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0 pointsdale_glass2y ago0 comments

Um, what do you think a blockchain runs on? The hardware is still there, the only difference is in what software is used on top.

Blockchains need power and internet, and run on hardware that needs maintenance and degrades over time.

> Someday, I believe blockchains will be more efficient and have fewer downsides than a Raspberry Pi.

A blockchain can never be more efficient than a computer because:

1. It runs on top of computers, and does extra stuff. Extra stuff inherently has costs.

2. Blockchains are based on very low trust systems and use trickery to overcome it. This has enormous costs.

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rcme2y ago· 2 in thread

I didn’t a blockchain would be more efficient than a computer. I said it would be more efficient than a Raspberry Pi. And yes, of course a blockchain needs electricity, but the cost and burden of running the blockchain is covered by transaction fees, which you only pay when you’re actively engaging with your app, which is different than the Raspberry Pi where you need to pay when your app is idle.

dale_glassOP2y ago

It seems impossible that a blockchain would provide an useful amount of service when compared to a Raspberry Pi.

A smart contract is more or less the same idea as an AWS Lambda. But in AWS, you trust AWS to compute on your behalf. In a blockchain, you don't. Trust is replaced by enormous amounts of redundancy where every node recomputes everything to make sure everything was done right. So there's no scaling. The capacity of a single node and a million nodes is the same.

Right now, the cost of storing 1KB of data on ETH seems to be about $17. At the same price you can have a 128GB SD card, which is 128 million times more storage. A Pi will cost you $35, and $5/year in electricity if running 24/7 at full power.

Blockchains are ridiculously non-competitive.

rcme2y ago

Again, it’s not about the raw cost, but about not needing to worry about the cost and having things run “forever”. Even if you use AWS, you still need to pay your bill every month.

I don’t really understand your argument, tbh. Like what if you have an app that only needs to serve 1 KB of data. From your own calculation, it would be much more cost effective and operationally effective to use a blockchain. But you seem to be saying that doesn’t make sense because you could serve 1 KB from a more expensive thing with over provisioned storage.

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