[fcolas]

You're right that timing is key, however:

>> Crypto = Trust (100%) <<

which is why (in my viewpoint) it matters a great deal, and there's just no way back. Trust is required for monetary exchange, but not only. It also matters where very strong guarantees are needed, which is everywhere, e.g., when setting up contracts or when making statements (expert or regulated) about a product, service, or a status. Trust matters because then the whole value-chain gets more efficient, rapid, and cost-effective.

[simias]

>It also matters where very strong guarantees are needed, which is everywhere, e.g., when setting up contracts or when making statements (expert or regulated) about a product, service, or a status.

10+ years later and we're still having this discussion. Yes, blockchain technologies manage to achieve a trust-less consensus about "a product, service or a status" but only if all the parameters can be encoded in the blockchain itself. It breaks down as soon as real world objects and interactions are involved because then the nodes need some sort of trustworthy "oracle" to monitor the real world. Many people have been working on that problem but I don't think anybody has a solution that works at scale in practice. And of course then a single bug and everything breaks down catastrophically (see the DAO).

Then there's the problem of scaling that solution to the transaction rate needed for a world-class blockchain. That also remains an open question.

Cryptocurrencies are interesting in the same way fusion reactors are interesting, if they can really work they will change the world but it's unclear if the technology is truly viable (even more so for cryptocurrencies IMO). As such I'm wary of this "crypto startup school" in the same way I'd be wary of a "nuclear fusion startup school".

Unless of course the objective is to effectively make a "pump-and-dump startup school" in which case I predict a huge success.

[hbmprime]

You're absolutely correct that the single largest barrier to mainstream crypto apps is a trustworthy oracle and that it is an extremely difficult problem to solve.

Chainlink is a decentralized oracle framework that recently went mainnet that solves (almost) every issue regarding trustless external data. API providers can sell their data to be utilized as inputs to smart contracts. Large collections of nodes then aggregate this data to maintain decentralization. There are several mechanisms in place to prevent gaming the network (staking collateral, penalties, reputation). The one issue it does not solve is if few sources for the data actually exist. In that scenario, it does not matter if 2 or 200 nodes are reporting the data, as the API itself may provide bad data to the nodes. However, even in this scenario, it would be trivial to assign blame to the API operator, as all nodes would collectively report bad data.

I would encourage you to check out their solution. I'm shilling, but Chainlink is a product that actually works.

[rapsey]

Unfortunately people are not 100% trustable, devices are not 100% secure and code is not 100% perfect.

If someone steals my credit number, I will likely not be on the hook for the money and will not lose anything.

If I make a mistake during banking, I can turn to people at the bank about it.

[fcolas]

> Unfortunately people are not 100% trustable, devices are not 100% secure and code is not 100% perfect.

- which is actually why you use crypto.

> If someone steals my credit number, I will likely not be on the hook for the money and will not lose anything.

- because the bank guarantees the safety of the payment means you use. The fact that you don't have to pay (as a private customer) doesn't mean that stolen credit card numbers and fraud transactions don't cost money. Someone has to pay somewhere in the chain. If the principal is recovered (the stolen money), then someone still has to pay for the overhead of recovering the money (for you). There're insurance and liability-shift mechanisms in place, but the money transfer would be much safer, faster, and cost-efficient if crypto was in place.

> If I make a mistake during banking, I can turn to people at the bank about it.

- So? It's not because your infrastructure uses crypto that you give up of customer support.

[CaptainZapp]

Well,

https://coiniq.com/cryptocurrency-exchange-hacks/

So much for the safety, speed and cost efficiency of crypto currencies.

[devicetray0]

I'm sorry, but this is very naive about security, and cryptography, and blockchains. Allow me to quote some experts:

[0] > "Crypto is fundamentally unsafe. People hear that crypto is strong and confuse that with safe. Crypto can indeed be very strong but it’s extremely unsafe" -- Nate Lawson (Root Labs)

[1] > "We don't even really know how to build secure systems out of secure parts, let alone out of parts and processes that we can't trust" - Bruce Schneier

[2] > "If you think cryptography is the answer to your problem, then you don't know what your problem is" - Dr. Peter G. Neumann

[rapsey]

Where a single mistake will irrevocably send my money into the void or to a hacker.