I really wish Keybase never got into any kind of cryptocurrency business (other than identity verification, maybe) From my perspective, it's only a hosting platform for my PGP key, and a way to...
I really wish Keybase never got into any kind of cryptocurrency business (other than identity verification, maybe)
From my perspective, it's only a hosting platform for my PGP key, and a way to verify what accounts of mine are "official" or not (though, I'm not important enough, nor is my username (even real name) common enough for that to be important)
And, while I don't use them, I think that their encrypted file hosting, git repos and chat services are fine additions, since they are also related to encryption. But the cryptocurrency thing just felt like a badly thought out marketing gimmick.
Sure, you'll get new users of your service, but they are only here for their money, and only a small fraction of those users will actually use the service.
Unrelated, but most "cyptocurrency backed" stuff feel like gimmicks to me. Be it Brave and their BAT (and the fact that it uses Chromium, though that's completely off topic), IPFS with Filecoin (w/o Filecoin I might've cared about it a little more), anything involving ""the blockchain"" (not strictly cryptocurrency related, though) etc.
Not everything needs a coin, yet it seems like both developers, and investors that fund those developers don't understand this. And users are only using those services to acquire the said coin, convert it to BTC, ETH, GRLC, or whatever's the new fad and "watch it grow"
Yeah, I agree that it doesn't make much sense, but it's because Stellar is funding Keybase. So it's basically just a different form of "the investors really want us to do this, so we need to...
Yeah, I agree that it doesn't make much sense, but it's because Stellar is funding Keybase. So it's basically just a different form of "the investors really want us to do this, so we need to figure out a way to add it."
It kinda makes sense. I can already see the value, since with their added tools, I can actually run a small business using mostly Keybase. We can take payments for services, inexpensively, and...
It kinda makes sense. I can already see the value, since with their added tools, I can actually run a small business using mostly Keybase.
We can take payments for services, inexpensively, and quickly. Processing fees are far lower than Swipe or Square, and just as fast. Teams have file stores now, and messaging. Our identities can be confirmed. Passwords can be stored there. And, we can host our site there.
I understand that Keybase is being funded by Stellar, but surely someone realized that essentially giving out free money would end poorly. I think they should have planned a smaller amount of...
I understand that Keybase is being funded by Stellar, but surely someone realized that essentially giving out free money would end poorly. I think they should have planned a smaller amount of drops from the beginning, one surprise one and then one or two advertised ones, that way they could get the user influx they wanted, but without having to cut it short and potentially upset users like they did. Good idea, subpar execution
My guess is they knew this might happen and this is their contingency plan. Some inactive users cancelled, others joined, but it doesn't seem like a particularly bad result for them?
My guess is they knew this might happen and this is their contingency plan. Some inactive users cancelled, others joined, but it doesn't seem like a particularly bad result for them?
I wouldn't say it's a bad result for them, but getting wrapped up in a ton of crypto drama is far from good. An example of this is looking at their Github Issues page, it's been flooded with those...
I wouldn't say it's a bad result for them, but getting wrapped up in a ton of crypto drama is far from good. An example of this is looking at their Github Issues page, it's been flooded with those essentially asking "why don't I get free crypto?", making contributing to the project a lot harder. It also has increased a lot of scam spam, as I've personally gotten a few scam messages since this has started.
According to @dredmorbius on Hacker News, it was causing issues with a ton of fake accounts being created on HN too, since having an account there was one of the ways to be considered eligible:
According to @dredmorbius on Hacker News, it was causing issues with a ton of fake accounts being created on HN too, since having an account there was one of the ways to be considered eligible:
To qualify: you must have a Keybase account registered before this announcement OR if you're new to Keybase, you must connect your Keybase account to a GitHub or HackerNews account that was registered before this announcement. This is to prevent bot signups to Keybase.
I don't know about account creation per se, but there had been a flurry of noninformational / low-informational comments, along the lines of "great post", etc., often from new ("green") accounts....
I don't know about account creation per se, but there had been a flurry of noninformational / low-informational comments, along the lines of "great post", etc., often from new ("green") accounts.
I comment to the HN mods pretty actively, and mentioned this, a few months back. They'd identified Keybase as a cause, and had apparently worked out an understanding to reduce the instance.
In general the Keybase experiment strongly supports my sense that incentivised communications based on anything other than basic informational quality is a Very Bad Idea.
Be careful what you incentivise for. You'll get it.
And, as Keybase demonstrates, others may also get it.
Yeah, I'm not sure. My guess would be a combination of: The giveaways were originally supposed to run for almost 2 years (20 months). Maybe they thought that accounts created after the start might...
Yeah, I'm not sure. My guess would be a combination of:
The giveaways were originally supposed to run for almost 2 years (20 months). Maybe they thought that accounts created after the start might have a chance of being made eligible for some of the later rounds.
This showed that having a HN account could have value and be treated as a kind of identity verification, so they just wanted to set them up in case anything else ever used HN accounts too.
It seems to be an argument that anything associated with cryptocurrency attracts the attention of bad actors, even if technically you prevented exploitation. I pretty much agree with this. On the...
It seems to be an argument that anything associated with cryptocurrency attracts the attention of bad actors, even if technically you prevented exploitation.
I pretty much agree with this. On the other hand if you wanted to stress-test an identity system, it does do that. Unfortunately, a Keybase identity is built by bootstrapping accounts in other identity systems, so it stress-tests them as well.
Web Archive copy of the original announcement about the giveaway: https://web.archive.org/web/20190909171003/https://keybase.io/a/i/r/d/r/o/p/spacedrop2019 (posted here on Tildes
My favorite part about this is that countless real people were blocked from registering without any details, including myself. I have a keybase account created in 2015 with several linked...
My favorite part about this is that countless real people were blocked from registering without any details, including myself.
I have a keybase account created in 2015 with several linked identities and follows/following. I got the first drop that everyone(?) got in September. When I went to register for the continued drops, the verification screen was all good (all three requirements - green check, "You are qualified to join!" at the top), submit and get a screen that simply says "Sorry, you are not qualified to join". No error message or code or further details.
One of the keybase cofounders, Max, was closing every issue on the keybase github without comment (including at least one with more than a hundred replies). He also has on his keybase profile, "I don't answer any questions about the airdrop, so don't bother to ask me!"
I really wish Keybase never got into any kind of cryptocurrency business (other than identity verification, maybe)
From my perspective, it's only a hosting platform for my PGP key, and a way to verify what accounts of mine are "official" or not (though, I'm not important enough, nor is my username (even real name) common enough for that to be important)
And, while I don't use them, I think that their encrypted file hosting, git repos and chat services are fine additions, since they are also related to encryption. But the cryptocurrency thing just felt like a badly thought out marketing gimmick.
Sure, you'll get new users of your service, but they are only here for their money, and only a small fraction of those users will actually use the service.
Unrelated, but most "cyptocurrency backed" stuff feel like gimmicks to me. Be it Brave and their BAT (and the fact that it uses Chromium, though that's completely off topic), IPFS with Filecoin (w/o Filecoin I might've cared about it a little more), anything involving ""the blockchain"" (not strictly cryptocurrency related, though) etc.
Not everything needs a coin, yet it seems like both developers, and investors that fund those developers don't understand this. And users are only using those services to acquire the said coin, convert it to BTC, ETH, GRLC, or whatever's the new fad and "watch it grow"
/rant
Yeah, I agree that it doesn't make much sense, but it's because Stellar is funding Keybase. So it's basically just a different form of "the investors really want us to do this, so we need to figure out a way to add it."
Ah, I didn't know Stellar was funding Keybase to begin with. Thanks for the heads up, it all makes a little more sense now.
It kinda makes sense. I can already see the value, since with their added tools, I can actually run a small business using mostly Keybase.
We can take payments for services, inexpensively, and quickly. Processing fees are far lower than Swipe or Square, and just as fast. Teams have file stores now, and messaging. Our identities can be confirmed. Passwords can be stored there. And, we can host our site there.
I understand that Keybase is being funded by Stellar, but surely someone realized that essentially giving out free money would end poorly. I think they should have planned a smaller amount of drops from the beginning, one surprise one and then one or two advertised ones, that way they could get the user influx they wanted, but without having to cut it short and potentially upset users like they did. Good idea, subpar execution
My guess is they knew this might happen and this is their contingency plan. Some inactive users cancelled, others joined, but it doesn't seem like a particularly bad result for them?
I wouldn't say it's a bad result for them, but getting wrapped up in a ton of crypto drama is far from good. An example of this is looking at their Github Issues page, it's been flooded with those essentially asking "why don't I get free crypto?", making contributing to the project a lot harder. It also has increased a lot of scam spam, as I've personally gotten a few scam messages since this has started.
According to @dredmorbius on Hacker News, it was causing issues with a ton of fake accounts being created on HN too, since having an account there was one of the ways to be considered eligible:
I don't know about account creation per se, but there had been a flurry of noninformational / low-informational comments, along the lines of "great post", etc., often from new ("green") accounts.
I comment to the HN mods pretty actively, and mentioned this, a few months back. They'd identified Keybase as a cause, and had apparently worked out an understanding to reduce the instance.
In general the Keybase experiment strongly supports my sense that incentivised communications based on anything other than basic informational quality is a Very Bad Idea.
Be careful what you incentivise for. You'll get it.
And, as Keybase demonstrates, others may also get it.
But based on your quote, that shouldn't have worked? Maybe there a lot of inactive accounts that they somehow got access to?
Yeah, I'm not sure. My guess would be a combination of:
It seems to be an argument that anything associated with cryptocurrency attracts the attention of bad actors, even if technically you prevented exploitation.
I pretty much agree with this. On the other hand if you wanted to stress-test an identity system, it does do that. Unfortunately, a Keybase identity is built by bootstrapping accounts in other identity systems, so it stress-tests them as well.
Doesn't stop people trying, I guess, and you still have the issue of people trying to hack into existing accounts.
Web Archive copy of the original announcement about the giveaway: https://web.archive.org/web/20190909171003/https://keybase.io/a/i/r/d/r/o/p/spacedrop2019 (posted here on Tildes
My favorite part about this is that countless real people were blocked from registering without any details, including myself.
I have a keybase account created in 2015 with several linked identities and follows/following. I got the first drop that everyone(?) got in September. When I went to register for the continued drops, the verification screen was all good (all three requirements - green check, "You are qualified to join!" at the top), submit and get a screen that simply says "Sorry, you are not qualified to join". No error message or code or further details.
One of the keybase cofounders, Max, was closing every issue on the keybase github without comment (including at least one with more than a hundred replies). He also has on his keybase profile, "I don't answer any questions about the airdrop, so don't bother to ask me!"