Given that my post implies an audience of developers, I'm pretty sure you can guess more-or-less what I mean. ;-)

TL;DR:

Some people are trying to control the decentralized internet.

You shouldn't let them.

It's not clear what the merits of other "interoperability" projects are at a fundamental level.

Let's look at Cosmos IBC.

Step 1: wait for a state change to reach finality on some chain (e.g. BTC)

Step 2: build a Cosmos Hub
           --> complex; large attack surface
           --> why do you need a blockchain at all for this?

Step 3: get the Hub to reach finality about the event that's already reached finality on the Bitcoin blockchain
           --> redundant; wasteful

Step 4: launch a token to coax the Hub's validators to behave nicely and not do horrible things with the BTC
            --> an entire subsystem of complexity-risk and cryptonomic risk

Step 5: pick out a smallish list of validators to look after your chain (because DPoS/Tendermint doesn't scale to many validators)
            --> wait, there's now an inside group controlling the tokenisation of BTC!
            --> this inside group gets to decide what's true/real for the interchain
            --> the Bitcoin blockchain loses sovereignty over the existence of tokenised BTC

Step 6: tokenise BTC on another chain via the mediation of the Hub
            --> but wait, this has just placed a kind of intermediary into the interchain.
            --> at the interchain level, this is centralized
            --> it's the same sort of play that traditional business is used to: insert yourself into a value chain, engage in rent-seeking, extract value.
            --> why are we centralizing?



Why does this go wrong?
The decentralized internet needs an open protocol that's as chain-agnostic as TCP/IP is site-agnostic. Otherwise there will literally be no true "internet of blockchains."


Let me spell out how important this is:
Imagine your website was fundamentally less privileged than Facebook's, and in order to reach your site, traffic would have to go through Facebook.com. What would happen?
What would happen is another VHS-Betamax turf war.
We wouldn't have gotten an internet at all We'd just watch a fight between centralizing players.
If the protocols privilege one party over others, then people build competing protocols instead of building a far more valuable ecosystem upon one protocol.


Without open, unopinionated protocols, there would be no internet, there'd just be a turf war.


This might happen to the decentralized internet if the approach of Cosmos and Polkadot starts to fly.


So what do we do instead?
XRouter is an unopinionated, open protocol for the interchain.

It doesn't force value or traffic through some middle chain.
It doesn't privilege a middle chain's finality over that of the chains it connects with.
It doesn't have the complexity or risk of a Hub, its token, and its governance system.
It doesn't put an unscalable set of validators in charge.
It doesn't rob blockchains of their sovereignty over their coins when they're tokenised.


Time to build: https://api.blocknet.co/#xrouter

I'm with 86B here.


The value of centralized tech to a decentralized world is marginal.


And in this case, the value of essentially the same function in decentralized form is the difference between the current state of the internet and the interchain.


It's an entirely new world.

I have an obvious conflict of interest here, but I've spent the last 4 years working on the Blocknet, which meets the requirements for a completely decentralized exchange.

Quick summary:
To decentralise an exchange, at a minimum you have to decentralize the four core functions of an exchange:
- capital storage
- order broadcast
- order matching
- settlement

Over and above that, you certainly need:
- open source code
- no company or central legal entity
- globally distributed community of developers
- no entity with control over trades
- no central control over listings

We've done all of this.
Check out https://blocknet.co

We moved to Rocket Chat:

https://webapp.blocknet.co

Yes, you're right.

On the other hand, that guy really didn't do his research.
For example, our tech is (a) actually real, and working, and (b) truly decentralized. That can't be said of ARK, and if he knew that it would've changed his assessment completely.

Thanks for telling us about that video!

Yes, our identities have been public since before we founded the Blocknet:
- Arlyn Culwick (me): https://www.linkedin.com/in/arlynculwick/
- Dan Metcalf: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dan-metcalf-b821a812/

Yes, that is planned.

Each of you are right in one respect or another.

BUT we could release a decentralized trading app with an integrated multiwallet.

That way, you'd not have to download anything other than the app.

Sound good?

Hey

Very sorry to hear you fell victim to BTCe! It's awful.

1. Yes, when trading over the Blocknet, you hold your coins the entire time and no third party gains control over them.
2. The Blocknet is not a company, it is infrastructure. You can't really take a road to court. Being decentralized, it's also about as unstoppable as Bitcoin.
3. The UI is in development already. An SPV multiwallet will either come after that, or will be developed concurrently.
4. The Blocknet is the only decentralized exchange technology that decentralized the four core functions of an exchange: deposits, order broadcast, order matching, and coin exchange. Every other technology we're aware of has not achieved this.
5. Yes. With the launch of our production blockchain, we will become capable of funding marketing activities and employing marketing people.
5a. Regarding you remark about a small volume exchange being worth nothing, we plan to integrate with Ethfinex, Bitfinex's decentralization initiative, which will give users of our technology access to Bitfinex's order book, completely removing any issue of low liquidity or volume.

No, it's a migration to a new blockchain.
Further details are in the press release.