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Comment by lottin | Hacker News Reader

> There is massive utility in a trustless, permissionless, censorship-resistant contract layer connecting disparate centralised entities.

No, there's no utility in that, if ultimately enforcement relies on an entity that needs to be trusted and can override the blockchain.

> A centrally managed registry would never be suitable for this task for a multitude of obvious reasons.

Centrally-managed registries are already in use and have been in use for a long time, they exist in every single country, and entire markets depends upon them, but somehow they "would never be suitable for obvious reasons"? They have already been shown to be suitable, what on earth are you talking about?

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> what on earth are you talking about?

I'm talking about a global, universal API layer supporting standardised contract enforcement and value transfer between applications. A centralised implementation of this would clearly be a bad idea.

If you don't see utility in this I don't know what to tell you.

> I'm talking about a global, universal API layer supporting standardised contract enforcement and value transfer between applications.

What does that even mean? How is a global API going to support the enforcement of a rental agreement? Or of a bond indenture? Who is actually going to enforce the contract? And what is the role of a global API in that? And what do you mean value transfer between applications? You want to transfer "value" (like a bag of rice?) between computer programs??? None of that makes the slightest sense. Meaningless gibberish intended to fool gullible idiots into thinking that blockchains are some kind of disruptive technology that is going to turn everything upside down. Nonsense. It's a pump & dump scheme, and little else.

Ignoring the condescending tone, value is already being transferred between computer programs. Trillions of dollars per year on Ethereum alone. A lot of the volume is undeniably speculation but denying that value can be transferred on blockchain is denying reality at this point.

Ethereum allows you to transfer digital tokens from one address to another. This is what it does. Calling this "transferring value between computer programs" is both inaccurate and pompous. It's like a truck driver insisting that you call them a "transporter of value". Nobody speaks like that. Your comments consist entirely of marketing buzzwords, which is unfortunate because this is a technology site and we're trying to have an honest discussion about technology.

I'm having an honest discussion. You have accused me of being "a gullible idiot", "pompous" and of using "marketing buzzwords" (which words?). You come across as being very emotionally attached to your negative opinion of the space.

Value can be transferred between programs through Ethereum. The tokens you mentioned have value, because people are willing to exchange them for money. So it's not an inaccurate statement. Web3 provides the standardised API through which these programs can communicate.

Don't twist my words, I never said that you were a gullible idiot. I said that using the term "transferring value" is inaccurate and pompous, and that you are using marketing buzzwords. And I stand by that, "transferring value" is an example of a marketing buzzword. It's not a descriptive term, because what is being transferred is digital tokens, which may or may not have value. Whether they have value is irrelevant as far as the technology itself is concerned. I don't have anything against you personally, but this is the way I see it.

If it helps you can read 'transferring value' to 'transferring digital tokens which have value on the market', the distinction is irrelevant to the point.

> Whether they have value is irrelevant as far as the technology itself is concerned.

I'd argue that it's not irrelevant. The whole point of the technology is, at risk of more 'marketing buzzwords', a decentralised way of moving value around (moving digitised tokens which have value on the market, around).

I had a look at your post/comment history. It's almost exclusively cryptocurrency focussed. I'm curious why you spend so much time discussing a technology you clearly don't think has a future.

It is irrelevant. An automobile engineer would not describe a truck as a "vehicle that transports value", despite the fact that most of the time trucks are used to transport valuable things. It's ridiculous. Nobody in finance refers to financial assets as "value" either.

Why are my comments focused on cryptocurrency? Because I like to discuss cryptocurrencies. I have thought a lot about them, and I think it's an interesting phenomenon from an sociological point of view. Plus, I like arguing with people who I think are wrong.

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