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Re:Is Web3 anything? by lordnacho on Friday December 10, 2021 @05:48AM (#29508467)
Maybe it's a bit of a marketing sleight-of-hand, but the difference is the nature of what you trust. Authority, tradition, laws, that kind of everyday thing, or math, cryptography, algorithms?

I won't get into the weeds of whether you can actually trust math, just pointing out that this is what crypto proponents seem to mean when they say trustless.

Re:Is Web3 anything? by mmcnl on Friday December 10, 2021 @06:02AM (#29508550)
Isn't the first question we should answer more whether math, cryptography and algorithms can actually replace authority, tradition and laws? I personally have my doubts.
Re:Is Web3 anything? by immibis on Friday December 10, 2021 @06:59AM (#29508882)
In order to answer that we need to know what math, cryptography and algorithms can do and the cryptocurrency movement is doing a great job of exploring that space.
Re:Is Web3 anything? by lordnacho on Friday December 10, 2021 @06:08AM (#29508573)
Totally.

Also, since we're in the weeds, you can ask yourself why you believe in math. Did someone tell you that Public Key cryptography works, or did you verify it yourself? I've read through a lot of crypto code, and in the end I can't say I really understand the details. I can point at the readings, but really, do I actually get what a pairing group is? Chances are I'm relying on authority.