Crypto without keys – Decrypt Media



[ad_1]

The award-winning designer and writer, Frank Chimero, once observed "People ignore the design that ignores people". He was not talking about Web3, but it could also be. Too often, usability is sacrificed on the decentralization altar, resulting in a series of small and decentralized services that nobody uses.

But courage: with the Wednesday release of the Ethereum update testnet, developers are excited about a new feature that will make the decentralized network easier to use for ordinary mortals.

Originally conceived by the co-founder of Ethereum Vitalik Buterin as early as 2014, CREATE2, was introduced as a key component of the update of the Ethereum mainet of January 16, otherwise known as the fork of Constantinople.

The premise of CREATE2, on the surface, is very simple. It allows developers to create intelligent contract addresses without actually having to implement the contract, allowing users to perform off-chain transactions. It's a bit like managing a bar card: have fun now, pay later.

The simplicity of the mechanism, however, belies its enormous usefulness. Developers are enthusiastic because, although CREATE2 was originally designed as a scalability measure, it is able to do much more. All kinds of problems can be solved, starting with onboarding, which is a horrible experience that rejects potential users ethereum everywhere.

The fact that users do not need keys to perform transactions is what led the developer James Young to duplicate CREATE2 "a usability function in disguise and a dormant money-changer".

Young was behind the popular online game, Farmville, which in 2012 had more than 200 million users. Then he fell off the face of the earth when Facebook changed the news feed algorithm, stifling Farmville's growth. Since then he has become a manifest child for the decentralization movement. After Farmville, Young turned to the blockchain, to the launch of Adchain and then to the payment system for SpankChain, a blockchain-based payment service for the adult industry. He is now working on a new project using CREATE2 to develop an intelligent portfolio.

"If you have adult content and it's easy to integrate [users], you should be able to see this rise, "says Young, speaking on the phone from Los Angeles." If you solve the onboarding of users and everything is in the chain, what will happen is that we will have Cryptokitties 2.0 "Onboarding, he says, is the most stubborn wicket of all, engaging numerous complex stepsand having to create and store the keys securely. The disability that this can create is, in his opinion, in stark contrast to Web 2.0 platforms like Facebook, which require only three steps to create an account.

CREATE2, says Young, removes friction onboard and helps users control and manage their funds. Allowing them to perform off-chain transactions and renounce the need to conserve funds in keys will lead to better usability, opening the door to decentralization for more people.

"We only use the keys for what they were designed to: provide access," says Young. Another advantage, he says, is that account recovery problems disappear with keys, which are often lost. Instead, the process of accessing and managing the contract becomes programmable.

"It's like a missing piece, CREATE2 seems like a small technical update, but I think it has a huge and immediate impact on scalability and on having funds stored in accounts and not in keys," Young says. "It allows us to enter into decentralization and allows massive adoption."

Channeling CREATE2

Core developer of Ethereum Lane Rettig agrees that CREATE2 is the most interesting change that emerges from Constantinople. But he is also careful not to overturn the pudding, emphasizing that "you have always been able to store funds in a contract." The only difference now is that you can predict where you will live in advance. "However, it is an agreement on the fact that CREATE2 has "some interesting implications and potential use cases, for example, in the status channels, so we could see this flow up to the level of application".

State channels are a technique that helps reduce commissions for blockchain users as they allow users to negotiate with each other securely, but without paying blockchain transaction fees.

Contrary to Rettig's measured take, Miguel Mota, co-founder of OpenNetSys, who is building systems for Web 3.0, believes that if possible, CREATE2 is sub-type. He says one of his most interesting advantages is that it could help reduce taxes for site owners.

For example, a site owner of a portfolio, for example, must implement a new intelligent contract for each new user who registers. "That means they have to pay for the gas [the operating fee charged by Ethereum], for each distribution, and it will become expensive very quickly. "CREATE2, says Mota, allows the site owner to predetermine the address of the smart contract without actually distributing it and paying gas.This can be postponed until the user has no funds in the account, which can be used to pay the fee.This way, the site owner does not incur him.

Because keys become less dominant in transactions, smart contracts can become more flexible and more complete, Mota believes. Recurring payments, for example, could now be possible, something of the Also Groundhog Network is focused on.

Things to build

Although developers are enthusiastic about CREATE, they warn that it is not a cure-all for Ethereum's flaws.

"I think it's a much needed improvement, but it's not the Holy Grail," says Gonçalo Sá, co-founder of Consensys Diligence, a community specializing in blockchain security. He says that developers will still have to find better ways for users to interact, and on board. "There are still things to build, which does not simplify our work, but creates new possibilities".

Better security is a possibility, says Sà. Believes that the new feature will solve the initial problem. Frontrunning allows unscrupulous miners to take advantage of their responsibility in a blockchain system order transactions so they can profit from it Until now, the solutions have been proposed but they are still missing.

"The fact that it is now possible to make agreements on something that does not yet exist, but could, is very powerful," says Sà.

The testnet is now up and running, not just with CREATE2 but with all the new features that Constantinople brings on board. Developers, who have patiently waited for this new box of tricks, can now start experimenting. And, in the coming months, dapps using CREATE2 in nature should start becoming a reality. The wisdom of the crowd will determine their success.

[ad_2]
Source link