Viewpoint | VR is a once-in-a-year event, Blockchain is a once-in-a-year event

Author: Orange Book , the original title "in ten years or a hundred years | prophet Weekly # 67"

Last week Valve officially released Half-Life 3: Alyx. I'm not a half-life fan, so I can't quite appreciate the ecstasy they cheered when V company finally counted 3. But Alyx has another property, the first 3A VR game. To be honest, I have been looking forward to it for so long, and finally one day, my heart is mixed.

So long, VR.

Knowing VR for the first time was Oculus' first DK1 (Developer Kit) in 2012, which was a great success on Kickstarter. At that time, I could only see what it was on a computer, but in fact it could not get it at all. How do you describe a rainbow with a blind man?

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The first contact with VR was in a coffee shop in the garage in 2013. I experienced a small game on the DK1. I do n’t know if it was not optimized or how, or if I did n’t feel it. … "

The first time I figured out VR was in Los Angeles in 2014. At that time, the device supported a large range of movement. A simple single wooden bridge demo scared me into a cold sweat. "This is not a cliff. This is not a cliff." It's no use, my legs can't move for half a step. My mind is completely deceived by the senses.

Maybe at that time, I started to believe that VR is the future. It will upend our imagination of the future and we can see it within five years.

You see, after five years, I still believe the first sentence. The second sentence is obviously wrong.

Looking back, I don't know why it was so naive at the time. There were so many problems with VR at the time. If you want to enter the real mass market, it is not enough.

You first have to convince consumers to spend 15,000 oceans to buy VR equipment and supporting PCs, then you need an indoor space with a side length of two meters, set up a tracker, and start playing VR.

What to play? At the time, there was very limited play on the market. Basically, it was a small game that you never wanted to open once. This is also reasonable. For a brand new platform, developers do not know how to make suitable applications, and there are few consumers. Who wants to invest in things with unknown prospects? (Did you think of the Dapp market)

So, starting in 2016, after the first generation of VR consoles came out, the industry entered a long frozen period. Players bought it and played it several times, never opening it again. Occasionally some games came out, chopping lightsabers, a little new lively. Most of the practitioners turn to the enterprise market and live first. Several giant companies are still trying to optimize, and a new device is released every few years, but there are still not many people paying the bill. (Really like the blockchain after 17 years … except that there are no transactions)

Can Alyx melt the ice? I think it's embarrassing, but it is a torch that cannot be ignored. With a few more, we can usher in the spring of VR.

At least, Alyx proved that it is feasible to make a truly fun 3A game on the existing VR platform, and there are enough players willing to pay. It is foreseeable that more Alyx will appear in the next few years.

With enough developers, if the VR device itself can be upgraded a few more times, and the performance and price are optimized to a suitable level, can VR begin to enter the quasi-mass market?

As for when to wait, I think we have to wait another five years.

Blockchain may be slower. Because things are different. One is a new computing platform, and the other is a new financial infrastructure.

VR is once in a decade, and blockchain is a one in 100 years.

Everything has its own cycle. Never take our limited horizons and ask for changes in the objective world. It's like discussing whether BTC is a safe-haven asset with a week's price change.

Worth reading articles

Open source: from community to commercialization

https://a16z.com/2019/10/04/commercializing-open-source/

@Retric: After rereading A16Z's panoramic article on open source business, I did not expect that the inspiration for the blockchain is also quite large. Many successful open source projects seem to follow the same model: a developer wrote a small project himself, open sourced it, and then attracted a small group of developers to maintain it. In the end, this project gradually had a community, and then the community produced some products. The product has found users, and as more and more users, the open source project finally finds the opportunity to realize commercial value.

Half Life: Alyx and crossing the divide

https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/nzyJBrf5v7uq4gT7Ly9VNA

@Leon: Yusen explained in more detail the difficulties of crossing the divide with examples. The iPhone and Tesla are examples of success. What should the blockchain do to bridge the gap?

Programmers and Dictators

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/20/technology/venezuela-petro-cryptocurrency.html

@Retric: A story about a programmer who created a digital currency for the Venezuelan government.

Quietly changing world pattern and macro cycle

https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/zdF7d-MvpmNAj4tnxD2Cdg

@Leon: Dalio is so introspective: The biggest mistakes in my career often come from missing market moves that "have not happened in my life, but repeated in history".

I believe that the reason why people often miss important "evolutionary moments" in life is that each of us can only experience a small part of the macro cycle and what happens now.

His conclusion is astonishing: Looking back at history, the period we are now experiencing is the most similar between 1930 and 1945; we all know what happened during that period, and this is also what I am very very worried about Important reasons for everything that will happen.

Aztec: Fast privacy with zk-zk Rollup

https://medium.com/aztec-protocol/aztec-fast-privacy-with-zk%C2%B2-rollup-7c742f45457

@ 郭宇: Aztec is implementing zk-zk Rollup's Layer 2 protocol. The so-called zk-zk refers to a zero-knowledge proof system (ZKP) with more than two layers in this architecture. The bottom ZKP is to achieve capacity expansion, that is, the Rollup protocol; the upper ZKP is to achieve privacy transactions. The road seal agreement has shown the expansion effect of zk-Rollup, but on top of that, it wraps a layer of ZKP, which sounds a little … but the idea had already existed a year ago.

Now the technology on which "idea" relies has gradually become clear, including: recursive ZKP technology, efficient state update technology, and efficient circuit-friendly Hash algorithm. At the center of these technologies is PLONK, a new zkSNARK solution using Kate polynomial promises. It is said that the team is doing some exciting circuit optimization, which is exciting.

Bitcoin vs. number 0

https://medium.com/@breedlove22/the-number-zero-and-bitcoin-4c193336db5b

@ 铁拳: The article is very long. It worships many stories, coincidences, and fanatical cultures related to the number "0" in Bitcoin design and currency history. Bitcoin is a singularity of the global economy: the ultimate currency focus-the value of circulation in the world economy The index devourer, the epitome of time and the zero point of the currency.

The content of the article is not new, but the viewpoint of "Bitcoin Killer" in it is still worth seeing and thinking. A true "bitcoin killer" will require a brand new consensus mechanism and distribution model. All in all: Bitcoin's invention represents a discovery of absolute scarcity or absolute irreproducibility. Just like heliocentric or other major scientific paradigm shifts, Bitcoin's absolute scarcity is a discovery. In the bitcoin world, due to path dependence, it is no longer possible to overthrow through the proof-of-work system. As long as this consensus mechanism is used, Bitcoin cannot be copied or destroyed by another crypto asset.

Eth2 Beacon Chain: What You Should Know First

https://ethfans.org/posts/beacon-chain-explainer-you-should-read-first-by-ethos-dev

@ 阿 剑: I have seen the most detailed article explaining the operation of the beacon chain, which clearly explained how multiple designs such as time slot-period, cross-link committee, and verifier are combined in parallel. Provides example explanations for all designs, making this article the most detailed and clearest material

A few tips on the difficulty of bitcoin mining

https://twitter.com/JuricaBulovic/status/1243164442646458368368?s=19

https://arxiv.org/pdf/1801.07447.pdf

@Hope: The most noticeable recent thing is probably the historical adjustment of the Bitcoin mining difficulty a few days ago. The 15.95% difficulty adjustment is also the first time that Bitcoin mining has entered the Asic era.

When the bitcoin network started, its initial difficulty was only 1 and it remained at this level throughout 2009. It is interesting that one block can be produced every 20 minutes on average this year. This is because according to the Bitcoin protocol, the difficulty cannot be reduced to less than 1, so the difficulty adjustment made once in 2016 did not play any role throughout the year.

Now the difficulty of Bitcoin's entire network has reached 14 trillion, which is a more amazing increase compared to the price of its currency.

In addition, the single difficulty adjustment of Bitcoin can only increase by 300%. So in theory, there is a way to mine bitcoin long in advance, as long as the hashrate during the difficulty week increases far more than 300%.

Perspectives | Many Advances on Ethereum

https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/aVOJNdkgi9dCQQqCvCctRQ

@Leon: From protocol to application, A Jian explained in detail what Ethereum is doing.

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