Critique of Crypto/Web3

This page summarizes the projects mentioned and recommended in the original post on news.ycombinator.com

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  • awesome-dapps

    A curated list of awesome decentralized applications / resources

  • > I am genuinely curious on useful applications

    That's not what a lot of those lists are for. I was sharing alternative "awesome" lists related to "web3". Since this is a forum that has developers on it, a list and roadmap for developers interested in getting started in web3 is useful, is it not?

    Here's another one more geared towards your desire:

    https://github.com/jasonwalsh/awesome-dapps

  • DeFi-Developer-Road-Map

    DeFi Developer roadmap is a curated Developer handbook which includes a list of the best tools for DApps development, resources and references!

  • I am genuinely curious on useful applications for a decentralized ledger, so I skimmed this linkdump.

    > https://github.com/OffcierCia/DeFi-Developer-Road-Map

    Background and development information, no applications. This link, by itself, has a massive number of links.

    > https://github.com/bkrem/awesome-solidity

    This links is later duplicated, but is also mostly background and developer information. There is one section titled "deployed on Ethereum mainnet" which seems to be mostly dev tools again

    * rarity, an MMO (example UI: https://raritymmo.com/). That's kind of cool, if unlikely to be monetizable.

  • InfluxDB

    Power Real-Time Data Analytics at Scale. Get real-time insights from all types of time series data with InfluxDB. Ingest, query, and analyze billions of data points in real-time with unbounded cardinality.

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  • awesome-crypto-critique

    Discontinued Making sense of web3 & crypto. Introduction to key concepts and ideas. Rigorous, constructive analysis of key claims pro and con. A look at the deeper hopes and aspirations. [Moved to: https://github.com/life-itself/web3]

  • awesome-web3

    🚀 A curated list of tools, libs and resources to help you build awesome dapps

  • awesome-solidity

    ⟠ A curated list of awesome Solidity resources, libraries, tools and more

  • I am genuinely curious on useful applications for a decentralized ledger, so I skimmed this linkdump.

    > https://github.com/OffcierCia/DeFi-Developer-Road-Map

    Background and development information, no applications. This link, by itself, has a massive number of links.

    > https://github.com/bkrem/awesome-solidity

    This links is later duplicated, but is also mostly background and developer information. There is one section titled "deployed on Ethereum mainnet" which seems to be mostly dev tools again

    * rarity, an MMO (example UI: https://raritymmo.com/). That's kind of cool, if unlikely to be monetizable.

  • awesome-ethereum

    :zap: Awesome Ethereum Resources

  • * ronin, a sidechain implementation to support another game called "Axie Infinity".

    > https://github.com/bekatom/awesome-ethereum

    Another giant linkfarm. Has a "DAPPS" section. Again mostly dev tools or tools for interacting with Ethereum itself, but a few things that look like applications:

    * a decentralized crowdfunding platform: err, doesn't the money eventually go to a particular endpoint? What's the point of decentralizing this.

  • awesome

    😎 Awesome lists about all kinds of interesting topics

  • SaaSHub

    SaaSHub - Software Alternatives and Reviews. SaaSHub helps you find the best software and product alternatives

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  • awesome-decentralized-web

    an awesome list of decentralized services and technologies

  • > That's not a bad thing, but it isn't true anyway, you literally login with your wallet.

    > Here's more geared towards your "genuine curiosity" of web3 apps

    I get that you weren't addressing my particular interest in your original post. I've put in a decent amount of time digging through the links you've shared; I'd appreciate if you accepted my curiosity in good faith.

    Thanks for sharing more links, though they are not terribly digestible. The first link in particular seems to have many decentralized applications that don't use a blockchain (see below).

    > https://github.com/gdamdam/awesome-decentralized-web

    These are all cool decentralized web applications (many with real value, including bittorrent, mastodon, etc) -- but how many are built on a decentralized ledger / blockchain? Eight include "blockchain" in their description, and only three I would consider "apps":

    - BigchainDB [dev tool] - a 'database'

    - storj [dev tool] - blockchain-based object storage

    - dtube [application]- decentralized video platform built on a blockchain ("STEEM")

    - opentimestamps [dev tool?] - blockhain timestamping (not sure what this is for?)

    - namecoin [application] - dns on blockchain

    - steemit [application] - blogging/social networking on top of a blockchain db

    - arcblock [dev tool] - tool for building "dapps, blockchains and websites"

    I'm specifically curious about useful applications for decentralized ledgers, if that wasn't clear. The web/internet already runs on many decentralized protocols.

    ## STEEM

    Both dtube and steemit are built on "STEEM", which seems to function as a form of social credit. Basically, whuffie (for the Doctorow fans out there). That's kinda cool[1].

    IIUC:

    - new users get 15 STEEM (where does this come from? is this not a spam vector?)

    - posting costs STEEM

    - upvoting content yields STEEM for the producer (content creation)

    - early upvoters earn STEEM (curation)

    The crypto part is mostly managing relationships and influence, not attempting to decentralize the actual shuffling of bits. Reasonable. Influence being portable across social networks is a cool idea too.

    But how does the _business_ of this work, and is it an improvement over centralized social networks? Steemit, Inc, funds itself via the STEEM digital currency. The STEEM digital currency can be bought -- i.e., influence on the networks can be bought. Is this better than buying likes/comments/subscribers? Abstractly, it might keep the actual social signals cleaner -- except that IIUC you have to like/comment/etc to actually have your STEEM influence people! It's not clear to me that having the network funded by selling influence is an improvement. In ahttps://www.coindesk.com/markets/2020/05/20/steem-hard-fork-..., off-platform deals to leverage other people's influence will still be a reality.

    So what are the benefits? Theoretically influence becomes decentralized, though the role that Steemit Inc plays is unclear to me. How are new participants funded? Who actually runs and pays for the social network infrastructure? And of course there are the usual risks like 51% attacks.

    In practice: according to reddit.com/r/steemit, Steem has been forked because Steemit was acquired and the community didn't trust the new owners who had a majority share (STEEM used proof-of-stake, not proof-of-work). This was because of some drama involving "witnesses", presumably having to do with implementing the actual STEEM rewards/rate limiting. This happened in Apr 2020. The sticked post on r/steemit is from only six months ago (Aug 2021) for some reason. This explains why steemit.com seemed dead. https://hive.blog is apparently where all the action is now. Tthere are other UIs (or could be), so this is not centralized (does this mean the actual content is on the chain? Seems expensive and unscalable).

    Detangling just this one "dapp" took >30 minutes. All the crypto stuff aside, hive.blog looks basically like a multireddit made of small subreddits (DTube shows up as the equivalent of a subreddit[2], btw).

    ## Namecoin

    Once you have decentralized DNS the others can already rely on other decentralized parts of the internet (IP, etc).

    DNS is not really centralized IMO, which the existence of Namecoin itself attests to. You can choose your nameservers; arbitrary levels of subdomains are supported; etc. If you are capable of opting into Namecoin, why not another root DNS?

    Practically Namecoin acts like another root of trust. How well does it perform this function?

    https://www.namecoin.org/docs/faq/#is-squatting-a-problem--w...

NOTE: The number of mentions on this list indicates mentions on common posts plus user suggested alternatives. Hence, a higher number means a more popular project.

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