Molly White Reviews Blockchain Book

Molly White—of “Web3 is Going Just Great” fame—reviews Chris Dixon’s blockchain solutions book: Read Write Own:

In fact, throughout the entire book, Dixon fails to identify a single blockchain project that has successfully provided a non-speculative service at any kind of scale. The closest he ever comes is when he speaks of how “for decades, technologists have dreamed of building a grassroots internet access provider”. He describes one project that “got further than anyone else”: Helium. He’s right, as long as you ignore the fact that Helium was providing LoRaWAN, not Internet, that by the time he was writing his book Helium hotspots had long since passed the phase where they might generate even enough tokens for their operators to merely break even, and that the network was pulling in somewhere around $1,150 in usage fees a month despite the company being valued at $1.2 billion. Oh, and that the company had widely lied to the public about its supposed big-name clients, and that its executives have been accused of hoarding the project’s token to enrich themselves. But hey, a16z sunk millions into Helium (a fact Dixon never mentions), so might as well try to drum up some new interest!

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Posted on February 13, 2024 at 7:07 AM • 12 Comments

Comments

Clive Robinson • February 13, 2024 8:19 AM

@ Bruce, ALL,

I’ve made my views on blockchain known here for quite some time and it appears others are starting to see it that way as well…

As for NFT’s that Web3[1] was going to be built on, likewise I said they were a con game a variety of pyramid selling with “crypto” as the buzz.

But Helium, was an absolute hoot of a con from the get go and I highlighted this by pointing out the disparity in price between LoRa radio modules at less than 20USD and official hardware built shoddily around them in excess of 700USD and in some cases 1300USD.

Every single one of these “techno-markets” attracted “Venture Capitalists”(VCs) sinking in vast amounts of capital and trying to get it back by the equivalent of a barely legal “pump-n-dump” scam.

Now we have AI LLM’s and some very dodgy ML, both supposedly giving a new kick into Web3… That is, lets be honest on the resuscitation table getting colder by the minute waiting for some one “to call it”.

Will it be the VC’s last pump-n-dump techno-bubble?

Probably not, but people should keep their eyes and ears open and not get left holding the potato that whilst was once hot is now just a manky ball of gag reflex inducer.

[1] There are two web threes out there one is a con game and people will get fleeced by it. The other stands some chance of bringing interesting technology into common usage. However certain people are trying to conflate them for reasons of…

Clive Robinson • February 13, 2024 9:46 AM

@ ALL,

Just to show Molly White is interesting in person, and knows a thing or two and the crooks hanging off of the block chain, as well as there are two web three’s[1],

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AGsllEF7w_g

What I hope for is a third Web 3 that will actually bring benefit to ordinary people, and that’s not even got as far as doodles on paper as far as I can tell…

[1] Firstly the bullshit based on blockchain and Venture Capitalist hype and grift often seen as “Web 3″[2]. Secondly Tim Berners-lee’s “Symantec Web” or “Web 3.0”. However the first is being desperately conflated with the second by VC’s and the like pushing for “Mug money”. Rather than give a long description myself, here’s one from a year ago,

https://theconversation.com/the-next-phase-of-the-internet-is-coming-heres-what-you-need-to-know-about-web3-192919

[2] Moxie Marlinspike wrote a piece explaining just why the VC vision of Web3 is utter nonsense and it’s worth a read you can find a link to it on Molly’s site.

BCS • February 13, 2024 11:15 AM

There is one highly successful block chain project: Git.

Technically it’s a DAG, not a chain, but I’m a little surprised that’s not used as a scaling option for crypto currencies.

Also, the fact that Git isn’t a business venture and lacks a profit motive seems too be relevant to it’s success.

Michael Wojcik • February 13, 2024 12:39 PM

@BCS git implements a Merkle DAG (specifically, a forest of Merkle trees), true, but I don’t think it’s a “blockchain application” in any useful sense. For one thing, git (2005) predates the introduction of the term “blockchain” by “Nakamoto” (2008). More importantly, blockchain’s only innovation (such as it was) over various earlier uses of Merkle trees to implement append-only ledgers was to combine that design with a mechanism similar to Black’s Hashcash. Which git does not do (because it has no reason to).

There are other significant useful Merkle-DAG applications, such as Surety’s document ledger, which went into production in 1995, and a number of filesystems such as btrfs.

So either one restricts “blockchain” to refer specifically to a Merkle graph (often just a list, for blockchain applications) that also uses proof-of-X for signing; or you use it in a very general sense of pretty much anything using a Merkle graph, in which case there are a bunch of real-world applications that do something useful rather than serving as digital tulips. Personally I don’t think the latter definition is productive; it’s better to be specific.

BCS • February 13, 2024 4:49 PM

@Michael Wojcik tl;dr; “block chain” is just a hype marketing term splashed on top of something that was useful long before the term was coined, but doesn’t add any real utility.

I think I’ll agree with you that how you define block chain more or less dictates the end result of the conversation.

FWIW, I don’t see any practical differences between Git and block chains, likely due to the second not adding anything practical.

Clive Robinson • February 13, 2024 6:28 PM

@ BCS

There is one highly successful block chain project: Git.

No it’s not a blockchain.

Have a look at Nicholas Weaver’s definition of a blockchain by design usage.

A blockchain is a public ledger that can be held in part or full by any person one any number of systems so that hostile/cheating “gatekeepers” can be removed. Removing the gate keepers is allegedly achieved by the “proof of work”.

So not having a proof of work requirement whilst still having a public or shared ledger does not make it a “Blockchain”.

But in all honesty apart from being an environmental disaster and profit center for the likes of hardware suppliers like Nvidia proof of work actually serves no useful purpose…

Because people don’t want to run their own servers, only clients. This means that they don’t actually want a distributed or public ledger they just want some one to run a server for them to save them the bother and hassle. The result is you end up with just one ledger with all access through a single entity that by definition becomes a gatekeeper.

An examination of the functioning of NFT’s shows that the blockchain remains behind a gatekeeper who shows you what they want you to see, so actually establishes nothing which is why in part the NFT narket was a complete failure and rife with fraud etc.

Clive Robinson • February 19, 2024 10:03 AM

@ JPA,

If things were fairer in the world then more would know of Molly White, and her message about the nonsense and scam that is Web3, and maybe a lot of money would be put to better use…

Have a read of Moxie Marlinespike’s piece from just two years back on creating a dApp with resulting NFT’s and what happened,

https://moxie.org/2022/01/07/web3-first-impressions.html

It would be funny if it did not reveal the actual scummy underbelly of all that is NFT and Web3.

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