<story><title>Priority Queue on Ethereum with a 15 ETH Bug Bounty</title><url>https://github.com/zmitton/eth-heap</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>seibelj</author><text>Cryptocurrencies, and especially Ethereum, are truly novel innovations in computer science that cross many academic disciplines. The linked example is a great write-up. It’s sad that there is a vocal group, especially on HN, that knee-jerk hates everything blockchain related and wishes with their entire being for it to fail.&lt;p&gt;However, I think smart contracts are fascinating and wish more people would keep an open mind.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>nosuchthing</author><text>The term “Smart contracts” (Ethereum&amp;#x2F;EOS&amp;#x2F;hyperledger) is often used with wild claims for supply chains and cross border business deals, but why would any real business want to use a public blockchain?&lt;p&gt;Smart contracts can’t even do anything interesting without a trusted source of data input. The threat model and legal questions of smart contracts are another huge deterrent for most businesses.&lt;p&gt;Latency, throughput, security threats, and cost are all fairly understood with normal databases, yet with blockchain software all of these are measurably worse.&lt;p&gt;Where are the completed successful smart contracts deployed?&lt;p&gt;Why would any person or business want&amp;#x2F;need to use an existing blockchain when some bug or mining operator might cause a catastrophe of that system, who would they sue for damages?&lt;p&gt;A single user who spent less than $5000 crashed the entire market for Ethereum last summer. Most of the supply of ETH, XMR, BTC and other crypto tokens are owned by a very small population of crypto-oligarchs.&lt;p&gt;It all seems like a marketing scheme to sell cyber beanie babies to people who are unfamiliar with the engineering flaws in distributing computing and the marketing lies from “investors” who need to pump the price on their magic beans.</text></comment>
<story><title>Priority Queue on Ethereum with a 15 ETH Bug Bounty</title><url>https://github.com/zmitton/eth-heap</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>seibelj</author><text>Cryptocurrencies, and especially Ethereum, are truly novel innovations in computer science that cross many academic disciplines. The linked example is a great write-up. It’s sad that there is a vocal group, especially on HN, that knee-jerk hates everything blockchain related and wishes with their entire being for it to fail.&lt;p&gt;However, I think smart contracts are fascinating and wish more people would keep an open mind.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>LeoPanthera</author><text>I don&amp;#x27;t &lt;i&gt;want&lt;/i&gt; to be anti-blockchain, but I have yet to come across &lt;i&gt;any&lt;/i&gt; problems that are solved better with a blockchain than with any other traditional technology - except for the original one, a distributed electronic currency.</text></comment>