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Crypto & Blockchain
The most popular blog posts about crypto & blockchain on Hacker News. 488 posts.
How to create a private Ethereum network
Omar Metwally, MD University of California, San Francisco DDASH – Ethereum Operating System for Knowledge Creation and Sharing ============================================= Github repo…
Cryptocurrencies’ Carbon Footprint Underestimated
Back in April I wrote Cryptocurrency's Carbon Footprint about the catastrophic carbon emissions of Proof-of-Work cryptocurrencies such as B...
Satoshi's Hashrate
"Bitcoin mining pool, network and exchange analysis"
Crypto: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
I dig into what's genuinely impressive about crypto (distributed trust, abuse prevention, true cloud computing) and what's deeply problematic: boundary interactions, governance concentration, transaction cost tradeoffs, and unclear incentives. My conclusion: crypto may only be useful for financial engineering, and…
The entire crypto ecosystem is a ponzi
Not really. As a counter example, gold is clear and very old ponzi. It's ok. And as a more general argument, crypto does have utility. For circumventing capital controls, buying drugs or laundering money. So there will be constant supply of new depositors who needs that and willing to pay. I would not bet on crypto…
Web3 is a stupid idea
timdaub · Web3 is a stupid idea A long time ago, I gave a talk in front of a full audience talking about BigchainDB, a company I worked for to create a (scalable) decentralized database. As
Class Breaks
There’s a concept from computer security known as a class break. It’s a particular security vulnerability that breaks not just one system, but an entire class of systems. Examples might be a vulnerability in a particular operating system that allows an attacker to take remote control of every computer that runs on…
Facebook’s Libra is still dead – Diem to be sold off for spare parts
Maybe Libra was just very stupid. Because it was a blockchain project started by bitcoiners. Maybe it was always just dumb as hell.
So you want to roll your own crypto?
A coworker of mine asked: How are people supposed to learn (from mistakes) if they don't roll their own crypto? The short answer is do roll ...
Bitcoin
I've mentioned Bitcoin a number of times on this blog. It is something our firm is watching closely. We thought briefly about making a Bitcoin specific investment earlier this year but ended up deciding to sit on the sidelines for now. We are quite taken with the idea of a currency that is not controlled […]
An NFT without a blockchain
This is a small proof-of-concept. It relies on PGP - but you could use Keybase, GPG, or any other hard-to-use encryption program. Background Suppose you want to support an artist and give them money. That's easy. Most artists take PayPal, bank transfer, or cash. But how can you prove that you've paid an artist for a…
How Ethereum can be stolen through DNS rebinding
The Post has been moved here
RSA chief believed cryptographers’ warnings on Dual EC DRBG lacked merit (2014)
"When, last September, it became possible that concerns raised in 2007 might have merit as part of a strategy of exploitation, NIST as the...
Crypto Tokens: A Breakthrough in Open Network Design
It is a wonderful accident of history that the internet and web were created as open platforms that anyone — users, developers…
Satoshi leaked his Los Angeles IP address (2016)
Chapter 6 – California In the Jan of 2009 when Hal and Satoshi were working on Bitcoin Alpha version, Hal encountered an error with the software and he posted the debug log to the mailing lis…
How to steal Bitcoins that are protected by weak passphrases
Every Bitcoin address is based on a secret key, from which the public key (associated to a Bitcoin address) is calculated. Once you have the private key for an address, you have the control of that address and can use it to transfer funds.
How I snatched 153k Ether after a bad Tinder date
Over the weekend, I did a lot of swiping right. I’ve never had a Tinder go this fast from match to agreeing on a date time this fast…
GoDaddy employees used in attacks on multiple cryptocurrency services
Fraudsters redirected email and web traffic destined for several cryptocurrency trading platforms over the past week. The attacks were facilitated by scams targeting employees at GoDaddy , the world’s largest domain name registrar, KrebsOnSecurity has learned.
On the dangers of cryptocurrencies and the uselessness of blockchain
Earlier this month, I and others wrote a letter to Congress, basically saying that cryptocurrencies are an complete and total disaster, and urging them to regulate the space. Nothing in that letter is out of the ordinary, and is in line with what I wrote about blockchain in 2019. In response, Matthew Green has…
Web 3.0 – The Great Con
I'll say it - web 3.0 is a meaningless buzzword, and blockchain and cryptocurrency is nothing more than a giant fraud.
Living Only on Bitcoins
I’ve been interested in BitCoin since the very beginning but, until now, I considered BTC some very nice cryptographic experiment with high potential but almos…
Crypto, the Left and Technofeudalism
Rare is the person who could expertly comment – in a single interview! – on the rise of NFTs and their origins in the virtual worlds of gaming, the logic of the emerging regime of techno-feudalism, and the folly of El Salvador’s Bitcoin-heavy negotiating tactics with the IMF. Luckily, we have found this person in […]