The blockchain thread to end all blockchain threads

[Arduenn Schwartzman]

Will blockchain tech such as crypto currencies and NFTs ever be dissociated from their current speculative bubbles and quick money making schemes that try to create value out of thin air? It seems to take a lot longer than tulips and dot com businesses ever needed time for, in order to outgrow their humble, yet volatile beginnings, and become mainstream.

[bigmoe Whitfield]

but whom is using them, when we know how violate the markets are or how some asshat can tank the market in a matter of moments,  until it's physically setup where it's regulated to not have such asshattery fluctuations, then it's not a viable useful currency.

[Qie Niangao]

Are we sure blockchain isn’t in the same league of perpetual disappointment as 3D printing was, with a technology we’re required to revere underneath frivolous nascent applications like cryptocurrency, NFTs, DAOs, etc… up until we finally figure out that the technology itself is underwhelming for all but these few weird, fleeting uses?

Specific to high-volume, microtransaction-based platforms (including virtual worlds, along with a huge slice of the Internet), can blockchain ever be computationally cheap enough to not add more overhead than the value of the payload transaction?

I have zero confidence, pro or con. I gather Ethereum “gas fees” for example are prohibitive for otherwise practical uses. Does blockchain (or it’s successor algorithms) really need to be three orders of magnitude more efficient to ever be useful for the kind of transactions that move Internet commerce?

[ValKalAstra]

Realistically? Whenever there's a new toy like this, it will come on wings of heavenly promises. Some people will get rich quick, a whole lot of people will get poor quicker and once it has done enough harm, regulations kick in.

Until then it's a wild west paradise for the modern day snake oil merchant: the techbro. The underlying tech will have got a use case once these guys are out. It'll be nowhere near where the promises paint it -  but it will fuel some things in a neat way.

[Alazarin Mondrian]

Two words: Ginko Financial.

[Lucia Nightfire]

I'm beginning to think we need to include crypto and NFTs in the list of forbidden topics, like politics and religion...

[Ashley Darkheart]

 

 

[Profaitchikenz Haiku]

7 minutes ago, Lucia Nightfire said:

'm beginning to think we need to include crypto and NFTs in the list of forbidden topics, like politics and religion...

Couldn't we just have a new sub-forum for "Fantastical, Phantasmagorical and Chimerical" for those who must speculate?

[Jordyn McGregor]

Curse you @Orwar.  You got your wish!

[Orwar]

1 hour ago, Jordan Whitt said:

Curse you @Orwar.  You got your wish!

   Well, people are predictable. 

[Madelaine McMasters]

NPR did a story on cryptocurrency recently, including an interview with Anil Dash, an NFT pioneer. His name sounded familiar. I discovered I've been aware of him for nearly twenty years, starting with my use of the Moveable Type weblogging software. I watched Mena Trott (co-founder of Moveable Type) with fascination, as she was a woman carving out a space for herself in the world of web technology. I was transitioning into self employment in those days, hobnobbing with local venture capitals and entrepreneurs. It didn't take long for me to realize that I don't have what it takes to be an entrepreneur, an unreasonable belief in myself. I eventually took on the role of venture capital court jester, punching holes in hyperbolic business plans.

The underlying technology of blockchain will survive, as it's useful in many places. I'm less certain about the manufactured scarcity of cryptocurrencies and NFTs, and the difficulty of government tracking for tax or other purposes (I am certain that governments are around for the long haul). For me, the most telling part of the NPR story was an interview with a crypto/NFT investor who's made millions of dollars over the last several years. Paraphrased, his contention is that crypto/NFT is for unusually intelligent people who can handle dopamine, like him. The rest of us will be losers. Meanwhile, Anil Dash posits crypto/NFT as a way for the average person to cash in on the spoils of "investing".

They can't both be right.

As for Qie's wondering if a 1000X more efficient way of creating scarce things will be needed for success, that does seem both desirable and counterproductive.

 

[Silent Mistwalker]

[Kimmi Zehetbauer]

49 minutes ago, Silent Mistwalker said:

That's a NFT right there!!!

[Maryanne Solo]

👉 Fungi + Bull 👈
Hey its dark in here! 🙀

Edited December 21, 2021 by Maryanne Solo
Plop

[Qie Niangao]

19 hours ago, Madelaine McMasters said:

NPR did a story on cryptocurrency recently, including an interview with Anil Dash, an NFT pioneer.

I've not heard that NPR interview, but Anil Dash is generally not such an advocate of what NFTs have become, despite having essentially invented them, all explained in an Atlantic piece from back in April linked in this tweet:

19 hours ago, Madelaine McMasters said:

As for Qie's wondering if a 1000X more efficient way of creating scarce things will be needed for success, that does seem both desirable and counterproductive.

I suspect there's a tongue somewhere in those cheeks (if not sticking out blowing raspberries) but just in case it's not obvious: I'd be interested in a hypothetical technology that offers non-refutable universal tracking of microtransactions, and because the individual transactions themselves have vanishingly small-valued payloads, the tracking technology must incur even less overhead—hence, not derived from any current blockchain algorithm of which I'm aware.

The example application in SL terms would be the ability to collect royalties from each succeeding transfer of copiable in-world assets.

So that's the polar opposite of NFTs, which are intent on bestowing the economics of scarcity on information that otherwise "wants to be free." Instead, the opportunity I'd pursue is the self-enforcing collection of tiny slices of value distributed over massively viral media, a bit like a musician getting a minuscule royalty from each individual playback, but where each playback may generate more royalty-paying listeners, to arbitrary depth of playback virality.

This gets more interesting in the case of derived works, where the slices flow back to multiple contributors. It could redefine the economics of media as an artform: TikTok meets the Meta-verse, but micro-monetized, where there's reward for each sample as well as for tangling the trees of sampled contributors.

[Amanda Crisp]

Wait….I thought we were chaining someone to a block and visiting the lake…

 

[Coffee Pancake]

On 12/19/2021 at 6:00 AM, Qie Niangao said:

Are we sure blockchain isn’t in the same league of perpetual disappointment as 3D printing was

As someone with a typical 3D printer and family access to industrial machines that can print large resin and metal (typically used making tools for bespoke injection molded medical equipment), 3D printing is not a disappointment. It's massively changed engineering at every point from prototyping to actual manufacturing.

Go buy a power tool, there is an almost dead certainty that it will use 3d printed sintered metal gears.

The most disruptive home use is small resin printers outputting high quality mini's for tabletop gaming. I've personally made everything from silly trash to functional replacement mechanical parts.

3D printing is being used extensively for everything from novelty desk treasure up to actual rocket engines in just about every branch of engineering. But the media only tends to get excited by ideas on the fringes like 3d printed buildings.

[Madelaine McMasters]

6 minutes ago, Coffee Pancake said:

On 12/19/2021 at 5:00 AM, Qie Niangao said:

Are we sure blockchain isn’t in the same league of perpetual disappointment as 3D printing was

As someone with a typical 3D printer and family access to industrial machines that can print large resin and metal (typically used making tools for bespoke injection molded medical equipment), 3D printing is not a disappointment. It's massively changed engineering at every point from prototyping to actual manufacturing.

Go buy a power tool, there is an almost dead certainty that it will use 3d printed sintered metal gears.

The most disruptive home use is small resin printers outputting high quality mini's for tabletop gaming. I've personally made everything from silly trash to functional replacement mechanical parts.

3D printing is being used extensively for everything from novelty desk treasure up to actual rocket engines in just about every branch of engineering. But the media only tends to get excited by ideas on the fringes like 3d printed buildings.

I have a 3D printer/mill/etcher that I've used to make miniature millwork for a mouse house in my kitchen and cookie cutters for a friend. I'm making much better use of a handheld CNC assisted router, which I'm using to create decorative inlays in my hardwood floors and furniture. A neighbor girl is currently going nuts embroidering everything in sight with a computerized sewing machine. All of these tools have something fascinating in common, shared pools of designs. I'm sure you've encountered sites exchanging .STL files for 3D printed objects, like the game pieces you mentioned. Those same sites host 3D files that can be used to create mesh objects for SL. I've found interesting adapters for photographic use, as well as pretty inlay designs for wood projects. My neighbor regularly visits embroidery pattern exchanges. I'm hoping to join forces with her someday to do an upholstered piece.

My emergency backup kid has a little army of very inexpensive (<$150) printers that he uses to make replacement plastic parts for vintage toys and tools, from which he's actually making money. While 3D printing might never become the thing that journalists breathlessly describe, it has proven to be a very useful tool for those of us who like to use tools.

[Profaitchikenz Haiku]

I have a 3D printer, a tiny CNC Router, and a slightly larger diode laser cuter, and I wouldn't swap them for any of the ready-built models.

One of the first things I 3D-printed was a pair of centres to allow me to use different spools of filament with a larger central bore. I built them in SecondLife using centimetres for the dimensions instead of millimetres, and after exporting them, ran them through something else that scaled them down by a factor of 10 and exported the STL file to the printer.

I took snapshots of people in period costumes in SecondLife which were then run through Inkscape to create outline SVGs which were sent to the laser cutter to produce figures for a toy theatre. The combination of SL as a design workshop and the machines as home-production equipment is wonderful. 

[Coffee Pancake]

13 minutes ago, Madelaine McMasters said:

I have a 3D printer/mill/etcher that I've used to make miniature millwork for a mouse house in my kitchen and cookie cutters for a friend. I'm making much better use of a handheld CNC assisted router, which I'm using to create decorative inlays in my hardwood floors and furniture. A neighbor girl is currently going nuts embroidering everything in sight with a computerized sewing machine. All of these tools have something fascinating in common, shared pools of designs. I'm sure you've encountered sites exchanging .STL files for 3D printed objects, like the game pieces you mentioned. Those same sites host 3D files that can be used to create mesh objects for SL. I've found interesting adapters for photographic use, as well as pretty inlay designs for wood projects. My neighbor regularly visits embroidery pattern exchanges. I'm hoping to join forces with her someday to do an upholstered piece.

My emergency backup kid has a little army of very inexpensive (<$150) printers that he uses to make replacement plastic parts for vintage toys and tools, from which he's actually making money. While 3D printing might never become the thing that journalists breathlessly describe, it has proven to be a very useful tool for those of us who like to use tools.

I recently picked up this little thing, and yes .. that is a 3D printed sacrificial bed.

[Profaitchikenz Haiku]

That, in a wider format, is the CNC machine I use for the diode laser. The frame is incredible, it's a modern form of bakelite, very strong, but you can cut it with the laser and mill it with carbide tools.

Brilliant idea for the sacrificial bed, did you print that? Is it PLA or something harder?

[Coffee Pancake]

10 minutes ago, Profaitchikenz Haiku said:

That, in a wider format, is the CNC machine I use for the diode laser. The frame is incredible, it's a modern form of bakelite, very strong, but you can cut it with the laser and mill it with carbide tools.

Brilliant idea for the sacrificial bed, did you print that? Is it PLA or something harder?

It's a "natural" PLA+ that's actually very solid. STL & Blender files - https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:5020207

I'm keeping my eye out for a laser, only just got a few bits to play with .. I'm new to CNC anything, what software are you using to drive yours ?

[Profaitchikenz Haiku]

LaserGrbl is probably the best for lasering, although I have played with Universal GcodeSender and also a Gui I knocked up myself in Pyhon and PyQT. Candle woks very well for milling operations and I can run Candle on a Raspberry Pi, so the milling machine is run on Candle.

The laser modules you can get that drop straight into that holder in place of the spindle motor are excellent and you have the ability to adjust the Z dimension to compensate for different thickness of work so there's no need to refocus it each time you put something different on the bed.

Something I learned the hard way though is to not go overboard on getting the most powerful laser module. The kerf ( lost material due to the width of cut)  increases with power because the laser diode produces a rectangular output beam, which the focussing  tries to convert to a circle but has to make do with an ellipse. My first module, a 500milliwatt diode, has a kerf of 0,02mm, but the 5watt laser module that came with the bakelite frame machine has a kerf of 0.15mm. It's actually 0.1mm  in the minor axis of the ellipse but since you can't rotate the laser during work you have to plan for the larger kerf. With the smaller diode the change from major to minor dimension is too small to really detect or even compensate for.

 

[Madelaine McMasters]

49 minutes ago, Coffee Pancake said:

sacrificial bed

Yeah, but not the kind I'm imagining.

[Profaitchikenz Haiku]

"Oooh Matron!"