Emin Gun Sirer
Emin Gun Sirer is an Associate Professor of Computer Science at Cornell, where his research focuses on operating systems and distributed systems.
Emin Gun Sirer is an Associate Professor of Computer Science at Cornell, where his research focuses on operating systems and distributed systems.
Steem is a cryptocurrency rewards platform that the Steemit social network is built on top of. Steem can be used to upvote posts and comments on Steemit, leading to a monetary reward for the author.
All Steem reviews by expert Emin Gun Sirer.
Steemit was one of the first altcoins. Its design was overly complicated. There was zero technical breakthrough that would address the commonly known problems with DPoS.
It was just an appcoin, with a token whose structure was so complex, almost purposefully so to defy analysis. Everyone at the time cautioned others about the design of this system. Its failure today is indicative of just two trends, and no more.
First, we are now beginning to see failures of weak, fragile blockchains, based on obsolete protocols. Many of these systems were based on ideas from the 1980s. Academics worked on these systems, their weaknesses were well known, and Satoshi knew about them in 2009. He and everyone else rejected them, because they are inherently fragile.
There are many other vulnerable coins out there, based on the same ideas. Worse, there are protocols that people are pushing for future systems that have not been deployed yet but are based on the same highly-limited, highly-centralized infrastructure.
The common thread is that these are early systems, with no technical foundation, based on "design by gut feel" by hobbyists, subject to essentially no scrutiny.
Full review2020-03-02
I tried making sense of the Steem papers multiple times, and failed each time. So I don't know. Perhaps someone else with a better grasp of that system can help.
Full review2019-11-28