks as points of concern. Now here, you concede these attacks aren't the largest problems and that you were only trying to state that they were an inherent problem, portraying last year's Solana hack as it being a recent problem, but you aren't providing information as to how that hack actually occurred, whereas the only sybil attack on solana last year that had any success wasn't in stealing currency but inflating the price.
But I digress. I think you miss the mark on several points. If your basic argument is "blockchain has bugs and can be exploited" bravo. Software has issues. I think we're all surprised about that one.
What I will give you credit for is that there aren't a lot of uses that SHOULD be important to gamers. GameFi is technically successful, when you take into consideration the use of GameFi in place of Gambling.
GameFi also technically works as a monetization model, including how NFTs and smart contracts pay out specifically to not only the developers over a long term model, but to gamers as well. Functionally, this is a consumer facing product that some people want.
Serverless games and serverless development for games, including IDEs like Xaya are also consumer facing features that might interest players. Knowing that a game could never be shut down because it lives on chain is something I think many gamers would like to see.
And finally the use of a single user identity, as planned in the creation of Web3, using a secure token hash rather than a username or password is basically as close to a virtual biometric as you can get, which might be something that consumers may also want.
But
Skewing GameFi as a feature is generally distasteful as any RMT in gaming is. The intention is to put the players in the hot seat for content and item creation, which disproportionally puts gamers in the roles of workers and not gamers.
There are a lot of problematic economic factors that just don't work for a traditional game where GamFi is concerned. That isn't the fault of blockchain, that lies on the end of the developers.
The thing about blockchain is, you don't need to have gas fees, you don't need to make it a currency, you can use it simply like any other database for a serverless design if you wanted. Or for a universal trade platform where you can trade items in and out of game on a barter system, or with a non-monetized currency. But that's not blockchains fault that the developers build it the way they do.
So I can agree with you, that from a consumer perspective in gaming, there are very few cases today, where an external observer would see the use of blockchain and find it worthwhile, but that doesn't fall at the hands of the technology. It's all in the implementation.
The attempt to spin away from stake as a form of security by saying gas fees are more like transaction fees resolves nothing. Fact is that in order to use stake for PoS security you are putting it forward as collateral. That is a cost that penalizes users of the node because that requires a certain sum before they can initiate a transaction. This doesn't work favorably for mass users, and is why even many users within the cryptocurrency sphere shies away from it. Your attempts at nitpicking and reframing this does not change that.
Similarly your attempt as getting quibbly about Solana just looks funny, because you're going "it's this not that". You're trying to whittle it down to theft is not an honest counterpoint. Fact there is that financial fraud is financial fraud.
GameFi as gambling and a monetization model, congratulations on another example based on transaction and currency.
Games living on blockchain is thus far a mixed bag. Addressing it's development hurdles has been done before too.
Similar to the user identity statement which you admitted was a subject of conflict when you mentioned it the first time.
And it's interesting how you get halfway through that paragraph saying you don't need to turn it into a currency, to then use the example of turning it into commodity trade.
That's rather the problem. The bulk of it's use outside of data/network storage is transactions. Whatever flavor you wanna name it.
I didn't bring up sybil and eclipse. You did. You stated "We can see your argument migrated it's examples away from prior examples, moving away from my prior subject of Sybil and Eclipse attacks." When I didn't address them because they were a non issue, later you agree and concede that point.
You concede that they are simply attacks, but agree they aren't successful attacks. It's a moot point, that had you looked closer, you would have realized there really isn't any merits. It's like saying "There's fraud in banking. Proof: Phishing."
Moving past that you then attempt to liken proof of stake to a transaction fee.
That's simply wrong. On all counts of what proof of stake is. "That is a cost that penalizes users of the node because that requires a certain sum before they can initiate a transaction. "
That's not even a little correct. It's not a penalty. That's not even what's happening when you transact something on ethereum. If you're initiating a transaction you're not staking your currency as part of the transaction.... you're paying gas fees to pay nodes, and the nodes front their stake so that they can attempt to authenticate a transaction for a piece of the gas fee. They don't lose their stake. That's exactly the point of staking it, during authentication they are giving up their own funds temporarily to validate the transaction. This is different than proof of work where multiple nodes would split the process by mining the transactions for the fee...
"The bulk of it's use outside of data/network storage is transactions. Whatever flavor you wanna name it."
Blockchain is a distributed database. What is even the point of this statement? Data storage is literally all it does. The difference is that it's meant to be inherently immutable, cryptographically secure, and live on a network. All datapoints inherently are logged as transactions within the database.
You basically just said "the bulk of a spoon's use outside of eating soup and cereal is picking up liquids, however you want to spin it." lol
It just shows how little you know about what you're talking about, it's not semantics, it's not just one thing being interchangeable to another.... and after pointing it out to you, you rush in after the fact after a little research, but you're not being genuine with your understanding of the technology and it shows.
Look, you can have your opinions. That's fine. Most people here don't care, and mose of them don't understand blockchain from the get go. As long as you're against blockchain, most people here won't look too closely in your arguments. They don't care as long as the end result is negative.
But that's not *the reality*.
Is there blockchain fraud. Yes. Is it disproportionate to other kinds of fraud? No.
Are there such things as sybil and eclipse attacks? Yes. Are they something that has a history of broad success? No.
Does Blockchain in GameFi have gambling? Yes. Is that all it's good for? No.
The thing is, there is perception, and then there is the reality of the situation, and most people here, you included, are diving into the perception of the technology based on the negative press. Nothing to fault anyone for in that regard.
But your arguments lack merit, and make no sense. You're trying to section off blockchain, making it sound like these problems exist in a vacuum. They don't. The technology has a lot of viable uses, and it's not going away.
I've entertained this conversation for a long time, and it's fine for neither of us to concede. But it's important that people understand what they're hating, and maybe someone might happen upon this thread one day and read through it, and put in the effort to do the research themselves.
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Try a MUD today at http://www.mudconnect.com/Yes, I brought up Sybil and Eclipse. You disregarded it to use a different example of a different problem in your response to me.
I am unclear where or why you make up this idea of concession. You brought up that there's other more common types of attack, and I agreed with that. This doesn't suddenly make other issues irrelevant.
And ignoring financial fraud because person a didn't directly steal from person b, and instead created an inflation in value for them or others to capitalize on, is still a problem. also a good sight different than phishing.
From your description of staking it's clear you're taking the view of using Sybil or eclipse to attack a network, which goes against what I'd stated a couple times previously of the security issue faced by using it against individual nodes. You talking about staking from the context of a validator. You also literally included the cost to a user of a node in your description. You also reaffirmed my point "Fact is that in order to use stake for PoS security you are putting it forward as collateral." and the subsequent statement on the fees. Once again it's a case of changing the description but not the content.
And "What is even the point of this statement?" is the fact you've repeatedly tried to argue it has use cases beyond being a transactional service, only to then describe another way you can turn things into an object to trade.
Yes, a spoon is a good analogy to that. Saying "you can do many things with a spoon" and then describing picking up soup five times, is a little nonsensical.
You can stretch your argument as much as you want, but devolving it to lying on top of things was rather a dishonest move. Same with continuing to mischaracterize what's actually been expressed as the concern. It's notable that every time you assign a new cause. Who said problems exist in a vacuum?
Or what was actually expressed was that we need to consider things holistically and not ignore trading one problem for another, that we are not looking at simple solutions?
It's important for people to understand when they have chosen to overstep reason for passion. You've turned your argument into scraping for any semantic win you can, and for what reason?
You brought up eclipse and sybil, in conjunction with Solana, and you failed to provide actual proof of what you were talking about when you stated that "last year" seems recent. You provided no details as to what you're talking about.
You also still don't seem to understand the point of Proof of Stake. You literally don't understand how proof of stake works, it's not STAKING crypto in the way that exchanges allow you to stake currency.
It's not a "stance" on sybil or eclipse" to attack a network, I literally just explained the method of processing transactions. *these are types of algorithms used to validate blockchain transactions*.
That wasn't taking a stance LOL. That's literally explaining how it works. I honestly have no words. I'll give you credit for being a great writer, but wow, I'm having trouble continuing with a conversation when you whiffed on the simple understanding of the consensus methods.
My thoughts on blockchain aren't theoretical, I'm not reading random articles and professing knowledge second hand. I've used blockchain, I own tokens, and no matter whether you like or dislike my stance, nobody can point to a single time that I've advertised that anyone should buy into any protocols, games or projects. I've only named projects where alternative use can be researched and understood.
Very few people on this site I feel have the understanding of the technology to even get involved in any projects. It's not foolproof. It's not simple.
To that end, there aren't "semantic wins" for me, because it's literally not semantics. I explained that at length before. You are confidently incorrect in what you're talking about, and it's a real shame. Quite literally what you wrote could be easily checked by anyone with google and 10 minutes of read time.
It's okay to not know what proof of stake is. Or maybe you've heard it but don't know how it works. That's fine. I'm not going to knock people who are honest with what they know.
You on the other hand have put it on me to overexplain.
So here you go:
The basics of consensus mechanisms
https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/investing/proof-of-work-vs-proof-of-stake
The "successful" sybil attack on Solana last year:
https://cryptoslate.com/defi-sybil-attack-created-7-5b-fake-tvl-on-solana-from-anon-developers/
MMO-specific blockchain game engine to create serverless games
https://xaya.io/
Render network blockchain based gpu rendering for 3D models on Octane
https://rendertoken.com/
I'm not endorsing any of these, or requesting people back any blockchain projects. These links are for informational purposes only.
I implore people to educate themselves, most notably the person I'm responding to, because I didn't lie about a single thing. Nor did I misrepresent anything. I provided information - correct information - about how blockchain works.
Sort of a primal thing I guess.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
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Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
What you want to define as your timescale is up to you. The fact Solana bragged about it's resistance to Sybil attacks in 2019 only to have successful ones later down the line still smacks of blockchain overselling itself. Even more so, yes, only last year. Most of the way through it too. Looked back and seems my original statement was itself "Hence bringing up the point on Sybil and Eclipse attacks, something Solana had claimed resistance to back in 2019 only to have several attacks made in the following years."
And I'm aware proof of stake is not the same as staking currency, hence the point made in passing on Validators. I'm sure you know plenty on this subject and confidently more than I do, but it's also clear when you're dancing around things with your over explanations. Talking past the subject is not taking about the subject, and serves as obfuscation as much as anything else.
Much like your conflation of Sybil and Eclipse there too. The main distinction about them is Sybil being used to attack a network while Eclipse targets a specific node. Basic distinction even a passing google search would give you. Granted colloquially Sybil can be used both ways. You gave a very narrow description that favored the apparent need to refute, rather than acknowledge the scope of what's been presented.
About the only leg to stand on with this one would be your insistence that Sybill/Eclispe attacks are rare.
To which if were take your statement "Only in rare cases in conjunction with a 51% attack would a hack like that be a concern.", perhaps rare, but the Solana article demonstrates the prerequisite there was not necessary, and it was still a concern.
If you want to say that's not "taking a stance" fine, but it was certainly ignoring half the equation. Besides we can still always address that there are other more prolific types of attacks, as you'd previously pointed out. I've acknowledged that element several times now.
Your arguments being theory or no has not been a point of complaint.
While you want to accuse me of being incorrect, I would rather in return thank you for proving my point with those links.
First one, though cursory, does have links into staking as a validator as well as the transactions. Yet again we can point at the same statement's made, just with different phrasing.
The Solana article just reaffirms the thing we both knew. As the article and Vitalik put it "If two young developers from Texas can fool an entire ecosystem of the existence of $7.5 billion, then something is not right." That's a big something to solve.
No contention on serverless game.
The render farm thing is neat. Once upon a time we called that "Folding at Home." though. It's cool Blockchain is getting on the distributed computing bandwagon. It's neat to see them build a service around another already existing technology.
However, this is the third industry facing product rather than consumer.
The value of blockchain as an industry technology is not disputed, at least not by me. That does not change "If an honest assessment is ever to be made, it's done by taking the good with the bad and not making roundabout arguments."
Honestly I do commend you for providing information, and I agree with your sentiment that people should educate themselves. However, you did lie and you have been dishonest in the course of this conversation. Putting words in the mouths of others very much constitutes both and you've done that a few times now. The fact I can quote my original statements and they reflect the same I'm saying now directly contradicts your claim of shifting stances.
Same as the things already mentioned above in the comment. I can understand your zeal for the subject and you are usually better in how you interact with others, but this does not seem to be such an occasion.
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Beyond the shadows there's always light
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
I want a mmorpg where people have gone through misery, have gone through school stuff and actually have had sex even. -sagil
It all started when someone said:
And that's with a million times less people using crypto compared to people using credit" cards."
And Maskedweasel jumped in to cryptobrosplain that away by saying that since crypto value is so volatile, you can't say it was BILLIONs because it might only have been billions depending on how the crypto market was doing the day of the theft and later on.
It was a ridiculous and useless counter and Uwakionna called him on it so they bitched back and forth for a while.
You're all caught up now.
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