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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 12th, 2023

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  • user incompetency

    For sure, it’s an uphill battle against never ending stupidity, but that’s not exclusive to crypto haha. I’m sure we’ll get there sooner or later though

    I doubt the growth would be that small if it had actual use

    You’d be surprised.

    Bitcoin’s chain size is “only” 500GB because it’s pretty much enforced by the block size limit (which is 2MB). The amount of use does not affect the growth (unless it’s below the 2MB, which it hasn’t been for a whiiile).

    For Ethereum, the “fullnode” only requires a bit over a terabyte because only the latest state is stored (combined with all historical transactions). If you wanted to query old state, you’d need an archive node which holds the state of each block that’s ever happened. Archive nodes are up to 10TB afaik at this point, which is a good chunk of data if you ask me ;)

    The nice thing is though that you can build an archive node out of a fullnode, by replaying all the transactions that make the history of the whole chain.

    You also have to keep in mind that every storage operation is very expensive to do (precisely to prevent huge increases in chain size), which means that people will spend a huuge amount of time optimizing their applications to use the least amount of space possible (thus reducing cost for their users). So that’s probably why the chain size might seem “small” to you.

    There are chains though which do not enforce such strict limits on space usage, like Solana, which is apparently at over 100TB now.


  • Metamask isn’t really a 2FA wallet, it’s what’s called a hot wallet (yes, something where the private key is exposed). It’s really dumb to keep a lot of funds on there, since anything goes wrong and everything is gone.

    That’s what: a) hardware wallets are for - the private key is stored on a dedicated device (in a secure element), which it never leaves. The only thing going in are “messages” and the only thing going out are said messages signed with the private key. So a super small attack surface.

    They’re sometimes still vulnerable but you usually have to have insane tooling and physical access to the device, the ones that most people use though (Ledger) are not.

    b) multisigs - a virtual wallet which requires X out of Y signers to execute a transaction. It’s a very safe solution for long term storage. You could have, for example, 2 hardware wallets set up as signers, while keeping at least one of the wallets in a bank safe (or another safe location). The surface for attacking the multisig is near non-existent at that point.

    Sure, it’s inconvenient, but it’s a trade-off.

    cost for using that tech

    Very much depends on what you’re using. There are “layers 2s” running on top of Ethereum, which “work” the same as Ethereum does (from the point of the user) but cost cents or tens of cents to use per transaction (compared to dollars to tens of dollars for transactions on Eth).

    So don’t agree with cost being a problem.

    size will become too large

    Btc is growing at the rate of ~2mb/10 minutes (very roughly), the chain uses up around 550GBs after 15 years, which is honestly nothing, especially at the rate that storage costs are going down.

    Ethereum is quite a bit bigger, at over a terabyte (when you use geth, but think other clients have brought it down a bit), but that’s still very easily manageable.

    The devs are also working on size-reduction stuff like state expiry and others, but I’m not too well informed on that.

    Hope that addresses your concerns.

    Btw thanks for having a conversation and trying to learn, I don’t care if you agree or disagree, I just don’t want people to blindly hate something I care about without understanding it.


  • Hardware wallets are safe, multisigs are safe. You can be safe if you put in the effort. If you don’t want to do it, that’s your call, doesn’t mean the system sucks.

    Yeah difficulty is adjusted depending on how many “devices” (simply put) are mining, the target is a specific blocktime.

    What’s gonna kill bitcoin is the ever decreasing issuance, but that’s not the problem of crypto nor mining for that matter, just bitcoin.

    Have you skimmed over the point that I think that Ethereum (one of the few sustainably deflating cryptos) isn’t just a currency but also a base for other things that may also serve as a currency?

    Also, it’s not bad for the currency itself, just for the economy around it. And again, I’m not saying Ethereum should replace the dollar.



  • no safe guards

    That’s the point.jpg

    You’re free to hold your crypto on an exchange, you’re free to buy a hardware wallet and do your due diligence when confirming transactions, you’re free to create a multisig for your coins and tokens to introduce multiple factors for signing.

    But it’s your choice.

    people dying, losing keys

    That’s on them, it’s like stuffing money into a mattress and not telling your family.

    mining coins are destined to die

    Mining’s not great for sure, but “destined to die” makes no sense.

    Inflation is necessary so that people spend the thing

    That’s kinda funny, because in the case of Ethereum, the deflation comes from people using and spending Eth on gas.

    I’m also not saying that Ethereum is the perfect currency to replace fiat, the utility there comes from everything that’s built on top of it.

    Widen your horizon, crypto isn’t just a medium for payments.