I think most people prefer tools that are convenient to use. Centralized code hosting services are super convenient. They offer many useful social features that make it tasking and unappealing to use git as intended. Even with tools like Gitea, we still flock to GitHub.
I think there is an administration cost savings as well. If we used git in a truly decentralized way, we would have to all announce and resolve each others remotes. The simple solution is to have a centralized service that we all connect to, al la GitHub.
> So I take a picture of a $100 U.S dollar, send it to your contract app, and I will get quant tokens? Which quant tokens are a cryptocurrency that I can sell on a exchange?
Yes. You take a photo of your any supported banknote and you get the equivalent in quants. We will be working with exchanges to have them listed.
> If this is true, you pretty much built a system were I can duplicate money because all I had to do is take a picture and send it? I didn't physically give you the money, I took a picture and you gave me money, while I kept the original money.
A banknote submitted and processed will no longer be usable on Ellcrys. It is simply a model for fair distribution of the digital currency such that everyone can claim what they are worth (cash) in quants. After the "blood fire" event and the total supply is claimed, no new banknotes will be accepted or processed. The initial value is derived from this conversion process; a banknote processed is considered "burned".
Most digital currencies gain their value from the utility of the platform they are native to. The Quant will be used to pay for resources allocated to contracts and could serve as a payment method for services offered by contracts.
I hope I answered your questions well. Happy to explain further if you need me to.
> So I just withdraw my funds take photos of them, "upload" them. Go back to my bank, exchange the bills and repeat?
Yes. Anyone else who gets hold of those bills you used and exchanged with your bank will find them "burned" when they try to use them on Ellcrys.
> What am I missing here. What is being accomplished by photoing bills?
Aside from fair distribution of the Quant, It is meant to create a sense of value. If your net worth is $1000 and your understand that sending this in will invalidate those banknotes, you might value the Quants you get differently. Going to your bank to exchange invalidated banknotes takes some effort as most people don't have their banks close by. You might take this effort into account when valuating the resulting Quant.
Basically, you'll need to give something of measurable value to receive a share of the root Quant.
> Yes. Anyone else who gets hold of those bills you used and exchanged with your bank will find them "burned" when they try to use them on Ellcrys.
There's going to be a problem of detecting counterfeit bills if you decide to take this route. As an alternative suggestion, how about using the same method of distribution some other cryptocurrencies have used in the past by taking a snapshot of a cryptocurrency at a certain future date and then having interested community members prove ownership of an address containing some cryptocurrency and using that to distribute the tokens? It wouldn't matter if someone buys cryptocurrency just for that purpose and then sells it afterwards.
The downside, is that you will be restricting distribution to only those who can gain access to cryptocurrency - which is also the same problem as taking a photo of dollar bills; the likelihood that those who will be using the platform will know/have access to cryptocurrency is high nevertheless.
> "Ellcrys" is a word that is likely subject to trademark and owned by Del Rey.
umm, I will be looking into this. Thanks for the heads up.
I understand that there is a lot of debate about what a smart contract is, its legal scope and functions. However, we are not only building to host legal contracts but contract applications that are user-facing or API-based, owned and maintainer by teams or communities. These are the kind of contracts I believe will be most useful and practical today
Let me be totally clear about something: you have built something interesting and you should run with it. You will hear a ton of criticism, including on this forum, telling you to pack it up and take it home. That is bullshit. It is easy to criticize and hard to build. I'm often wrong - and I've been in your shoes. It can be hugely discouraging to read a bunch of criticism on hackernews. Don't take it too personally.
Keep on pursuing. At some point, if you do have to call it quits, make sure it is a reasoned decision based on (1) having already made your best efforts and (2) market feedback. Don't base it on the stuff you read from internet strangers.
I respectfully disagree. You do not need a decentralized, social protocol to build a smart contract or self-executing application platform. A smart contract is simply an agreement between parties, written in codes and enforced by a third-party. In the case of Ethereum, it is enforced by cryptography, nodes independently executing codes and validating the results. This is great but hard to scale or build certain kind of applications. Ethereum introduced decentralized smart contracts, but it does not mean smart contracts need to be executed and secured decentrally.
If a platform can provide multi-signature environment, security and the ability to enforce and execute codes, it is a smart contract platform.
> A smart contract is simply an agreement between parties, written in codes and enforced by a third-party.
No, it is an agreement between parties enforced by cryptography, and no third party required.
> In the case of Ethereum, it is enforced by cryptography.
No it is enforced by payment to the network, just like aws, but in a worst way, because code is executed wastefully, while still remaining at a central location.
What you are not understanding is that a smart contract is a protocol amongst people. You don't code it anywhere in the blockchain directly. It a a protocol that explains how, if each party runs code independently, assuming everyone as a criminal, still achieves its goal. For eg, multisig is a smart contract, which is a protocol where participants decide what code they'll run (signing) and the wallet layer that makes them meet is a separate layer altogether, not in the blockchain. Sometimes this layer may not even be required, for example in money-laundering or any of the 'hundis'.
> What you are not understanding is that a smart contract is a protocol amongst people. You don't code it anywhere in the blockchain directly. It a a protocol that explains how, if each party runs code independently, assuming everyone as a criminal, still achieves its goal.
Okay, I see your point. This kind of smart contract you describe definitely needs strong cryptography and a blockchain would not be needed. I guess the issue is still about what a smart contract truly is and how it should work. I personally prefer the term self-executing contract as the "smart" seems too sensitive. Regardless of the language or definitions, I am interested in a platform were multisig applications can be executed safely and efficiently.
I knew the "no gimmick" phrase will be subjective :-D
> And I still can't think of a single use case
If you and a several persons are in need of a platform to build any kind of cloud-based application but also do not wish to cede control of share resources (source code, keys, passwords, revenue etc) to your partners, then this will be the platform you will pick. Any existing application like a community built Uber/Airbnb alternative and more can be built on this.
Exactly. As much as we believe decentralization will remove the middleman, we need to understand that not every application can be built on decentralized systems. Our goal is to provide a platform where communities/teams can build simple to complex projects without learning new languages, new best practices and maintain the ability to scale horizontally.
