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Ask HN: Anyone working in the blockchain space? Worth spending time learning?

11 points by akudha ↗ HN
I have been doing light reading about various blockchain concepts. I find them interesting. Even if I am not a fan of price speculation, there is no question that some super smart people are working on very interesting projects in the space.

Just wondering if it is worth spending serious time learning smart contract development etc. Is it possible to build a career? If yes, what would the learning path look like?

4 comments

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mikewarot
I think that blockchain is an elegant solution to the Byzantine Generals Problem[1]. However, if you're working with a blockchain used as, or in the service of, alternatives to fiat currency without explicit government approval, there is always a risk that it will go dark. There may also be law enforcement actions designed to discourage usage, and/or make examples of leaders in the space.

If you can find a way to make a career without using blockchains as a speculative "investment", you should be ok.

1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byzantine_fault

high_byte
Ethereum is defacto standard for smart contracts at the moment. even other chains use same EVM, syntax or similar. Start learning solidity (~half a day for any programmer) and blockchain concepts (about a week)

and regarding price speculation - that's economy, it has little to do with development. two different things.

Yetino
As a former blockchain enthusiastic, I would say do spend some time (if you can afford) to play with it as a hobby, but that's pretty much it. There is a limit the "blockchain applications" can achieve. Many successful ones have a similar form of re-interpreting a hash, e.g. CryptoKitty or crypto zombie games and even the now shinny NFT. It can be fun to work on some blockchain projects, as many exercises are like clipping a duck's wings and then figuring out how to coax it into somehow climbing up a tree.

Also the blockchain space is a big echo chamber. There are lots of fallacies that the enthusiasts are blinded to. For instance, there is the illusion of validity, i.e. confusing the correct identification of a problem (e.g. abused of centralised power) with the correctness in a proposed solution (e.g. fully removing trust). But as long as one is aware of these, it's fun.

Probably start by building a smart contract to experience the limitations (and the WTFs). Then probably move on to study ZKP (which probably can have some real-world usage)