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Re:Web3 is expensive P2P by roywiggins on Monday May 16, 2022 @12:09PM (#31399510)
The most efficient way to do it would be to bootstrap the ecosystem with blockchain buzziness and then just deprecate the blockchain part eventually. MetaMask already relies on "Web2" apis to query blockchains, who says they have to actually hit a blockchain all the time?
Re:Web3 is expensive P2P by thawaya3113 on Monday May 16, 2022 @02:05PM (#31401205)
This is exactly what’s happening with crypto.

A user’s transaction on Coinbase rarely represents an actual transaction on the blockchain. A transaction actually represents a row in a Coinbase SQL database, which Coinbase will eventually batch and then convert into a blockchain operation.

Re:Web3 is expensive P2P by chrisco255 on Monday May 16, 2022 @10:12PM (#31405328)
Coinbase is a centralized exchange. Of course it runs in a SQL db or whatever. They only need to touch the chain when settling inflows/outflows.

But something like Uniswap: https://app.uniswap.org/#/swap is fully on-chain. Every trade happens on chain, because the application is an immutable smart contract liquidity protocol, called an AMM, or automated market maker.

It does as much, if not more, volume than Coinbase ($1.98B in last 24H): https://info.uniswap.org/#/

Re:Web3 is expensive P2P by rvbissell on Monday May 16, 2022 @02:41PM (#31401629)
So... a dark pool? Oy vey.
Re:Web3 is expensive P2P by chrisco255 on Monday May 16, 2022 @10:09PM (#31405313)
> MetaMask already relies on "Web2" apis to query blockchains

False. MetaMask uses Infura as a default, but you can edit your RPC URL to whatever you want. You can even run your own node and sync the chain if you've got a couple hundred gigabytes to spare (no stake required to run a non-validating node).

They don't have to hit the blockchain all the time. Only when it makes sense. For everything else, there's off-chain signatures. That's the beauty of it. Hey, you don't want to use the chain, just use the sign-in with Ethereum feature, and that's totally cool!