Computer Security 161 Cryptocurrency Lecture
Lecture from Computer Science 161 on Cryptocurrency.
Subtitles were edited by myself.
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https://www.ethereum4all.live
Just read your interview on Current Affairs, your arguments are the first to show me that blockchains really are pointless and not gonna work. In particular you show that they’re either insecure or inefficient, and that’s when I opened my eyes!
@therealestmc85 Again, the uninformed opinion of someone who isn’t an expert in the field they are commenting on is irrelevant.
Here we have an informed I pinion by someone who is an expert on the topic.
@Peter No. They were saying the early Internet was incredibly efficient compared to the alternative, which was postal mail.
@Bas Penris we had a novel prize economist who said the internet would be no more relevant than the fax machine a decade ago.
@Peter that was the boomers talking before they all flocked to Facebook to get sucked into alternate realities. Everyone with any insight or knowledge of the industry would disagree completely with that notion, and I think you’ll find that it was mostly non-expert pundits who ventilated opinions like this. The benefits to Academy alone are astounding; near instant communication between large research facilities across borders allowed for entirely new fundamental explorations of life, the universe and everything, leading to countless new innovations like for example Machine Learning.
@Alexander Duke the system as a whole was not hacked meaning so far there is no one single event that allow an attacker to modify the ledger. Wallets can definitely be hacked and there has been DAO hacks but that is at the application level not the blockchain itself. If blockchain is a money printing technology, no one so far has been able to counterfeit money. Individual wallets have been stolen but not the actual blockchain itself. This was an unknown at the beginning of blockchain tech, but as each day passes, the confidence grows each day in that blockchain as a distributed ledger could work. Quantum computing could potentially break some of the encryption but banks are using the same encryption technology.
I wish there was a way we could force regulators and legislators to watch this lecture with their eyelids taped open, clockwork orange style.
They know, get rich and lobby them. That’s the only way to change anything
Listening right now.
As I come from a totally different background (sustainability and climate change), with programming experience limited to the basics required to implement scientific computing and numerical methods, these kind of lectures are really useful for me!
There as GOT to be a way to get this lecture televised. People need to hear this – you have clearly pointed at the Emperor and shouted, ‘This @#$%er is NAKED!’ Absolutely fascinating lecture, sir. Thank you!
wow – how could i miss this great video!! love it!!
All I can say is wow. Your students are lucky to have you teaching them and thank you for sharing your wisdom with the rest of the world.
they will remain poor
Unfortunately, I don’t think this will deprogram that many committed crypto cultists, despite being a very very good takedown of the cryptocurrency space.
What the world desperately needs is someone to make a comprehensive debunking video for every crypto argument specifically designed to wake people up. Dan Olson’s “Line Go Up” video is close to that, but it’s not really targeted at cryptobros. I lack the talent otherwise I’d do it myself.
Also hey, I’ve got the same initials and same first name as this guy. Cool. ?
The crypto enthusiasts will never change their mind. The goal here is to get the people before they sucked in.
I wrote the same comment basically somewhere above. Being inflammatory and condescending, while it may feel valid to this side of the argument, is a complete nullifier for getting cryptocultists to listen. You can’t treat people like they’re idiots and expect them to respect you.
Absolutely fascinating. This is the first time I’ve seen such a critical and well-reasoned deconstruction of crypto. Every last crypto enthusiast / zealot needs to see this video.
@TechnoJo4 proof of stake is not the answer
@TechnoJo4 Can you further explain the statement “The trust/efficiency argument sounds great intuitively but I don’t think there’s much justification for it when nowadays PoS uses the same kind of consensus algorithms as company databases, the only difference is Sybil resistance which is a few numbers” . I understand Sybil resistance, but when you say “much justification for it” what are you referring to?
I’d also like to point out that ” hopefully going to be mitigated” and “If there’s a non- negligible difference, I’d probably still consider it fine because of consider crypto to have value myself” doesn’t sound like a very strong argument.
Saying there isn’t a difference between the work we are about to spend billions of dollars on and the work we have already spent billions of dollars on sounds like an incredible waste of resources.
And hoping a solution is different when there is no clear reason it won’t be different (a lot of the power concentrated into the hands of a small group) isn’t exactly foolproof.
@Butler Studios PoS centralization isn’t as bad as PoW’s economics of scale and barrier of entry, especially since you give much lower block rewards in a PoS chain. A centralized group “making the decisions” (just building/proposing blocks) is hopefully going to be mitigated anyways with proposer/builder separation. Banks give very similar yield to PoS in the form of interest too anyways.
The trust/efficiency argument sounds great intuitively but I don’t think there’s much justification for it when nowadays PoS uses the same kind of consensus algorithms as company databases, the only difference is Sybil resistance which is a few numbers. If there’s a non- negligible difference, I’d probably still consider it fine because of consider crypto to have value myself, even if others don’t. Additionally, Blockchains attempt to remove the need for trust altogether, by e.g. putting data structures on the chain that do not rely on any one service. If you want to interact with NFTs, you should just actually request from the chain, and although there are of course examples of people not doing that, since everyone is able to just write libraries, there’s no reason for a request from the blockchain to be harder than a call to a centralized service for a developer.
(btw I’m surprised my last comment went through all my others have been instantly disappearing after I send them; couldn’t reply to anyone else)
@TechnoJo4 I want to begin by saying that I don’t dislike you in any way, but I think you happen to be wrong here. You said a lot and I won’t respond to it all right now but he addressed most of the issues in the talk that you laid out in your crypto defense leading me to believe you didn’t truly listen to the entire talk. He spent a good 5 minutes explaining that proof of stake leads to centralization. If the people who have the most crypto act as validation for the block chain it is still a concentrated group of people making the decisions. Saying it “already works” doesn’t negate that a bank can already do the same job in an efficient manner. Also, you mentioned that banks can deny bank accounts to users, the same is true with crypto assets. What you are missing is that trust itself is an efficiency hack. We as humans trust things to avoid doing the work ourselves because it would take too long. The same is true for crypto assets. For example Open Sea handles about 70% of crypto not sales. So if I am going to build an application that works with NFTs I’m not going to rebuild the entire application myself, I’ll use Open sea’s API because they are TRUSTED and has the biggest user base. Due to power laws the same thing will happen across most new exchanges that want to interact with NFTs because rebuilding is a waste if resources. Now what happens if I get banned from open sea? Every other place that interacts with open sea no longer has my information as well. We will never have a zero trust system, the world is simply too lazy.
@Larry Bird the terra dogpiling is especially funny to me because my first sentence was telling people that crypto is not all the one bad example of crypto
This lecture + Dan Olsen’s “Line Goes Up” are the two best arguments against cryptocurrencies I’ve seen so far. This one tackles it from a tech/finance perspective and Dan Olsen’s is more general but focused more so on the social side of things and crypto’s cult like following. I was interested and active in crypto staring in 2017, but during 2021 with the explosion of NFTs it has really made me question the entire space and these pieces have both really helped me change my view of the space.
Since it’s deflationary, I don’t think it really matters. We had NFTs and I’m sure we’re already gearing up for the next big thing. I don’t see cryptocurrencies ever dying or going away as long as the prices go back up. And the price generally will go up because of deflation.
@Gavin W Scams. Right. I knew it would be one of the two. You lot have no imagination.
@Dave Rogers So Solano has more throughput…but to what end? If there’s no actual use case for something, then a faster version of that thing is no more useful.
Will you be uploading more of your lectures?
Baseline power can also be digester gas plants. But those are pretty rare.
Hi, great lecture. One specific question: regarding the throughput issues of bitcoin, the standard answer is to use the lightning network which solves the transaction cost/throughput issue. Is there a flaw with the lightning network in your view?
Look up SWIFT, the international bank transfer system.
As best as I can tell, LN is just SWIFT with extra steps.
What a lecture! It feels a little like the 95 theses
Loved it professor
“The entire Ethereum blockchain is 1/5,000 as powerful as a single Raspberry Pi”
And costs $250/s!!
information worthy to be disseminated ??
Where can I get more of these lectures ??
Prof. Weaver – I have been showing this video around to my crypto stanning friends with some success. I am getting pushback from people with respect to the Lightning Network as a possible solution to the issues you cite. As I looked into the same, the obvious issue with the LN seems to be that it isn’t actually decentralized but as plebian with no real credibility in the space, that argument falls flat on them when it comes from me. Do you have something I could show them to help prove this point?
@Jonathan Allen Do you know how much time and fees you pay to do a swift international transfer? You just can’t use it for small transactions. For that you need a 3rd layer with FIAT which is Visa/Mastercard or even a 3rd/4th layer hybrid with Paypal. Completely different.
@Jonathan Allen It’s not just about joining the network. It’s about joining WITHOUT permission from the other nodes.
Swift “permits” you to join (and can therefore take that permission back as they have done with Russia).
No single lightning node has the power to exclude any other nodes from the network. You don’t need your bank to be accepted by the network. You can join 1 of 100’s of centralized node operators all over the world, or you can take the effort to host your own node.
TLDR: Swift and Lightning are not the same degree of centralized.
@Keepone974 You don’t need to, your bank is already a member on your behalf.
Exactly, they never mention the lightning network
@Jonathan Allen Yeah, try to join SWIFT with the same amount of capital required to open a node on LN lol
Thank you prof, for making your lecture public. I learnt a lot, and enjoyed it thoroughly.
Thank you Professor, just watched your interview on Current Affairs
Thanks to make it so clear but not basic…
Yeah, I guess… you’re a Prof… at Berkeley ?
(and F… Matt Damon, lol, you’re my new hero!)