[HN Gopher] Ethereum on Amazon Managed Blockchain
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       Ethereum on Amazon Managed Blockchain
        
       Author : bpierre
       Score  : 47 points
       Date   : 2021-03-03 21:11 UTC (1 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (aws.amazon.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (aws.amazon.com)
        
       | plattyp wrote:
       | Hopefully IBM can offer consulting service for implementing apps
       | built on top of this
        
       | faeyanpiraat wrote:
       | Well, ETH prices didn't seem to react to this noticeably.
       | 
       | Do you guys know what are some events that reliably move the
       | needle?
        
         | 1996 wrote:
         | Currently, ETH is in big trouble: delay on the POS (I don't
         | think it'll be ready before 2022), new binary compatible chains
         | that will allow everyone to move on if ETH2 fails.
         | 
         | Also the ETH futures recently introduced will initially push
         | the price down, like they did for BTC.
        
           | DennisP wrote:
           | Just to clarify that a bit, PoS is running in production
           | right now with 100K validators and $5 billion staked, with
           | four independent client implementations. But for now it's
           | running in parallel with the old chain, which might not merge
           | in until next year.
           | 
           | In the meantime, lots of layer-2 stuff is getting rolled out
           | this year.
        
       | sputknick wrote:
       | Just did some quick back of the envelope calculations on profit
       | from staking using this. At current price/rewards it would be
       | just breakeven. Probably better suited to some corporate use case
       | where you are more interested in avoiding fees rather than trying
       | to make money from staking.
        
       | 1996 wrote:
       | This is going to be big - blockchain and smart contracts as a
       | service, that's the new "mobile apps"
        
         | throw03172019 wrote:
         | Expensive though. Remember when consumers were tough on
         | spending $0.99 for an app? Imagine them seeing $100 gas fees.
        
           | 1996 wrote:
           | Many chains are compatible with ETH.
           | 
           | Check AVAX if you are worried about gas fees (BTW I don't
           | have any AVAX, it's just one of the many possibilities)
           | 
           | https://docs.avax.network/build/tutorials/smart-
           | contracts/de...
        
           | [deleted]
        
         | SahAssar wrote:
         | Why? What actual problem does it solve for the average user?
        
       | rfd4sgmk8u wrote:
       | So now the ETH2 folks will have to coordinate with Amazon in
       | getting that managed service migrated to PoS? How do we know that
       | this wont be like ElasticSearch, in that Amazon runs its own
       | custom ETH1 chain for its customers forever?
       | 
       | Another reason to doubt that ETH2 is actually going to be a thing
       | sometime before the heat death of the universe.
        
         | wmf wrote:
         | Why would AWS have more clout than the whole rest of the
         | Ethereum ecosystem?
        
           | rfd4sgmk8u wrote:
           | They dont, however, they may end up becoming their own
           | ethereum ecosystem.
        
           | WJW wrote:
           | AWS probably has more money than the rest of the Ethereum
           | ecosystem? Anyway, even if they turn out not to have more
           | clout it could still end up as an ecosystem split where some
           | will migrate to ETH2 and some will stay on the AWS managed
           | ETH1 version.
        
             | wmf wrote:
             | "Amazon Managed Blockchain ... automates Ethereum software
             | upgrades"
        
       | thinkingkong wrote:
       | I went to try out a friends dapp based lottery pool. To transfer
       | 500$ into the pool I had to convert my tokens then pay around
       | 150$ in gas fees to get it in there, then another 150$ to get it
       | out. So, while Im a believer in distributed systems, we got some
       | work to do.
        
         | pjc50 wrote:
         | You're right, those fees aren't transferring nearly enough
         | money to early adopters. It could probably be made to emit more
         | CO2 along the way too.
        
         | X6S1x6Okd1st wrote:
         | Yeah gas fees are insane, more and more stuff need to happen on
         | L2. and ETH2 can't come fast enough.
        
           | chrisco255 wrote:
           | Optimistic rollups in the short-term, but I'm very hopeful
           | for EVM zkRollups in the next 6 months:
           | https://zksync.io/faq/intro.html
        
           | vmception wrote:
           | My favorite thing with L2 is how you can call almost anything
           | an L2 and people believe it. You can just tell them to use an
           | independent proof of stake network with permissionless
           | validators like Polygon (formerly Matic), and everyone
           | believes this is the "trustless growing L2" while Binance
           | Smart Chain - which is also an independent proof of stake
           | network with permissionless validators - is the "centralized"
           | one.
           | 
           | Polygon has a separate Plasma network which is not what
           | anybody uses for all their smart contract redeployments.
           | 
           | The gulf of knowledge just gets wider and wider, and more and
           | more profitable.
        
           | jereees wrote:
           | Perhaps they could use https://cheapeth.org/
        
             | vmception wrote:
             | will I be cancelled or praised in India if I launch
             | pajeeth? feel like it could go either way
        
             | 1996 wrote:
             | Oh you mean the one where the author did a huge premine for
             | himself and bans anyone who dares mention that?
        
       | forgotmysn wrote:
       | genius move from amazon. correct me if im wrong, this looks like
       | a blockchain backend as a service?
        
         | pantelisk wrote:
         | But why are we celebrating centralization of systems that have
         | "decentralization" as their biggest selling point?
        
           | aeturnum wrote:
           | How is one more vendor offering to run a blockchain vm
           | centralization? It's just a hosting service.
        
           | chrisco255 wrote:
           | I'm not sure we're celebrating it. It's something to be
           | noted. Some applications might find it useful, for running
           | data analysis on the blockchain, but I don't foresee a
           | majority of ETH validators running on this service. Best to
           | avoid Amazon in general given their propensity for
           | censorship.
        
           | pjc50 wrote:
           | It makes the numbers go up!
        
           | forgotmysn wrote:
           | amazon getting into crypto adds a ton of credibility from an
           | outsider's perspective. even if you're not a fan of amazon,
           | this should have a positive impact on crypto as a whole.
        
       | Off wrote:
       | I'm not sure about this. It is optimistic to see big actors
       | getting into Ethereum but i don't think we should be happy about
       | it. A "centralized" decentralized network running on Amazon
       | servers? Are we learning from the past or are we repeating the
       | same mistakes again?
        
         | cs702 wrote:
         | I think it's a positive. If large institutions replace chunks
         | of their legacy financial infrastructure with decentralized,
         | lower-cost infrastructure running over large, distributed
         | blockchains (Bitcoin, Ethereum), we would all be better off.
        
         | DennisP wrote:
         | This isn't about running Ethereum on Amazon servers. They're
         | not talking about mining or staking.
         | 
         | This is about making it easy to connect corporate networks to
         | the public Ethereum chain. It's a full node, so it's talking
         | directly to the p2p network instead of sending your
         | transactions through some third-party provider like Infura, but
         | it's not producing blocks.
        
       | ruined wrote:
       | given amazon's historical strategy of attack against open source
       | platforms and resulting trail of dead, this does not bode well
       | for eth. i still expect the price to jump in anticipation
        
         | SahAssar wrote:
         | Not saying amazon's way of interacting with OSS has been great,
         | but which ones have actually died?
        
       | cyphertruck wrote:
       | Instead of reading this press release, please read this seminal
       | article from 2001 rebutting it:
       | https://nakamotoinstitute.org/trusted-third-parties/
       | 
       | "Amazon managed blockchain" is an amazing phrase. All three words
       | are wrong. "Blockchain" is a distributed technology created
       | specifically for censorship resistance. A "managed blockchain"
       | should just be replaced with a database. Databases are faster &
       | cheaper.
       | 
       | Meanwhile, Amazon is a company that just censored Dr. Suess!
       | 
       | And that's not even addressing the issues with ethereum.
        
         | vmception wrote:
         | The publisher censored Dr. Seuss by ceasing to publish it.
         | 
         | Bad habit to conflate one company's own choice as a statement
         | on society and actual consensus.
         | 
         | The only way you would have done that is by having a social
         | circle that manipulates your feelings about "cancel culture".
         | You should clear your cookies if you are that easy of a mark.
        
         | eat_veggies wrote:
         | I agree with most of this comment, and how "Amazon Managed
         | Blockchain" is ridiculous. But it's not censorship, and it's
         | certainly not Amazon doing the censorship, when Dr. Seuss's own
         | estate decides not to publish six of his books.
        
         | Griffinsauce wrote:
         | You might want to get basic facts right if you're going to
         | spend this much energy being angry about something.
        
         | DennisP wrote:
         | Or do read the press release, and see that this is not a
         | managed blockchain. It's a full node that connects to the
         | public Ethereum network to send transactions, but it doesn't
         | produce blocks.
         | 
         | I.e. it's an easy way to connect your corporate IT to Ethereum,
         | without having to keep up with software updates or send
         | transactions through some third-party API.
        
         | vasco wrote:
         | If you run your own hardware you also have to trust that it
         | wasn't compromised by the vendor. At some point you just have
         | to decide which level of trust to give each vendors and for
         | some people, trusting that Amazon will operate their clusters
         | without invading their privacy or accessing their data is a
         | pretty good bet. If found out, it'd be the end of AWS's
         | reputation.
        
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       (page generated 2021-03-03 23:00 UTC)